blog
NMU
4/01/2007
Saturday was Nothern Michigan University's Annual Invitational Programming Contest. I went for the first time and I have to say it was a lot of fun. A member of my team got sick and couldn't come so I ended up joining two of my friends who also were down a member. I think we did pretty well for it being the first time any of us had done something like this.
There were six problems to solve in five hours using one laptop and three group members. Basically, the group just makes a solution on the computer and then calls for a 'runner' in the hallway and gives them the files for the judge to test. Eventually, someone returns and gives you a piece of paper telling you if you got it right, if there were presentation errors, or if it was just incorrect all together. Each wrong submission added 20 minutes on to your final total time.
The teams at the end are ranked by how many problems they solved and then by how long it took them to solve each problem (in minutes) added together. No one solved two of the six problems which were very difficult to do in a short period of time. We ended up solving four and coming in 7th place / 24 overall because our time was longer than the six in front of us.
Check out the results here. I'm on the 7th place team, "Word Up". Michigan Tech won the overall school competition though.
I'll definitely do it again next year if I have the opportunity. It's a lot of fun.
The Cubs first game is tomorrow. I'm planning on bringing my laptop to school so I can watch part of the game between my classes. This season looks like it will be pretty good for the Cubs. I hope Prior figures out what's wrong with his pitching and is able to take the place of one of the starters that they are currently using. I'm not sure the two free agent pitchers they signed are as good as they are being paid.
There were six problems to solve in five hours using one laptop and three group members. Basically, the group just makes a solution on the computer and then calls for a 'runner' in the hallway and gives them the files for the judge to test. Eventually, someone returns and gives you a piece of paper telling you if you got it right, if there were presentation errors, or if it was just incorrect all together. Each wrong submission added 20 minutes on to your final total time.
The teams at the end are ranked by how many problems they solved and then by how long it took them to solve each problem (in minutes) added together. No one solved two of the six problems which were very difficult to do in a short period of time. We ended up solving four and coming in 7th place / 24 overall because our time was longer than the six in front of us.
Check out the results here. I'm on the 7th place team, "Word Up". Michigan Tech won the overall school competition though.
I'll definitely do it again next year if I have the opportunity. It's a lot of fun.
The Cubs first game is tomorrow. I'm planning on bringing my laptop to school so I can watch part of the game between my classes. This season looks like it will be pretty good for the Cubs. I hope Prior figures out what's wrong with his pitching and is able to take the place of one of the starters that they are currently using. I'm not sure the two free agent pitchers they signed are as good as they are being paid.
Labels: cubs, mtu, nmu, programming
Posting finally
10/22/2006
So I decided I should finally post on here again. Really there hasn't been much to post about. It's been kind of cold out lately so I haven't done any Geocaching or anything like that or explored any strange places. I should have done more of that during the summer I guess.
I did buy seasons 1 and 2 of The Office though, since I got some Best Buy gift certificates for using our reward zone card when I bought my TV a while ago. I figured it was a good excuse to buy The Office. Season 2 is really good. After watching all the episodes it makes the newer ones a lot better since you pick up on things you didn't know about before that are really jokes from past episodes.
I've been playing around with my older computer that I have here by using it as a server development environment for some php development I've been doing. I really don't know php so when I do things wrong I don't really want it to be on someone else's server but mine instead, so it's easier to tell what is happening. It's pretty useful too because I don't need to upload the files anywhere. Ubuntu is really great, I really love how they are pretty much the only distribution that realizes they need to make everything easy for people.
We saw The Prestige at the theater on Friday. It was actually pretty good. The movie has a few things you have to think about and I won't say what they are, but it will definitely keep you wondering during the movie. This weekend was mostly movie filled as well. I saw about half of War of the Worlds and then Batman Begins and part of The Island today. Mostly I like watching the movies on the HD stations, it looks really good. Since the Vikings were playing at a different time than the Packers this week I actually got to watch it on TV. I don't know if I mentioned this before or not, but football in HD is WAY better than standard definition. You think that the announcers are full of crap when they tell you that all the time but they aren't. After seeing games in HD it's almost hard to watch them when they aren't.
I did buy seasons 1 and 2 of The Office though, since I got some Best Buy gift certificates for using our reward zone card when I bought my TV a while ago. I figured it was a good excuse to buy The Office. Season 2 is really good. After watching all the episodes it makes the newer ones a lot better since you pick up on things you didn't know about before that are really jokes from past episodes.
I've been playing around with my older computer that I have here by using it as a server development environment for some php development I've been doing. I really don't know php so when I do things wrong I don't really want it to be on someone else's server but mine instead, so it's easier to tell what is happening. It's pretty useful too because I don't need to upload the files anywhere. Ubuntu is really great, I really love how they are pretty much the only distribution that realizes they need to make everything easy for people.
We saw The Prestige at the theater on Friday. It was actually pretty good. The movie has a few things you have to think about and I won't say what they are, but it will definitely keep you wondering during the movie. This weekend was mostly movie filled as well. I saw about half of War of the Worlds and then Batman Begins and part of The Island today. Mostly I like watching the movies on the HD stations, it looks really good. Since the Vikings were playing at a different time than the Packers this week I actually got to watch it on TV. I don't know if I mentioned this before or not, but football in HD is WAY better than standard definition. You think that the announcers are full of crap when they tell you that all the time but they aren't. After seeing games in HD it's almost hard to watch them when they aren't.
Labels: high definition, movies, php, programming, the office
Over and over
10/11/2006
It's been a while since my last post. You'd think I'd have a lot to post about but I don't really. I went home to Green Bay this past weekend so I could pick up a few things and got to see Jackie, Chad, and Ryan who were all home for the weekend as well. That was pretty nice, since I never get to see anyone anymore.
Yahoo is making a digital time capsule that they are planning to beam into space in about a month. It's an interesting idea. If you want to be floating around in space, you can contribute items to it on that website.
It's supposed to snow in Houghton tomorrow and Thursday. The weather service even says it will accumlate. Pretty crazy, I wish I was there. Rochester is only going to get flurries on Thursday, according to ForecastFox. The weather is strange here, it will be perfect out and then all of a sudden start pouring out or hailing. So we'll see what happens.
I bought a book on AJAX programming yesterday so I could learn how to do all these fancy tricks that modern websites are using. I'm actually trying to read the book from cover to cover, since I really don't know anything about the technologies that AJAX uses (Javascript, CSS, DOM). It's actually a decent read, even if it is 600 pages. Maybe I'll make some improvements on this site after I read it. I have some ideas of stuff to make with AJAX too, so hopefully this book helps me out with that.
Yahoo is making a digital time capsule that they are planning to beam into space in about a month. It's an interesting idea. If you want to be floating around in space, you can contribute items to it on that website.
It's supposed to snow in Houghton tomorrow and Thursday. The weather service even says it will accumlate. Pretty crazy, I wish I was there. Rochester is only going to get flurries on Thursday, according to ForecastFox. The weather is strange here, it will be perfect out and then all of a sudden start pouring out or hailing. So we'll see what happens.
I bought a book on AJAX programming yesterday so I could learn how to do all these fancy tricks that modern websites are using. I'm actually trying to read the book from cover to cover, since I really don't know anything about the technologies that AJAX uses (Javascript, CSS, DOM). It's actually a decent read, even if it is 600 pages. Maybe I'll make some improvements on this site after I read it. I have some ideas of stuff to make with AJAX too, so hopefully this book helps me out with that.
Labels: AJAX, friends, green bay, programming, snow