New Games to Try

Here is a list of great video games I’d like to try when I will have some time:

• Spore
• Starcraft 2
• GTA 4
• Call of Duty 4
• Halo 2

Article of Revelations (2/12)

According to a study, children with a name beginning near the start of the alphabet have better scholar results. They might be more intelligent just because of the first letter of their name. Here is a list to help you find a suitable name for a smart child.

• AnHeO
• Aré
• Astan
• Alterac
• Altaïr
• Aurora
• Aude
• Aréno
• Aneo
• Aurel
• Alvine
• Aspi
• Arin
• Aline
• Astase
• Aléone
• Antho
• Aspok
• Auster
• Amul
• Ades
• Acana
• Akiru
• AoliTa
• Aya
• Abol
• Adice
• Aleon
• Ahéléon
• Apoly
• Alil

Online Comic Strips: VG Cats

I love online comic strips and I feel like I should share a bit of the most funny ones with my small crew of casual readers.

Here is a funny anecdote about justice and violence.

http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=257

It strikes numerous cords in me, first, it tells me that justice is blind and that you should’nt ask it anything unless you’re ready to get struck by a bear…

ProjectEuler.net

I have a dream that one day, students in maths and computer science from all over the world will unite to solve the greatest mathematical problems of all times.

Indeed, this day has almost come. ProjectEuler.net is a great learning tool which focuses on solving maths problems with the aid of some programming. The choice of the language and the method is left to the participant, only the answer is recorded. However, methods used are discussed in a specific thread for each problem (there are more than 160 problems).

I started using C++ but quickly noticed how simpler and shorter the ruby solutions were. So I went with Ruby and it went very smoothly even through I didn’t know the API.

I’m surprised at how many people keep submitting solutions using assembler language, I hope it’s just for the fun of showing their insanity.

For the record, here is an excerpt of my ruby solutions (warning spoiler ahead):

ex4: Find the largest palindrome made from the product of two 3-digit numbers.


# x, y 3-digits
# z=x*y
# 100*100 < z < 999*999
def isPalindrom(n)
if (n.to_s==n.to_s.reverse())
return true
else
return false
end
end
def f()
max=0
for x in 100..999
for y in 100..999
z=x*y
if isPalindrom(z)
#puts z
if (z>max)
max=z
end
end
end
end
return max
end
puts f()


ex6: Find the difference between the sum of the squares of the first one hundred natural numbers and the square of the sum.


def diff(n)
return n*n*(n+1)*(n+1)/4-n*(n+1)*(2*n+1)/6
end
puts diff(ARGV[0].to_i)


ex7: What is the 10001^st prime number?


require ‘mathn’
f = 0
primes = Prime.new
for i in 1..10001
f = primes.next
end
puts f


ex9: There exists exactly one Pythagorean triplet for which a + b + c = 1000.
Find the product abc.


def f(n)
for a in 1..n
for b in a+1..n
for c in b+1..n
if (a*a+b*b==c*c)
if (a+b+c==1000)
return a*b*c
end
end
end
end
end
return 1
end
puts f(ARGV[0].to_i)

I now have completed more than 16 problems. The difficulty increases gradually. On problems 12 and 15, my first scripts were too long to execute (more than 1 week), as I expected, I add to rewrite my beautiful bi-recursive function to something much more iterative. The results were astonishingly better, in less than one second, I had accomplished much more calculations than in one week with the previous method.

Top 10 Geeks TV Series

If “top geeks TV series” doesn’t make sense to you, more precisely, I’d like to list the most successful TV series that are obviously adressed to geeks. The serie takes bonus points if it features geeks.

1. The Office
2. Dilbert
3. Battlestar Gallactica
4. Futurama
5. Babylon V
6. Red Dwarf
7. The IT Crowd
8. The Big Bang Theory
9. Chuck
10. Stargate

Honourable mention goes to:

• Quantum Leap
• South Park
• Star Trek

Most popular comics online

Anybody can write a great comic strip ?

I’m not so sure but there are definitely talented individuals out there. Here are my favourite works:

1. Dilbert
2. Sinfest
3. Penny Arcade
4. xkcd
5. Ctrl+alt+del
6. Wellington Grey
7. HandRooster
8. The Flowfield Unity
10. The Secret Live of Mobs
11. Canadian Waste
12. Dueling Analogs
13. The Warehouse
14. The Slackers
15. Foxtrot
16. Non Sequitur
17. Thingpart
18. Digital Unrest
19. Least I could do

Being a geek

Ok, I must confess I’m a geek.

http://www.askreamaor.com/misc/mysteries-of-the-geek-brain-we-will-never-explain

It became very clear after reading this article.

I present all of the characteristics traits:

• loving manga and anime
• loving science fiction
• forgetting to do house care
• I like the medieval period
• going to sleep too late because of games
• being a convinced atheist

In addition, I do a lot of juggling which, strangely enough, became one more characteristic of the geek culture. If you’re a geek too, feel free to leave a comment.

God’s fraud

Ok, so christians believe in God and atheists believe God doesn’t exist.

Neither an atheist nor a Christian would sue God. But what if you are a former Christian deceived by God ?

You can sue God for fraud, breach of trust, abuse of a position of authority and misappropriation of goods.

God had to protect your poor soul from Satan and all things evil.

See: http://wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=56680

It seems less risky than suing a priest for saying God or Jesus Christ exist, and even more funny.

Surprising small games

Some flash games can become really addictive while being utterly stupid. For instance, clickclickclick offers an internatinal contest of clickers. There is a rank table showing how much clicking has been done by each country. If you want to be patriotic, you’ve got to click frenetically on a big red box. The gameplay is simplistic yet addictive, at least for 5 minutes.

Boxhead 2 on the other hand, is a nice zombie survivor game. It introduces a shoot counter giving you updrades when you’re in your best killing spree. The variety of upgrades and the big number of enemies renew the gameplay at each level, making you play for hours.

Life in a middle sized company

I’ve been working for two months and a half in a middle sized company. After using successfully my software engineering skills on a first project, I can play with new technologies on a second one.

It’s quite different from where I worked previously, there were only 7 people and no new projects, I worked on only one big project for three years. Hopefully, there were various interesting aspects to work on.

What I find the most amusing in this new company, it’s when people try to look important. They are always working intensively or pretending to. They put pressure on themselve to accomplish their little goals but the real goal in my opinion is to make it look as if they are doing important things, making them a little more important.

When talking to someone for instance, some consultants take more care to look smart in their response than they care for the question and its context.

What’s worst is that being in an open space, we hear every little chief scolding their subordinates or every expert getting pissed at some newbies.

On the bright side, some people have an excellent sense of humor, they make everybody laugh a lot when they come by to discuss some more or less important issue.