The year draws to a close and I can briefly reflect on the changes the year has brought.  At the beginning of the year, I was employed full-time, in a promising relationship and living in a house with plenty of room.  Now, I'm mostly unemployed, single and living in a tinny house.  I'm not going to complain though—There's money in the bank and I've started the long desired process of going back to school and I seem to be doing alright.  But it's certainly a year of great change!
    I had a few options for New Year's parties, but had several requests to host one at the Garage.  So, we rang in the New Year here for the first time in a long time.  Not since New Year's Eve of 2000 have we rung it in at the Garage.
   Wes and Sarah play on the floor in the kitchen.

    What it looks like... a spoon :)

    All my grades were posted on-line today.  The results: I have a 3.583 GPA.  Two A's, a B+ and a B—and I can work with that.
    Last night, I started "reading" (it was an audio book) Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion".  Despite being over 7 hours, I pretty much listened to the whole thing in one sitting—it was just too good to set down.  I had discussed Dawkins with one of my professors once, who stated that Dawkins "doesn't pull his punches".  He certainly doesn't.  In one chapter, Dawkins talks about the very book I was given by the Jehovah Witnesses (and ranted about) and cordially dismembers it's claims about Irreducible Complexity I've printed out the relevant pages and highlighted particularly meaningful sentences.  Together with my previous rants and various other pieces of research, I plan to present this information to the returning Witnesses.  In all probability, the facts I have assembled will have no effect.  Religious faith gives merit to those who believe for the sake of believing, with no proof and even in the face of evidence to the contrary.  However, I think it's important to tear down artificial ideas, such as the claim that science somehow supports creationist myths.  I feel it's important because some otherwise reasonable person might be convinced the creation myth has a solid bases (which I can show it clearly does not) and therefore conclude that if the creation story is correct, so too must be the rest of it (virgin birth, talking burning bushes and the need to kill homosexuals).  While the person who presented me with this book may never change his ways, he will now have to face the reality that his book trying to bridge science and his religion is seriously flawed.  He can either continue trying to convert people without the use of said book and give up on claiming science is on his side, or knowingly lie when he presents the book to someone else as fact when he knows it isn't so.

    The last couple of days I've been concentrating on game theory—in particular, a method called Minimax.  The idea is to turn Squares into a game you really have to work in order to beat.  To start down this path, I wrote a quick Javascript Tic-Tac-Toe.  Then, I started to apply the minimax algorithm.  I haven't finished, but I a good deal completed.
    I observed some rather seasoned video game buffs playing my version of Squares, and I was surprised how well the computer did against them.  And this A.I. system is still fairly weak—I beat it at least half the time.

    I made up two pumpkin pies and decided trying to make real wiped cream.  I bought a pint of heavy whipping cream, dumped it in the mixing bowl and turned the mixer on high.  Sure enough, after a minute or so, the cream started to thicken up.  After adding some sugar and a little vanilla, I ended up with some fine whipped cream—much better then the store bought stuff.

    Dencker

Traveling for the yearly family gathering always makes me remember why I don't own a TV.  While there, I coded this little effect:
   It works using two simple algorithms.  There is a bounce between two points using a cosine curve.  And the two points to bounce between are determined by a rotating circle.