It started with just the ship. I wanted to copy something and thought of pirates… cuz I usually do. I took the ship from the cover of Pirates of the Caribbean. Then I copied the skull and swords too, cuz they look cool. The ship needed a place to sail, so I gave it an ocean and an island.

At this point I realized I was not just copying a bunch of random things; I was drawing a whole picture. Since what I had chosen so far came from this story that’s bouncing around my head, I figured I’d continue. I chose faces that could be characters from the story, and I added the banner and title to finish it (and to give the cool skull and swords a reason to be there).

Anyway, click here for a really large version.

And because I know you’ll ask, the characters I copied are, from left to right: Donal (Marvel 1602), Dumbledore (Harry Potter, book 6), Zorg (The Fifth Element), Katsumoto (The Last Samurai), Nicholas Fury (Marvel 1602), Paul Atreides (David Lynch’s Dune), Spike (Cowboy Bebop), Faye (Cowboy Bebop), Ray Steam (Steamboy), and Jayne Cobb (Serenity).

Anyway, the point is, I want to share some of our creativity with you today.

Symmetry Art
The bathroom in our master bedroom is frosted glass and positioned such that it is highly visible from the outside if our door is open. Cindy didn’t like that, so she came up with an art project to solve it. She had us do symmetry art (where you paint one side and fold the paper so the other side is the same) on poster board, and we used the posters to cover up the glass

Mansion
I’ve been designing games since I was 11, but only rarely have I gotten to actually play what I designed. Mansion is based on some concepts that have been bouncing around my head for a couple of years (in addition to some concepts that I outright stole from other games).

The idea is that the players are exploring and stealing from a huge mansion, while everybody else is distracted with a party in another room. The winner is the one who can steal the most stuff (which might also mean stealing from the other thieves). Because they’re there for a party, they could not bring any of their own equipment in. So the only weapons and tools they can use are what they find around the house.

We’ve played it a few times so far, and I think I’m finally happy with the latest revision. It got significantly more fun when, during a game, Cindy had everyone draw art for whatever Equipment cards they had in their hand. (I didn’t realize how much art adds to the fun of a game). The game still needs art for its 62 rooms. Maybe one day…

Learning Thai
English is both Sandra and Matthew’s first language, but they both also speak Thai very well. Reading is a different story, so we’ve been teaching Thai reading and writing skills during homeschool. One problem with this is that it’s boring. Memorize the alphabet. Memorize the tone rules. Memorize the vocab. Read boring stories about fish in a well about 100 times. Repeat.

I decided a game would help fix this. Shamelessly stealing rules and ideas from Dungeons & Dragons, I created a basic game where the players fight monsters to earn experience. With more experience, they are allowed to use more powerful weapons. Here’s the trick though: to use each weapon, they must answer a question. Maybe they have to read a word correctly, or identify which tone rule is used, or hear a word and write it correctly. If they get it right, they damage the monster. If they miss, the monster gets to hit them. More powerful weapons do more damage, but they’re also harder to use (i.e. harder questions).

The game doesn’t have a name yet, but I’ve been mentally referring to it as “นักรบ“, or “Nakrope”, which means fighter or warrior. We played it for the first time last Friday and it went amazingly well. Not only did they have fun, but both of them were highly motivated to “get it right”. As Sandra said, “I don’t want the orc to hit me!” In the near future, I may combine it with the Mansion rooms so they have a dungeon to explore (maybe with a dragon in the middle).

This time, I’ve separated it into Mac and Windows versions:

• FlashCards v1.5.2 for Windows
• FlashCards v1.5.2 for Mac

What follows is information on upgrading from an older version and a list of the changes in this version.

Upgrading from 1.5.1
Do the following to preserve the flashcards you have made and your settings:

1. Unzip version 1.5.2 to it’s own folder.
2. Go to the folder containing 1.5.1 (the old version) and copy the “properties” folder.
3. Paste the “properties” folder into version 1.5.2 - when asked to overwrite files, say “Yes”.

If you have problems viewing flashcards in a foreign language after upgrading, go to File -> Select Language…, select the language you want, and press OK (even if the language you want is already selected).

The first time you run version 1.5.2, the program may rename some of your flashcard files automatically (it will rename only the files on disk, not the names of the flashcard sets). This is normal and you should notice no changes within the program itself. However, I would recommend viewing all of your existing flashcards to make sure they still work properly before deleting old versions of the program.

Upgrading from 1.5
Follow the same procedure as you would for upgrading from 1.5 to 1.5.1 here.

What’s New in 1.5.2

Bug Fixes
1. Sets would sometimes be deleted after renaming a set.
2. In Edit Sets, the “Duplicate Question” error displayed a potentially meaningless and non-intuitive filename.
3. In Edit Sets, if the last cell/row was selected, and the user pressed “Shift-Tab” or “Shift-Enter” (to move the selection backwards) a new row would be created.
4. In Select Sets, if there was a large number of sets (or the sets had unusually long names), the window became too big for the screen and some sets could not be selected.
5. When “Random Order” is turned on, the program will automatically display the first card in the random order (before it would continue to display the currently displayed card, and then go on to the second card in the random order - but I didn’t know that until “Other Changes #1″ was completed, below).

Other Changes
1. Added a label (e.g. “1 of 10″) so the user knows how many flashcards are currently selected and which one they are currently viewing.
2. Added buttons “Select All”, “Select None”, and “Reverse Selection” to Select Sets dialog.
3. Separated release into a Mac version and Windows version.
4. If a set that has zero flashcards in it is opened for editing, a new empty row is automatically added.
5. Flashcard questions can now use the “=” character (this was disallowed before).
6. Set names can now contain a semicolon (this was disallowed before).
7. Other miscellaneous minor changes.

Not surprisingly, there were some problems with the initial public release (hey, I can’t test everything!). Plus there were some things I wanted to add/fix anyway. Thus, I present to you version 1.5.1: FlashCards1.5.1.zip

If you are installing for the first time, make sure you unzip (or extract) the files before trying to use them. Then, on Windows, run “FlashCards.bat” to run the program. On a Mac, run “FlashCards.command”.

Upgrade Information
If you have version 1.5 and have already made your own flashcards with it, just follow this procedure:
1. Unzip version 1.5.1 to it’s own folder.
2. Go to the folder containing version 1.5 (the old version) and open the “properties” folder.
3. Select every folder and file except for “Root.properties”. Copy all of these into the “properties” folder of the new version you just unzipped.

If you changed the font, font size, or default window size, you’ll have to redo these changes in the new version. But you should only have to do this once (and future upgrades should be easier, if there are any).

What’s New in 1.5.1
I didn’t change much, but here’s what I changed.

Bug Fixes
1. After editing the current Q/A while on random, the program would not return to the same Q/A.
2. Sets are now listed and cycled through in alphabetical order.

Other Changes
1. When editing a set, pressing Enter (in the last row) or Tab (in the last cell) will automatically add a new row. This should make it quicker and easier to type in new sets.
2. When saving a set, empty rows are ignored and removed.
3. Documentation is now viewable through the Help menu.
4. The user can now use the “Back” button when viewing cards in random order (although the order changes whenever the sets are cycled through completely).
5. The character encoding for English, Spanish, and Thai can now be selected from the File menu.

As promised, here is the first public release of the Flashcard Emulator I’ve been working on. You can download it here: FlashCards1.5.zip. Unzip the folder and extract the files to someplace nice (like “C:\”).

You’ll have to have a Java Runtime Environment installed (don’t worry, you probably already do). Go here to see if you have one (it’s got to be at least version 1.4), and go here if you know you don’t.

The Flashcard Emulator is a memorization aid. It’s just a software version of index cards that students around the world use everyday to memorize facts, vocabulary, multiplication, etc. It’s nothing fancier than that. It can save you time and money from creating your own flashcards, and, for those of you that work at a computer for hours, it can be extra convenient as well. I know for me, at least, I test my Thai vocab a lot more often now that I can just open the program whenever a webpage is loading or I get bored with work.

The program should be capable of any foreign language, though you may have to tweak the settings for certain languages. It’s preset for Thai. It will work for English (and other languages using a Latin character set). The README has information on what to do if the program doesn’t seem to like the language you’re trying to type in. And if you have any other problems with it, please let me know.

And now for a geek moment (the rest of you are excused). All Java programmers around the world should be ashamed of me. My former employer and coworkers should be ashamed of me as well. So, my Java IDE used a character encoding that worked great for Thai, but my default Virtual Machine had a different encoding that displayed garbage or question marks instead of Thai characters. I spent hours adding extra lines of code so the program would internally encode characters properly before I finally realized that I could just set the encoding directly on the VM with the flag “-Dfile.encoding”. I mean, Java was made for this sort of thing. I could’ve totally released this thing a week ago if I had only stopped to think. Oh well. That’s how I learn, I guess.

I don’t know why, but whenever I see amazing things in creation (even amazing man-made creations, but more often God’s Creation) it makes me want to write. Maybe seeing what God made taps into some inborn creation gene he put in me (we are made in His image, after all, and one of the first things we see Him doing is creating). It’s probably the same thing as when I read a good book or see a good movie - those things also make me want to write. I guess just seeing excellence makes me want to create something excellent too.

See the face of the confused.
See the face of the misled youth.
Look close and you will see.
The inner child you want to be.

Hear the voice of the abused.
Hear the cries of the misled youth.
Listen close they need an ear.
Don’t speak they don’t want to hear.

Listen.
Don’t Speak.
Hear.
Don’t think