Javascript, Settlers of Cataan and Randomness

My roomates and I tend to play a lot of Settlers. One common complaint is that the dice rolled unfairly. Even though all 3 of us are trained computer nerds and realize that dice cannot be completely fair over a very short cycle (average game is 70 rolls), we still like to complain about how we lost because the dice rolled unfairly or at least in inopportune ways.

In order to track what the rolls were, I wrote a dice roller. Its very simple javascript code and users javascript's built in random function to roll "dice". The nice thing is that it keeps track of dice rolls and can plot the aggregate distribution of rolls as well as rolls over time. Check it out here (or even better, use it in your next settlers game!!)

http://keeda.stanford.edu/~radoshi/dice/

This was my first javascript program ever and I have to admit that I was pretty impressed with how easy it was to write something like this in a language that I had never touched. I was even more impressed with MochiKit and PlotKit - the two libraries that allow me to generate the spiffy charts. Another advantage of writing client side javascript: Visit the page once and you have the "application" in your cache - no more server communication required for endless hours of settlers play.

Google Maps Terrain

Total, insane, wowness - terrain maps on google.


View Larger Map

Airport Express

Andy hooked up his Airport Express to the receiver in the drawing room yesterday. I didn't think much of this, not being a believer in technology and all that (I mean, c'mon, I work in the industry - there is no such thing as *magic*). I have to admit that the little express thingy has made me eat mud - its *awesome*. Go Apple, once again. I have been sitting at the table, all afternoon and evening, coding, futzing around on my computer, all the while streaming music from the laptop to the music system via airport express. Not one glitch, no desyncs, nothing. Its as if my computer was connected to the stereo directly.
Now I really cannot wait for Andy to get the Apple TV.

Waiting for the snow...

There is a point in time, every year, that I stumble upon youtube snowboarding videos - and at that point, I just *cannot* wait for snow.

Story of my life

Trust me, its 3 minutes, watch it for at least one and half.

The Big Move

Sitting in front of Andy's TV watching the dudes compete for sub-second times on Mario Kart. Good times.

I'm done with Seattle. For the moment, at least. Now in ... Sunnyvale. Woot. Kinda. But lots of wooting for finally making it back to the Bay Area. Will start working again, after my 3 week hiatus. 3 weeks is definitely not enough vacation.

Mountain goat surprise

Hello 'dere, originally uploaded by Rooosh.

We saw a bunch of mountain goats on a short hike to Hidden Lake. The goats were interesting - not scared of people at all. All they did was stand and pose for all the tourists clicking away. We walked back to the parking lot at the end of the day to find a whole herd of bighorn sheep hanging out by the cars. People were literally driving upto the sheep and taking pictures in their face. Apparently the sheep didn't care.

Hiking to Grinnell Lake

Hikers at Grinnel Lake, originally uploaded by Rooosh.

Evan, Dianne, me and Allison (in that order) at Grinnell Lake.

Montana

Fishing, originally uploaded by Rooosh.

Got back from a trip to Glacier National Park in Montana. This is the quintessential picture that will always remind me of the trip and the Park. So much of the Park is similar to this - large, nay, huge mountains alongside pretty lakes. Definitely a place worth visiting.

Welcome

नमस्ते!
Welcome to ::rushabh:: redux. Thanks for following the link from wherever; if you are adding things to your blogreader, please add this and retire the redefine blog.
Why?
I'm tired of Movable Type. Its comment system is something that I have to fight in order to get it functional without spam and I refuse to fight all my battles; I'd rather have someone else fight them for me. In this case blogger. Yay!
Sure - I lose offline writing, but I'm sure there are alternatives for blogger. If not, I can write one over the weekend. Not worried.
Having a blog that works, without headaches or spam? Priceless.
(Not really, but at free, I can't complain!)

First post!

First post in an upcoming transition to blogger. No longer a huge fan of MT I am.