Because I'm far too lazy to write anything of length at the moment. Why, you ask? Aah, well that is to be explained in this very post. Well, this paragraph-post. Yes, that's right - I intend to do it all in one paragraph. Mwaha! Brevity is at the soul of my wit, certainly. And tediousness adorns its limbs and outward flourishes. But let that go. To reach pertinently for the point of the paragraphical post, I shall share with you my progress through the realm of examinations. Well, English is still done (although I don't recall whether I mentioned it or not, and can't be bothered checking), and Maths has followed suit. The latter was, to re-use a phrase, glorious and victorious. And just this very day, History too joined the list of exams gone by, in what was actually a relatively painless exam. There were iffy parts, and there were magnificent parts, and overall my hope is that these two extremes of performance shall wed in splendorous fashion producing a final result of an A. So now all that remains in terms of exams is good old Physics on Friday, for which I am doing a bit of revision even as I type. And once that has passed, and been passed, I shall be free! Free, to... get a job. Alas.
Wednesday, 26 May 2010
Tuesday, 18 May 2010
Damn you, TalkTalk!
Hello all, we meet again! But today, things are different - today I come to you battle-scarred and wounded, limping, with the blood of a thousand technological foes dripping from my sword: today, I come to you glorious and victorious. The foe? None other than my ISP,good ol' TalkTalk. The battle? Well, allow me to expound...
I'd like to think that by this stage everyone on the 'net would have attained an awesomeness level sufficient to be using Firefox, but regrettably I hear that there are still those who cling to Internet Explorer. So, for this (hopefully small) minority, allow me to illuminate one of the many magnificent features of Firefox: when you type something non-URLey into the URL bar and press enter, it does a Google search-by-name for the input and oftentimes takes you straight to the appropriate website - for instance, were you to type in 'ExeSoft' you'd find yourself transported right here (hoorah!).
Now, being an extremely lazy person even at the best of times, I've taken to using this feature as my sole means of navigating the intertubes, simply because I can't be arsed going into my bookmarks or Googling directly. And indeed, this was perfectly well until just recently when DISASTER STRUCK! There I was, happily lazing away, when suddenly my URL bar took me not to the desired page, nor even to a standard Google search, but instead to this horrendously garish mockery of outdated web design:
Sickening, no? Well, I ended up vomiting there and then. Now, much as pro tips on 'getting into bars' may well have proven extremely useful in my younger youth when such places were heavenly hoardings of forbidden fruit, this is something which I could quite easily have found myself had I been allowed proper use of the URL bar. But no! TalkTalk seem to feel that the URL bar wasn't helpful enough when it simply redirected me to the desired page, and so they've decided that as of now they're going to quite literally steal the internet request out of Firefox's hands and drag me by the scruff of my neck down to their internet marketing brothel to peruse their irrelevant sponsored results. And as marketing brothels go, this one's extremely down-market. The logo, for one thing, is ridiculous. It seems to vaguely resemble a Christmas tree which some imbecile has painted in various different colours before crushing, eating and regurgitating. Or something like that.
So, was Animatinator going to stand for this? Pah! Not he, not I, not anyone! So, after much perusing of the net (stealthily using the normal Google search engine whilst the TalkTalk guards were facing elsewhere), I've discovered that you can actually solve this problem by changing to a different DNS server address ([Start->Control Panel->Network and Internet->View network status and tasks->Change adapter settings->{right-click on your internet connection}->Properties->Internet Protocol Version 4->Properties] in Windows 7). The ones everyone seems to recommend are two Google ones: 8.8.8.8 (which unfortunately didn't work for me) and 8.8.4.4 (which did work). Basically, switching to one of these takes a knife to TalkTalk's (or whichever other oppressive, tyrannical ISP regime you subscribe to) slimy grip on the Firefox URL bar, leaving you free to exercise laziness at will!
And that, my friends, is the tale of my war with URL-bar-hackery. Goodnight!
I'd like to think that by this stage everyone on the 'net would have attained an awesomeness level sufficient to be using Firefox, but regrettably I hear that there are still those who cling to Internet Explorer. So, for this (hopefully small) minority, allow me to illuminate one of the many magnificent features of Firefox: when you type something non-URLey into the URL bar and press enter, it does a Google search-by-name for the input and oftentimes takes you straight to the appropriate website - for instance, were you to type in 'ExeSoft' you'd find yourself transported right here (hoorah!).
Now, being an extremely lazy person even at the best of times, I've taken to using this feature as my sole means of navigating the intertubes, simply because I can't be arsed going into my bookmarks or Googling directly. And indeed, this was perfectly well until just recently when DISASTER STRUCK! There I was, happily lazing away, when suddenly my URL bar took me not to the desired page, nor even to a standard Google search, but instead to this horrendously garish mockery of outdated web design:
Sickening, no? Well, I ended up vomiting there and then. Now, much as pro tips on 'getting into bars' may well have proven extremely useful in my younger youth when such places were heavenly hoardings of forbidden fruit, this is something which I could quite easily have found myself had I been allowed proper use of the URL bar. But no! TalkTalk seem to feel that the URL bar wasn't helpful enough when it simply redirected me to the desired page, and so they've decided that as of now they're going to quite literally steal the internet request out of Firefox's hands and drag me by the scruff of my neck down to their internet marketing brothel to peruse their irrelevant sponsored results. And as marketing brothels go, this one's extremely down-market. The logo, for one thing, is ridiculous. It seems to vaguely resemble a Christmas tree which some imbecile has painted in various different colours before crushing, eating and regurgitating. Or something like that.
So, was Animatinator going to stand for this? Pah! Not he, not I, not anyone! So, after much perusing of the net (stealthily using the normal Google search engine whilst the TalkTalk guards were facing elsewhere), I've discovered that you can actually solve this problem by changing to a different DNS server address ([Start->Control Panel->Network and Internet->View network status and tasks->Change adapter settings->{right-click on your internet connection}->Properties->Internet Protocol Version 4->Properties] in Windows 7). The ones everyone seems to recommend are two Google ones: 8.8.8.8 (which unfortunately didn't work for me) and 8.8.4.4 (which did work). Basically, switching to one of these takes a knife to TalkTalk's (or whichever other oppressive, tyrannical ISP regime you subscribe to) slimy grip on the Firefox URL bar, leaving you free to exercise laziness at will!
And that, my friends, is the tale of my war with URL-bar-hackery. Goodnight!
Saturday, 15 May 2010
Hello again!
Just thought I'd drop in with a surprise update. Yep, I still remember this blog! Even after all these months of separation, myself and blogging remain as firm a couple as, well, myself and laziness. The latter pairing being the reason for the colossal temporal disparity between the then and now; the there and here; the last delivered update from myself, and this current literary phlegm. Essentially. So, to bring to a close this travesty of prefacing text, I'd best draw from my dunce cap some form of excuse for the atrocity of negligence committed over the past few months. Basically, I was busy. Exams, coursework, the traditional crud. That and I suffered from the sheer abject laziness to which I am so oft prone.
But that isn't to say that I have done nothing in the way of ExeSoft-ery. No, not so! I have various things which still await posting, which with any luck will find their way onto this very blog over the next few posts (which will presumably come with fewer gargantuan time gaps of the nature we have just witnessed). Unfortunately I can't at present divulge the secrets of these mysterious projects, as I actually can't remember which ones I've already posted about. It's been a while. But as mentioned, I intend to sort this out fairly soon and get some posts up here. For now I'll just be updating you on things you don't care about, in a writing style which has most evidently degraded over the last few months (during which the closest to prose my writing got was formulaic English essays and the odd explanation paragraph in physics exams).
So, what do my near-nonexistent audience care the least about? Aah yes, my banal excuses. Exams! Doesn't everyone love them? Well, I'm sitting them at the moment. (It may well be that my reason for posting here was simply that my mouse-operating hand was bored of drifting over to Tetris during revision sessions, and thought it would spice things up with a bit of bloggery.) And I'm pleased to say that having sat the English exam on Wednesday, I am now free from studying English... forever. Yes, that's right. Nevermore need I ponder the elaborate subtexts present in such poetic masterpieces as Carol Ann Duffy's '$':
(I shit thee not, this is genuinely one of her poems. I imagine the only 'meaning' present here is in the title - basically, "I can write whatever bollockery I like and the cash will continue to roll in.") Indeed, I need never actually write anything properly again. I am now free to allow my literary mind to decay, to the stage where I find difficulty even to write code coherently.
But alas, this cannot be! As the greatly revered Animatinator, I feel it is my duty to maintain my magnificent writing capabilities, and to continue this glorious and majestic blog indefinitely, so that you, my adoring fans, can continue to bask in this... this paragon of literary achievement, this grand summit of intellectual mastery, and so that we, as a species, can take heed of the great words set down herein and move forwards unto a new era, a new paradigm, an entirely new... means of existence, in which...
...
Sorry, I tried incredibly hard, but I couldn't get any further with that without descending into fits of hilarity. See? I'm already losing my writing abilities. I can't even impersonate Carol Ann Duffy any more. But nonetheless, I will continue to post to this blog, despite there being no reason whatsoever to maintain my capacity for language. Because that's how nice I am.
So, where was I? Ah yes, boring you with tales of exams. English went well! Surprisingly, we had an incredibly good question on the Pinter texts (the main thing our class was studying) so I didn't have to resort to prescribing contrived meaning to the semi-literate blabberings of good old Duffy (our back-up). And the resulting essay seemed at least reasonably acceptable. So, given that the dissertation went well and the two creative pieces should average an A, I'm still hopeful for an overall A (and consequently a met Cambridge offer). All the other exams are still to come though, so there's still scope for abject failure. I'll endeavour to keep you posted.
And with that, I shrink back into my pit of silence. Goodbye for now! Perchance we shall meet again over the next few days...
But that isn't to say that I have done nothing in the way of ExeSoft-ery. No, not so! I have various things which still await posting, which with any luck will find their way onto this very blog over the next few posts (which will presumably come with fewer gargantuan time gaps of the nature we have just witnessed). Unfortunately I can't at present divulge the secrets of these mysterious projects, as I actually can't remember which ones I've already posted about. It's been a while. But as mentioned, I intend to sort this out fairly soon and get some posts up here. For now I'll just be updating you on things you don't care about, in a writing style which has most evidently degraded over the last few months (during which the closest to prose my writing got was formulaic English essays and the odd explanation paragraph in physics exams).
So, what do my near-nonexistent audience care the least about? Aah yes, my banal excuses. Exams! Doesn't everyone love them? Well, I'm sitting them at the moment. (It may well be that my reason for posting here was simply that my mouse-operating hand was bored of drifting over to Tetris during revision sessions, and thought it would spice things up with a bit of bloggery.) And I'm pleased to say that having sat the English exam on Wednesday, I am now free from studying English... forever. Yes, that's right. Nevermore need I ponder the elaborate subtexts present in such poetic masterpieces as Carol Ann Duffy's '$':
A one a two a one two three four - boogie woogie chou chou cha cha chatta noogie. Woogie wop a loo bop a wop bim bam. Da doo ron a doo ron oo wop a sha na? Na na hey hey doo wah did. Um, didy ay didy shala lala lala lala, boogie woogie choo choo cha cha bop. (A woogie wop a loo bam) yeah yeah yeah.
(I shit thee not, this is genuinely one of her poems. I imagine the only 'meaning' present here is in the title - basically, "I can write whatever bollockery I like and the cash will continue to roll in.") Indeed, I need never actually write anything properly again. I am now free to allow my literary mind to decay, to the stage where I find difficulty even to write code coherently.
But alas, this cannot be! As the greatly revered Animatinator, I feel it is my duty to maintain my magnificent writing capabilities, and to continue this glorious and majestic blog indefinitely, so that you, my adoring fans, can continue to bask in this... this paragon of literary achievement, this grand summit of intellectual mastery, and so that we, as a species, can take heed of the great words set down herein and move forwards unto a new era, a new paradigm, an entirely new... means of existence, in which...
...
Sorry, I tried incredibly hard, but I couldn't get any further with that without descending into fits of hilarity. See? I'm already losing my writing abilities. I can't even impersonate Carol Ann Duffy any more. But nonetheless, I will continue to post to this blog, despite there being no reason whatsoever to maintain my capacity for language. Because that's how nice I am.
So, where was I? Ah yes, boring you with tales of exams. English went well! Surprisingly, we had an incredibly good question on the Pinter texts (the main thing our class was studying) so I didn't have to resort to prescribing contrived meaning to the semi-literate blabberings of good old Duffy (our back-up). And the resulting essay seemed at least reasonably acceptable. So, given that the dissertation went well and the two creative pieces should average an A, I'm still hopeful for an overall A (and consequently a met Cambridge offer). All the other exams are still to come though, so there's still scope for abject failure. I'll endeavour to keep you posted.
And with that, I shrink back into my pit of silence. Goodbye for now! Perchance we shall meet again over the next few days...
Saturday, 13 February 2010
OSX Dock in Pygame
Salutations to all! Apologies for breaking my vow of voluminous posting with such haste and dexterity, I had four exams and two horrible deadlines to contend with. Gloriously, all that now stands in the past, leaving the way clear for consistent blogging! Hopefully.
Now, with the traditional excuses out of the way, I shall share with you the primary purpose of this posting:
It's the Mac OSX Dock, but as you've never seen it before: emulated in Pygame! Essentially, I felt like setting myself a coding challenge which would produce shiny results (shiny is good), and this seemed apt, being as it is both shiny and pretty flippin' challenging to code.
It took many an hour to get the scrolling to work properly - the items have to position themselves such that the space between each one is consistent, and so that the focus of the 'bulge' in the menu is always under the mouse cursor. And with that achieved, it has to scale in and out smoothly at either side (a surprisingly difficult thing to achieve) and the items have to be aiming to reach their original positions at all times (again, surprisingly difficult; most seemed content to simply remain in their shifted positions when the mouse focus was removed). Ultimately, the code ended up being near-unreadable. But well. It works. And, when it comes to graphical elements such as this, that's all that really matters.
It's also designed with the intent of being imported and shoved into other projects, and as such is fairly modular. One can also alter its items, size, position, scaling factor and mouse response distances via arguments supplied to it upon its creation. And, surprisingly, it can actually be used as a menu and not just pointless spiffery: there's a function which returns the index of the item currently under the mouse.
For more information and to download the source code, go to http://pygame.org/project-Pygame+Dock-1412-2506.html. Alternatively, if you can't be arsed downloading it, you can watch a demo video... right here. Behold:
In other news, I recently wrote a program which generates sentences that could be English, but aren't (that said, they occasionally are). It uses a Markov Chain system, which essentially means that the next letter in a word is chosen randomly but is weighted by probabilities of certain letters following the current one. For example, the letter 'a' is much more likely to come after 't' than 'z' is. These probabilities are found by training the program using a corpus, which in this case was simply a gargantuan list of English words. The following paragraph has been generated entirely by the resulting program:
As you can see, though it seems fairly random the words are almost all pronounceable, something which would not have happened had they been generated completely randomly. That said, there are some odd ones in there. 'Z' would be an example. I do like the sound of 'abearalaboncacsimolobaprdalimecacallakle', however. I take it to mean 'possessing the qualities of a mentally-challenged bear who vaguely resembles lime cake'. If enough of us use it regularly, it might just make the dictionary.
Oh, and while I'm here, I might as well update you on the UCAS situation. St Andrews finally replied, and gave me an unconditional offer! Hoorah, now I can reject them. Mwahaha.
They're a bunch of abearalaboncacsimolobaprdalimecacallakles anyway.
Now, with the traditional excuses out of the way, I shall share with you the primary purpose of this posting:
It's the Mac OSX Dock, but as you've never seen it before: emulated in Pygame! Essentially, I felt like setting myself a coding challenge which would produce shiny results (shiny is good), and this seemed apt, being as it is both shiny and pretty flippin' challenging to code.
It took many an hour to get the scrolling to work properly - the items have to position themselves such that the space between each one is consistent, and so that the focus of the 'bulge' in the menu is always under the mouse cursor. And with that achieved, it has to scale in and out smoothly at either side (a surprisingly difficult thing to achieve) and the items have to be aiming to reach their original positions at all times (again, surprisingly difficult; most seemed content to simply remain in their shifted positions when the mouse focus was removed). Ultimately, the code ended up being near-unreadable. But well. It works. And, when it comes to graphical elements such as this, that's all that really matters.
It's also designed with the intent of being imported and shoved into other projects, and as such is fairly modular. One can also alter its items, size, position, scaling factor and mouse response distances via arguments supplied to it upon its creation. And, surprisingly, it can actually be used as a menu and not just pointless spiffery: there's a function which returns the index of the item currently under the mouse.
For more information and to download the source code, go to http://pygame.org/project-Pygame+Dock-1412-2506.html. Alternatively, if you can't be arsed downloading it, you can watch a demo video... right here. Behold:
Pygame Dock demo 1 from Animatinator on Vimeo.
In other news, I recently wrote a program which generates sentences that could be English, but aren't (that said, they occasionally are). It uses a Markov Chain system, which essentially means that the next letter in a word is chosen randomly but is weighted by probabilities of certain letters following the current one. For example, the letter 'a' is much more likely to come after 't' than 'z' is. These probabilities are found by training the program using a corpus, which in this case was simply a gargantuan list of English words. The following paragraph has been generated entirely by the resulting program:
Cumms cegopah alliancaledwale anghiacr cthilled cooumaceeamamililaieanebedalifichacims an ch aiedmbd abearalaboncacsimolobaprdalimecacallakle d bicteed cherhereag z ak bobilalkalad abe aie dicoubbedr. Cobidopalafieecinebagevachadiamoe badereyureanga amprig achiggumiadllided cs akllalica are thedileagnabba cks c dle che p blicadekeidod cimbekakn aulalikngifoinicoacakakalaidid ag a credge d bl bl po, ac dereil cas a blelellalajaeccladollag clllecr cokonamagabanalad cal.
As you can see, though it seems fairly random the words are almost all pronounceable, something which would not have happened had they been generated completely randomly. That said, there are some odd ones in there. 'Z' would be an example. I do like the sound of 'abearalaboncacsimolobaprdalimecacallakle', however. I take it to mean 'possessing the qualities of a mentally-challenged bear who vaguely resembles lime cake'. If enough of us use it regularly, it might just make the dictionary.
Oh, and while I'm here, I might as well update you on the UCAS situation. St Andrews finally replied, and gave me an unconditional offer! Hoorah, now I can reject them. Mwahaha.
They're a bunch of abearalaboncacsimolobaprdalimecacallakles anyway.
Sunday, 10 January 2010
Happy new year!
And, indeed, happy new decade. You'll have to excuse the slight (nine-day) lateness of this post; I was busy forgetting to post. Or something to that effect. The point is... well, non-existent, actually.
However, those of you fearing for the safety of this post as it rapidly descends into pointless blabbering may freely clamber out from behind the sofa, because I have news! News most auspicious in nature. News pertaining, once again, to university applications. What news, you ask? Well, after a somewhat epic wait, I've just yesterday learned that I've got an offer from Cambridge! Don't ask me how...
And for some absurd reason it's actually a good bit easier than the Imperial one (which, you may recall, was inhumanely cruel at A1AAA):
So, time for an update on the overall situation methinks:
However, those of you fearing for the safety of this post as it rapidly descends into pointless blabbering may freely clamber out from behind the sofa, because I have news! News most auspicious in nature. News pertaining, once again, to university applications. What news, you ask? Well, after a somewhat epic wait, I've just yesterday learned that I've got an offer from Cambridge! Don't ask me how...
And for some absurd reason it's actually a good bit easier than the Imperial one (which, you may recall, was inhumanely cruel at A1AAA):
- Advanced Higher Maths and Physics: AA
- Advanced Higher English and Higher History (any order): AB
So, time for an update on the overall situation methinks:
Cambridge (Jesus college) - Offer (AAAB)
Imperial College London - Offer (A1AAA)
Edinburgh - Unconditional offer
Glasgow - Unconditional offer
St. Andrews - Acknowledged
Imperial College London - Offer (A1AAA)
Edinburgh - Unconditional offer
Glasgow - Unconditional offer
St. Andrews - Acknowledged
Yup, that's right - St. Andrews are still not replying. But then, the only point in waiting for them at this stage is sheer petty perfectionism (if they said yes I would have five offers!), so it's fairly likely I'll just give in and make the decision fairly soon. My plan is to set Cambridge as my firm choice, with Edinburgh as the insurance - that way if I don't manage to meet the (relatively meetable) offer I have an unconditional backup, and can safely fail all my exams without fear of not going to university at all. Hoorah!
And so ends the first of what will hopefully be many frequent posts this year. Yes, okay, stifle your laughs; I'll at least try to post frequently. It's not a new year's resolution, as if it were then I'd already have broken it with this ludicrously late post. However, it's a goal towards which I shall strive with all the tenacity and will I can muster, whether it be that of a devoted soldier or an injured snail with attention deficit disorder. We shall see in due course.
And so ends the first of what will hopefully be many frequent posts this year. Yes, okay, stifle your laughs; I'll at least try to post frequently. It's not a new year's resolution, as if it were then I'd already have broken it with this ludicrously late post. However, it's a goal towards which I shall strive with all the tenacity and will I can muster, whether it be that of a devoted soldier or an injured snail with attention deficit disorder. We shall see in due course.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)