Thoughts of Tim

Mailing List Manager (Update)

Introduction
Over the past few weeks, I have been working on creating a program that will send an e-mail to a list of e-mail addresses. There are programs/systems that already do this, but all of the ones that I found either required that recipients opt-in for the e-mails, required that you pay before you use it or just didn’t work.

Details
My mailing list manager sends e-mail via SMTP and requires that the user has an existing e-mail account that supports SMTP. In order not to overwhelm the mail server, there is a delay of twelve second between when e-mails are sent. In addition to sending out e-mails, my program also monitors the e-mail account to see if any e-mails are undeliverable; if any e-mails are undeliverable, then the e-mail address is flagged by the program. Lastly, my program also monitors the e-mail account to see if any recipients have requested to be removed from the list; to be removed, recipients simply reply to a message and include the word “unsubscribe” to the subject; my program searches the subject line and if it finds the word unsubscribe, then the recipient’s e-mail address is flagged.

I have included a demo version of the program below. The demo version is for testing/evaluation purposes and has been limited to send a maximum of 10 e-mails per mailing.

Screenshot

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Mass Emailer

Chaotic Pendulum Program

About

I created the chaotic pendulum program to visually show qualities of a chaotic system and show the differences between a non-chaotic system (simple pendulum) and a chaotic system (chaotic pendulum).

Simple Pendulum

A simple pendulum consists of a mass on a rod. The mass is attached to one end of the rod and the other end of the rod is fixed, but the rod is allowed to rotate about this point. The mass is raised up, using the other end of the rod as a pivot point. The mass is then released and free to fall, making the path of an arc, as the rod rotates.

Chaotic Pendulum

A chaotic pendulum has the same setup as the simple pendulum with the exception that the rotating point on the rod is fixed to a motor that we can control. As a result, in addition to the normal motion of the pendulum, we are able to turn on the motor is short bursts, thereby applying an additional force to the pendulum, can affect its motion. A system in which we have the ability to drive the pendulum with a fixed force at a fixed time interval has the potential of being chaotic, while simple pendulums are never chaotic.

Chaotic Systems

While there is no universal definition of a chaotic system, two key feature are that the system must be deterministic and it must be sensitive to initial conditions. Since the system must be deterministic, then no matter how many times we run the system, if we start with the same initial conditions, we will always end up with the same result. However, since the system is sensitive to initial conditions, if we change the initial conditions, even very slightly, our end results will be very different. In non-chaotic deterministic systems, if our initial conditions are off just slightly, we can expect that our end results will be off, but they will be off only slightly. With chaotic systems, a slight change in the initial conditions will result in a large change in the outcomes. As a result, chaotic systems, even though they are deterministic, are very hard to predict and can be considered unpredictable.

Screenshots



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Pendulum

Final Quarter

Here at Dakar Academy, the school year is divided into four terms. Currently, we are in the last of the four terms. Spring break began three weeks ago and lasted for two weeks. During that time, I was able to do a lot of preparation for this last term.

In algebra, we are going over topics that usually take a little more time for students to feel comfortable with. As a result, I have decided to go slower throughout this term and spend more time within each lesson. This allows us to spend more time going over questions and feel comfortable with the material.

In physics, the topic we will be covering this term is electromagnetism. In preparation for this topic, I typed up my notes. Up until the end of the third term, I have been using hand written notes for all of my classes. At the beginning of the school year, I decided that, instead of taking the time to type up notes, I would use my time during the first school year to organize and plan lessons. The plan was then to spend the next school year to revise lessons and type them up so I had a good outline for the future. However, spring break was two weeks long and I’m not used to having so much time off, so I decided to go ahead and take the time to type up notes for the last term. I typed up my notes using latex, which I have found very helpful since it handles equations very well and allows me to focus on typing without the distraction of what things look like.

Originally, I was planning on using the notes I typed up only for reference during my lectures; however, on the last day of spring break, I decided that I would give each of the students a copy of the notes. For the first day of class, I found it hard to go through the notes because I kept thinking that, if the students have the notes, then they can simply read the notes for themselves. However, on the second day of class, I tried not to focus on the fact that the students already had a copy of the notes and went through the material as if the students did not have the notes. The reason I decided to hand out the notes is because physics is so broad, it can sometimes be difficult to know what information to focus on or how things relate to each other, so I am hoping the notes will help students see what ideas are important and how to organize physics concepts in their minds.

I have also decided to try to communicate better with parents over during this last term. I want to ensure that parents are aware of the progress their children are making throughout the term. Parents do have the ability to check their children’s grades online and parents are sent progress reports throughout the year so parents usually have a good idea of how their children are doing; however, I am hoping that more frequent communication with parents will not simply notify them of how well their children are doing, but also allow us to make adjustments that may benefit the students.