Day 2 of HigherEdWebDev convention and things went pretty well. I attended two particularly good panels on Agile development and Test driven development.
For the uninitiated, Agile development is more flexible than traditional software design patterns. The idea is that you have something fully functional to show your customer every two weeks (or failing that, some kind of short time period). The key thing is that
So I went to a housewarming party this weekend with my friends Craig, April, Chelsea, and Wish. Wish had just moved into her new place and I’m guessing this made a great excuse to hang out.
I was in the lab today and got a great weather reading from one of the machines:
It’s going to be very cold in the near future, where the estimated low is not even on the numeric scale.
I’ve got some pics of my cat uploaded along with captions, transforming him from a ordinary, mild-mannered housecat into a grammatically challenged, internet-powered Lolcat.
Enjoy
http://mine.icanhascheezburger.com/View.aspx?ciid=955104
http://mine.icanhascheezburger.com/View.aspx?ciid=955124
http://mine.icanhascheezburger.com/View.aspx?ciid=955181
http://mine.icanhascheezburger.com/View.aspx?ciid=955229
I have now entered the information age and actually have a working computer of my own again. I bought a surplus lab machine from the CS lab which was absolute top of the line 3-4 years ago, so right now it’s at least acceptably powerful. Especially since the most intensive task I have for it is running The Orange Box. And compiling. I got some upgrades, plugged everything together and hit the power switch Read the rest of this entry »
Hello all. I’ve had some trouble with the server in the past week do to some IP address changes so I was unable to post for a while.
The Spring semester has started and though I have no significant homework in other classes, my senior project, set to be due in 8 weeks, is taking up the majority of my free waking hour. My goal is to make a simulation of a beehive, demonstrating how a distributed AI where many small things work together to make a collective decision can be more efficient than writing a monolithic AI to handle every task.
On the plus side my simulation (“honeyB”) can now do enough to cause significant slowdown on my less stellar testing machines, so I’ll have to work at the CS lab from now on if I want a lag free hive.
I also tried to install Windows Vista the other day, which was a less than stellar experience. It kept asking me for cd/dvd drivers yet it was obviously giving me this message from data on the dvd that it claimed it could not read. Good job with ~4 years of R+D Microsoft!
So I’ve spend the past few days hanging around Nagoya, finding out my friend Micheal’s favorite hangouts. One of the main attractions in Nagoya is this huge semicovered mall called Osu. It caters to a variety of interests, so it has pretty much everything. Fashion-ish stores, restaurants, game stores are all present in abundance.
Unsurprisingly I was interested in the game stores, particularly so for the used ones since they had in stock things that dated back to the pong era. I found some cool stuff there, particularly a breakout game starring Kirby; Micheal had a great time because he managed to find an old game boy, the game boy camera, and game boy printer, complete with tape.
For the uninitiated, Nintendo released the game boy camera somewhere around 1999. It resembled a wierd, oversized cartridge with a weak black and white webcam fixed on top. It had advanced features such as being able to swivel around so that you could take pictures of yourself or possibly even other things, up to 48 of them. You could also hook the game boy up to the printer accessory in order to print out tiny stamp-sized stickers of your pictures.
Among other subjects, Micheal dedicated a sticker to Kevin while he was rocking out playing guitar hero. That sticker is now on his guitar.
Oh, and Denny’s is in Japan. I went to one with Micheal one day and the results were quite odd. Recall for a second how Chinese food in America is not quite Chinese since it has been significantly Americanized. Denny’s in Japan is an American food restaurant. Allegedly most Japanese do not even realized that Denny’s was originally an American franchise.
I plan to head back to Osaka for the last leg of my journey soon so that I may meet up with Quill and Willy again, and also be hanging out relatively close to the airport for my return journey.
I forgot to mention it the other day but at this one retro game store, at the top floor there was a full fledged arcade. There was also a life sized statue of Solid Snake there.
My reaction was something like this: Snake!
Ｉ ｇｏｔ together ｗｉｔｈｍｙｆｒｉｅｎｄｓ Ｗｉｌｌy Peter ａｂｉｇａｉｌ ａｎｄ ｔｏｏｋｔｈｅ shinkansen bullet ｔｒａｉｎ ｔｏ Tokyo TODAY and ｗｅ ａｒｒｉｖｅｄ ｉｎ ａ ｃｏｕｐｌｅ ｏｆ ｈｏｕｒｓ ａｎｄ ｍａｎｙ ｇａｍｅｓ ｏｆ］ｍａｒｉｏ ｋａｒｔ ｗｅｒｅ ｐｌａｙｅｄ． Ｇｏ ＤＳ！
Ｔｈｅｒｅ ｗａｓ ｓｏｍｅ ｃｏｎｆｕｓｉｏｎ ｗｉｔｈ ｓｃｈｅｄｕｌｅｉｎｇ ｂｕｔ Ｉ ｅｖｅｎｔｕａｌｌｙ ｗａｓ ａｂｌｅ ｔｏ ｇｅｔ ａ ｙｏｕｔｈ ｈｏｓｔｅｌ ｗｉｔｈ ｍｙ ｆｒｉｅｎｄｓ．Ｗｅ ｔｏｕｒｅｄ ｓｏｍｅ ｐａｒｋｓ ｎｅａｒ ｔｈｅ Ｆｕｊｉ ＴＶ Ｓｔａｔｉｏｎ ｔｏｗｅｒ． Ａｒｃａｄｅｓ ｗｅｒｅ ｆｏｕｎｄ ａｎｄ ｍａｎｙ ｇａｍｅｓ ｗｅｒｅ ｐｌａｙｅｄ． ｗｅ ａｌｓｏ ｍｅｔ ｕｐ ｗｉｔｈ Ｑｕｉｌｌ ａｎｄＭｉｃｈｅａｌ， Ｉ ｈａｖｅ ｎｏｔ ｓｅｅｎ ｅｉｔｈｅｒ ｏｆ ｔｈｅＭ ｆｏｒ ｑｕｉｔｅ ｓｏｍｅ ｔｉｍｅ． Ｑｕｉｌｌ ｊｕｓｔ ｇｏｔ ｄｏｎｅ ｗｉｔｈ ｈｉｓ ｅｐｉｃ ｗａｌｋ ｆｒｏｍ Ｏｓａｋａ ｔｏ Ｔｏｋｙｏ． Ｈｅ ｓｕｒｖｉｖｅｄ．
Ｔｈｅ ｋｅｙｂｏａｒｄ ｉｓ ｑｕｉｔｅ ｏｄｄ ａｎｄ Ｉ ｍｕｓｔ ｐｒｅｓｓ ｅｎｔｅｒ ｂｅｆｏｒｅ ｅａｃｈ ｓｐａｃｅ ａｎｄ ｉｍ ａｆｒａｉｄ ｔｏ ｕｓｅ ｐｕｎｃｔｕａｔｉｏｎ ｆｏｒ ｆｅａｒ ｏｆ ｂｒｅａｋｉｎｇ． ｉｔ ｆｏｒｅｖｅｒ．
Ｗｅｌｌ， ｗｉｌｌ ｂｌｏｇ ａｇａｉｎ ｌａｔｅｒ ｗｈｅｎ ｏｐｐｏｒｔｕｎｉｔｙ ａｒｉｓｅｓ．
benford | 
10 7th, 2008| 
