I was running a student’s code through the w3c validator and I got such a good feeling when I saw the green message stating, “This Page Is Valid XHTML 1.0 Strict!”

In my class, only the best XHTML code will do. There’s nothing quite like yummy semantic markup—teacher tested, W3C approved. It’s fortified with 9 essential tags and attributes. In fact, 9 out of 10 doctors prefer XHTML 1.0 Strict for their patients who code in Notepad.

By the way, I’m using Word Press for the blog, so I don’t recommend judging my blog entry’s value based on how this page fares in the validator.

So I had my students watch the video, Beyond Human while I was on my conference. The first half was all about how humans and computers will merge more and more as we develop technology, and the second half was how robots are becoming more human-like.

For example, they had an experiment where they put brain tissue in some kind of solution that kept the synapses firing for about a year. They hooked up electrodes to the tissue with an interface to a digital 3D world. The firing of the nerve cells drove a “camera” around a 3D world with objects. At first it bumbled around bumping into objects, but over time, the cells began directing the “camera” so it wouldn’t bump into walls (whoah, Rufus!).

Apparently, the robots looking like humans freaked out one of my students (too many robot invasion movies, I guess). It reminded me of a great song by Jonathan Coulton, called, “The Future Soon,” so I thought I would add some of the lyrics here:

I’ll probably be some kind of scientist
Building inventions in my space lab in space
I’ll end world hunger
I’ll make dolphins speak
Work through the daytime, spend my nights and weekends
Perfecting my warrior robot race
Building them one laser gun at a time
I will do my best to teach them
About life and what it’s worth
I just hope that I can keep them from destroying the Earth

Cause it’s gonna be the future soon
And I won’t always be this way
When the things that make me weak and strange get engineered away
It’s gonna be the future soon I’ve never seen it quite so clear
And when my heart is breaking I can close my eyes and it’s already

Here on Earth they’ll wonder
As I piece by piece replace myself
And the steel and circuits will make me whole
But I’ll still feel so alone
Until Laura calls me home

Hey there, Web Design students. It’s teaching you guys that has inspired me to create this blog. I’m asking you guys to blog every day, so I’m challenging myself to blog whenever you guys blog.

I’m at Sunriver at a great conference, and I’m learning to make use of brain research to enhance my classes. I also plan to make even more use of NetSupport (the polling function). Please, remind me to bring more music, moving, ideas, and use of the polling function.

Welcome one and all to Hundredvisions.com! After having felt constrained to solely blog on cycling (see Fellowship of the Chainring), I’ve branched out to cover just about any topic under the sun; however, I’ll primarily stick to web design, programming, and various and sundry technologies and design.

About me

I teach high school Web Design, Programming, and Technology in Washington County, Oregon, and I’m always asking my students to blog, so it’s only fair that I practice what I preach. Not to mention, I love writing about what I’m doing, what I’m learning, and what’s on my mind.

In Web Design, I teach semantic markup (XHTML 1.0 strict) and CSS, Image editing, and Flash. In Programming, I teach Python and Java, and in my technology classes, I teach the design process and problem-solving through hands-on projects such as water bottle rockets, bridge building, and robotics.