Archive for February, 2008

My newest hobby

Friday, February 15th, 2008

Well, I went online to www.toysrus.com and I bought myslef a world famous Rubiks Cube.  Pretty amazing little toy.  I got it scrambled it, then got stuck.  I looked online for some algorithms (steps to achieve a predictable outcome), used them, then solved the cube.  Easy.  It took me nearly 20 minutes to solve after I had found the sequences.  Next I want to work on speed.  With this, I not only need to oil up my cube, but to either discover or look up some more optimized algorithms built for speed.  Currently, according to www.speedcubing.com which is the unofficial world records page, the record is 7.12 seconds to solve the cube.  That’s SECONDS.  My best time right now is 2:27.265 minutes, so I’ve got a long way to go.  According to Jessica Fridrich, who is a leading Rubik’s cube expert and mathematician, there are about 1211 possible algorithms that could potentially be used to solve a cube.  She uses about 80 on a regular basis often getting times of less than 15 seconds.  Wow.  Well, I’m going to try to break from my current method which is slow and tedious, and ATTEMPT to learn some new stuff.

 

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My Current Project

Sunday, February 3rd, 2008

Hey there everyone,

Well, like I said in my previous post, I like Team Fortress 2 (”TF2″). There is a stats program out there right now called HLStatsX at www.hlstatsx.com. The problem with this is that it costs five euros a month to use. I not only don’t want to pay for it, but I don’t want to outsource it. This software records stuff like who kills who, with what, how often. Your favorite class, and what not. It runs off of the server logs which all TF2 servers give, so, I decided, what if I created my own. This is all fine and good, except for when I actually opened the server logs. It looked a little something like this:

L 01/27/2008 – 21:43:43: “Programertobe<7><STEAM_0:1:7752907><Red>” killed “Bot05<8><BOT><Blue>” with “shotgun_hwg” (attacker_position “573 12 64″) (victim_position “739 141 64″)
L 01/27/2008 – 21:44:09: “Programertobe<7><STEAM_0:1:7752907><Red>” killed “Bot05<8><BOT><Blue>” with “fists” (attacker_position “691 119 64″) (victim_position “692 167 64″)
L 01/27/2008 – 21:44:13: “Programertobe<7><STEAM_0:1:7752907><Red>” changed role to “scout”
So, I’ve been working on writing my scripts to just pull out the relevant information, which has been a pain, but I’ve made some progress. I want to compile all of the information to a web interface so players can look at their rankings, and stats themselves, so the information has to be in a readable form. I’ve included with this post, a copy of my current source code and server logs, so you can see what I’ve been doing and hopefully where I plan to go with it.

http://tech-works.info/stats.txt
http://tech-works.info/logs.txt

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Games

Friday, February 1st, 2008
Seeing how it’s been FOREVER since my last post, I got to thinking “what have I been doing the past few weeks that’s tech related?” Then it hit me, “VIDEO GAMES.” I’ve been playing a ton of Valve Software’s games. So, I’m going to be writing some reviews on a few of my favorites.
Half Life 2: Lost Coast
While this is not exactly a game per se, it is still really really fun. This was a proof of concept for a new technology called HDR. HDR is used for dynamic lighting and textures in game. Just in this screenshot, you can see the light coming in the window because of the dust in the room, and the chandelier in the back is swaying slightly. The physics engine used is called “Havok” and is common in most modern games, and is even used in “Age of Empires 3.” The “Zero Point Energy Gravity Gun” uses this technology where you can pick up and use most anything that is not bolted down, opening the door for a whole host of new puzzles in Valve’s games.
Portal
Portal is a puzzle game. No killing, no shooting realistic guns, just a Rubik’s Cube of computer games. You get the Aperture Portal Device, and you are given the ability to shoot two portals. The portals are able to instantaneously send an object from one place to another. You can walk through these portals to reach heights that you could not reach otherwise. You can see right through these portals, as you demonstrated in the screenshot. This game, albeit short is great fun for about 2 solid hours of play time. Using Valve’s Hammer editor, a more advanced player can create their own maps and puzzles to add to the 19 puzzles already included.
Team Fortress 2
Of all of Valve’s games, this one is my top favorite. Using a cartoon style animation, it is able to be kind of serious, while being extraordinarily fun. This game is either a Capture the Flag style of game, or a control point style, where a team has to occupy a space for a set amount of time, while the other team defends it. The player can choose one of nine classes (Sniper, Engineer, Medic, Heavy, Soldier, Pyro, Scout, Demoman, and Spy). Each class has its own weapons and abilities, such as the Engineer can build sentry guns and teleporter, whereas the Spy has a sapper to destroy the Engineer’s buildings. So, it has extremely balanced play, and has something for even the most inexperienced players. I highly suggest this game to absolutely anyone.
Well, I hope everyone enjoyed this overview of some of the games that are out there. And, now, I’ve got to get back to playing.

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