Jimmy T Tran

December 30, 2021

How to create teleporting portals

Need to figure out how to change the person object view.
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November 14, 2021

Toothbrush Robots

• Having to think about how to Blot this post was rough, so I am back on this Hey blog because posting is as simple as writing an email. Also, my Dropbox is out of space too, I may be slowly not being a member of blot anymore. • Noah G ran a wonderful workshop at ACE Makerspace • Cutting the rubber band and tying it to the motor is the...
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April 16, 2021

Notes on students

One of the hardest things to do in grading students is jotting down notes, or observations, about individual students at the end of quarter or semester. Those jotted notes just tend to get lost in the mix of daily life. I’ve been thinking about how to capture these notes fast, particular to the student. I was seriously thinking about g...
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April 4, 2021

Post-Mortem: New Professor Um video

One of the reasons I pick up video projects (or any project within my skillsets) is what I could learn from (working on) it. I use Final Cut Pro. - Asset Management: I learned how to organize my video cuts better, which is actually something I learned when I designed a training booklet last year (managing my Pixelmator/Illustrator laye...
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March 27, 2021

Budgeting: Death by a Thousand Cuts

Subscribing to the various (digital, usually) services seems like we are saving money, that they are all affordable because “it’s only 10 bucks.” Man, do all these services add up. Best way to keep the budget in check: log every single subscription into a single spreadsheet. After all, “what gets measured, gets managed.” I’ve centraliz...
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March 24, 2021

Series 5 Apple Watch Set-up

Took a long time (to download the software update, even with fast internet). Happy I set up the watch, though it took a couple of hours in total. I am excited most about setting up Streaks habits as part of my "Complications." I will do whatever is always staring me in the face (akin to the "Schedule it and it becomes real" adage). Bru...
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March 22, 2021

What Professor Um Means to Us

When war washed over Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, our families found themselves like driftwood, fleeing sodden and splintered, to countries whose names they couldn’t pronounce, to camps and trailer parks where the closest place to eat was this place called McDonalds, lost not just for words — simply lost, floating like hunched phantasms...
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March 19, 2021

Practical tips for working with law enforcement in these times of Asian American Hate crimes

(from what I learned studying to be a 911 Dispatcher/Police Officer in Oakland/Berkeley): - When you call 911, the first thing you tell the dispatcher is your location, so tell them the cross streets (and where the suspect is headed if possible), then what happened/or is happening, as calm as you can (so you can be heard clearly, so th...
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March 18, 2021

New Old Apple Watch

I spent a lot of time (about an hour and a half) trying to buy a new OLD Apple Watch. Not one of the snazzy new ones, but the years old Series 5 Aluminum. It has the always-on display (nice to have when talking to people, without being rude). The Streaks app (sooo good!) I just downloaded has a watch face for it (Series 4 and up). My S...
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March 10, 2021

What a Difference a Project Makes

One of my students who hasn't done any work during the year, who would show up to small group sessions, but still not turn in any work - started engaging with the class, with me, when we started making a video game in Scratch. It started with some comments trickling in from him during Synchronous Zoom meetings. It took me by surprise, ...
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March 10, 2021

Google Chrome Not Working

That was annoying: Google Chrome wasn't loading any websites. After going down rabbit holes (many of them), I found the article that reset the browser to it's default settings. Persistence pays, but man, an hour of my life I will never get back, and all because I wanted to use Peardeck.
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March 7, 2021

Rocket League and Among Us

One of my students video projects (their top 5 games) inspired me to play Rocket League this morning. What was supposed to be a quick 15-minute game, turned into an hour. Gosh, I love this game. It’s the speed I’ve always wanted in a Soccer game, because of well, cars. Cars playing Soccer - life is beautiful. I’m also playing it again ...
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