You know you’re a geek when…

• You know Esperanto or Lojban.
• You type in Dvorak (or even geekier, Colemak (or even geekier, QGMLWY)).
• You prefer the Dymaxion projection for maps.
• You prefer writing integers in base 16 even when not dealing with bitwise operations.
• You know what Malbolge is.
• You are on Github more than you are on Facebook.
• You use Vim because it’s so much easier than a different text editor.
• You prefer TeX over Word.
• When saying “What’s Up”, you reply that up is a relative direction.
• You hate Finder; “cd” and “ls” are all you need.
• You find yourself saying “sudo” when things don’t go your way.
• Mac < Windows < Ubuntu < Arch Linux

Things missing? I’m sure there are a lot. Comment below!

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I’m pretty proud of this code, seeing that I just learned the basics of linear algebra and vector math yesterday.

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    /**
     * Checks for a collision between two line segments.
     * RoyAwesome says rays are line segments.
     *
     *  Perhaps Roy needs to brush up on geometry then
     *
     * Code based on http://www.bryceboe.com/2006/10/23/line-segment-intersection-algorithm/
     *
     * @param a
     * @param b
     * @return
     */
    public static boolean checkCollision(Segment a, Segment b) {
        return (ccw(a.origin, b.origin, b.endpoint) != ccw(a.endpoint, b.origin, b.endpoint))
            && (ccw(b.origin, a.origin, a.endpoint) != ccw(b.endpoint, a.origin, a.endpoint));
    }
 
    /**
     * Checks if 3 points are counterclockwise.
     * (A helper for a helper method)
     * @param a
     * @param b
     * @param c
     * @return
     */
    private static boolean ccw(Vector3 a, Vector3 b, Vector3 c) {
        //This is Java lisp
        return (c.getY() - a.getY()) * (b.getX() - a.getX())
            < (b.getY() - a.getY()) * (c.getX() - a.getX())
            || (c.getY() - a.getY()) * (b.getZ() - a.getZ())
            < ((b.getY() - a.getY()) * (c.getZ() - a.getZ()));
 
    }

	/**
	 * Checks for a collision between two line segments.
	 * RoyAwesome says rays are line segments.
	 *
	 *  Perhaps Roy needs to brush up on geometry then
	 *
	 * Code based on http://www.bryceboe.com/2006/10/23/line-segment-intersection-algorithm/
	 *
	 * @param a
	 * @param b
	 * @return
	 */
	public static boolean checkCollision(Segment a, Segment b) {
		return (ccw(a.origin, b.origin, b.endpoint) != ccw(a.endpoint, b.origin, b.endpoint))
			&& (ccw(b.origin, a.origin, a.endpoint) != ccw(b.endpoint, a.origin, a.endpoint));
	}

	/**
	 * Checks if 3 points are counterclockwise.
	 * (A helper for a helper method)
	 * @param a
	 * @param b
	 * @param c
	 * @return
	 */
	private static boolean ccw(Vector3 a, Vector3 b, Vector3 c) {
		//This is Java lisp
		return (c.getY() - a.getY()) * (b.getX() - a.getX())
			< (b.getY() - a.getY()) * (c.getX() - a.getX())
			|| (c.getY() - a.getY()) * (b.getZ() - a.getZ())
			< ((b.getY() - a.getY()) * (c.getZ() - a.getZ()));

	}

As it says in the comments, I borrowed the original idea from this guy.

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Writing readable code is something you don’t really see. After all, it’s code. Take HTML for example. Lots of strange tags to remember, formatting, and lots of trial and error. HTML/XML isn’t really the most readable thing.
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Read the rest of Writing Readable Code (242 words)

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Recently, I have joined the development team of Citizens, a widely-used server mod for Minecraft. The code for Citizens is open-source, meaning that anyone can view it, fork it, modify it, or even make money off of it. From a business standpoint, I am working for free. Why would I do this?

First off, open source code gets you followers. Future employers, other colleagues, etc. will recognize how good you are at coding by how widely distributed your code is. It shows your ability to work in a team, use Maven, etc. It’s like doing community service. No — it is community service. Doing this shows dedication.

Second, writing open source code augments my skills. I’m learning how to work with others and use the tools of the trade to make everything. I’m learning deprecation and other things you wouldn’t learn from a private project. It’s like an internship, except you’re recognized for your work.

Lastly, I use the code. Linux isn’t written by unpaid people who just have a hobby. Linux is written mostly by companies like Novell, Red Hat, IBM, and even Oracle. Other people are helping me write my code in exchange for me sharing my code. It’s a win-win situation.

Open source software isn’t about doing free work. It’s about giving back to the community

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In the 19th century, Ada Lovelace, the world’s first programmer, stated that computers, while they could do a lot, could never become creative. Computers, after all, were just algorithms. But today, computers have become so powerful that it seems almost inevitable that computers will become creative. In the movies, we see AI building new robots and creating better programs. But is this all just science fiction? Could we make a computer act like a human brain, creative and all?
(...)
Read the rest of On the Potential of Computational Creativity (433 words)

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Post tags: ai, artificial-intelligence, computational-creativity, nlp

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While children are the elements of the next generation of a tree, leaves are at the very end of the tree nodes. Compare it to an analogy of an oak tree. The points where the branches come off are the children, but the leaves are the individual leaves on the tree.

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Post tags: data structures, nlp, terminology, tree

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In English class, we have an assignment to memorize a bit of a Shakespeare play. I, bored, wrote up a simple program in about an hour to test you on how well you know the individual lines of a text file. If you don’t specify a file, it defaults to the first part of the famous St. Crispen’s day speech in Henry V. Here’s a link to the Bitbucket project: https://bitbucket.org/simplyianm/cordelia. You can download cordelia-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT at that site. The program is  contained within a zip file. For Windows users, double click the run.bat file. For Mac users, it’s a little trickier — navigate to the directory where the unzipped files are in Terminal and type in “sh run.sh”. For Linux, run the sh file. (I haven’t used Linux in a while so I don’t know the exact process)

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Post tags: bitbucket, programs, tools

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At times, the authority of a group of people becomes displaced due to discontent among the populace.  When this vital authority is removed, another one must take its place in governing the body.  George Orwell and William Golding both illustrate different outcomes of such a situation in their novels Animal Farm and Lord of the Flies respectively.  In both stories, a stable government is replaced by a volatile, even hostile environment.  These books share the same concept in that a new government can easily appear to be better than the former one, when in reality it could be much worse.
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Read the rest of A Comparison of Animal Farm and Lord of the Flies (628 words)

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Post tags: animal farm, comparison, golding, homework, lord of the flies, orwell, paper, summary, william, willian

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The fresco “School of Athens” by the painter Raphael is regarded by many as one of the greatest masterpieces of art man has ever created. It represents the spirit of the Renaissance in a thought-provoking way. The work reflects how humanism and the love of man has penetrated the Christ-loving Middle Ages and the separation between reason and faith, religion and science.
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Read the rest of The School of Athens: A Representation of the Renaissance in the Form of Art (406 words)

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Post tags: antiquity, art, athens, greece, renaissance, represents, School, school of athens, spirit

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