Dear Students,
Sorry about the confusion yesterday. My wife would have come by at 3
and explained except that she was still with me in the ER. Yes, I went
in with a severe stomach pain and at my age this precipitates all sorts
of medical caution and testing. So, it's not clear that I will be in 
at all this week, unless they cancel the surgery again. It is scheduled
for Friday, and the doctor has not promised to release me tomorrow. 
Stay tuned. I'm actually feeling quite well, just very impatient!

As for "homework", I am not going to collect any journals this week.
Under the circumstances, let me list the things that I had hoped we 
would cover this week and next, and invite you to keep very busy even
without my presence in lab. You are welcome to email me, I can answer
email, although it is difficult to initiate email because my address
book does not work on this webmail I am using.

1. Next week we should have "seminar". That means you'll be giving 
20 minute demo/talks on the vpython assignment you di last week. If
you would rather talk about another subject, email me to discuss that.

2. We are in the middle of looking at the programs in "pocketry" which
definitely compile with mvc98, but also with other compilers, as some
of you have already noticed. I was hoping to check out the 10.5 compiler
to adjust the socalled make files so we have a common platform. The 
pocket programs also have some math with them, and you should read and 
study those pages in the .pdf I posted.

3. The next step is to take the OpenGL context of the hippocket programs
generalize them to 3D using the illiSkel. We need to become familiar
with OpenGL whether your project is in C/OpenGL or in Python (or, for 
that matter any language). 

4. Next, is to use Python to program in OpenGL. That, at least, will
give you an idea how the Syzygy (as in Aszgard) code is composed.

After that, we should be ready to think about projects seriously. You
can certainly think about projects already, but you don't really know
enough examples of what is realistically feasible in MA198.

I hope this information is useful to you. And apologies for my absence.
But a guest lecturer, even if one could be found, wouldn't be very 
useful either.

George