Yay! Geometric stuff ( Read more... )

Yay for fast network connections! I've now got a burnt copy of the official ICFP LiveCD in my hot little hands.

Here's hoping that it's an interesting problem and one that's soloable since it looks like I'll be working alone.

In an interesting case of timing, this guy will be visiting tomorrow. I'm going to have to see if I can get him to sign ( Read more... )

A blog entry linked from proggit reminded me that the ICFP programming contest is coming up in about a month. Last year, I tried it solo but I think it would be much more fun to compete on a team together this year. (It also helps that I don't have a fixed work schedule this summer and that that weekend is in a dead-zone for paper deadlines.)

So ( Read more... )

I've been meaning to write this post for a good long while. Last week finally triggered it. It's partly a rant about the presentation in some of the papers that I had to review then and partly a how-to guide that codifies all of the little rules-of-thumb that I strive to follow when writing my own papers. They're basically cosmetic so I try not ( Read more... )

A few weeks ago, rockstarling wrote a post about calculating large Fibonacci numbers. Never one to resist a program challenge, I really wanted to try my hand at it and see if I could write an even faster program for calculating Fibonacci numbers. At the time, I was rather busy working on a paper but that's done now, so I gave it a shot today. ( Read more )

It's taken some thought, but I've decided that "triffid" (24" iMac, 2.8GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB ram, 500GB HD) shall be the name of the successor to "godzilla" (Dual 2.5GHz G5 Mac tower, 2GB ram, 250GB HD, 23" Apple Cinema) as my school machine.  Other contenders for the name were "dalek" and "chupacabra ( Read more... )

I love it when I get some kind of metaprogramming tool or a brute force search program up and running. Then I can just send it off to a remote machine somewhere that has a few trillion spare cycles, fire it up in a screen session and go off to play some video games ( Read more... )

/* And then Little Cat A * Took the hat off HIS head. * "It is good I have some one * To help ME," he said. * "This is Little Cat B. * And I keep him about, * And when I need help * Then I let him come out." * And then B said, * "I think we need Little Cat C." * -- "The Cat in the Hat Comes Back" Dr. Seuss */ void little_cat( ( Read more... )

Sometimes I hate trying to name things in my programs. I work hard to try to come up with really descriptive, clear, standardized names since I think that it makes the programs much easier to understand. My programs may be a bit more verbose than some but they also tend to read pretty well. Besides, long names are why we have M-/ in Emacs ( Read more... )

I suppose I really ought to actually start posting here, rather than using this account simply for lurking. So with that I'll offer a few small tidbits from the last few days.

I've been doing CS for too long...Stopping by another grad lab today I noticed a table with a large puzzle showing map of the world. It was probably a 1500-piece puzzle at ( Read more... )