Spudtater's Journal

...is getting barraged with spam. Woo, spam!
*Spam song*

(For some reason I find this reassuring. The spammers like my project, at least!)

Next trimester I have to do a group programming project with three other people. It should be manageable. The only thing is, none of us can think of any ideas as to what to program!

I was thinking of some sort of client-server application; a program runs on your computer, which connects over the internet to some server in order to do something. Something like a chat program, although that's been done to death, and the world really doesn't need another one!

Maybe an online version of a board game? Catan's been done pretty thoroughly... maybe something a little more obscure?

My first Proper Program (TM) for my phone is finished! Like any good geek, I've gone and written a simulator for Conway's Game of Life. And like any good geek, I've released it under the GPL.

Check it out.
SimpleLife _{[JAD] [SRC]}
And tell me if you like it or not!

Edit: Updated to version 1.0.1 — with instructions and everything!

While writing up my C.V., I recalled an Excel spreadsheet I had done during A-Level Computing: it was a simple application that simulated a population of rabbits and a population of wolves. The rabbits would breed, die of natural causes or be eaten. The wolves would breed, die of natural causes or of hunger. My implementation illustrated a number of interesting factors, including chaotic behaviours. I was wondering whether I still had the l33t Excel skillz to recreate the application. Well, the short answer is "yes".   8^)

For anybody interested, you can download it from my website:

• zipped Excel format
• unzipped Excel format — 89k
• zipped XML format — no graph or macros

It's not particularly accurate or fancy, but it shows some interesting behaviours. Fill in parameters on the first page, and observe their effects on the last page. It's a bit fiddly, but you can manage sets of parameters such that they don't all die... that often.

Have fun!

Interview was interesting; managed not to make too much of a fool of myself. Managed to decipher a horrible piece of C. They seemed relatively impressed. Shared my thoughts on A Wide Range of Topics; managed to be almost non-wooden at times. They should let me know whether or not I made the "shortlist" by tomorrow evening. If I have, I get to go in again and "meet the team".

In other news, my computer is completely and utterly b0rk. (Am updating from gominokouhai's computer.) It may just be the hard disk, or it might be my BIOS. Was planning on getting new computer anyway (birthday present from parents; yay!), so will see what is salvageable.

Update: I can't spell. Decifer -> decipher. Thanks gominokouhai.

( Project presentation )
Oh, and anybody want to go to the zoo on Saturday?

Have a mince pi:

( mince.py )

Thinks that 33 + 1 equals 331, and forces you to write sums as "(a-0) + (b-0)" in order to add them correctly?
</rhetorical>