Stung Eye link

Link: Ribbon Hero

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 22:14:00 +0100

If an activity can be learned;

if the player’s performance can be measured;

if the player can be rewarded or punished in a timely fashion;

then that activity can be turned into a game.

via: Lost Garden ✈ Ribbon Hero turns learning Office into a game

Link: Waterloo / Google AI-Tron Challenge Results

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 20:55:00 +0100

The goal of this challenge was to write a computer-program capable of playing the game Tron.

The rankings for my Ruby bot:

146 / 708 Total Entries
3 / 23 Ruby Entries
16 / 88 Canadian Entries

The rankings were determined using tournament play along with the Elo rating system.

Early non-minmax versions of my bots are available on github. The winning C++ bot source is also available; as is a brief explanation by the author.

I enjoyed this challenge immensely. My Ruby programming skills also benefited from this Code Kata.

Update: A detailed examination of the winning bot. And if you’re brave, a Haskell bot explained. ;)

Also: The tron battle continues on dhartmei’s server.

Link: Instructables Restaurant

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 20:59:26 +0100

Amsterdam is now home to the world’s first open source restaurant. Everything you see, use and eat is downloaded from Instructables.com.

It’s an experiment in combining free culture with food concepts.

Link: From Fish to Infinity

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 13:34:43 +0100

The first of a series of columns by Steven Strogatz on mathematics “from pre-school to grad school”.

“The goal is to give you a better feeling for what math is all about and why it’s so enthralling to those who get it.”

[via: dad]

Link: Introduction to Reverse Engineering Software

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 19:02:52 +0100

Learn to use the Scientific Method to deduce specific program behavior and to target, analyze, extract and modify specific operations of a program (mainly for purposes of interoperability).

File under: Information that could one day be illegal to posses (given the current direction of copyright reform).

Link: I want privacy because I break the law

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 12:23:32 +0100

Why we should champion privacy even when we have nothing to hide.

Link: Metagames and Containers

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 18:03:23 +0100

A container game within an essay on metagames and containers.

“All the ways in which we build around and on top of our creations greatly impact the way they’re used.

Boundaries may not be physical anymore, but they remain powerful.”

Link: I'm Presenting at Directions 2010

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 15:20:00 +0100

I’ll be giving a talk tomorrow at the RRC Business and Applied Arts Conference entitled “Launching Your First Web Start-up”.

I’ll post the slides for the talk here tomorrow afternoon.

Link: LCBO API

Sun, 17 Jan 2010 18:36:00 +0100

An API for LCBO store, product, and inventory information. Created by Carsten Nielsen but not affiliated with the Liquor Control Board of Ontario.

Link: Doing Is Real; Being Is A Social Fiction

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 00:23:33 +0100

John Nunemaker on Talent vs Practice via Giles Bowkett

Link: Erik Naggum on Atlas Shrugged

Sat, 09 Jan 2010 12:50:00 +0100

“We are born into a world that presents us with many millenia of collected knowledge and information, and all our predecessors ask of us is that we not waste our brief life ignoring the past only to rediscover or reinvent its lessons badly.” —Erik Naggum

Capitalism as communal risk management.

(Articles like this are best read using the Readability bookmarklet.)

Link: "On The Shortness Of Life"

Tue, 05 Jan 2010 02:16:00 +0100

“It is not that we have so little time but that we lose so much. [W]hen it is squandered through luxury and indifference, and spent for no good end, we realize it has gone, under the pressure of the ultimate necessity, before we were aware it was going.

So it is: the life we receive is not short but we make it so; we are not ill provided but use what we have wastefully.” — Seneca the Younger

Link: Unlicense Yourself: Set Your Code Free

Sat, 02 Jan 2010 14:49:00 +0100

Release your source-code free and unencumbered into the public domain.

“The author or authors of this software dedicate any and all copyright interest in the software to the public domain. We make this dedication for the benefit of the public at large and to the detriment of our heirs and successors. We intend this dedication to be an overt act of relinquishment in perpetuity of all present and future rights to this software under copyright law.”

It’s time for me to move away from CC Licenses and Unlicense all my publicly released code. I’ve been using the Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license but I no longer feel the need to force attribution and place non-commercial-use restrictions on my work.

I should probably do something similar for all my creative output (prose, poetry, photos, art, etc).

Link: Who's Afraid of the Public Domain?

Sat, 02 Jan 2010 14:34:40 +0100

Five (naïve) assumptions we make about creative individuals:

Creative individuals would not produce their works without the possibility of making money from them.
Creative individuals are endowed with the inalienable right to control who may copy or modify those works, since without that “copyright” they would not be able to make money from their creative output.
Copyright is a straightforward extension of physical property rights and therefore a creative work is a form of intellectual property.
To protect the rights of creative individuals, governments may legitimately prevent others from copying or modifying creative works.
It is only government-enforced copyright that keeps a creative work safe from the ravages of violation and abuse; when it is no longer so protected, it lapses into a fearsome state of desuetude and disregard called the public domain.

Link: "My Winnipeg" amongst Roger Ebert's Favourite Films of the Decade

Fri, 01 Jan 2010 15:43:00 +0100

Some of my favourites from Ebert’s list:

Adaptation
Almost Famous
Me and You and Everyone We Know
Minority Report
Pan’s Labyrinth
Synecdoche, New York
Waking Life

I would have added:

(500) Days of Summer
Amelie
American Splendor
A Scanner Darkly
Before Sunset
Big Fish
Donnie Darko (original cut)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Ghost World
L’auberge Espagnole (The Spanish Apartment)
Lost in Translation
LOTR Trilogy
Memento
Primer
Spirited Away
Wonder Boys

Surely I’m forgetting some…

Link: The Physics of Space Battles

Sun, 20 Dec 2009 17:33:40 +0100

An aerospace engineer muses on the future of war in space.

Link: NodeBox 2

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 10:00:00 +0100

A reason to finally learn more Python? Combines Nodebox 1 style coding (similar to what’s available in Processing or Shoes) with wire/patching à la PureData, Max/MSP & vvvv.

Oh, and this version isn’t only for Macs. Windows is supported by way of Jython.

Link: The Superorganism

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 12:27:48 +0100

The Beauty, Elegance, and Strangeness of Insect Societies (Non-programming books for Programmers.)

Link: Computing Without Computers

Sat, 05 Dec 2009 19:46:37 +0100

Paul Curzon’s Gentle Introduction to Computer Programming, Data Structures and Algorithms.

Link: Streetz 104.7fm

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 23:58:00 +0100

Hip-hop now has a home on the dial in Winnipeg. And check it, the DJs are all local Ojibway/Cree/Métis men and women ranging in age from 18 to 28.

“Aboriginal youth are the fastest growing demographic in Winnipeg. Winnipeg’s Aboriginal population is estimated to be near 90,000 and growing quickly. Streetz 104-7 will feature a vibrant mix of sizzling Aboriginal and mainstream Hip Hop.”