April 14, 2012 by Chris K.
I’m sure most of you have heard of Bejeweled Blitz. My wife certainly has. She has played enough in fact to regularly score higher then me, sometimes by a factor of 10. This was simply NOT going to do.
Thus I created Grindstone: a java application that plays Bejeweled. I’m by no means a Java master and this seemed like a perfect project to hone my skills on. It’s also the biggest hack I’ve ever written.
It works by loading a screenshot of the game board into memory, reading the pixels of that image to determine which jewels are in which locations, searches for a move, makes the move, and then starts over. Like I said…a HACK. It’s pretty stupid at this point. Actually it’s completely stupid. As soon as it finds a move it makes it and then moves on to the next. Obviously it could be coded with the ability to check for special cubes, larger gems in a row, etc. At this point it tries to make up for it’s lack of smarts with speed. I typically get 2-3 blazing speeds per game but end with a x2 multiplier (if that). I’m sure that I’ll get around to cleaning everything up at some point and post it here or on github.
I’m trying to get a screen recording but for now here are some screen grabs.
Yes, I realize that you can’t tell that my code is what is playing in these. You’re just going to have to trust me for now.
Tags: Bejeweled, Coding, Java
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August 1, 2011 by Chris K.
I’m currently working on my first syllabus, which is scary for more reasons then I care to count. In some weird way the concept of failing as an adjunct professor is scarier then if I were to screw up in my real job. Maybe it’s that I was a student as of 7 months ago. More likely it’s because if I screw up, I’m screwing up 30 peoples education on a concept that is fundamental to their education. Ok, maybe it’s not that important, but I still want to do a good job.
This weekend I discovered that there is a brewing supply store 5 minutes from my house so yeah…that happened. Coincidentally this store also sells hydroponic gardening supplies so yeah…that’s going to happen. Actually my wife and I have been talking about creating an indoor, hydroponics garden for a while so the discovery of this store was really cool.
The Dresden Files is taking over most if not all of my free time (which seems to be in short supply these days). They are worth reading if you need to add a book or eleven to add to your book list.
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July 16, 2011 by Chris K.
I have good excuses for not posting anything for months; I got married, work has been killer lately, and truthfully I haven’t done anything that is that cool. Despite that I am going to try to be better about posting (not that anyone really reads this outside of my family and I’m pretty sure they don’t make it past the title most times). The sad part is that I have 6 drafts that are ready to be published. It’s not like they aren’t finished, it’s just that I haven’t posted them. How pathetic is that.
Google+ is the first social networking experience that I have ever been actually excited about. I went kicking and screaming into Facebook, was apprehensive about twitter, but Google+ has actually excited real emotions in me. I’m poised to delete all my other accounts now and give myself to google fully, but only time will tell if that is possible. Unfortunately I, and I would assume most people, are going to go where everyone else is, even if Google+ is the far superior product. I wish that wasn’t true but alas such is the way of things.
I’ve been trying to gather my thoughts about the last shuttle launch. In fact I just wrote a blog on that very subject not 5 minutes ago. Some might refer to it as my manifesto. However, it was fueled by lack of sleep and Rage Against the Machine and was therefor unfit for posting. Here is the abbreviated version, sans political angst: I watched the launch, it made me sad, I allowed myself a single tear for the death of the space program, I got mad at the government for being stupid. That’s really it. I’m sure that I will have more to say on the subject when I can calm down/think clearly, but until then let me leave you with this poignant little tidbit. The shuttle program cost $145 Billion since it’s inception in 1980. The AIG bailout cost $190 billion in about 30 seconds.
God bless America.
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March 27, 2011 by Chris K.
So I just discovered this website: http://www.evenfallstudios.com/
They have a lot of old woodworking books that some wonderful person/persons converted into ebooks.
Now, I have a penchant for large collections of things, especially when those things are quite old. So naturally, I wanted all of them.
However, what I didn’t want was to spend all night downloading them manually, that is to say, by hand. Luckily I also have a penchant for writing code. So, 1 beer and 18 lines of python later, I was happily watching as ebooks began appearing on my computer.
Yeah, I’m that good.
Tags: Python
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March 19, 2011 by Chris K.
I often think it’s funny, the different trends that seem to take over the DIY community. For a while there it was the LED throwies, then paracord, arduino, the kinect, and most recently 555 timers. You never really know what’s going to come next, and whats going to inspire people. So when I start seeing a veritable cornucopia of posts about how to make radiation detection equipment I start getting interested. As it turns out Seeed Studios put out the call for open source radiation detection hardware to help people in Japan (the full story can be read here). It seems like they have gotten a lot of responses and I hope that people will continue to contribute. It’s encouraging to see that for every self-absorbed moron out there there is someone who wants to help make a difference.
Tags: DIY, Open source, Radiation
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March 15, 2011 by Chris K.
I have been wanting to make something for Andra for a while, so I carved out this last weekend to make it happen. I decided to make a bandsaw box, and I thought that I would post some pictures of my process.
I started by laminating a few boards together . I used 3 pieces of red oak and 2 pieces of poplar. I thought the contrast that the wood made was really pretty. There was a lot of squeeze out when I was laminating the boards but it didn’t matter since it was going to all be cut away.
I didn’t have much of a plan for the shape of the box before I started. I really just the shape develop as I started cutting. After this I went to cut the back off of the box so I could cut out the center. However, when I went to cut the back off I realized that the box wouldn’t fit through my bandsaw so I had to re-cut everything a little smaller. After that I cut the back off and cut the center out.
Once I had the center cut out I glued the outside back together.
To make the center I cut off the front and the back of the center before cutting out the middle section. Then I just glued the front and back back on.
The finished box. I glued on a piece of scrap that I had for a pull and sanded everything down before putting on a few coats of oil to finish it. I will post a picture later of the finished product.
Tags: Andra, Bandsaw Box, Gifts
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March 5, 2011 by Chris K.
I thought I would post a few pictures of my workroom.
This is the newest addition to the family. I picked it up during a half off sale at sears. It has full extension, ball bearing tracks and it is, in short, the penultimate of toolbox construction. It doesn’t hurt that it’s also the newest thing in my workshop by thirty years.
My bandsaw is easily the most used tool in my shop. It used to be my dad’s and it’s been around as long as I can remember. I love this thing and I’ve spent a lot of time setting it up and getting it to track well.
Nothing too special about this grinder, other than it’s as solid as a rock and I’m pretty sure that it’s going to outlive me. It definitely has it’s purposes and it’s comforting knowing that I’m never going to have to by another one.
This drill press has to weigh about 200 pounds easily. In fact it’s so heavy that I’m scared to try to move it again here in a few weeks. It runs great, has variable speed, and anything else that you could want in a drill press. But, there was a reason that people don’t make tools out of solid steel anymore.
Ah yes, my electronics bench. This was the last thing that I started to unpack when I moved in to my current house and since I’m moving soon I don’t see a reason to try to unpack it now.
There it is in all of it’s glory. My new garage is only a one car affair so that’s a little depressing, but I kinda like a sense of clutter so it’s also really exciting.
Tags: work room
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February 18, 2011 by Chris K.
So my friend just asked me about this and I thought I should respond here.
If you haven’t actually read the net-neutrality bill (namely everyone on engadget) then here is what net-neutrality is. Net-neutrality is the governments way of policing the internet, or more correctly, their way of policing the gateway to the internet: Internet Service providers. The bill would stop ISPs from being able to charge you unfairly, re-direct your traffic without telling you, or give priority to big business for starters. “But what’s so wrong with that?” I hear you asking. Nothing, on the surface. So why do I have an issue with it? Because I don’t like the thought of the government controlling the internet. I don’t like that the government can now turn the internet into something that they can make money on. Do I think that’s important to maintain the quality of the internet? Yes. Do I want to give the government that role? No.
Why couldn’t they just content themselves with fixing a real issue? Perhaps America’s failing public school system, or social security. Why did they need to try to “fix” something that isn’t broken?
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February 18, 2011 by Chris K.
So the house just passed an amendment to block funding for net-neutrality. I don’t know what the actual impact of this will be, but I have a feeling that it’s a bit like spitting at someone: It’s annoying and makes you mad, but in the end it didn’t hurt you. Too bad really.
Tags: Internet, net-neutrality
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February 12, 2011 by Chris K.
On a whim I checked the App Store on my laptop today and was greeted with a wonderful surprise.
That’s right Monkey Island is out for the mac. Many hours of my young life were spent playing the original, and I’m sure that even more will be spent on this re-release.
Tags: monkey island
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