Archive for the 'misc' Category
KITT For Sale
AJ Jorge April 6th, 2007
The car that was used in the cult classic TV show Knight Rider is up for grabs.
The Pontiac Trans Am is one of only four “camera cars” used for close-up shots with David Hasselhoff. KITT, which stands for Knight Industries Two Thousand, can talk, fly, fire smoke bombs, launch a flame-thrower and hit speeds of 300mph. Sadly all of these are not inherent to the car itself. The car is not even street legal. So anyone who buys the car will just store it in his garage or some museum of sorts.
Don’t fret, its famous red scanner light on the nose still glows and it still makes that famous humming noise. Hmmm… I bet KITT is the first incarnation of those cylons (Battlestar Galactica speak here).
The price tag of this baby is a whopping $149,995. Would you buy it or would you like to see some other Rolls Royce dealers? Michael Knight will love you if you buy his KITT. He may even give you a kiss.
Smartass Encarta MSN bot
AJ Jorge June 6th, 2006
I found a story on Digg which tells about a smartass bot. Bot defined by Wikipedia “interacts with other network services intended for people as if it were a real person.” The comments were hilarious so I figured I try it out my self.
I added encarta@conversagent.com in my friends list in my MSN client. Then I typed away some questions. Read on:
AJ says:
asl
Encarta? Instant Answers says:
11 months, 15 days, 18 hours, 45 minutes and 14 seconds… Androgynous… Sunnyvale, CA.
AJ says:
I wanna pee.
Encarta? Instant Answers says:
Why do you want to pee? I think you’re up to no good.OK, should we get back to the kind of questions I was designed to answer? What is the smallest country in the world? If you don’t know, just ask me!
Continue Reading »
NBA Finals 2006
AJ Jorge June 5th, 2006
Two first timers will meet in the NBA Finals.
Heat vs Mavericks for the last NBA bout. Both teams playing their first NBA Finals in their entire existence in the NBA.
I’d pick Miami Heat to win the series but my heart goes out to Dirk Nowitzki. O’neal and Wade combo cannot be matched by Dirk’s crew. This will be an exciting series. Sayang, sana asa Dallas pa rin si Nash.
Sudoku.
penny May 29th, 2006
Funny how when you think you have no time to spare, you suddenly have a flu attack and you have all the time in the world.
Since I have time, and online, I should at least post right? 
Okay, so what to talk about. I came across an old Nippon puzzle that I’ve kinda been addicted to the past 3 months. Ever heard of Sudoku? I saw it online sometime ago, and I saw it on Papa’s Tungsten some time back. I never got a chance to load it on my Zire before it broke down. Ramble Babble blabber… Hope you’re ready for another geeky post. Here it comes.
Sudoku is a number puzzle. It consists of a square (n by n) grid, where each cell of the grid has either is blank or has a preassigned natural number. The objective is to fill up the entire square grid with the appropriate natural numbers, so that each row, column and square subgrid contains all numbers 1 to n with no repetitions.
So, it should be clear that rows, columns and subgrids must have the same number of cells. Sudoku grids must then have a certain size. For example, it cannot be 5 by 5. Why not? A 5 by 5 grid must have 25 cells. Yes it would have 5 cells in each row and 5 cells in each column, but there can be no square subgrid with 5 cells.
It can be 4 by 4, however. And why is this? A 4 by 4 grid will have 16 cells. Each row will have 4 cells and each column also will have 4 cells. Four 2 by 2 subgrids can be formed, each with 4 cells.
The SUDOKU puzzles I bought from the local bookstore are 9 by 9. There are about a hundred puzzles in each booklet and there are 4 booklets in all. (I bought two copies each. Gave away three of them). So far, in the two 2-hour occasions I’ve opened Puzzle Book 1 I’ve finished about 11 puzzles. I guess this is the standard-sized puzzle.
It’s all a test of patience really. If one is persistent enough there is always a solution to a valid sudoku puzzle. In fact, there are often several solutions. In the booklets I bought I’ve come across 3 or 4 which has alternate solutions. Of course the booklet only shows one possibility.
To the math peeps: The sudoku can be written as an integer linear program. And the fastest solver can use minimal “conflict scheduling”, a heuristic approach. I’m sure someone out there already wrote a code to solve any valid sudoku puzzle in mere seconds.
I did some online versions of sudoku in the past, so I’m sure there are a lot of websites to find on the subject. I remember one time stumbling on a sudoku cube. I forget how that works. I’ll have to look that up another time.
Need more sleep…
Primitiv-o sans Palm
penny May 18th, 2006
I miss my Zire72 but after being free of it for a few months I’ve forgotten how simple life is What I regret most is not getting to read eBooks during travel. I’ve supplemented that now with Sudoku puzzles. When I get tired of ‘em I’d be best going back to basics reading paperbacks. Which isn’t a bad thing since I love paper after all.
Plus, I have several notebooks and tablets that I have yet to use, and I’m loving the fact that I have to carry a real pen, and not a pseudo-stylus pen, around again to jot down notes.
I got one of those music player thingies, one just like Ajay’s, only nicer hehe. He says it’s nicer. I think it’s just nice.
Obvious ba na busy kami?
AJ Jorge April 26th, 2006
It’s been a week since the last entry. With all the work that needs to be done, blogging has been put on hold for a while.
Is it just me or that Jie’s condition is spreading. There were several highlights during the weeklong absence. Problem with not blogging immediately is that you tend to forget all of them the moment another bloggable idea comes around.
Let’s see: (think of each item as a separate entry and it’s just we are too tired to blog about them. hehe)
- Maan was here for a visit. Met her soon-to-be-husband.
- I was at Laiya, Batangas for our company outing. Hard drinks were abundant even if it was memo’ed that no alcoholic drinks are allowed.
- Pen and her colleagues are conducting a seminar in La Salle.
- Been copying TV series and watching them – MacGyver, Firefly, 24, InitialD, House, Rome, Chicago Bulls Dynasty, CSI, Friends, Justice League, etc.
- Playing PS2 (as posted in the previous entry).
- Our TV got busted. Yeah, yeah, the two items above are put on hold too.
- Watched two documentaries last holy week. Ironically, they were The Lost Gospel of Judas and The Origins of Da Vinci Code. Talk about keeping the faith.
I think that pretty much summarized the absence. I’ll try harder to update this blog as daily as possible.
Thanks for reading.
