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  • Implementing a scrabble trainer

    - by bstullkid
    Hello, I've recently been playing alot of online scrabble so I decided to make a program that quickly searches through a dictionary of 200,000+ words with an input of up to any 26 letters. My first attempt was fail as it took a while when you input 8 or more letters (just a basic look through dictionary and cancel out a letter if its found kind of thing), so I made a tree like structure containing only an array of 26 of the same structure and a flag to indicate the end of a word, doing that It can output all possible words in under a second even with an input of 26 characters. But it seems that when I input 12 or more letters with some of the same characters repeated i get duplicates; can anyone see why I would be getting duplicates with this code? (ill post my program at the bottom) Also, the next step once the duplicates are weeded out is to actually be able to input the letters on the game board and then have it calculate the best word you can make on a given board. I am having trouble trying to figure out a good algorithm that can analyze a scrabble board and an input of letters and output a result; the possible words that could be made I have no problem with but actually checking a board efficiently (ie can this word fit here, or here etc... without creating a non dictionary word in the process on some other string of letters) Anyone have a idea for an approach at that? (given a scrabble board, and an input of 7 letters, find all possible valid words or word sets that you can make) lol crap i forgot to email myself the code from my other computer thats in another state... ill post it on monday when I get back there! btw the dictionary im using is sowpods (http://www.calvin.edu/~rpruim/scrabble/ospd3.txt)

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  • Why are my USB 2.0 devices crashing Windows XP?

    - by BenAlabaster
    Background on the machine I'm having a problem with: The machine was inherited and appears to be circa 2003 (there's a date stamp on the power supply which leads me to this conclusion). I've got it set up as a Skype terminal for my 2 year old to keep in touch with her grandparents and other members of the family - which everyone loves. It has a generic ATX motherboard with no identifying markings other than one stamp that says "Rev.B". CPU-Z identifies the motherboard model as VT8601 but doesn't provide me with any manufacturer name. On board it has 1 x 10/100 LAN, 2 x USB 1.0, VGA, PS/2 for KB and mouse, parallel port, 2 x serial ports, 2 x IDE, 1 x floppy, 2 x SDRAM slots, 1 x CPU housing that is seating a 1.3GHz Intel Celeron CPU, 3 x PCI, 1 x AGP - although you can only use 2 of the PCI slots if you use the AGP slot due to the physical layout of the board. It's got 768Mb PC133 SDRAM - 1 x 512Mb & 1 x 256Mb installed as well as a D-LINK WDA-2320 54G Wi-Fi network card and a generic USB 2.0 expansion board containing 3 x external + 1 x internal USB connectors. It has a DVD+/-RW running as master on IDE1 and a 1.44Mb 3.5" floppy drive connected to the floppy connector. It has an 80Gb Western Digital hard drive running as master on IDE0. All this is sitting in a slimline case. I don't know the wattage of the PSU, but can post this later if this proves to be helpful. The motherboard is running a version of Award BIOS for which I don't have the version number to hand but can again post this later if it would be helpful. The hard disk is freshly formatted and built with Windows XP Professional/Service Pack 3 and is up to date with all current patches. In addition to Windows XP, the only other software it's running is Skype 4.1 (4.2 hangs the whole machine as soon as it starts up, requiring a hard boot to recover). It's got a Daytek MV150 15" touch screen hooked up to the on board VGA and COM1 sockets with the most current drivers from the Daytek website and the most current version of ELO-Touchsystems drivers for the touch component. The webcam is a Logitech Webcam C200 with the latest drivers from the Logitech website. The problem: If I hook any devices to the USB 2.0 sockets, it hangs the whole machine and I have to hard boot it to get it back up. If I have any devices attached to the USB 2.0 sockets when I boot up, it hangs before Windows gets to the login prompt and I have to hard boot it to recover. Workarounds found: I can plug the same devices into the on board USB 1.0 sockets and everything works fine, albeit at reduced performance. I've tried 3 different kinds of USB thumb drives, 3 different makes/models of webcams and my iPhone all with the same effect. They're recognized and don't hang the machine when I hook them to the USB 1.0 but if I hook them to the USB 2.0 ports, the machine hangs within a couple of seconds of recognizing the devices were connected. Attempted solutions: I've seen suggestions that this could be a power problem - that the PSU just doesn't have the wattage to drive these ports. While I'm doubtful this is the problem [after all the motherboard has the same standard connector regardless of the PSU wattage], I tried disabling all the on board devices that I'm not using - on board LAN, the second COM port, the AGP connector etc. through the BIOS in what I'm sure is a futile attempt to reduce the power consumption... I also modified the ACPI and power management settings. It didn't have any noticeable affect, although it didn't do any harm either. Could the wattage of the PSU really cause this problem? If it can, is there anything I need to be aware of when replacing it or do I just need to make sure it's got a higher wattage than the current one? My interpretation was that the wattage only affected the number of drives you could hook up to the power connectors, is that right? I've installed the USB card in another machine and it works without issue, so it's not a problem with the USB card itself, and Windows says the card is installed and working correctly... right up until I connect a device to it. The only thing I haven't done which I only just thought of while writing this essay is trying the USB 2.0 card in a different PCI slot, or re-ordering the wi-fi and USB cards in the slots... although I'm not sure if this will make any difference - does anyone have any experience that would suggest this might work? Other thoughts/questions: Perhaps this is an incompatibility between the USB 2.0 card and the BIOS, would re-flashing the BIOS with a newer version help? Do I need to be able to identify the manufacturer of the motherboard in order to be able to find a BIOS edition specific for this motherboard or will any version of Award BIOS function in its place? Question: Does anyone have any ideas that could help me get my USB 2.0 devices hooked up to this machine?

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  • Why are my USB 2.0 devices hanging Windows XP?

    - by BenAlabaster
    Background on the machine I'm having a problem with: The machine was inherited and appears to be circa 2003 (there's a date stamp on the power supply which leads me to this conclusion). I've got it set up as a Skype terminal for my 2 year old to keep in touch with her grandparents and other members of the family - which everyone loves. It has a generic ATX motherboard with no identifying markings other than one stamp that says "Rev.B". CPU-Z identifies the motherboard model as VT8601 but doesn't provide me with any manufacturer name. On board it has 1 x 10/100 LAN, 2 x USB 1.0, VGA, PS/2 for KB and mouse, parallel port, 2 x serial ports, 2 x IDE, 1 x floppy, 2 x SDRAM slots, 1 x CPU housing that is seating a 1.3GHz Intel Celeron CPU, 3 x PCI, 1 x AGP - although you can only use 2 of the PCI slots if you use the AGP slot due to the physical layout of the board. It's got 768Mb PC133 SDRAM - 1 x 512Mb & 1 x 256Mb installed as well as a D-LINK WDA-2320 54G Wi-Fi network card and a generic USB 2.0 expansion board containing 3 x external + 1 x internal USB connectors - it has a NEC uPD720102 chipset. It has a DVD+/-RW running as master on IDE1 and a 1.44Mb 3.5" floppy drive connected to the floppy connector. It has an 80Gb Western Digital hard drive running as master on IDE0. All this is sitting in a slimline case. I don't know the wattage of the PSU, but can post this later if this proves to be helpful. The motherboard is running a version of Award BIOS for which I don't have the version number to hand but can again post this later if it would be helpful. The hard disk is freshly formatted and built with Windows XP Professional/Service Pack 3 and is up to date with all current patches. In addition to Windows XP, the only other software it's running is Skype 4.1 (4.2 hangs the whole machine as soon as it starts up, requiring a hard boot to recover). It's got a Daytek MV150 15" touch screen hooked up to the on board VGA and COM1 sockets with the most current drivers from the Daytek website and the most current version of ELO-Touchsystems drivers for the touch component. The webcam is a Logitech Webcam C200 with the latest drivers from the Logitech website. The problem: If I hook any devices to the USB 2.0 sockets, it hangs the whole machine and I have to hard boot it to get it back up. If I have any devices attached to the USB 2.0 sockets when I boot up, it hangs before Windows gets to the login prompt and I have to hard boot it to recover. Workarounds found: I can plug the same devices into the on board USB 1.0 sockets and everything works fine, albeit at reduced performance. I've tried 3 different kinds of USB thumb drives, 3 different makes/models of webcams and my iPhone all with the same effect. They're recognized and don't hang the machine when I hook them to the USB 1.0 but if I hook them to the USB 2.0 ports, the machine hangs within a couple of seconds of recognizing the devices were connected. Attempted solutions: I've seen suggestions that this could be a power problem - that the PSU just doesn't have the wattage to drive these ports. While I'm doubtful this is the problem [after all the motherboard has the same standard connector regardless of the PSU wattage], I tried disabling all the on board devices that I'm not using - on board LAN, the second COM port, the AGP connector etc. through the BIOS in what I'm sure is a futile attempt to reduce the power consumption... I also modified the ACPI and power management settings. It didn't have any noticeable affect, although it didn't do any harm either. Could the wattage of the PSU really cause this problem? If it can, is there anything I need to be aware of when replacing it or do I just need to make sure it's got a higher wattage than the current one? My interpretation was that the wattage only affected the number of drives you could hook up to the power connectors, is that right? I've installed the USB card in another machine and it works without issue, so it's not a problem with the USB card itself, and Windows says the card is installed and working correctly... right up until I connect a device to it. The only thing I haven't done which I only just thought of while writing this essay is trying the USB 2.0 card in a different PCI slot, or re-ordering the wi-fi and USB cards in the slots... although I'm not sure if this will make any difference - does anyone have any experience that would suggest this might work? Other thoughts/questions: Perhaps this is an incompatibility between the USB 2.0 card and the BIOS, would re-flashing the BIOS with a newer version help? Do I need to be able to identify the manufacturer of the motherboard in order to be able to find a BIOS edition specific for this motherboard or will any version of Award BIOS function in its place? Question: Does anyone have any ideas that could help me get my USB 2.0 devices hooked up to this machine? Edit: Updated the USB 2.0 info with reference to actual card - http://www.xpcgear.com/lpnec4u.html

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  • SQL ORDER BY thing1 ASC, thing2 DESC not working

    - by William
    it puts item1 down as DESC for some reason. edit: $sql_result = mysql_query("SELECT post, name, trip, Thread, sticky FROM (SELECT MIN(ID) AS min_id, MAX(ID) AS max_id, MAX(Date) AS max_date FROM test_posts GROUP BY Thread ) t_min_max INNER JOIN test_posts ON test_posts.ID = t_min_max.min_id WHERE Board=".$board." ORDER BY sticky ASC, max_date DESC", $db); http://prime.programming-designs.com/test_forum/viewboard.php?board=0&page=3

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  • Moving 2d objects on a 3d plane - AS3

    - by Borkz
    I have a 2d plane rotated on its x axis, with 2d display objects I want to move around on the plane. Its pretty similar to a chess board: http://static.open.salon.com/files/chess011237853612.jpg The board is a rotated rectangle, and the pieces are just 2d display objects. Whats the easiest way to manipulate those objects so they appear to be moving on the board?

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  • I'm an idiot/blind and I can't find why I'm getting a list index error. Care to take a look at these 20 or so lines?

    - by Meff
    Basically it's supposed to take a set of coordinates and return a list of coordinates of it's neighbors. However, when it hits here:if result[i][0] < 0 or result[i][0] >= board.dimensions: result.pop(i) when i is 2, it gives me an out of index error. I can manage to have it print result[2][0] but at the if statement it throws the errors. I have no clue how this is happening and if anyone could shed any light on this problem I'd be forever in debt. def neighborGen(row,col,board): """ returns lists of coords of neighbors, in order of up, down, left, right """ result = [] result.append([row-1 , col]) result.append([row+1 , col]) result.append([row , col-1]) result.append([row , col+1]) #prune off invalid neighbors (such as (0,-1), etc etc) for i in range(len(result)): if result[i][0] < 0 or result[i][0] >= board.dimensions: result.pop(i) if result[i][1] < 0 or result[i][1] >= board.dimensions: result.pop(i) return result

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  • Implementing a scrabble trainer (cheater)

    - by bstullkid
    Hello, I've recently been playing alot of online scrabble so I decided to make a program that quickly searches through a dictionary of 200,000+ words with an input of up to any 26 letters. My first attempt was fail as it took a while when you input 8 or more letters (just a basic look through dictionary and cancel out a letter if its found kind of thing), so I made a tree like structure containing only an array of 26 of the same structure and a flag to indicate the end of a word, doing that It can output all possible words in under a second even with an input of 26 characters. But it seems that when I input 12 or more letters with some of the same characters repeated i get duplicates; can anyone see why I would be getting duplicates with this code? (ill post my program at the bottom) Also, the next step once the duplicates are weeded out is to actually be able to input the letters on the game board and then have it calculate the best word you can make on a given board. I am having trouble trying to figure out a good algorithm that can analyze a scrabble board and an input of letters and output a result; the possible words that could be made I have no problem with but actually checking a board efficiently (ie can this word fit here, or here etc... without creating a non dictionary word in the process on some other string of letters) Anyone have a idea for an approach at that? (given a scrabble board, and an input of 7 letters, find all possible valid words or word sets that you can make) lol crap i forgot to email myself the code from my other computer thats in another state... ill post it on monday when I get back there! btw the dictionary im using is sowpods (http://www.calvin.edu/~rpruim/scrabble/ospd3.txt)

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  • Odd behaviour with scala method syntax

    - by Ceilingfish
    Hi chaps, I hit a bit of a quirk of scala's syntax I don't really understand object Board { def getObjectAt(x:Int, y:Int):Placeable = return locations(x)(y) } works fine. But object Board { def getObjectAt(x:Int, y:Int):Placeable { return locations(x)(y) } } returns the error Board.scala:8: error: illegal start of declaration return locations(x)(y) I found some stuff that says the second form convinces the scala compiler you're trying to specify an expansion to the return type Placeable. Is there a way I can fix this, or should I just avoid specifying a return type here?

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  • Why does this while terminate before receiving a value? (java)

    - by David
    Here's the relevant code snippet. public static Territory[] assignTerri (Territory[] board, String[] colors) { for (int i = 0; i<board.length; i++) { // so a problem is that Territory.translate is void fix this. System.out.print ("What team controls ") ; Territory.translate (i) ; System.out.println (" ?") ; boolean a = false ; while (a = false) { String s = getIns () ; if ((checkColor (s, colors))) { board[i].team = (returnIndex (s, colors)) ; a =true ; } else System.out.println ("error try again") ; } System.out.print ("How many unites are on ") ; Territory.translate (i) ; System.out.println (" ?") ; int n = getInt () ; board[i].population = n ; } return board ; } As an additional piece of information, checkColor just checks to make sure that its first argument, a string, is a string in one of the indexes of its second argument, an array. It seems to me that when the while the method gets a string from the keyboard and then only if that string checks out is a true and the while allowed to terminate. The output I get though is this: What team controls Alaska ? How many unites are on Alaska ? (there is space at the end to type in an input) This would seem to suggest that the while terminates before an input is ever typed in since the first line of text is within the while while the second line of text comes after it outside of it. Why is this happening?

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  • Why does this while terminate before recieving a value? (java)

    - by David
    here's the relevant code snippet. public static Territory[] assignTerri (Territory[] board, String[] colors) { for (int i = 0; i<board.length; i++) { // so a problem is that Territory.translate is void fix this. System.out.print ("What team controls ") ; Territory.translate (i) ; System.out.println (" ?") ; boolean a = false ; while (a = false) { String s = getIns () ; if ((checkColor (s, colors))) { board[i].team = (returnIndex (s, colors)) ; a =true ; } else System.out.println ("error try again") ; } System.out.print ("How many unites are on ") ; Territory.translate (i) ; System.out.println (" ?") ; int n = getInt () ; board[i].population = n ; } return board ; } as an additional piece of information, checkColor just checks to make sure that its first argument, a string, is a string in one of the indexes of its second argument, an array. it seems to me that when the while the method gets a string from the keyboard and then only if that string checks out is a true and the while allowed to terminate. The output i get though is this: What team controls Alaska ? How many unites are on Alaska ? (there is space at the end to type in an input) This would seem to suggest that the while terminates before an input is ever typed in since the first line of text is within the while while the second line of text comes after it outside of it. why is this happening?

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  • Why are USB 2.0 devices crashing my system?

    - by BenAlabaster
    Background on the machine I'm having a problem with: The machine was inherited and appears to be circa 2003 (there's a date stamp on the power supply which leads me to this conclusion). I've got it set up as a Skype terminal for my 2 year old to keep in touch with her grandparents and other members of the family - which everyone loves. It has a generic baby-ATX motherboard with no identifying markings. CPU-Z identifies the motherboard model as VT8601 but doesn't provide me with any manufacturer name. There's one stamp on the motherboard that says "Rev.B". On board it has 10/100 LAN, 2 x USB 1.0, VGA, PS/2 for KB and mouse, parallel port, 2 x serial ports, 2 x IDE, 1 x floppy, 2 x SDRAM slots, 1 x CPU housing that is seating a 1.3GHz Intel Celeron CPU, 3 x PCI, 1 x AGP - although you can only use 2 of the PCI slots if you use the AGP slot due to the physical layout of the board. It's got 768Mb PC133 SDRAM - 1 x 512Mb & 1 x 256Mb installed as well as a D-LINK WDA-2320 54G Wi-Fi network card and a generic USB 2.0 expansion board containing 3 x external + 1 x internal USB connectors. All this is sitting in a slimline case. I don't know the wattage of the PSU, but can post this later if this proves to be helpful. The motherboard is running a version of Award BIOS for which I don't have the version number to hand but can again post this later if it would be helpful. It has an 80Gb Western Digital hard drive freshly formatted and built with Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 3 and all current patches. In addition to Windows XP, the only other software it's running is Skype 4.1 (4.2 crashes the machine as soon as it starts up). It's got a Daytek MV150 15" touch screen running through the VGA and COM1 with the most current drivers from the Daytek website and the most current version of ELO-Touchsystems drivers for the touch component. The webcam is a Logitech Webcam C200 with the latest drivers from the Logitech website. The problem If I hook any USB 2.0 devices to this machine, it hangs the whole machine and I have to hard boot it to get it back up. Workarounds found I can plug the same devices into the on board USB 1.0 connectors and everything works fine, albeit at reduced performance. I've tried 3 different kinds of USB thumb drives, 3 different makes/models of webcams and my iPhone all with the same effect. They're recognized and don't hang the machine when I hook them to the USB 1.0 but if I hook them to the USB 2.0 ports, the machine hangs within a couple of seconds of recognizing the devices were connected. Attempted solutions I've tried disabling all the on board devices that I'm not using - such as the on board LAN, the second COM port, the AGP connector etc. through the BIOS in an (perhaps misguided or futile) attempt to reduce the power consumption... I don't think it had any effect but it didn't do any harm. I was wondering if the PSU wattage just isn't enough to drive the USB 2.0 devices; I've seen this suggested but haven't found any confirmation that this could really be an issue - nor have I found a way to work around this issue - if indeed it is one. Any ideas? The only thing I haven't done which I only just thought of while writing this essay is trying the USB 2.0 card in a different PCI slot, or re-ordering the wi-fi and USB cards in the slots... although I'm not sure if this will make any difference. I've installed the USB card in another machine and it works without issue, so it's not a problem with the USB card itself. Other thoughts Perhaps this is an incompatibility between the USB 2.0 card and the BIOS, would re-flashing the BIOS with a newer version help? Do I need to be able to identify the manufacturer of the motherboard in order to be able to find a BIOS edition specific for this motherboard or will any version of Award BIOS function in its place? Question Does anyone have any ideas that could help me get my USB 2.0 devices hooked up to this machine?

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  • Which adjustable ergonomic keyboard do you recommend to a fellow coder and why?

    - by thefonso
    My beloved Goldtouch has died (a moment of silence)....the hinge at the middle which allows you to adjust the board finally broke and the manufacturer does not do repairs for free. I'd have to buy a new board. So...since this I'm in the market for a new keyboard and I'm looking for an adjustable one comparable or better to the Goldentouch. I post this question to all you coders out there. Which adjustable ergo keyboard do you recommend to a fellow coder and why?

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  • Robotic Arm &ndash; Hardware

    - by Szymon Kobalczyk
    This is first in series of articles about project I've been building  in my spare time since last Summer. Actually it all began when I was researching a topic of modeling human motion kinematics in order to create gesture recognition library for Kinect. This ties heavily into motion theory of robotic manipulators so I also glanced at some designs of robotic arms. Somehow I stumbled upon this cool looking open source robotic arm: It was featured on Thingiverse and published by user jjshortcut (Jan-Jaap). Since for some time I got hooked on toying with microcontrollers, robots and other electronics, I decided to give it a try and build it myself. In this post I will describe the hardware build of the arm and in later posts I will be writing about the software to control it. Another reason to build the arm myself was the cost factor. Even small commercial robotic arms are quite expensive – products from Lynxmotion and Dagu look great but both cost around USD $300 (actually there is one cheap arm available but it looks more like a toy to me). In comparison this design is quite cheap. It uses seven hobby grade servos and even the cheapest ones should work fine. The structure is build from a set of laser cut parts connected with few metal spacers (15mm and 47mm) and lots of M3 screws. Other than that you’d only need a microcontroller board to drive the servos. So in total it comes a lot cheaper to build it yourself than buy an of the shelf robotic arm. Oh, and if you don’t like this one there are few more robotic arm projects at Thingiverse (including one by oomlout). Laser cut parts Some time ago I’ve build another robot using laser cut parts so I knew the process already. You can grab the design files in both DXF and EPS format from Thingiverse, and there are also 3D models of each part in STL. Actually the design is split into a second project for the mini servo gripper (there is also a standard servo version available but it won’t fit this arm).  I wanted to make some small adjustments, layout, and add measurements to the parts before sending it for cutting. I’ve looked at some free 2D CAD programs, and finally did all this work using QCad 3 Beta with worked great for me (I also tried LibreCAD but it didn’t work that well). All parts are cut from 4 mm thick material. Because I was worried that acrylic is too fragile and might break, I also ordered another set cut from plywood. In the end I build it from plywood because it was easier to glue (I was told acrylic requires a special glue). Btw. I found a great laser cutter service in Kraków and highly recommend it (www.ebbox.com.pl). It cost me only USD $26 for both sets ($16 acrylic + $10 plywood). Metal parts I bought all the M3 screws and nuts at local hardware store. Make sure to look for nylon lock (nyloc) nuts for the gripper because otherwise it unscrews and comes apart quickly. I couldn’t find local store with metal spacers and had to order them online (you’d need 11 x 47mm and 3 x 15mm). I think I paid less than USD $10 for all metal parts. Servos This arm uses five standards size servos to drive the arm itself, and two micro servos are used on the gripper. Author of the project used Modelcraft RS-2 Servo and Modelcraft ES-05 HT Servo. I had two Futaba S3001 servos laying around, and ordered additional TowerPro SG-5010 standard size servos and TowerPro SG90 micro servos. However it turned out that the SG90 won’t fit in the gripper so I had to replace it with a slightly smaller E-Sky EK2-0508 micro servo. Later it also turned out that Futaba servos make some strange noise while working so I swapped one with TowerPro SG-5010 which has higher torque (8kg / cm). I’ve also bought three servo extension cables. All servos cost me USD $45. Assembly The build process is not difficult but you need to think carefully about order of assembling it. You can do the base and upper arm first. Because two servos in the base are close together you need to put first with one piece of lower arm already connected before you put the second servo. Then you connect the upper arm and finally put the second piece of lower arm to hold it together. Gripper and base require some gluing so think it through too. Make sure to look closely at all the photos on Thingiverse (also other people copies) and read additional posts on jjshortcust’s blog: My mini servo grippers and completed robotic arm  Multiply the robotic arm and electronics Here is also Rob’s copy cut from aluminum My assembled arm looks like this – I think it turned out really nice: Servo controller board The last piece of hardware I needed was an electronic board that would take command from PC and drive all seven servos. I could probably use Arduino for this task, and in fact there are several Arduino servo shields available (for example from Adafruit or Renbotics).  However one problem is that most support only up to six servos, and second that their accuracy is limited by Arduino’s timer frequency. So instead I looked for dedicated servo controller and found a series of Maestro boards from Pololu. I picked the Pololu Mini Maestro 12-Channel USB Servo Controller. It has many nice features including native USB connection, high resolution pulses (0.25µs) with no jitter, built-in speed and acceleration control, and even scripting capability. Another cool feature is that besides servo control, each channel can be configured as either general input or output. So far I’m using seven channels so I still have five available to connect some sensors (for example distance sensor mounted on gripper might be useful). And last but important factor was that they have SDK in .NET – what more I could wish for! The board itself is very small – half of the size of Tic-Tac box. I picked one for about USD $35 in this store. Perhaps another good alternative would be the Phidgets Advanced Servo 8-Motor – but it is significantly more expensive at USD $87.30. The Maestro Controller Driver and Software package includes Maestro Control Center program with lets you immediately configure the board. For each servo I first figured out their move range and set the min/max limits. I played with setting the speed an acceleration values as well. Big issue for me was that there are two servos that control position of lower arm (shoulder joint), and both have to be moved at the same time. This is where the scripting feature of Pololu board turned out very helpful. I wrote a script that synchronizes position of second servo with first one – so now I only need to move one servo and other will follow automatically. This turned out tricky because I couldn’t find simple offset mapping of the move range for each servo – I had to divide it into several sub-ranges and map each individually. The scripting language is bit assembler-like but gets the job done. And there is even a runtime debugging and stack view available. Altogether I’m very happy with the Pololu Mini Maestro Servo Controller, and with this final piece I completed the build and was able to move my arm from the Meastro Control program.   The total cost of my robotic arm was: $10 laser cut parts $10 metal parts $45 servos $35 servo controller ----------------------- $100 total So here you have all the information about the hardware. In next post I’ll start talking about the software that I wrote in Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 4. Stay tuned!

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  • Which adjustable ergo keyboard do you recommend to a fellow coder and why?

    - by thefonso
    My beloved Goldtouch has died (a moment of silence)....the hinge at the middle which allows you to adjust the board finally broke and the manufacturer does not do repairs for free. I'd have to buy a new board. So...since this I'm in the market for a new keyboard and I'm looking for an adjustable one comparable or better to the Goldentouch. I post this question to all you coders out there. Which adjustable ergo keyboard do you recommend to a fellow coder and why?

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  • TableTop: Wil Weaton, Morgan Webb, and Friends Review Pandemic [Video]

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    In the newest edition of TableTop, the board gaming video blog, Wil Weaton and his friends take a look at Pandemic–a challenging cooperative board game that pits players against a viral outbreak. Check out the above video for an overview of the game (although be forewarned they’re playing it on the highest difficulty setting) and then, for more information about it, hit up the Pandemic entry at BoardGameGeek. [via GeekDad] 7 Ways To Free Up Hard Disk Space On Windows HTG Explains: How System Restore Works in Windows HTG Explains: How Antivirus Software Works

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  • efficient collision detection - tile based html5/javascript game

    - by Tom Burman
    Im building a basic rpg game and onto collisions/pickups etc now. Its tile based and im using html5 and javascript. i use a 2d array to create my tilemap. Im currently using a switch statement for whatever key has been pressed to move the player, inside the switch statement. I have if statements to stop the player going off the edge of the map and viewport and also if they player is about to land on a tile with tileID 3 then the player stops. Here is the statement: canvas.addEventListener('keydown', function(e) { console.log(e); var key = null; switch (e.which) { case 37: // Left if (playerX > 0) { playerX--; } if(board[playerX][playerY] == 3){ playerX++; } break; case 38: // Up if (playerY > 0) playerY--; if(board[playerX][playerY] == 3){ playerY++; } break; case 39: // Right if (playerX < worldWidth) { playerX++; } if(board[playerX][playerY] == 3){ playerX--; } break; case 40: // Down if (playerY < worldHeight) playerY++; if(board[playerX][playerY] == 3){ playerY--; } break; } viewX = playerX - Math.floor(0.5 * viewWidth); if (viewX < 0) viewX = 0; if (viewX+viewWidth > worldWidth) viewX = worldWidth - viewWidth; viewY = playerY - Math.floor(0.5 * viewHeight); if (viewY < 0) viewY = 0; if (viewY+viewHeight > worldHeight) viewY = worldHeight - viewHeight; }, false); My question is, is there a more efficient way of handling collisions, then loads of if statements for each key? The reason i ask is because i plan on having many items that the player will need to be able to pickup or not walk through like walls cliffs etc. Thanks for your time and help Tom

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  • SFML 2.0 Too Many Variables in Class Preventing Draw To Screen

    - by Josh
    This is a very strange phenomenon to me. I have a class definition for a game, but when I add another variable to the class, the draw method does not print everything to the screen. It will be easier understood showing the code and output. Code for good draw output: class board { protected: RectangleShape rect; int top, left; int i, j; int rowSelect, columnSelect; CircleShape circleArr[4][10]; CircleShape codeArr[4]; CircleShape keyArr[4][10]; //int pegPresent[4]; public: board(void); void draw(RenderWindow& Window); int mouseOver(RenderWindow& Window); void placePeg(RenderWindow& Window, int pegSelect); }; Screen: Code for missing draw: class board { protected: RectangleShape rect; int top, left; int i, j; int rowSelect, columnSelect; CircleShape circleArr[4][10]; CircleShape codeArr[4]; CircleShape keyArr[4][10]; int pegPresent[4]; public: board(void); void draw(RenderWindow& Window); int mouseOver(RenderWindow& Window); void placePeg(RenderWindow& Window, int pegSelect); }; Screen: As you can see, all I do is un-comment the protected array and most of the pegs are gone from the right hand side. I have checked and made sure that I didn't accidentally created a variable with that name already. I haven't used it anywhere. Why does it not draw the remaining pegs as it should? My only thought is that maybe I am declaring too many variables for the class, but that doesn't really make sense to me. Any thoughts and help is greatly appreciated.

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  • PASS: SQLRally Thoughts

    - by Bill Graziano
    The PASS Board recently decided that we wouldn’t put another US-based SQLRally on the calendar until we had a chance to review the program. I wanted to provide some of my thinking around this. Keep in mind that this is the opinion of one Board member. The Board committed to complete two SQLRally events to determine if an event modeled between SQL Saturday and the Summit was viable. We’ve completed the two events and now it’s time to step back and review the program. This is my seventh year on the PASS Board. Over that time people have asked me why PASS does certain things. Many, many times my answer has been “Because that’s the way we did it last year”. And I am tired of giving that answer. We need to take a step back and review the US-based SQLRally before we schedule another one. It would be irresponsible for me as a Board member to commit resources to this without validating that what we’re doing makes sense for the organization and our members. I have no doubt that this was a great event for the attendees. We just need to validate it’s the best use of our resources. Please keep in mind that we haven’t cancelled the event. We’ve just said we need to review it before scheduling another one. My opinion is that some fairly serious changes are needed to the model before we consider it again – IF we do it again. I’ve come to that conclusion after speaking with the Dallas organizers, our HQ team, our Marketing team, other Board members (including one of the Orlando organizers), attendees in Orlando and Dallas and visiting other similar events. I should point out that their views aren’t unanimous on nearly any part of this event -- which is one of the reasons I want to take some time and think about this before continuing. I think it’s helpful to look at the original goals of what we were trying to accomplish. Andy Warren wrote these up in August of 2010. My summary of these goals and some thoughts on each one is below. Many of these thoughts revolve around the growth of SQL Saturdays. In the two years since that document was written these events have grown significantly. The largest SQL Saturdays are now over 500 people which mean they are nearly the same size as our recent SQLRally. Our goals included: Geographic diversity. We wanted an event in an area of the country that was away from any given Summit location. I think that’s still a valid goal. But we also have SQL Saturdays all over the country. What does SQLRally bring to this that SQLSaturday doesn’t? Speaker growth. One of the stated goals was to build a “farm club” for speakers. This gives us a way for speakers to work up to speaking at Summit by speaking in front of larger crowds. What does SQLRally bring to this that the larger SQL Saturdays aren’t providing? Pre-Conference speakers is one obvious answer here. Lower price. On a per-day basis, SQLRally is roughly 1/4th the price of the Summit. We wanted a way for people to experience something Summit-like at a lower price point. The challenge is that we are very budget constrained at that lower price point. International Event Model.  (I need to write more about this but I’m out of time.  I’ll cover it in the next installment.) There are a number of things I really like about SQLRally. I love the smaller conferences. They give me a chance to meet more people than at something the size of Summit. I like the two day format. That gives you two evenings to be at social events with people. Seeing someone a second day is a great way to build a bond with that person. That’s more difficult to do at a SQL Saturday. We also need to talk about the financial aspects of the event. Last year generated a small $17,000 profit on revenues of $200,000. Percentage-wise that’s reasonable but on an absolute basis it’s not a huge amount in our budget. We think this year will lose between $30,000 and $50,000 and take roughly 1,000 hours of HQ time. We don’t have detailed financials back yet but that’s our best guess at this point. Part of that was driven by using a convention center instead of a hotel. Until we get detailed financials back we won’t have the full picture around the financial impact. This event also takes time and mindshare from our Marketing team. This may sound like a small thing but please don’t underestimate it. Our original vision for this was something that would take very little time from our Marketing team and just a few mentions in the Connector. It turned out to need more than that. And all those mentions and emails take up space we could use to talk about other events and other programs. Last I wanted to talk about some of the things I’m thinking about. I don’t think it’s as simple as saying if we just fix “X” it all gets better. Is this that much better of an event than SQL Saturdays? What if we gave a few SQL Saturdays some extra resources? When SQL Saturdays were around 250 people that wasn’t as viable. With some of those events over 500 we need to reconsider this. We need to get back to a hotel venue. That will help with cost and networking. Is this the best use of the 1,000 HQ hours that we invested in the event? Is our price-point correct? I’m leaning toward raising our price closer to Summit on a per-day basis. I think this will let us put on a higher quality event and alleviate much of the budget pressure. Should growing speakers be a focus? Having top-line pre-conference speakers helps market the event. It will also have an impact on pricing and overall profit. We should also ask if it actually does grow speakers. How many of these people will eventually register for Summit? Attend chapters? Is SQLRally a driver into PASS or is it something that chapters, etc. drive people to? Should we have one paid day and one free instead of two paid days? This is a very interesting model that is used by SQLBits in the UK. This gives you the two day aspect as well as offering options for paid and free attendees. I’m very intrigued by this. Should we focus on a topic? Buried in the minutes is a discussion of whether PASS should have a Business Analytics conference separate from Summit. This is an interesting question to consider. Would making SQLRally be focused on a particular topic make it more attractive? Would that even be a SQLRally? Can PASS effectively manage the two events? (FYI - Probably not.) Would it help differentiate it from Summit and SQL Saturday? These are all questions that I think should be asked and answered before we do this event again. And we can’t do that if we don’t take time to have the discussion. I wanted to get this published before I take off for a few days of vacation. When I get back I’d like to write more about why the international events are different and talk about where we go from here.

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  • Why is my primitive xna square not drawn/shown?

    - by Mech0z
    I have made this class to draw a rectangle, but I cant get it to be drawn, I have no issues displaying a 3d model created in 3dmax, but shown these primitives seems much harder I use this to create it board = new Board(Vector3.Zero, 1000, 1000, Color.Yellow); And here is the implementation using System; using System.Net; using System.Windows; using System.Windows.Controls; using System.Windows.Documents; using System.Windows.Ink; using System.Windows.Input; using System.Windows.Shapes; using Quadro.Models; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics; namespace Quadro { public class Board : IGraphicObject { //Private Fields private Vector3 modelPosition; private BasicEffect effect; private VertexPositionColor[] vertices; private Matrix rotationMatrix; private GraphicsDevice graphicsDevice; private Matrix cameraProjection; //Constructor public Board(Vector3 position, float length, float width, Color color) { var _color = color; vertices = new VertexPositionColor[6]; vertices[0].Position = new Vector3(position.X, position.Y, position.Z); vertices[1].Position = new Vector3(position.X, position.Y + width, position.Z); vertices[2].Position = new Vector3(position.X + length, position.Y, position.Z); vertices[3].Position = new Vector3(position.X + length, position.Y, position.Z); vertices[4].Position = new Vector3(position.X, position.Y + width, position.Z); vertices[5].Position = new Vector3(position.X + length, position.Y + width, position.Z); for(int i = 0; i < vertices.Length; i++) { vertices[i].Color = color; } initFields(); } private void initFields() { graphicsDevice = SharedGraphicsDeviceManager.Current.GraphicsDevice; effect = new BasicEffect(graphicsDevice); modelPosition = Vector3.Zero; float screenWidth = (float)graphicsDevice.Viewport.Width; float screenHeight = (float)graphicsDevice.Viewport.Height; float aspectRatio = screenWidth / screenHeight; this.cameraProjection = Matrix.CreatePerspectiveFieldOfView(MathHelper.ToRadians(45.0f), aspectRatio, 1.0f, 10000.0f); this.rotationMatrix = Matrix.Identity; } //Public Methods public void Update(GameTimerEventArgs e) { } public void Draw(Vector3 cameraPosition, GameTimerEventArgs e) { Matrix cameraView = Matrix.CreateLookAt(cameraPosition, Vector3.Zero, Vector3.Up); foreach (EffectPass pass in effect.CurrentTechnique.Passes) { pass.Apply(); effect.World = rotationMatrix * Matrix.CreateTranslation(modelPosition); effect.View = cameraView; effect.Projection = cameraProjection; graphicsDevice.DrawUserPrimitives(PrimitiveType.TriangleList, vertices, 0, 2, VertexPositionColor.VertexDeclaration); } } public void Rotate(Matrix rotationMatrix) { this.rotationMatrix = rotationMatrix; } public void Move(Vector3 moveVector) { this.modelPosition += moveVector; } } }

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  • Linux on 8-bit

    - by nospam(at)example.com (Joerg Moellenkamp)
    This is nothing short of extremly cool from a technical perspective. The author has done it by writing an ARM emulator for an AVR controller and running Linux with this emulation : Linux on an 8-bit micro?.This is definitely not the fastest, but I think it may be the cheapest, slowest, simplest to hand assemble, lowest part count, and lowest-end Linux PC. The board is hand-soldered using wires, there is not even a requirement for a printed circuit board

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  • Existent js libs for tileset / map loading and rendering?

    - by ylluminate
    I'm building an rts style overhead tileset game with JavaScript (particularly using Ember.js framework as a base). The map is so large that I'd very much like to be able to load and render the board and layered items in a Google Maps'esque. I'm curious as to whether there are existing libs that would be helpful and already well thought out in these regards vs trying to reinvent the wheel. Are there any such libraries or code examples that would be useful in this area of board / map management?

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  • Disabling CPU management

    - by Tiffany Walker
    If I add the following processor.max_cstate=0 to the kernel command line for boot up, does that disable all CPU power management and throttling? I also found: http://www.experts-exchange.com/OS/Linux/Administration/A_3492-Avoiding-CPU-speed-scaling-in-modern-Linux-distributions-Running-CPU-at-full-speed-Tips.html The link talks of Change CPU governor from 'ondemand' to 'performance' for all CPUs/cores and disabling kondemand from kernel. Server is for web hosting UPDATES: 2.6.32-379.1.1.lve1.1.7.6.el6.x86_64 #1 SMP Sat Aug 4 09:56:37 EDT 2012 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux . # dmidecode 2.11 SMBIOS 2.6 present. 74 structures occupying 2878 bytes. Table at 0x0009F000. Handle 0x0000, DMI type 0, 24 bytes BIOS Information Vendor: American Megatrends Inc. Version: 1.0c Release Date: 05/27/2010 Address: 0xF0000 Runtime Size: 64 kB ROM Size: 4096 kB Characteristics: ISA is supported PCI is supported PNP is supported BIOS is upgradeable BIOS shadowing is allowed ESCD support is available Boot from CD is supported Selectable boot is supported BIOS ROM is socketed EDD is supported 5.25"/1.2 MB floppy services are supported (int 13h) 3.5"/720 kB floppy services are supported (int 13h) 3.5"/2.88 MB floppy services are supported (int 13h) Print screen service is supported (int 5h) 8042 keyboard services are supported (int 9h) Serial services are supported (int 14h) Printer services are supported (int 17h) CGA/mono video services are supported (int 10h) ACPI is supported USB legacy is supported LS-120 boot is supported ATAPI Zip drive boot is supported BIOS boot specification is supported Targeted content distribution is supported BIOS Revision: 8.16 Handle 0x0001, DMI type 1, 27 bytes System Information Manufacturer: Supermicro Product Name: X8SIE Version: 0123456789 Serial Number: 0123456789 UUID: 49434D53-0200-9033-2500-33902500D52C Wake-up Type: Power Switch SKU Number: To Be Filled By O.E.M. Family: To Be Filled By O.E.M. Handle 0x0002, DMI type 2, 15 bytes Base Board Information Manufacturer: Supermicro Product Name: X8SIE Version: 0123456789 Serial Number: VM11S61561 Asset Tag: To Be Filled By O.E.M. Features: Board is a hosting board Board is replaceable Location In Chassis: To Be Filled By O.E.M. Chassis Handle: 0x0003 Type: Motherboard Contained Object Handles: 0 Handle 0x0003, DMI type 3, 21 bytes Chassis Information Manufacturer: Supermicro Type: Sealed-case PC Lock: Not Present Version: 0123456789 Serial Number: 0123456789 Asset Tag: To Be Filled By O.E.M. Boot-up State: Safe Power Supply State: Safe Thermal State: Safe Security Status: None OEM Information: 0x00000000 Height: Unspecified Number Of Power Cords: 1 Contained Elements: 0

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  • can't access SATA card config screen on boot, nor access the disks

    - by Ronald
    We've just upgraded our file server using an ASUS P6T WS Pro board, running FreeBSD-RELEASE 8.2 and using zfs to manage 12 WD20EARS disks. Since our 3ware card has been giving us trouble we started using the six on-board SATA connectors and got a SuperMicro USAS2-L8i to provide eight more ports. Mechanically, the card is an awkward fit but electrically it all seems ok. Upon boot, the LSI controller shows up and states that pressing ctrl-c will bring up the LSI Config Utility. When doing that, the message changes to state that the utility will be started after initialization, however that never happens. There does seem to be an error message that's only displayed too briefly to read and seems to be about PCI and "not enough space". (That message is pushed off by a hardware summary and I've found no way to scroll back at this point.) The disks do not show up in any recognizable ways after booting, either. I found a hint in another discussion to check the address mapping on either the card or the motherboard BIOS, but have found no way to do that. So what I tried on a hunch is to disable everything that's on-board, including network adapters, Firewire controller and SATA. In fact, after doing that, I can successfully launch the LSI Config Utility. As far as I can tell, all looks well in there, and when booting in that configuration it also displays a list of the disks connected to it, which looks just fine as well. Only problem now is that I can't boot that way, because I need the on-board SATA controller and network adapters. As soon as I re-enable any of them I'm back to square one. That discussion I mentioned about mapping addresses said to try D000, then D7FF, then DFFF, in order. The LSI Config Utility shows the card address as D000 but offers no way of changing it. Any tips or insights would be appreciated.

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  • Cheap desktop computer in 19" rack-mountable form-factor?

    - by Alex Basson
    I'm a high school teacher at a small private school. As of this year, we have SMARTBoards in every classroom (though I've had one in the class I share for two years now). The classrooms themselves don't have computers in them, so we teachers bring our laptops to class and connect them to the boards. This has several disadvantages: This takes a few minutes while we wait for the board to boot up and then orient the board to our individual laptop -- we have to do this every time b/c different teachers have different laptops requiring different orientations. This isn't ideal because when you only have 43 minutes per class period, waiting five minutes just to get started is a real waste. Carrying your laptop to class doesn't sound so bad until you consider that we're also carrying textbooks and piles of student papers, and we're carrying it all through crowded high school hallways. More than one laptop has fallen THUNK to the floor, with dire consequences. We feel we could eliminate the need to use our laptops with the SMARTBoards if we had a dedicated computer in each classroom hooked up to the board at all times. Each board set-up is connected to a podium with a standard 19" rack in it, currently housing a power supply and DVD player. There're plenty of rack spaces available. So I'm thinking: maybe we could get some inexpensive computers in a 19" rack-mountable form factor, install them in the podiums, and connect them to the boards on a permanent basis. Any suggestions?

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