I finally received my grade for the computational intelligence course I took over half the summer.
I'm rather disappointed with it, actually.

I passed with an A.

I almost wanted to fail so I could take it again for good reason.

You see, most of what we learned was using Prolog for Natural Language Processing, with a little bit of time devoted to other subjects such as various forms of path-finding (including literal pathfinding as well as search spaces for games such as chess and the towers of Hanoi), and, um, well, I don't remember much else.

I would have preferred to have more time dedicated to search-space-type, or even Neural Networks, but I suppose when you only have two months to give an overview of the subject, you go with what you know best...

If I could, I'd have rather taken it under one of the instructors on the closer campus, as I know that one better, the course would likely last the full semester, and it would be less focused on NLP.

I'll admit that NLP was kind of fun, and I will use some of my code again someday (probably soon), but I don't think it was quite appropriate to focus on it so much.
(out of the two assignments and one project, one assignment and the project dealt with it, and we didn't get much of an introduction to it before, either)

Eventually, a couple of possibilities I see for myself are computer games (AI is rather important in most of them) and robotics (AI helps them seem to be more intelligent, with such applications as navigation and problem-solving), both of which would benefit from a background in AI.

I guess I need to talk to an academic advisor...

You know you need a haircut when you wash your hair, then find out it looks like Rosemary Clooney's from White Christmas... >.<

I guess I really need to make a more concerted effort to get one...
(that is, if I remember to be available when she is)

---

In unrelated news, check out today's The Whiteboard:


I've been giggling at it for several minutes now... ;)

I've got another image to present:

Cafe Wall:


There's a few things about this I want to do over (such as the doorway itself and the glass on the lamps), but most of the scene is pretty good.
(kind of surprising for a scene that could be as old as two years, I'm not sure)

Anyway, I think this scene was supposed to be a backdrop for the cafe chair scene I did around that time, but now I'm not sure it would be a good fit...

Any comments or suggestions?

---

More news of Tetris-Power:

I've started on the underlying game graphics and mechanics, which translates to loading and rendering a Wavefront Object file.
Next is drawing four of them in a Tetris shape, then moving them with the keyboard, then dropping them into the grid, then, well, you get the idea.

Lots left to do, but it's definitely coming along nicely.

I have to say that I'm almost enjoying this (actually enjoying this would be getting paid to work on it), the amount of thought I have to put into it is a bit much sometimes, but then you realize that you're over-engineering it again, and you really shouldn't be doing it that way.
(kind of like when I made a tape into MP3s and the software crashed. I took almost four hours on Sunday almost tearing my hair out trying to recover the backup files when I could have easily re-recorded it again in 2 hours while doing other stuff as well!)

For a very long time my right shoulder has been a bit lower than my left, and it seems that it's actually leaning forward a bit.

My attention was brought back to my muscles and lack of exercise with a sharp tug last Friday while delivering newspapers.

Out of five bundles, only four would fit properly on the cart, so I had only three choices: 1) leave the bundle and come back for it, 2) try to stack the bundle on top and try holding it there, and 3) push the cart with one hand and carry the bundle with the other.

I chose option 2, try stacking it on top.

Not a good choice.

What with the center of balance being so high, it was even more difficult to keep the cart balanced (it only has two wheels), which meant that my arms were very tired afterwards. My body hasn't been that tired for ages, probably since the second-to-last time I helped somebody move!

Anyway, it brought my attention back to my distinct lack of exercise. Programming isn't much of an exercise routine, and I'm only taking one class right now, so it may be a good time to do something about it.

I found a pair of old dumbbells that we had laying around and tried doing a couple exercises, mostly the one where your standing and swing your arms out sideways, keeping them straight.

This was when I remembered about my shoulder.

My left arm was okay with the exercise, tired, but no problems. My right one, however, wanted to move forwards during the motion.

My dad found me a book on using dumbbell exercises, and directed me to the section on the Rotator Cuff.
It seems to be working okay, and it's even an exercise I can do on the bed (though they recommend a workout bench).

So, it's apparently a muscle problem, which is not a problem a chiropractor can fix...
Which is probably a good thing, this is cheaper.
(on my budget, that's a very good thing. One visit costs ~$75CAD, and I make about $80CAD a month, so not much left for anything else)

After finding out why my Tetris-Power project wasn't running on my laptop, I've resumed development on it.
(apparently, my embedded Intel graphics-card doesn't do anti-aliasing, so I'm now making it fall back to no anti-aliasing if none is available)

Currently, I have a working "screen" system (to show and hide screens such as Options, the Main menu, the Splash/loading screen, and of course the main game screen) which I'll be using extensively to split the main drawing code out of the main entry point.

I still don't have any artwork done up for it though, and that's going to be very important if I want this to look professional...

Next I need to work on, well, the rest of it, including widgets (button, checkboxes, drop-down menus, etc. Mostly for the Options screen), the mesh-loading system, the block shapes and colours, the input system, and then powerups.

I guess I still have a long way to go...

Most of you should know that I have a job delivering newspapers for a local newspaper, so I thought it might be interesting to hear some of what I do for it.

I have a two-wheeled cart that I use to carry the papers on while I deliver them. I used to use a waggon, but that was before the wheels rusted off...

The papers get delivered to me in bundles tied with two plastic straps with no plastic wrapping (so I have to be careful when delivering in the rain or snow). I take one strap off and stack as many as will fit on the cart, leaving the rest for the next trip.

I've started a list of requirements for a future cart should I decide to make a new cart myself or modify one should it not be what I need:

• Kick plate: I noticed recently that I've been using my foot to push the cart to an angle so I can push it, and I'm not always hitting the vertical bars, so a kick plate would be great for keeping the papers cleaner.
• Door-hanger hook: Occasionally I get door-hangers that I deliver with the papers, with a hole at the top to hang on the doorknob (hence the name). My usual difficulty is that most carts aren't designed to carry these, so I have to hang them on one of the crossbars, which does nothing to prevent them from swinging or getting blown around by the wind. A bit of wire arranged in a square or rectangle flat some distance below a hook would do much to prevent them from being blown around.
• A hook or strap to hold a water bottle. On hot days especially it's a good idea to carry water or something like that to keep you hydrated. Currently, I have difficulties carrying a water bottle with me as there are no holders on the cart.

Minor things that would be nice:

• A longer handle? I'm not sure just what pushing the cart the way I do might be doing to my posture, but sometimes it feels like my arm gets pulled downwards, so maybe a longer handle might be a good idea. (one to two inches, five at the most)
• A removable cover to use during the rain that's easy to get into, but keeps the rain out. (no duh there. I currently use a black garbage bag laid over top the stack of bundles to keep the rain off, which works fairly well unless it's windy)

Something that might be very nice is a motorized cart that can follow you when you want it to.
(because I deliver to houses that have stairs, it would be a very bad idea to have it follow me all the time)

Because the technology is available, it shouldn't be too difficult, but it really wouldn't be worth the cost, not unless I was delivering three different routes, seven days a week. But it sure would be fun...

Since the "Computational Intelligence" course (otherwise known as AI, but I think C.I. fits more appropriately) is only a half-semester long, the final project is upon me already.

Since the vast majority of students are Computing Science students and most of the other students are from other faculties that don't usually get exposed to programming (which includes Communications, a few from English, and even one or two Math students), the instructor had us pair up, starting with the non-CS students grabbing onto a CS student (for the programming experience), then letting the leftover CS students choose whomever was left.

Anyway, my teammate is from Communications, so he really knows his grammar, which will be important for the final project, which is a minimal medical Expert System written in Prolog that must be able to answer most English-language questions, including questions such as "What is the problem?" (in that example, it must ask several simple questions about the patient's condition and use some logical induction to deduce what the problem might be.

We've been given pretty much free reign as to the medical conditions we get to include, and we could even go so far as to make them up ourselves, but somehow I don't think we'll be doing anything like that...

I have to say that using Prolog has made many things much easier as far as English-phrase parsing, but you really need to be careful setting up the parser and designing the meaning representation so that it works easily with the rest of the response process.

I think that I might continue to use some of the parts from it (especially the phrase-parsing part) after the course is over for fun, which is something I can't say for most of the programs I've written for courses.

Anybody want a touchscreen fridge magnet?

Actually, more like an Open Source touchscreen fridge magnet...

It's the Touch Book by Always Innovating, and it's a 9 inch portable notebook computer with a removable screen (batteries in both the keyboard section and the screen section, of course) that has been magnetized enough to stick to a metal surface.



What really got me interested was the three internal USB slots (yes, you read that right) that you can open, slide a dongle or USB stick into and close it up again. No more sticks hanging off the side or back of your laptop!
(there are also some USB ports on the outside of the device, in case your USB device has a cord)

One thing I'm a little concerned about, but with the usual geek spirit, I'm sure they it won't be a big problem:

Instead of the usual Intel Atom processor, they've chosen an ARM processor (RISC instead of CISC, an all that), which gives them a battery life of 10-15 hours. (the usual 2 or 3 hours using just the touch screen)

This means that I can't take my current OS and throw it on there directly (it also means that I can't use Wine to run some Windows programs under Linux, either), but it'll all run just as fast as on a "regular" laptop (whatever that happens to be).

On the whole, I'm really looking forward to this, I just hope they can ship this to Canada sometime soon after they start making them...

I've been working on my homework for almost the entire day now, and I've been feeling rather warm.

This is most likely due to the fact that I've been using my new (to me) laptop, which seems to be a little warm right where my wrists rest just in front of the keys.
Combining extensive use (all the while using the BAD combination of having to use the function key to use the Home and End keys >.<) with all the generated heat, it's no wonder I'm feeling very warm.

I guess this means I need to find/buy a new full-sized USB keyboard...
(the only USB keyboards I have right now are a very slim multimedia keyboard and one that only works with the PS/2 adaptor)

I should probably start by telling you about the cats we have at the moment:

Colby: Named after Colby Granger from our favourite TV show Numb3rs, he's a bit wide now, loves attention, but doesn't seem to like snuggling. Maybe because he knows he's too big to fit properly. Orange stripes.

Callie: Rather skittish most of the time, but does want attention on the odd occasion. Gray stripes.

Holly: We found her in our carport, possibly abandoned by a stray cat we've seen hanging around a few months before. Very cuddly when she wants to be, but also tears around at times, and is usually responsible for knocking things over and such. Black and white.

Tyler: The youngest addition to the family, as we didn't quite get Colby fixed soon enough. Looks very much like his father, but unfortunately has Callie's skittishness to an even greater extent. Loves playing with Holly.

Callie and Holly don't like each other very much, though we can't tell for certain what exactly the issue is.

---

Sometime last year I purchased a laser pointer, and was interested in using it to play with the cats, though as I'd noticed that they get rather jittery after playing with it, I limited myself to using it once in a long while, like at most once a week.

More recently, I'd started using it to lure cats out of my room before bed so they don't make too much noise while I'm sleeping.

This has become a bit of a problem as of late, with almost all the cats hanging around my doorway around bedtime.
Holly has taken things a bit far by hanging around my doorway many times during the day acting very jittery like she's looking for the bright red dot. She's even taken to hiding under my bed where I can't get her out without the laser beam, which would be rewarding her, something I really don't want to encourage.

Today, Holly was hanging around like that again and went under the bed, but this time I decided to close the door (as I usually do before officially getting dressed). After using the computer for a couple hours (I have an assignment due tomorrow), she started scratching at or under the door like she wanted out, but when I got closer to open the door for her, she went back under the bed again. After repeating this several times, I got fed up with her and started trying to send her out the door by swinging at her with a stick-like thing I found under the bed (from my old HotWheels race set, a flexible plastic length of track).

This eventually escalated to yelling at her, knocking on the wall a couple of times, and swinging almost wildly at her, which did get her out the door, but also woke my dad and my little brother. (they sleep late)

Does anybody have a suggestion for trying to get them to forget about the laser pointer?
I'm going to avoid using it on them for a week or two to see if I've been using it too much on them...

Apparently I forgot to post my final grades from last semester...

For the Statistics course I took, I received a grade of B-, which I suppose is to be expected when the material is rather different from what you're used to, and I did manage to pass the Calculus course with a grade of C-.

Overall, not my best semester, but I'm glad it's over.

---

This semester I'm taking another pair of courses, this time a computational mathematics course called Numerical Analysis I, required for all Computing Science students, and is basically about using computers to calculate math, including the side-effects of precision.

The second course, which I was unhappy to discover that it was only half a semester long (so two months instead of three or four months), is an Artificial Intelligence Survey course, so it's a quick survey of the many areas of Computational Intelligence (another name for A.I.), focusing on a couple of areas so you can actually say that you've learned something.

Overall, I think this is a more equitable arrangement, the AI course will be over quickly and all the study and stress of its final exam will be well before the final exam for the other course, giving me quite a lot of time to get a good mark on it.

The only thing I'm concerned with is getting a good mark for the AI course...

What do anthropomorphic animals do with their tails when they're sitting down?

This is mostly in regards to the image of a semi-formal dining room I posted on the CTC forum recently, and primarily dealing with the benches or chairs and how to make them comfortably fit or accommodate tails.

Here's the image again if you're interested: (image updated April 21)


(old image is still available here)

Obviously, different furs have tails of different thicknesses (a Skunk will have a thicker tail than a Cat, for example), so if I use a slot/hole whatever, it'll have to accommodate fairly thick tails.

But the important question is: Do all furs want to drop their tails behind them into who-knows-what on the floor?
Will some rest their tails over their laps instead?

One example of the above is Kat from Sequential Art.

Humans enjoy benches as they permit sitting any which way, including sideways, slouched, straight (though sometimes difficult, especially with some benches), etc., though some find them uncomfortable.

Chairs, on the other hand, usually encourage that the occupant sit in one manner only (though slouching is sometimes possible).

I'm currently working on a slightly different bench style that should allow customers to let their tails hang down behind them or lay their tails in other directions as well, but I'm not sure just how comfortable they look...
(that, among several other things that must be tweaked on the image before I'm ready to post the update)

Well, final exams are upon me again, and this time I have two, one this Thursday (the 16th) for statistics and the other one next Monday (the 20th) for calculus.

This is my second run through Calculus II, as last time I failed, and as this is a course I need for many upper-division courses, I can only afford to fail it one more time.

I'm actually rather nervous about this one, as I failed rather royally the first time (half due to not fully understanding the earlier stuff, which was a basis for what came after, and half due to the instructor's accent, which I finally understood halfway through the course, which explains the first part).

I know I'll do better, but I still have this nagging doubt at the back of my mind, as well as only getting about 50% on both midterms, even though that was primarily due to not having enough time to complete them.

Anybody have some words of encouragement or study tips that don't include doing all the problems in the textbook?

Recently I've obtained (or will obtain) two new items (one of which is new to me).

The first item I received was a Toshiba Satellite M60, obtained from my great-aunt who'd received it from my late great-uncle who'd died a couple of years ago.

I have to say that despite the fact that it has about the same specs as my current laptop, I'm going to be very happy with this one, especially with the keyboard (it actually has a number pad on the side!) and accessories, such as a built-in SD-card reader, a CardBus slot, a PCMCIA slot, built-in wireless network card, Harman/Kardon speakers, and an 80GB hard drive.

I'm going to be very happy with this, once I get a copy of Linux installed on it...

The second item I'll be getting is an LCD display from robotshop.ca that I'll be able to connect to my Arduino board and will be able to use it to display text and possibly graphics.
(I think it's the hardware hacker in me trying to express itself)

It should arrive this Monday, and once I get home from class, I'll probably be rather busy playing around with it... =^.^=

...And I bet nobody noticed I was gone...

Our telco offered us the oppourtunity to have "cable" added to our current telephone and internet bundle, and knock about $20 off our current monthly fee for three years.

How could we not say no to that?
(also, our access speed improved some as well)

However, the day after we were upgraded, the internet connection quit on us.
(which also knocked out our television. Lucky we hadn't taken down the antenna yet)

Now, my dad needs an internet connection to work from home (and he's sure not going over to the office just to do a small amount of work, especially as he's only working part time due to long-term disabilities), and I need an internet connection (and not just because I can't live without it, the courses I'm taking now send me e-mails about assignments and one has an online quiz), so not having internet for a day was not good.

A service call was scheduled for the next day, and we pretty much left things as they were.

Next day we find out that the call was actually scheduled for the day after that, which meant that we were without Internet and digital TV for two days.

In an attempt to get some actual work done, I went over to my Grandmother's house and borrowed her Internet connection, taking my old, slightly broken laptop with me so I had all the links I needed.

I managed to get most of the homework I knew about done, with a little bit left over for Monday, when I knew I'd be on campus long enough to finish it off.

As it turns out, on the third day without Internet, it "magically" started working again.

Apparently, our telco is pretty new to the TV over Ethernet thing (as in, maybe two or three years), and they're still figuring out how it works and what breaks it.

For example, so far they've figured out that peer-to-peer file sharing programs (BitTorrent, LimeWire, etc) can run with seeding using 100% of the uplink, leaving none for anything else to send their responses to downloads, including the set-top-box, which kind of acts like it crashed.

Anyway, somebody apparently saw that something was wrong and tried to fix it, but only made it worse.

So now, as you might be able to tell, I now have Internet back.

And, if I wanted to use it (which I really don't right now), I can use our wireless network (which has been secured at least a little bit), but after using it almost half the day and struggling with it dropping out every once in a while, I don't think I ever want to use a wireless network unless I absolutely have to, or if I get a new wireless card or laptop.

Talk about your excitement for the week...

Near the beginning of January I wandered around the CS department on my local campus, talking with the instructors and staff I knew and seeing what might be happening for this year's open house event.

Interesting what you can get into when you know people, and they know you.

Apparently, one year an instructor used the last twenty-five hundred dollars of his grant money to buy as many iRobot Create robots as he could, and ended up with eight of them, along with all the accessories.
As they were not purchased for a particular use, they were not being used for anything, and it was wondered if anything could be done with them, and not just for the open house (which, in itself is pretty big affair on this campus).

As some of you may have guessed, I stepped up to the task and was given access to the lab and use of a laptop (so I wouldn't have to lug my 4-pounder around too much) and was mandated to provide an educational tool for programming them.
A demo of the current progress was also scheduled for the open house so we had something interesting to show.

So, over the last six to eight weeks I've written a nearly-complete Python API which, unfortunately, required that the robot be plugged into the computer to use, limiting the capabilities.
As they also came with a microcontroller to plug in the back, I also wrote a C API which was more powerful, more useful and more portable.

To test the API, I wrote a short demo program that attempted to escape from a room, using one of the Virtual Walls across the door to indicate when it escaped and the wall sensor to follow the wall once it found one.
(it was also dumb enough that it could get "stuck" on an obstacle in the middle of the room indefinitely, which was one of the things I pointed out during the open house demonstration, and asked for ideas for identifying when the robot got stuck)

Anyway, the open house had been on Thursday, and was a huge success, with the vast majority of people seeing the demo responding positively (and were also interested in some first- and/or second-year CS courses being taught with them, which may be my Master's thesis if it and I get accepted as a graduate student).

I definitely had some fun building the software and testing it, and then almost got hoarse during the open house due to the number of people to talked to.
(I'm pretty sure that I spoke to one off-campus reporter, too, in addition to our public-relations person)

The software will be made available for free under some open-source license once I figure out how to use SVN...
(man, I didn't realize how much I liked Git until I tried to use other version-control systems...)

So, yet another example of stepping in to fill some semi-useful role...

Kinda feels good, you know?

*insert momentous occasion music here*

Simple Tetris version 1.1 is now available for download!

The requisite screenshot:


It retains all features of the previous version, but now with greater stability.

Only one known bug has been introduced during this rewrite, and I'm not sure how to handle it.
Previously, you could hold down a key and the block would move repeatedly (for example, holding down the 1 or 3 keys would have the block spin continuously), whereas now you have the press the key repeatedly yourself.
(admittedly a minor bug, but a bug nonetheless)

If you do choose to download and play this, please let me know so I have some idea of how popular it is.
(and any feedback would be appreciated)

---

The improvements I have planned for Tetris Power are as follows:

• A "screen" system so I can show overlays, dialogs, etc. such as intro, option and help screens.
• Hopefully an improved animation system so I can animate almost everything.
• A more intuitive default key layout, with the option of changing them to fit the way you play.
• Colourful backgrounds to add that professional touch.
• Support for more block shapes, including three- and five-piece blocks, with options to enable and disable them.
• More bells, whistles and shinies.

We'll see how long it takes to complete...

The conversion from GLUT to SDL is complete and the game works acceptably.

The only issue I have right now is the motion isn't as smooth as it should be.

It could be due to SDL using a user-driven event loop instead of a more tightly-controlled event loop in the library in question.
I've tested two methods so far, and neither use "constant rendering" as most of the documentation and tutorials suggest, as I really don't like it when such a simple game like this tries to use up all CPU time.

The two options I've been testing so far use either a dedicated thread or an interrupt-based timer to run most of the game logic.

Of the two options, I have to say that the thread-based version seems to be smoother than the timer-based version.
I suspect this is due to the timer-based version interrupting the rendering code or the rendering code locking out the timer or something like that.

Aside from all this, it seems that all the minor parts are in place and understood for my next version of Tetris, Tetris Power.
(from what I have written about it so far, it's going to rather epic. The big question, however, is whether I can translate what I've written into a complete computer game..)

But before then, I will be releasing Simple Tetris version 1.1 for all to play with so I get more feedback on it, I just need to iron out a couple extra things that aren't quite right first.

Anyway, good things are yet to come from me.
(as well as more work done on the Magpie House Redesign, namely the Carry On Cast page, but it won't be ready for quite a while yet)

Hmm, I haven't said anything about what I've been doing recently, mostly as nothing interesting has happened since last update...

Anyway, I've made a breakthrough on my OpenGL font engine, now all I need is a good font to use for further testing, then Simple Tetris V1.1 will be complete and I can do some more work on Power Tetris.
(I'm not sure how long that one will take to write, mostly due to the amount of abstraction I usually try to put in to make sure that things don't get kludgy too quickly)

I'm also going to be working with a classmate on one of our ex-class projects, which will probably warrant a complete rewrite from scratch to ensure that things work properly and isn't built out of stuff randomly bolted together to see if they work.
(you know that too many cooks spoil a broth, right? Well, too many programmers in a small space can break and befuddle code real quick, too)

---

In other news, my brother recently picked up an old used typewriter from a second-hand store for about ten dollars.
It still works perfectly, and we've figured out how most of it works (aside from one small, unlabelled lever).

I'm kind of tempted to pick one up myself next time I see one (if, of course, I do find one), I think it might be kind of nice to write stuff on without the added distraction of all the games I have on my computers, or music, or desktop backgrounds, etc.

But then comes the question of where I would put such an item...
Yup, time to rearrange my room again, and throw out those old computer cases and the old boxes that I don't need anymore, and, well, you get the picture.

---

Work on the Magpie House Redesign has kind of come to temporary halt as I've lost my sense of direction on it.
So far I have the main page and a template for the individual pages, but I'm not sure what other pages will be needed.

I should probably write a cast page, and maybe set up some sort of gallery system for Kathy so its easy for her to use, so maybe she'll use it to post more pictures on.

One of my main problems is the front page and where things should go on it.
So far it's okay, but it's not really laid out to permit new things to be added and still look alright.
(I suppose I should ask Kathy how public I should be making the development so I know how many people to give links so I can get more feedback...)

As for colour scheme, I'm still unsure. I've switched to a light tan colour set and it works well, but it's not blue like Kathy'd asked for originally, so we'll see what she things about it.

I dunno, maybe I'm making this out to be more than it is, but you have to admit that lots of vocal people are going to see this site three times a week...

No, it's not a cold (though it could have been, if I'd given it a chance), though it's just as annoying.

My brother and I replaced the Games Shelves with another one that was sturdier and less likely to fall apart if it got wet.
(particle board'll do that to you if you're not careful, you know)

Most of the games and puzzles on the shelves haven't been moved or vacuumed since we moved in here about nine years ago, so a fair amount of dust had collected.

Unfortunately, dust and I don't get along very well, and we forgot to open some windows and leave an air filter on while we were working, so now I've got some dust in my system again and am coughing a bit.
It's not quite as bad as when it had been when we started, but it's definitely still there.

I think that if somebody who didn't know me very well heard me, they'd probably think I was asthmatic or something...

Right now I have the air filter/ionizer running to help clear the air and am drinking water to help clear my throat, so we'll see what happens.
Maybe a good-night's sleep will help...

---

Incidentally, if anybody has a suggestion, comment, or idea that could be used to help design Kathy's website, I'm interested in hearing it.

Current status: About half-done the main page and about the same on the archive pages, with many other pages to go.
(though the other pages won't be too much different from the main page, but each will need to be tuned by hand)