Christmas Bash Wordsearch Bonus

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This could be you…

I’ve got a second Nerf Gun for the person that the highest number of the 54 “Departmental Christmas” words in the Wordsearch below:

D G S Z T G R Y S U I R O T S I P E I L A C R F X W C E X Z
M G U F T T E S P M O T N A I R B C L K V E G Y O S H V T Z
B I P T U Y D B P X G R A X S I M N M O D L I E B M R H D H
W D E C K N O S N I B O R R E T E P M N E A R R X I I O J W
D A R S L L E B K R A M J K U I L S A O N E X G H K S O I B
S O L A Z N E N F I U I N K T S D X N N T O A D X E T V A J
E Q A B V E I K C M N E R R A D E A I U A L J I Y B M Y P M
L Z B M A R T I N W A L K E R L R S P B G N W V A I A Q W I
I D A V I D G L O V E R V V A D P M U A E X I A S E S I A C
M W O R D S E A R C H M P E O A O E N I K L N D E L A K R R
B T M U U R W S E M I A N B P C Y D L R S S D C K B M R R O
O T I I A Y I Q W J J A O A X W R G B H I V O F O Y A V E S
R H K L Q D Q H V S J T D C A O O T F W D C W F O D N J N O
K J E O R Z C D M A T O I K I R U R G H D X S A R K D O V F
C O B A B J Y W M A P W R D D V Y Q U X R G T T B B A H I T
O G R T I S W M C O D A X O T F U J I Z A T E Z M U M N A N
C N A N N O E I U C H A N D R A K A M B H A M P A T I R N O
N A Y A G N B L G S T H G I R W N E L E H Y Y R H R L A T S
A I S H W Y O F L L D A R R Y L D A V I S Q J P A E L Y N I
H J H D A S P E R Y Y E D Y X U D B N F I K N L R R S N Z P
W G A C N A N L E N L Q A C S H P F I N J S W R G H O E E P
E N W U G E E E P N S G V Z V Z O B G U C A E F B O N R C A
R I S B L K H C P M T M I H D J P D G G Z T M G R Y F W E L
D P H E X Z M N O O A G D F C L E K V G S V T E G Z B I T C
N U H U Y D O B H R R P P X G L Y E R G N O M I S O R A X O
A S I M L Z N M N R B O A H I D H W D R O C K E T W O C K J
M O J W A L D A A E U S R J K U I L S X H O I B O A A G Z N
E N F M I U I N O L C K K Y T I S R E V I N U L L U H R L T
S D A O A X V A J L K J E Q J A N S P R I N G E R B V A D E
L J Y Y P Z B G A Q S V R S P A C E C H E E S E B A T T L E

Send me a picture of your solution and you can puck up the prize from my office if you are the the best one. Pictures must be sent in before the end of today (Thursday).

Simon Grey is not allowed to take part.

Christmas Bash 2012

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We had a great Christmas Bash today. A nice select turnout and plenty of fun was had.

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We had a whole bunch of expensive hardware and a Wordsearch. Guess what everyone spent their time doing.

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… and guess who won.

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A lot of fun was had with Simon’s newly acquired toy…

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What a room full of Computer Scientists do if you shout “Strike a Pose”

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..and we even had Rocksmith as well. You can find all the pictures I took here.

Delegates and Dice

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I’ve been marking the First Year “Space Cheese Battle” implementations and it has been great fun. The aim of the work is to implement the board game “Space Cheese Battle”, which is a bit like Snakes and Ladders crossed with Ludo. Using rockets. And cheese.

The program uses a dice to control movement and in the final implementation this must of course be completely random. However when the program is being tested a random dice is exactly what you don’t want. What you want is a way of getting particular numbers so that you can test the program more easily. I first hit this kind of problem when I wrote a pontoon (blackjack) playing program and I had to wait for ages for the game to deliver a King followed by an Ace, so I could test the part of the program that deals with that. Eventually I figured out that a good way to speed things up was to allow me to type in the card being dealt, rather than have it picked randomly. Later on I worked out that it is even easier to test if you have a “pre-set” list of cards that are dealt automatically.

We can do the same thing with the dice for Space Cheese Battle. I can make three dice methods:

static Random rand = new Random();

static int RandomThrow()
{
    return rand.Next(1, 7);
}

This is the “production” dice throw method. It just delivers a value between 1 and 6.

static int InputThrow()
{
    int result = 0;

    while (true)
    {
        Console.Write("Enter throw value: ");
        try
        {
            result = int.Parse(Console.ReadLine());
            break;
        }
        catch { }
    }
    return result;
}

This is the “manual entry” dice method. It returns whatever the user types in. Note that I’ve not limited the values at all. It is sometimes useful to put in very large dice throws so that you can move the player onto particular squares for testing. 

static int[] diceValues = new int[] { 
    3,4,5,4       
};

static int throwPos = 0;

static int FixedThrow()
{
    int result = diceValues[throwPos];
    throwPos = throwPos + 1;
    if (throwPos == diceValues.Length) throwPos = 0;
    return result;
}

This is the “fixed sequence” dice. I can create a whole set of values and then have them replayed by the dice. This is great for automated testing.

Of course the difficultly comes when I have to write my program and I need to switch between these dice behaviours. The students had hit this problem too, and some had created tests that checked the dice mode and then called the appropriate method when the program ran. These work, but the best way to select the kind of dice that you want to use is to create a delegate which refers to a particular method. 

delegate int DiceThrow();

A delegate is a type of variable that can refer to a method with a particular signature. The statement above creates a delegate type called DiceThrow which can refer to a method that accepts no parameters and returns an integer, just like the dice methods above.  I can create a variable of type DiceThrow.

static DiceThrow ActiveDice;

The variable ActiveDice can refer to any method that accepts no parameters and returns an integer. I use it like this:

ActiveDice = new DiceThrow(RandomThrow);

The variable ActiveDice now refers to a new delegate instance connected to the RandomThrow method. Which means that the statement:

Console.WriteLine(ActiveDice());

- will call the RandomThrow method and print out what it returns.  In other words I can use the ActiveDice method exactly as if it was a method that accepts no parameters and returns an integer. When the delegate is called it will follow the reference to the method it has been connected to and then run that method. The great thing about my game code is that I don’t need to change the code that uses the dice to make it pick up new dice behaviours. I just have to call the delegate.

Note: The C# implementation also incudes a Delegate class (note the capital D) which intellisense might try to get you to use. This does something different and confusing. Make sure you use the delegate with the lower case d.

Christmas Bash 2012 is Coming

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Poster

We will be having our Christmas Bash on Wednesday 12th of December in the department. There will be hastily set up video games, food ordered at the last minute, and staff arriving just in time to be beaten at Team Fortress and whatever other gaming goodies that we can find, including a Wii U or two if we can get them to work. There will also be a last minute wordsearch with a prize that we will only just have had time to buy. In fact, this event is so "thrown together" that we've had to use the artwork from a couple of years ago.

But it will be fun for all that. Tickets are available from the departmental office. The fun starts at 4:30 pm in the Design Lab. And yes, we will be setting up the famous “Pink Christmas trees” once we’ve found them in the office stores.

Watching Progress Bars

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I’ve bought a replacement disk for the SSD that has failed. I’ve got a Samsung one instead of the OCZ one that I used to have. It went into the desktop at around lunchtime and by mid afternoon I had Windows 8 back and running fine. Now I’ve been re-installing all the software and trying to remember just what I used to have on the machine.

And don’t tell me I should have made a backup – I had done, but Windows 8 refuses to recognise it. I made the stupid mistake of thinking that the Windows 7 backup tools that are present in Windows 8 could be used to restore a backup into Windows 8. What I probably should have done (although I’ve no way of knowing this) is install Windows 7 and then restore the Windows 8 backup from that.

Hull Global Game Jam is Coming

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How many of these folks will sign up I wonder? All of them, I hope.

People, keep the weekend of the 26th and 27th of January 2013 clear. If you are a Hull student this is the perfect way to celebrate the end of your inter-semester gap week. We are very pleased to announce that Hull will be taking part in Global Game Jam. This is a bit like Three Thing Game, but better and with more people. We are working in conjunction with the Platform Expos folks to put together something really special. If you are serious about writing games and want to make lots of new friends and learn stuff, then you must, must, must come along.

We had a meeting today where we moved things forward and I got to meet some of the wonderful folks who are going to make it all work.

More details soon. V. excited.

Mending Stuff

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I’m now officially fit enough to mend things. Today it was the turn of the doorbell. I did ask someone to come round and fix it but that didn’t end well. Apparently they turned up earlier this week but didn’t think there was anyone home (Old Joke Alert).

I’ve replaced the batteries in both ends and now it seems to work. Of course what I really want is one of the new fancy doorbells that plays MP3 files when someone presses the button. I could have some real fun with that….

Wii U Fun and Games

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I swore I wasn’t going to get a Wii U. Of course not. Silly idea. Another console under the telly. Why would I want to do that?

Indeed.

But it is very nice. A lot nicer than I expected. And even better after the enormous update that it insisted on performing just after I’d plugged it in. Actually the thing that got me excited in the first place was the potential for media management that the device brings. The large controller with a screen is a great way to browse for and view media, and you can also use it to turn your telly on and off. If Nintendo play their cards right (historical fun fact – they used to sell playing cards before they sold video games) they could make this into a proper media hub with the benefits of dual screen that the controller brings. Microsoft have “Smart Glass” which is a big step in the same direction, but Nintendo sell you a complete solution all in one, rather than relying on you bringing a Smartphone to the party. If it all comes together, say in three or four enormous updates, I can see folks in the family really appreciating the ability to find and play media on Netflix, Love Film and the various iPlayeresque services.

The hardware is impressive. The remote screen is very good and there is no noticeable lag between it and the main screen. The fact that it is a resistive touch screen doesn’t cause problems, and even makes it easier to use a stylus where required. The worst thing about the shiny black devices is that they really do attract fingerprints and dust. However, we finally have a Nintendo device with proper video output. The HDMI plug just goes straight in and produces nice looking video and surround sound.

The games are great too. If you get a Wii U you must get NintendoLand. No ifs, no buts. You’ll also need to dig out 4 Wii controllers too (preferably with Motion Plus) to get the full five player action, but it is worth it. The “asymmetric” games are great. My favourite is the one based around Luigi’s Mansion where you have a ghost (who uses the big controller see where everyone is) sneaking up on players who have only got there torches to see what’s around them. I don’t think NIntendoLand will have the same long term appeal as Wii Sports did, but it will really make all your Christmas parties go with a swing.

We also had a go at Zombie U, which is quite frankly terrifying, Super Mario which brings Mario into high definition and adds some very interesting variations with players able to use the controller to change platform the environment and finally Tekken, which is, well, Tekken.

One surprising thing about the Wii U is the number of launch games available. The actual arrival of the console has been fairly low key in my opinion, perhaps because they haven’t made a huge number, but the range of games available is very impressive. Some of them (step forward EA with FIFA 13) are just Nintendoised versions of their offerings on other platforms (and in the case of FIFA it’s FIFA 12 too) but some look very interesting.

If you want a glimpse into an interesting video game future then the Wii U is well worth a look.

The Evils of Solid State Disks

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You’d think that a solid state disk would be more reliable than one which contains tiny moving parts that whizz around in close proximity to each other, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. And with solid state disks you don’t get any warning.

With hard disks I’m quite good at detecting when something is amiss. Files that take a long time to arrive, clicking noises from the box, all give warning of bad stuff to come. But with an SSD they can just fail. And not just one track or sector, but the whole thing at once. At least my SSD went a bit wobbly before it finally expired. It worked fine when cold, and failed when it had warmed up. The good news is that ebuyer sent me direct replacement of the broken disk. The bad news is that the replacement is way too identical to the original. It doesn’t work either. And the ebuyer system seems to come unstuck if you try to return a return.

Ho hum.

Therapeutic Pottering

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I’m definitely getting better. It’s rather strange. I’m perfectly happy to dash around the place, running errands and fetching things, but I have real problems sitting down and doing stuff, especially at a computer. I mentioned that I didn’t feel “normal” last week to the doctor, and he made the perfectly reasonable response “Just what is normal anyway?”. Fair point.

Anyhoo, at the moment I’m just pottering around the house doing bits and bobs and taking every excuse to go out for a walk.

Luminous Rockets and the Lumia 920

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Now, this one impressed me lots. What you can see above is a picture of a rocket that I printed using “glow in the dark” fibre from Faberdashery. I took the picture using my Lumia 920 in pretty much pitch darkness. You can just see the edge of another, non-luminous, rocket on the left of the glowing one.

The picture was taken hand held and I’ve done nothing more to it than a slight crop. Amazing.

Eye and other Tests

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Two for one on Advent calendars. Which would you choose?

Went to the doctor this morning. Everything seems to be coming along fine, which is nice. Thought I’d double up and go for an eye test in the afternoon. Didn’t get the chance to use my optician gags:

Optician: “Tell me, have your eyes ever been checked?”
Me: “No, they’ve always been blue.”

or

Optician: “Can you see the eye chart on the wall over there?”
Me: “What wall?”

Anyhoo, my eyes seem to be around the same as they were last time, which means I am quite a bit up on the day, what with not having to buy any new glasses.

So Much for Solid State Disks

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This is not good news. I fired up my computer (not to do any work, honest) and I saw this screen, among lots of other depressing ones. I think that my super fast SSD has broken itself.  The good news is that this provided a reason for another brisk walk (I’m very good at brisk walks at the moment) up to the Post Office to send the thing back to Expanys. The better news, I suppose, is that I can’t do anything much with my computer at the moment.