Advancements

Last night I saw The Phantom of the Opera (the movie). It was a great movie--I highly recommend it to anybody. It really made me reflect on myself. The ironic thing is that I never saw Phantom in any form before last night, and yet I knew the story as if I had told it myself. (Well, at least the basic, underlying concepts.) In my imagination, a long time ago, I had created a character (actually several characters) that did many things similar to the Phantom--making grandiose appearances, lurking in the shadows and secret lairs, being very mysterious, threatening, and evil, etc. These character were very similar to the Phantom, except for the mask and costume and general background. The similarities lay in their actions. These characters had many different names. One of them was The Dark Man (more recent than my original villain, who I will not name here).

Well, anyway, I've got an idea for the Chess AI that might work--I'll use one file as a "map"to point out the other files--one of each possible board state. Those files contain the required information for the move (other than the board state).

Um...there's not really anything else to explain...

Just a quick anecdote: as I was leaving the theater last night, I checked to make sure I had everything. My mental checklist sounded somewhat like this: "Wallet--check, notepad and pen--check, left glove--check, right glove--check, hat--check, sanity--(well...checking for that would take much too long...maybe later...besides, if I don't have it now, I probably didn't have it when I came in, anyway)." That's right. Sanity is a sneaky little devil.

Until next time, remember: Be suspicious of all sane people; they are firmly planted in the present, never looking forward, never looking back.

---TDM

Recession

I've done absolutely nothing for the past few days. No Chess work, no writing (well, not much). I've just been playing games and surfing the web.

I got a book on Ruby (programming language) out of the library. Maybe I'll try to learn that. It'll be better if I know many languages.

I really have nothing more to add. Maybe by the next time I post I'll have done something I can tell you about.

Until next time, remember: Doing nothing accomplishes nothing.

---TDM

Victory is Mine!

Okay, I'm back from the prerelease. I had a great build, with an Oyobi, Iwamuri, Keiga, and Disrupting Shoal. I played green, white, and blue, and did well enough to come away with 5 prize packs of Betrayers. I lost only one match. My deck was powerful enough that getting Oyobi out was practically a victory condition in itself.

I know most of you probably don't have experience with Magic, or know the least bit about what I'm talking about, so I'll just leave it at that.

Well, no major progress on the AI problem yet. I haven't really done any work for awhile, though I did do some work on the original novels I had. I'm going to continue working on that for now.

Nothing else...

Until next time, remember: Never try. Accomplish.

---TDM

To Excesses

The main problem I'm facing right now is how to make the AI memory file work. Right now I'm using a single RandomAccessFile to hold all the data, but the data may have varying lengths (in reference to the state of the Board before the move, and games won, lost, stalemated using the move) and if I have to update a move, I might overwrite part of another and corrupt the file.

If I use Object Input and Output, the entire file will be rewritten after every game, and that may become extremely time-consuming when the AI gets experienced.

Alternately, I could do separate files: one for each player, or one for each possible state of the Board (which would be a lot of files). But then the same questions arise... Or: I make a different folder for each possible move (of each possible board state), and they contain the numerical data which I don't have to worry about (ints are always 32-bit). What should I do?

Until next time, remember: Answers exist, even to the unanswerable questions.

---TDM

The Solution

I think I've found the problem with the AI: somehow it thinks that its pieces don't belong to it (or they really don't!). I'm not sure why, but I believe it's because of some places that check for players specifically. Since the AI variable is different from the Players, I need to rewrite some areas to include the AI objects.

...And that's it, really. See ya later.

Until next time, remember: wrong= not right. not right=left. Therefore left=wrong? Therefore you should only make right turns onto streets you don't know.

---TDM

Specially Revised!

I finished the AI enough for testing. I remember reading somewhere, somebody was looking forward to the day when a human Chess player would make his/her first move, and the computer he was playing against would calculate furiously, and finally print "I resign."

Well, I got that. I move my King's Pawn one space forward, and immediately I get a message that "Black has resigned." Except in this case, the AI is incorrectly judging that all its moves are illegal. (My debugging code set up so far reveals that (2,-1) is "not on Board"). I'm looking into the problem now.

And I relaunched my site onto Angelfire, and now it is possible to download the songs I wrote on Punk-o-Matic. However, each song is about 1.83 megabytes, and I'm only allowed 20 MB of storage, so I can only have 10 songs on there at a time. Eventually, I'll start looking again for another provider so that I can post more. You can reach my site by clicking the link at the top of the page.

And that's all the news for this update!

Until next time, remember: Change is a good thing, except when it's bad.

---TDM

Workmanship

Well, my Internet service went down on Friday, so I was cut off from the rest of the world for the weekend. Luckily they fixed it so I can surf and post again.

There was one good thing about it, though. I was able to get much work done on Chess, since I didn't have the Net to distract me from my work. I still have more to do, but it's moving along now. I should work on that today, too.

I finished as much as I could on that short story, but I'm still not satisfied with it. It still needs more work to balance it out, and that'll be just the first draft. I'll set it aside and return to something else. I've got more ideas, but I know I should finish one of them first. (I've a running total of 11 ideas/possible novels--and that's not counting the short story!)

And Betrayers prerelease is on Saturday. I think I already told you that.

So until next time, remember: The man who journeys seeks the end, while the man who has found the end seeks the journey.

---TDM

All that Is is Not

The week passes by so slowly...

I still haven't come up with any good ideas for my skit...

The only thing I'm actually getting done is the writing of my short story. And even that...is a long way from finished.

Chess is not a priority at this point. Perhaps when more time is available, I could work on it.

In other news, Betrayers prerelease is coming up next week. If you happen to be going to the same one as I am (but I won't tell you for security purposes), then I might see you there.

I finished reading Timeline by Michael Crichton a few days ago, and it was really cool. But the ending made me shiver a bit, because it's kinda sad. Nowhere near as sad as Stephen King's short story "The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet" (which can be found in Skeleton Crew), though.

So...

Until next time, remember: The reciprocal of 0 is infinity, and the reciprocal of infinity is 0.

---TDM

Ingenuity?

Well, nix on the short story thing...my teacher says I can't do that...I have to do something original. I'll just have to figure something else out...

And I have an essay to write for Wednesday (I don't have any time tomorrow to do it), called "How to Procrastinate". Guess I gotta get moving on it.

And the short story itself? I'll get around to that later.

Until next time, remember: Don't do today what you can put off till tomorrow.

---TDM

A New Story

This morning I woke up with a great idea for a short story, but it was about 6:30, so I wanted to go back to sleep. I was afraid I'd forget the idea, but if I got up to write it I knew I wouldn't be able to go back to sleep.

I lay in bed for a while, thinking about the story, and since I wasn't going to sleep, I sat up (it was about 6:50 at that point), and I began writing it. I finished it at about 9:00.

I've still got some editing to do on it before I can submit it for publication somewhere (maybe I'll have it copyrighted first...), but still...I actually finished something!

I like it so much that maybe I'll translate it to Italian and read it for my skit. The only problem is the names in the story. Some of them are the same as people in my class, and I might feel uncomfortable saying those names. (I'm afraid they might think that I'm talking about them.) I suppose if I don't get a clear answer anytime soon, I'll just have to flip a coin.

I did get some work done on the Chess AI, but it's a long way from finished. At least it's in motion.

Well, that's all for now.

Until next time, May your goals be within reach.

---TDM

Better Left Unsaid

Hello again! Well, we've made it through another week in mostly one piece. I have to do a skit for Italian (in Italian, obviously), and it seems that I'll be working alone again. I've been racking my brain for ideas, and the few I've come up so far that have a single role don't really pan out well (I can't come up with a good ending).

The only good idea I've had so far--to do the Parrot Sketch from Monty Python in Italian--requires two people, besides the fact that I didn't write it.

I had hoped to do something serious, but I can't think of anything! I may have to go with comedy, but the problem is that I'm the most advanced student in my class (probably my grade, but I don't want to brag that much), and it's likely that most of the humor will be lost on them.

I tried writing out one of my ideas--it turned into an idea for a novel. (I may even be able to work it into the one I'm currently working on...)

I think I should stick to Java and writing novels. One-man skits...not good.

So far I think the writing's going really well. Whenever I start a section, I just write. The ideas come as I write, or before, and it just flows onto the paper.

Sometimes it works here, too.

Have a nice weekend, everybody.

Until next time, remember: What you put into your writing is what the readers will get out of it.

---TDM

Greatness

Completely bored today.

Maybe I should work more on the Chess AI, but the games call to me...Some other time, then.

...Not really anything else that's new.

Until next time, remember:

---TDM