Tag Archives: Python
One of the Substack blogs I follow, A Piece of the Pi by Richard Green, is almost ideal from my point of view because it features articles that interest me but only — at most — a few a month (so I needn’t strain to keep up).
Which matters because keeping up with dozens of science and math blogs, video channels, and occasional papers takes considerable time away from various hobby projects. But sometimes (and this is the third time Mr. Green has done this) something captures my imagination and sends me off on a tangent.
The results often seem worth sharing, and this is no exception. The delight here is that such a simple idea results in a variety of interesting patterns.
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4 Comments | tags: computer generated images, Mary Everest Boole, Python | posted in Computers, Math
A few posts ago I wrote that for “two weeks I’ve indulged in intense 12+ hour days on a self-education project in Python and its Tk module.” The end result of the binge is seven new apps (so far; more to come) and a good starting grasp of how to make some fairly decent windowing apps in Microsoft Windows using out-of-the-box Python.
More concretely, my “tk” project folder has 14 Python files with over 9,000 lines of code (367,000+ characters). That’s what remains. I didn’t save the many false starts, tests, and trials. Suffice to say I probably wrote close to twice as much code.
This post is “Dear Diary” entry for documenting the progress, the fun, and the frustration. It may not be terribly interesting for anyone else, but I learned a lot and (ultimately) really enjoyed the experience. And it’s nice to find out that this ancient dog can still learn new tricks.
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15 Comments | tags: grep, hex dump, POV-Ray, Python, Thanksgiving, tkinter | posted in Computers, Life, Writing
This post begins with a bit of what I see as good news. We’re exactly one month away from Winter Solstice — December 21st at 15:03 UTC. That’s 9:03 AM USA Central Time, and I set posts to publish at 9:14 AM, so by the time you read this, it’s just under a month away.
Cue regular Solstice-Equinox reminder that the day-length changes very slowly at the Solstices and very rapidly at the Equinoxes [cue regular link: Solar Derivative].
Until then, here’s another edition of Friday Notes.
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5 Comments | tags: AI, Bentley, eagle, equinox, Python, snow, Solstice, squirrel, weather | posted in Computers, Friday Notes, Math
Long distance runners talk about “hitting the wall” — the point where their body runs out of resources, making it almost impossible to continue. I hit an intellectual wall late Monday night. Fortunately, I not only finished the race but went an unexpected extra mile. (And now my brain circuits are fried.)
Not an actual race (beyond a vague self-imposed deadline), but a hobby project like one of those ships in a bottle. A painstaking and challenging task in the name of fun and exercise of acquired skill. But no race, no ship, no bottle. This was a software project.
My inner geek rampant, I built a virtual 32-bit CPU (in Python).
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9 Comments | tags: assembly language, CPU, programming, Python, software design, writing software | posted in Computers, Life
Back on Tau Day (which is also my retirement anniversary), I posted about a scene in the superhero comic Invincible that involves a baseball orbiting the Earth at a very close distance (roughly airplane height). Regardless of superhero strengths, I found the scene impossible on multiple counts.
At the time, I could only calculate the velocity of the ball given the circumference of the Earth and some guesses about the length of the presumed orbit. Suffice to say the answers sufficiently demonstrated the impossibility.
Here, I’ll use orbital mechanics for some hard data on putative baseball orbits.
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3 Comments | tags: Invincible, orbital mechanics, planets, Python | posted in Science
The implied image in my last post — of a sea creature returning to the surface — turned out to be more apt than intended. I descended again to finish my project and my burn-out. Spent a few days on the couch reading to recuperate (the library was nagging me about people waiting for books I borrowed and wasn’t reading).
So, let’s try this resurfacing thing again. I have more than books to catch up on. And two posts that should have come before this, but here we are on the penultimate Friday in November.
I have plans next weekend, so it’s Friday Notes now or never (in November).
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9 Comments | tags: 960 months, Joanne Shaw Taylor, Microsoft Windows, POV-Ray, Python, rational numbers, real numbers, Vulcans, words | posted in Friday Notes
Mathematician and educator John Baez has been putting out an excellent series of posts about music theory on his blog. The most recent, the seventh, is about how you can generate scales by picking out piano notes in intervals of fifths. What’s interesting is that you can generate all seven major scale modes in each of the twelve keys (a total of 84 scales).
It’s very cool (and new to me how this works out), and John asked if any of his readers would be interested in creating a table of all 84 rows. That’s exactly the sort of little project that often catches my eye.
A new and different problem to solve!
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25 Comments | tags: John Baez, music theory, Python | posted in Music
Last time I mentioned wanting to write a chess move parser since my earliest days of programming. Hard-core coders often see things in terms of the software behind them. For instance, I sometimes wonder about the software running my microwave oven. Andy Warhol drew our attention to how an artist is behind even a mundane soup can label. Similarly, every computer-driven item in your growing collection of smart tools and toys has a programmer or many behind it.
Dedicated coders also look at problems in terms of the software to solve them. When my (ex-)wife complained about the difficulty of scheduling teachers, rooms, and classes, for the year, I began pondering scheduling software. I think a big part of it is the challenge of solving a double puzzle. First you have to figure out the problem; then you have to figure out the software solution.
And one area that programmers find extremely attractive is games!
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Leave a comment | tags: chess, chess move, chess move parser, games, Mastermind, parser, Pong, Python, recursive descent, recursive descent parser, software | posted in Computers, Sideband
I don’t know if it’s having been in the saddle so long, having all this retirement time, or the magic of Python (perhaps all three), but I’ve made major advances in personal projects that have been on my drawing board for a very long time. One of them, in fact, goes back to my earliest days of programming in late 70s!
It’s certainly true that 35 years of writing computer software teaches you a few tricks. At the very least, you learn all sorts of things not to do! On some level, the computer language doesn’t matter, but a highly expressive language makes some kinds of development not just easier, but actually fun!
And Python! I haven’t laughed with delight over a computer language since Lisp!
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3 Comments | tags: chess, chess move, chess move parser, computer programming, graph theory, maze generator, mazes, programming, Python | posted in Computers, Sideband
November shouldn’t pass with just the one post. I intended a post last Science Fiction Saturday to rave about the new Doctor Who episode (celebrating 50 years of Doctor Who), but the day slipped to Sunday before I got the writing motor started. I’ll rave about it now: it was really, really good! A wonderful, delightful milestone marker and, as always, built on a damn good story.
I’ve not been idle lately! Dedicated post-retirement loafing finally shook the work dust off my shoes, and I’ve gotten back into personal project work. Seriously into it. In the 16-hour sessions, sleep and eating are unwelcome distractions, not knowing what time of day (let alone what day of the week) it is sense of seriously.
And I read some really good vampire novels!
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11 Comments | tags: Amy Heckerling, Berserker series, Bram Stoker, Chelsea Yarbro, computer generated images, computer programming, Count Dracula, Doctor Who, Fred Saberhagen, Johnny Dangerously, POV-Ray, Python, science fiction, vampires | posted in Books, Computers, Movies, Sci-Fi Saturday, TV
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