Fantastic Contraption

I really like my blog to have pictures and/or video with the text, 'cause quite frankly pot (plain ole text) has to be pretty interesting if I'm going to read it. Too bad I can't have any pictures or videos with my post this week, but it would kind of spoil the whole subject. Now for the good stuff...

I spent most of my free time yesterday playing a game called Fantastic Contraption. The game is very simple, use five types of items (clockwise wheel, counter-clockwise wheel, neutral wheel, fluid rod, and solid rod) to make a fantastic contraption that will move an object from the start area to the goal area. Sounds simple right, trust me, it's not. What I love about this game is that the physics are pretty much spot on which is good because that's what the whole game is based on. It's really great because every control works just as you think it would (BTW save yourself some time and use the shift key when resizing and moving instead of clicking the resize button).

When you make a contraption that successfully completes a level you can save it and share it with your friends. I've saved some of mine which you can see links to at the bottom of this post. Once you get the hang of it I think it would be fun to have a challenge and see who could come up with the simplest solution to each level. Anybody up for it? Discuss it in the comments and see if we can come up with some rules for what the simplest design is. Maybe see who could get the prize in the goal quickest, who knows? Write in the comments and let me know what you think.

Here are my submissions for
Level 1, Level 2, Level 3, Level 4, Level 5, Level 6, Level 7, Level 8, Level 9, Level 10, Level 11, Level 12, Level 13, Level 14

Brain Den

So, you're at work and bored in front of the computer (duh! Why else would you be reading this?). Brainden.com is a place that I often wind up when I'm in this position. Please don't go there now, finish reading this post. Most of the time I just try to solve the puzzles in my head because people have already posted an answer. The thread that you see below was first solved by yours truly and the first puzzle that I solved first, btw. See what you can do with the puzzle before moving on to the website. I'll post the answer and the link to the post later (I want you to figure out the answer on your own). So here it is:

Most of today was spent in meetings with the PHB*, explaining why our project is behind schedule.

A quick virtual summary (what I imagine was said, rather than what was actually said): So anyway, it was a relief to get back to programming. As I dug into a bitmap edge detection algorithm, I ran into a spot where I needed to check the eight pixels surrounding the current one, in clockwise order, given any starting position. I whipped out a quick conditional statement that tested for each of eight possibilities, which works fine, but is ugly. Since it worked ok, I couldn't justify a lot of time to optimize it, so I gave myself five minutes to see if I could come up with a slicker way to do it. I didn't, so I moved on, but now it's 11PM and I just thought of another way to do it, and I figured it might be fun to see if anyone can find an even simpler solution.

So here's the problem ...

Consider the following diagram:



Find a single function f(x,y) that, given any one set of the eight coordinates, returns the coordinates of the adjacent square, moving clockwise. You may use any mathematical operands, including rounding, absolute value, trig functions, etc., but no conditionals.

*Pointy Haired Boss

E3 Update

Well, we got back from Charleston Saturday. Had a blast, while we were there we went to see The Dark Night, which was awesome. The movie was so awesome that we are going to see it again, and I usually don't watch movies a second time in the theater.
Now down to the real stuff, E3 has come and gone and some really big announcements were made. Xbox 360 Dashboard will get a complete makeover in this fall's update you can read more about it on Gizmodo. The new dashboard looks so much better than the old one. Microsoft has also contracted a deal with Netflix so that you can use your Xbox 360 like a Roku box to stream movies to your TV. To use this serviceThe update will also include what looks like the Nintendo Miis where you create your own 3D avatar.
Speaking of the Wii, the major announcement for me from Nintendo was Wii Sports Resort (seen in the video above) which is almost like a sequal to the most loved Wii game Wii Sports wich came packaged with your Wii. At E3 three of the activities in Wii Sports Resort were shown: Frisbee, Jet Ski, and Sword Fighting. Wii Sports Resort will also include a new Accessory for the Wiimote called the Wii MotionPlus that will increase accelerometer controls for the new game. Hopefully this new accessory will be utilized in future games for better control with the Wiimote and more realistic gameplay.
Some other things I am excited about are Fable 2, Lego Batman, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and a new edition of Tecmo Bowl on DS.


















Click the image for more screenshots

Geni.com

How many monkeys or nuts do you have hanging in your family tree? At Geni.com all you have to do is put in your name and e-mail address and start adding members of your family. In about five minutes I had put in almost three generations of my family. With Geni.com the whole family tree thing is easy, and you can put in your family member's e-mail so that they can sign up and add their information (B-Day, special events in their life, etc) so you can stay more in touch. The whole thing is super easy. I encourage you to start your family tree and put some family member's e-mails in there so that they can extend it and see how far you can get with it (if you go far enough you will hit a nut like my uncle who will have huge books of family tree that will be glad to spend hours putting in information from centuries ago). Try it out, what do you have to loose.

P.S. I'm getting married Saturday and will be on the honeymoon all next week so I probably won't be posting. Thanx.

Opera 9.51

If you have downloaded Opera 9.5, you should check for updates, because v9.51 was released recently and it is supposed to update security. I would definitely recommend getting it as soon as possible. If you haven't downloaded opera yet get on over to Opera.com to download it.

Hulu

Ever missed an episode of Lost and forgot to tell you DVR to record it, how about started to watch The Office mid season and wanted to go back and catch up on previous episodes. Hulu is a great website that lets you stream these videos and more. Hulu also has a great selection of movies that you can watch on your computer right through a little thing I like to call "The Internet." The best thing about Hulu is that you can watch as many TV shows and movies that you like for the low low price of $0/mo. That's right, by using the invention of what's known as a tasteful 30 second commercial Hulu can provide content on demand for free. The future of TV is the internet baby. The advertising is tasteful and relevant. Plus the commercials are only 20-30 seconds long and you don't have to watch fifty of them, only three or four during an hour long show and less on half hour shows. Movies are good too, as the movie isn't chopped up into ten minute segments with long commercials between each like on TV. The commercials are conservatively spaced and are hardly noticeable, as the video is streaming and has to catch up with itself every once and a while anyway. My only problem is that when I try to watch a TV show or movie over the wireless connection at my house (54 mbps Wireless G with a great connection) the videos are a bit choppy, but when watching them in the standard flash player in the browser they look fine. Check out Hulu and let me know what you think about it. Anything free can't be that bad right?

iTunes Tip: Top 2Gb Most Played

So you've got an iPhone (or iPod Touch) and like me have well over 30Gb of media. I've been contemplating the possibility of getting an iPhone and was wondering, how am I going to manage to only carry 8Gb of media around with me. Here's the solution I came up with, create a playlist that will hold 2Gb of my most listened to songs, a playlist with 3Gb of the least often played movies, a playlist with 3Gb of the most recently added TV Shows, and a playlist that gets 25 of the most recently added songs that are not in the most played list (all of these are smart playlists btw). Then I made a playlist called Media that will randomly grab about 7.5Gb (7680Mb) of the playlists listed above. After that I plan to synch my unplayed podcast episodes and a static playlist called Misc that will hold anything that I put in it that I explicitly want to appear on my iPhone and the Media playlist. Since I usually don't have more than half of a gigabyte of unplayed podcasts this should work. You may need to adjust the numbers on some of the playlists according to your media tastes, if you don't watch TV on your iPhone then you can allocate those 3Gb to music or movies, I think you get the point. You can check my flickr page for screenshots of the playlists if you are unsure of what the settings should be. Leave a comment and let me know how your playlists worked and how the transition was to the iPhone/iPod Touch.