goeiegenugtig

A friend of mine at work showed us some proof today that Skype is written in Delphi – he somehow got this error while using version 3.8.0.188

Very interesting. .  . thanx Arthur

Skype Error - Delphi ???

I wish I had the cash to buy Lego Mindstorms NXT. It’s programmable Lego, with servo motors, a light sensor, ultrasonic sensor, touch sensor, sound sensor and a 32-bit micro-controller. I can still remember some of the awesome stuff I built using simple blocks and wheels when I a kid, so I can just imagine what one could do with this set! Go to their website and see what amazing stuff people are building with it.

Your creations are programmed with the help of Lego’s version of NI LabView, which is used in the industry to program all different kinds of consumer electronics, although this is a scaled downed version with drag and drop functionality so you basically drag a loop icon instead of programming a loop etc… Another cool thing is that the firmware is open source and there’s tons of API’s out there for almost any language you can think of!

The best price I’ve found so far is at KiddiWinks (based in Rondebosch, Cape Town) for South African shoppers, if you’re interested. But maybe you want to wait for Version 2.0 coming out in October this year?

It’s hard to think what a long way we’ve come as far as computing goes. From Babbage’s Difference Engine, right up to the IBM RoadRunner that currently holds the record as the world’s fastest supercomputer, according to the authority on the top 500 Supercomputers June 2009 list. I was planning to basically just show some photos of the MareNostrum, which is a supercomputer (at one time the world’s 5th fastest), housed in a chapel in Barcelona. It is run by the Barcelona Supercomputer Center and I think it’s beautiful. By the way, Mare Nostrum means “Our Sea” and was used to refer to the Mediterranean, by the Romans, so I have no clue why they would call this computer that.

MareNostrum

What reminded me about it however, was the movie Angels and Demons, a bullshit sensationalist piece of crap. It’s sad that Science and Religion is on opposite sides of the spectrum (unlike the above example), as portrayed in the film, but it doesn’t surprise me, because as far as I’m concerned, religion is the furthest thing that you can find from God and that’s why there’s a divide between science and religion. But even science is not progressive enough – it’s just a stepping stone towards understanding divinity, if something like that is possible at all.

Part of it is getting over the Newtonian way of thinking about things – breaking everything down into their smallest parts and trying to make sense of it through mechanical ways of thinking (read The Turning Point by Fritjof Capra) . Funny enough, by doing this, it was proved that at some point it all breaks down (quantum dynamics), and one has to start thinking more holistically.  Note :  isn’t it funny how Programming also went this route – from procedural, to object orientated (breaking everything up into manageable pieces), to distributed (cloud) computing where the pieces are now getting connected again.

It’s this same tendency that’s responsible for the highest amount of Floating Point Operations (FLOPS) and No, it’s not any single supercomputer that can take the credit for this. The RoadRunner mentioned above’s record is currently at over a trillion (1.105 x 10^15)  or 1.105 Peta Flops per second. Even though this is remarkable, there’s projects out there like the Seti@Home project, which uses distributed computing to decipher radio signals from space in the search for extra terrestrial life and the Folding@Home project (used for protein research) which currently does 7817 x86 Terra Flops per second, so roughly 7.2 PFLOPS ! That’s the power of a holistic approach.

Ironpython is brilliant! If you are interested in Python and the .NET framework, you will love it! To get started, i recommend you get the book IronPython in Action by Michael J Foord and  Christian Muirhead. If you go to this link, you will see that you can actually get 35% discount when buying the book over here. I did this recently and it was one of my pest purchases so far. It might seem a bit confusing at first to get into everything, but it’s really pretty simple. Microsoft hired some guys to work on a flavour of Python, which can use the normal C Python libraries as well as the libraries found in the .Net CLR! To write programs, all you need to get started is the Ironpython compiler found at the IronPython homepage. You can either get the version 2.6 Beta or version 2.01

Besides the .Net Framework, which you can obtain from Microsoft, the above is all you really need, but having a good text editor or Python IDE will help.

Before you do anything else, download one of the above versions of IronPython, and execute the following code by either putting it in a text file, for example “test.py” and running the following from you command line “c:>ipy.exe test.py” or by entering it into the interactive console that you see when you start “ipy.exe”

import clr
clr.AddReference('System.Windows.Forms')
from System.Windows.Forms import  Application, Button, Form

form = Form()
form.Text = "Hello World"

button = Button()
button.Text = "Click Me!"
form.Controls.Add(button)

Application.Run(form)

and there you go – a IronPython program that uses the .Net Framework! If you want, you can use IronPythonStudio to create GUI’s and IronPython Projects, but I haven’t started using that yet, and will probably put up another post, once I have. Oh, and to see what can be done, go to Resolver One and download the trial.

Some cool guy discovered a way to make the accelerometer in the Nokia N95 control a sphere in a cube on Blender, a 3D rendering app via Python and Python script. Watch the video below to see how it’s done and visit his site to tell him if it’s you think it’s as cool as I do.

N95 acceleremoter in Blender from aktathelegend on Vimeo.

Okay, if you want to do this, I’m going to save you some time and give you exact versions that work:

First install Python for S60 on your N95

PythonForS60_1_4_5_3rdEd.sis
PythonScriptShell_1_4_5_3rdEd_unsigned_testrange.SIS -You have to get this signed by going to SymbianSigned and supplying the file, together with your email and IMEI # (get this by pressing *#06# on your Nokia), otherwise the phone will not allow the script to access the sensor data ( i think).

Download and Install:

Blender 2.49

Python 2.5.4

PySerial 2.4

PyWin 2.5

and then the scripts (all credit to the ossum guy who wrote these)

Create a bluetooth connection with your PC and make sure it’s paired.

run the blender95_server.py on your pc – it should say “waiting for N95″

run the Blender95.py script on your nokia

• choose Options
• choose Connect
• choose your PC

It should say connected and when you start moving the phone around, you will see a green ball moving on the screen. At the same time you will see X and Y coordinates scroll down on the server running on your pc.

now run the cube.blend file and start the game by pressing “ALT+P” or by going to “game” and “start” from the menu.

I hope this works for you. I spent my whole Friday evening getting all the requirements and correct versions in order for this to work, but once it did, ahhh, it was bliss.

Hier is ‘n video van ‘n program wat ek geskryf het so paar jaar terug. Dis basies ‘n ascii animation van ‘n tornado. Die user kies die grootte van die tornado en kan dan kyk hoe die tornado oor ‘n veld hardloop en ‘n huisie verwoes.

Dis geskryf in ‘n integrated db environment, genaamd D3 Pick. Dis ‘n ou multi-valued databasis waarmee ek gewerk het vir so paar jaar. Dis alles text based en alles word oor ‘n telnet/ssh session gedoen.  Multi-valued verwys basies na die feit dat meer as een waarde per cell gestoor kan word. Dis nie goeie practice in ‘n relational database nie, maar werk baie goed vir pick. Die source is maklik om te verstaan aangesien dit ‘n soort basic is, en daarom sluit ek dit in, as jy dit dalk wil convert na ‘n ander taal?. Enjoy!

source

Hier is source vir ‘n Django Application wat ek geskryf het vir ‘n potential job as deel van die keuring. Dis glad nie mooi nie en ek het meeste van die 2 dae wat dit my gevat het om te doen, spandeer om die Django Framework en Python taal te leer – die hele VMC (view model controller) methodology. Die app het basiese user authentication (sign op met email address en password) en dan gryp dit die 7 dae weervoorspelling vanaf IOL se weather forecasting site. Wat lekker was, was die regular expressions wat ek moes leer en die min lyne code wat nodig was. As jy wil sien hoe dit werk, sal dit beste wees om Ubuntu/Linux met Apache, mysql en Python 2.6 te he…

weathersite

I thought I’d put up this little utility that I made a few weeks ago. It runs through a list of lotto numbers and tells you if you’ve won anything. I bought a lot of numbers 2 weekends in a row and was too lazy to check them all manually. This program didn’t take me much longer than it would’ve taken to check them myself.

LottoChecker

This is the source for a C Program that we did in first semester Comp Sci. It’s basically  a pathfinder program that works out the shortest route on a map created by a user. It’ called a cellular automaton in the field and engineering students will usually program their Robots’ pics (Microcontrollers) with the algorithm in order to find paths in real life…

Roboton