Nan's Memo

I found several good books for preparing SW interviews.

 

1.  Programming Pearls (I really love the writing style of this book and the algorithms mentioned. Really smart and cool ideas and you can definitely enjoy the beautiful algoirhtms there)

2.  Programming Inteveiws Exposed (A book for a quick review of basic cs stuff, there is also some tricks for answering interview questions)

3. c++ FAQ (Haven't finished it yet, but a lot of good reviews on Amazon)

 

 

I start writing a note of basic cs topics which I think are important. And I hope I can finish it soon and post it here someday during Christmas Vacation.

 

  This is our first camping. It is a cool and scared night.

  Due to the Astronomy reports, the peak of the Perseid meteor shower is on Aug 13rd. So, we decided to camp at Anza- Borrego Desert State Park and see the meteor shower during the night. In fact I am not a fan of Meteors, and has a really bad memory about that. When I was still in the high school, there was meteors reported. I was really excited about that, and decided to stay on all night to watch that. I still can remember, in a freezing cold night (-30C), I sit on the balcony myself waiting and waiting. However, I saw nothing, except for only 1 or 2 meteor during the night. Next morning, it is reported that the Meteor Shower was reported incorrectly. The peak was in the daytime.  After that, I will never wait all night long to watch the Meteor Shower.

  But, camping is very attractive to me. Since, I have never lived outdoor before.

  At first, everything is fine. Q set up the tent, and his telescope. I wondered around, watched the stars and saw several large Meteors. It is really quiet there. Even though, it is a camping ground, very few people there and we can see nobody around us. The wind is comfortable, and sky is clear, and very thing is so great to enjoy. I lay in the tent, and loved my first camping night. Soon, I felt asleep.  

   “HHHHHHHHHooooooooo”, I was waken up by the howling, and suddenly my head is totally clear. “What’s that?, wolves?”  It sounded like some wolves and dogs fighting each other. But Q said, it is a herd of wolves.  I let Q get into the tent, and hold him. Then, another howling…

   The howling didn’t sound very far, but we cannot tell the direction. We were scared, and decided to sit in the car for safety. We believe, the wolves will not attack the car.  We sit in the car, stared at the sky and counted the Meteors we saw. Two hours past, the night became quiet again. We moved back to the tent.  Even though, I was waken up once more by the howling, I was too sleepy to go to the car.  I slept till morning.

   Since, I can write the blog here, everything must be fine that night.     

Q is a big fan of astronomy, but I know nothing about that. I found that I am falling in love with the astronomy now.  

 

Last Saturday, I went to a star party with Q. This is our first time to attend such a party. A lot of volunteers were there, and they introduced us what the sun looks like, where the energy of the sun comes from and how to observe the sun by telescope. The speaker there is really a professional. he had beautiful slides, and gave a great presentation as what we had seen in a conference. But, It is really shame that I got a very very small snap during the talk.:)    

 

The most exciting part of the party is the star observation. About twenty telescopes were set up there, and we observed the sky together. 

I saw a lot of huge telescopes there. The strangest one is made up of some wooden strips. The guy took some strips from his SUV, and put them together to make a tube, and cover the tube with some black cloth. The whole telescope was set up in half an hour. How amazing it is!

It is a pity I didn't go there and take a look through his "organic" telescope.

 

This is my first time observing the stars through the telescope. Q and I took our new telescope, which was purchased the day before. We don't even know how to use it. Even though, Q read the manual carefully at home, we still had trouble getting the telescope into work. Fortunately, a guy next to us used the same series telescope as ours. He helped us setting up the telescope.

 

I experienced a lot of first times in my life that night. It is my first time to recognize the Scorpius Constellation, to see the milk way clearly, to find a satellite in the sky, to see the Jupiter through the telescope, and to photograph it.  

 

This is our first Astronomy Picture.