Personal Blogs

Because I can't seem to get down to any maths I decided to open up netBeans and do some Java. It was either that or build a lego Turing machine. [Something that I will do sometime soon.]

My Java skills are rusty. Which doesn't matter too much, you can always learn a language if you know the basic grammars. I understand the Object-oriented paradigm, I know the patterns,  I can find code on-line. I'll get back up to speed fast.

I have two major advantages when it comes to coding: I'm under no time pressure, other that that my life is running out, and there's only me working on the code base. As soon as you involve even one other body, or you need to get it done by some date, you've made things much-much more difficult.

I decided to start the solitaire thingee all over again. When I die I'm going to be burned and have my ashes exposed to rats, because otherwise people will carve "always working on his solitaire programme" on my tombstone.

I'm not sure why I'm so oddly obsessed about this, I do know that I play solitaire at least once a day. That's more than I play chess or go now. And much of the time I play backwards.

Recently I've been wracking my head trying to discover a metric that will lead to a pagoda function for the english board.  I've been working on positions that I know aren't outs and seeing if I can add a peg to make them so. If you have a clump then you nearly always can. Which seems suggestive.

I suspect that what should have been a harmless conversation might have bent my mind.

We were sitting in the pub after a topology tutorial when Alan, our tutor, said that topology wasn't useful for anything [apart from the maths skills that we learn.] I wouldn't have it.

I wouldn't have it because there's something there that nags my solitaire head.

So, more programming and more maths.