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The Hard-Core Coder

~ I can't stop writing code!

The Hard-Core Coder

Category Archives: Fun

Interesting projects.

The Eight Queens

23 Sunday Jun 2019

Posted by Wyrd Smythe in CS101, Fun, Python

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

computer code, Python code

There’s a fairly simple puzzle, called The Eight Queens, that I’ve long favored as a project for first semester CS students. The problem is simple enough for a beginner to tackle, yet also interesting enough to be engaging. (And just tricky enough to be a nice beginner challenge.)

Due to a discussion on my other blog, I dug out an old Python implementation I had, and, after looking at it, I thought it might be worth writing a post about. If nothing else, as I said, the problem is interesting enough to be engaging.

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Adventures in Address Vector Space

10 Friday May 2019

Posted by Wyrd Smythe in Fun

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Tags

Python code, vector math, vector space

Lately I’ve been exploring the idea of a vector space with a large number of dimensions (but few degrees of freedom). A model was presented with five degrees of freedom in 500 dimensions (neurons, as it happens).

The question is, given the axes are bit-level, does normal vector manipulation semantics make sense. My contention is it has severe problems.

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Number Games #1

22 Friday Mar 2019

Posted by Wyrd Smythe in Fun

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Collatz conjecture, multiplicative persistence, Python code

This is a companion post to the Math Games #1 post on my main blog.

Here I present some code (Python, of course) for exploring the first two games, multiplicative persistence and the Collatz conjecture.

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So Random!

01 Tuesday Jan 2019

Posted by Wyrd Smythe in Fun, Python

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Python code, random

To ring in the new year I thought I’d play around with an old friend from my earliest programming days, a random text generator. Back then (over 30 years ago), but a little bit always, a good way to practice programming is by working on small, relatively easy, but still fun, programs.

Simple games are common choice, but not the only one. (I’ve probably written a version of Mastermind in every programming language I know.) Another fun choice is various image or text generators (or processors). Random text generators, in particular, offer a range of complexity depending on your taste and time.

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Good Ol’ BASIC

13 Saturday Aug 2016

Posted by Wyrd Smythe in Fun

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Tags

BASIC, free verse, poetry

Here’s a free verse ode to my very first computer programming language, good old BASIC:

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Rare Languages

26 Tuesday Jul 2016

Posted by Wyrd Smythe in Fun

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Tags

Algol, BASIC, C++, computer humor, computer languages, Forth, humor, Lisp, programming language, valley girl

Cleaning out some old boxes of papers, I came across one of those humor bits that circulate in any profession. Back in the day, it was usually by fax. Then it was email, and now Tweets and other social platforms. (The song remains the same.)

This one concerned “rare” (i.e. made up) languages loosely based on existing languages. The humor depends, mostly, on recognizing parodied languages and certain other topical references (like “Valley Girls”).

In other words, a lot of the funny has sailed, but I found parts of it cute enough to record here…

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Blast From the Past #1

19 Tuesday Jul 2016

Posted by Wyrd Smythe in Fun

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Tags

email, old time stuff, SMTP, text file, upload

In the process of cleaning out boxes of old paperwork, I found this company memo, circa early 1980s, that describes a “simpler” way to send email. At the time, email systems were mainframe-based text systems you logged onto and typed at — actually not terribly unlike the web-based email systems today.

The memo reminds me of how it was back then and of how far we’ve come since. Here it is, reproduced as is:

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Python Pi

14 Monday Mar 2016

Posted by Wyrd Smythe in Fun, Python

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Tags

digits of pi, pi, Pi Day, Python code

For Pi Day I published a post on my main blog, Logos Con Carne. Here is the Python code behind the data generated in that post.

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Bits, Bytes, & Chuncs

22 Saturday Aug 2015

Posted by Wyrd Smythe in Fun

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Tags

1990, 24th century, chunc, dchunc, Exabyte, future computers, Gigabyte, Megabyte, Petabyte, qchunc, Star Trek, Terabyte, USENET

What follows is the text of a piece I wrote back May of 1990 in a Star Trek USENET group. There is some minor editing for clarity. Given that 64 bits seems common now, the projections may need some adjustment!

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My Ideal System v.1

27 Saturday Jun 2015

Posted by Wyrd Smythe in Fun, Opinion

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Tags

F/S, file system, O/S, operating system, XML

I got into software in the late 1970s, so my first couple of decades involved lots of low-level systems and designs. My world had a lot of assembly code, interrupt handlers, and driver routines. I can’t say I miss living in that realm, but it’s still fun to revisit sometimes.

A rare place that still happens is when I get to thinking about how I might design an operating system should I ever chose to (these days a dubious and foolish choice, at best).

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The Posts

  • Python String Translate
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Wyrd Smythe

Wyrd Smythe

The canonical fool on the hill watching the sunset and the rotation of the planet and thinking what he imagines are large thoughts.

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