Older blog entries for Chicago (starting at number 15)

Jobhunt
Status: Successfully gained freelance project work for a couple of people. Possibility of training.

Interesting problem number one:
The basis of this problem descends from an idea in Jack Cohen and Ian Stewarts book "the collapse of Chaos". The idea is this:

DNA contains some (if what limited) redundancy. This redudancy is in the form of the dna sequence CAT where to be mutated into CAC that they both specify the same amino acid.

Could this prinicple be applied to computer communications? To see, I proposed the following question:

Inital setup:

 
 Using the nth base, and having a number which has a length of b
bits, there are of course, b ^ n possible different permutations of
the number (Assuming that you can not have any blank spaces).

 
 These numbers can then all be placed as nodes on a grid, with lines
connecting each point of the grid elsewhere, but they are placed in
such a way that if you move from one node to the next node, only one
bit will change. I.e. using a base ten system, you could make a valid
move from 15 to any in the following set:

 
                { 05, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18,
                 19, 25, 35, 45, 55, 65, 75, 85, 95 }

 
 For a base 2 system, this is commonly known as a Kernaugh map.

 
 ie
    0 0 1 1
    0 1 1 0           Where the number for each node can be read by
    | | | |           reading the top and side values.. for the point
00 -+-+-+-+-          marked with a O, it represents the value 1101.
    | | | |
01 -+-+-O-+-
    | | | |
11 -+-+-+-+-
    | | | |
10 -+-+-+-+-
    | | | |

 
 Question:

 
 How many points can you get onto the grid, where each point satisfies
the following rule:


 
    a point nor its direct neighbours (ie all the nodes which have a
   single bit's difference between them and the point) can not
   intersect with another point OR another point's direct neigbours.


 
 Is there a rule to say how you should arrange them? What is the
relationship between the number of points and the number of moves
between them (assuming you can ignore the above rule).

I think that I have solved it for a base two system, but am working on a proof for it. hahaha

Erratum

A b bit system of the nth base will have n^b combinations

UUNN/Orgy
ok, now doing some sick idea of tying the two projects together (!) and also am doing some more UUNN programing in ahem perl... ok dont tell anyone im doing that :)

Life
Hmm things going interesting. My attempts at doing freelance work for some webdesigners are going down the drain fast as they all are out of work themselves. hehehe. Also I have found that the job center got shut down about five years ago!.. and Im SURE it was there last week.

Course
I'm now going to be doing an electronics unit, and a maths unit, and another unit which I can't quite remember which one but slef advised me to

Life
When I last wrote my Life entry, I was sort of depressed. Now I've been through a fit of even worse depression, taken to the hights of happyness and pure content, then taken just a bit futher before becomming super super depressed, before finally realising that i shouldnt have been super super depressed and got back up to being semi super happy again. However the average length of a conversation with someone has increased to around three days for me to think of the next line I want to say.

Ok, again, a couple of days since I last updated, and lots of new information to be added in that time period:

Matt
The Micromouse stuff came on thursday, but that was my last exam and the SYS party, and basically I wasnt in any state to work on it that night. So then we had to wait till Friday to start. Due to unforseen circumstances, it was quite late on thursday that things got happening, but we had a mock up of the mouse by half ten, allowing me a bit of time of unstressing with friends...
The next day was a massive outing to the Royal Holloway Institute in London, went with Jon, our other group member to see a race... what an experience! Interestingly enough I met another guy I knew - TEv - he's been working as an intern for a Cambridge Consultancty company and on one day a week for the past eight months they've also been building a micromouse, but only they had a budget of £1000. And they managed to overspend. Interesting isnt it, especially since my budget was "whatever I didnt eat". You've got to laugh - they didnt manage to make it round the first turn :).

Course
My course is sort of sorting itself out. Now they have offered us one of the electronics units next year, and another the year after, but Im being hesitant. I would really like to take this up, only I think what might happen now is I try to take up some maths units instead of doing something like.... graphics (eugh). But then again thats just me.

Work
The summer job hunt is going ... how can i say this? Badly? Well yes, infact its going slightly worse then badly and all I've been offered is some freelance stuff. Looks like I'm going to grab that and then go after a Job in Peterbourgh.

ORGY
Unfortunatly, work on ORGY will have to be ... limited over this summer, as I cant dial up to the internet whilst in nux.

UUNN
Due to no work being done on ORGY, instead I'll have to divert my time somewhere else, and the place - ORGY. Oh yes, how great am I? Crap actually, but thanks for asking.

Life
My life is ... how can I say this? Interesting and complicated. With things becomming slightly better now, but still - "hmm" is about the only thing that you can say to really describe it really well.
Been through some interesting things recently, including savs's barbique, and ...

Strawberry Fair
Yes, I attended what can only be described as @THE@ hippy event of the year. With banners flying "SKY HIGH" and "www.cannabis.com" and my mum diving off saying thigns like "well they do some nice floor mats in there..." yes mother, but they also mark my affiliation with the bong.... not something that I would like to advertise if I wish to make any kind of credibile political career in the future - I havnt ruled it out yet ok?

Elvastone Castle Rally
ACtually the official title of this is Elvastone Mobile Radio Rally, and it is THE definitve rally for the RSGB (radio society for great britain). Remember all that stuff they taught you at uni? you know, about "hamming" in data error checking - well news for you, Ham is sort for Ameatur, and its from the Ham's that all the error correction techinques descend. hence the name duhh.. But anyways I got some bits and pieces for Matt.

Hmm, laid awake worrying about my programming exam last week. That and other things, then managed to sleep through it. Wasnt quite how i wanted it to go. Luckily I have passed the year on courswork but sheeshh... i wont be doing THAT again :S

We're still awaitng bits for MATT to build the chashi, but unfortunatly, they havnt arrived yet. Should I jump out of the window in desperation? Perhaps i should move to the ground floor first.

Orgy files have now been uploaded (after iDunno gave me a crash course in how to do CVS, only I've sort of accidently broke my bit and its too much of a headache right now to fix, especially as I've decided to go mad. Mad is good i think its either that or do some other futile project...

So my current project to keep myself out of complete madness is this:http://thu mper.stu.uea.ac.uk:8181/~jt/UUNN/ the UEA United News Net. Hmmm well, it wasnt my idea, thats all I can say for the moment. More on that soonish i think.

The Fox

So i was out socialisng with iDunno and a couple of others, and am heading home on my bike, rear light and no front (ok perhaps not a good idea)... well i get to the fast bit of the ride - right after comming down the hill, and im hitting some high speeds.

All of a sudden theres this thing in front of me - sort of large cat size, so i think... stop... need to stop now... so i do so, full breaks, and put the handlebars at ninty degrees... the bike stops, i dont. So as i fly over this cat i actually realise that its not a cat but is a small dog with big big pointy ears and a heumongeous fluffy tail. shit its a fox. Not a big fox (i come from the country side and have seen big foxes) but this is a fox... so now im lying on the floor with a fox between me and my bike, thinking oh shite its going to bite me, but luckily it takes one look at me and turns, sprints across the street then jumps a six foot fence.

I honestly havnt been more scared in my life.

Well johnb is claiming that I havn't added him to the Matt project but I SOOO have. So now its down to the post to hunt for more supplies and get some grades back :S

So its been a while. In that time I have managed to get quite a bit of thinking done about Orgy which im currently looking for comments on the planned way the protocol.

I'm also panicing over the mouse. The first (and I think last) race this year is in uhh ten days time, so not that im scared or anything. OK so due to bad planning the parts didnt get ordered untill last week, and due to even worse planning they havnt arrived yet. All in all not what you would call a good day.

So its been a week since I last posted. Oh dear. On projects side of thing, Orgy development is still underway. Whilst I'm struggling with exactly how to transfer data in a generic way, or how to work out security issues and such. All in all its going to be interesting.

I saw Dr. Aldridge on monday about MATT. He was very interested in it, and we discussed several possible ways of navigating the maze, especially using a camera high above the mouse and looking down on the maze. This solution we decided was by far the best, but would be too difficult to do in the short space of time that we have (four to six weeks)

On the damned emulator front, thats been done and handed in now (Yea) so I can now delete it off my HD, and start the long, drawn out process of recovering from the mental scars and anguish that I gained from doing it. No, all that now needs to be written is some horrible pre and post conditon thing.

Also im now fulfilling my news editing job at TSW, and whilst this is mostly pinching storys from Livewire as they come onair, ive actually got my own one which was fully written by ME.. me arn't I great?

Ok maybe not.

Suprisingly or not, its now my birthday (way hey). More to come later once i have time to type