If you want to log in multiple times on KGS

The new CGoban 3 is a java web start application. java web start doesn't seem to allow you to start multiple copies of the same application (for cgoban at least). Anyway, for those that have multiple accounts that want to log in multiple times simultaneously, you might have thought all is lost and that you'll have to settle with the applet on the web... however, there is a way!

Yes folks and it's got to do with the fact that if you click close (with the little x at the top right) of the main window (the window with the 6 large buttons), it doesn't close the entire application. java web start doesn't seem to recognize that the application is still running (or perhaps this is a backdoor that wms coded in for us), and when you start a new cgoban, you'll have that main window again, this time with the log in button enabled! Yay!

Note: If you click on quit with the main window, it will close everything, all current children and orphan windows.

Note to wms: Even if this was unintented, please keep it as it is! It sucks having to log in through the applet.


Now if only there was a way to easily copy buddy lists and fan lists between accounts...

Things work!

Don't you love it when things just work? Well, I admit I had to spend a good hour debugging some stupid thing, but pretty much everything I've done works.

Going to optimize a few things then I just have to answer a few questions and I'll be done the first assignment! Giving me 2 full days of rest to work on other assignments... yay

I saw a few hello world's still, so maybe I'm not so far behind everyone. I doubt they'll stay enrolled much longer though. They probably won't finish it by Tuesday. That is of course unless they simply named their finished assignments as hello world, in an attempt to trick others into thinking they're making good time compared to them...

I might drop by a Go club meeting next week. I don't know though... last time was pretty bad and this time it's not even going to be an official club meeting.

Real-Time Programming

In the computer science faculty at the university of Waterloo, CS452 is commonly known as "the train course" because we move around trains and stuff.

I'm now just doing the first 'introductory' assignment... Boy is it hard. Having to time everything so everything runs smoothly is a real pain, and I am really grateful of operating systems that manage this kind of stuff.

Yesterday the substitute prof who taught this a couple years back said that one of the later assignments, having to deal with tracking the trains (with the limited number of sensors we have) is the most difficult assignment in all of our university career. (nondeterministic and all that..)

This course is probably by far the toughest undergrad CS course that you can take at UW. I have no idea why I'm taking 2 other CS project courses this term as well...

Anyway, been working on this for the whole night and the couple nights before that and I think one more night before that... so yeah my mind needed a little break and I thought I'd write an entry. Seems like everyone else is way ahead though, which begs the question, "How many hours do they have in a day? 40?"

So far, I've concentrated on UI mostly. Input and output stuff, efficiently displaying stuff on the WYSE terminal and everything. I probably focused a little too much on this area, because it's not really an area with a big constraint in terms of meeting the service times. I haven't tested anything in a while, written like 2000 lines of code since the last testing... Just crossing my fingers and hoping it will work when I get to the lab in a couple hours.

p.s. kgs3 is pretty nice. it's too bad wms is starting his full-time job. would have liked to see a few more major features added, since he claims it should be easier to add new features. i won't go as far as to wishing for him to get fired, but i hope he gets some free time to work on it soon :)

Couple funnies

Been a long time again. No long story, just a quickie.

A couple more quotes from KGS:

Starless [1d]: Donnie: too much territory eh?
Donnie [4d]: I am territorist.
touchmenot [13k]: the captain is an active participant in the war on territory

snowynight: chuyangele??
snowynight: is that your name?
chuyangele [10k]: it's my name with extention
snowynight: my name's chuayng lol
snowynight: *chuyang
chuyangele [10k]: lol
chuyangele [10k]: same
snowynight: what's ur last name?
chuyangele [10k]: Chu
snowynight: o nvm lol
chuyangele [10k]: lol
snowynight: Chu Yang, first name
Mramahi1 [8k?]: what? making sure your not the same person?

Profs are nice people

I don't interact with them much, so I never knew. They actually do deserve all that money.

I realized it just this week when one of my profs returned my assignment. Usually TAs do all the marking so I always thought profs are lazy bums who do nothing for their students.

He marked this assignment personally and went beyond my expectations. The course is User Interfaces and the assignment was to make a playable side scrolling game. One of the requirements was to fill out a self evaluation and some kind of readme.txt detailing some extra features you did for the game. I had designed this game in my mind for the longest time, trying to come up with a bunch of ways to make it more fun and interesting for the player, but I never got around to implementing it fully. I got the base of most of the code but never got around to enabling all those little things that was left untested before it was due.

In the end, I didn't even mention them in the readme text file. I thought all that effort would go to waste, but I didn't feel I deserved to get any marks for things that were half finished. I thought the marker would just simply play out the compiled game and read the readme and look for the mentioned features.

It turns out that the prof actually took a look into my code and saw all the little things that weren't even enabled. He liked my design and gave me full credit for them. It's unreal because I didn't even document them and those parts of the code were messy. He just saw it and realized what it was supposed to do. I imagine he and his TA did that for all the 120+ assignments which is simply just incredible. I never expected that. In the end I got 92/90, which is pretty good I think.

Maybe this prof is just special. Unlike most other profs, his lectures (most of which I don't have time to attend) are very enjoyable and he's got a great sense of humour. In any case, I have a whole new respect for all the profs out there.

6th day of the 6th month of the 6th year

Even if we're shown the end and a clear path to get there, as humans we will clumsily trip again and again and never reach it.

It's not a special day and nothing will happen you freaks.

p.s. posting time is purely coincidental.

Oro kyu players are weak

Very weak compared to their KGS counterparts. I hear their dan players are stronger though. I wonder where the cutoff is.

A 5k didn't know how to defend his 4-4 against 6-3, 8-3, 3-3... twice.

Maybe I'll post a game or two... if I ever feel like replaying the games to save to sgf.