alangfiles

Backwards NES Controller (or, an adventure in making)

It all started with teaching my 6 year old to play Mario. He kept running into the first enemy, then the first pit. He had to stop to jump. He was new to the game, and it's hard to be new. I had to teach him how to hold down the button to run, press the other to jump, and move all at the same time.

Early arcade games had the directional controller in the middle, with buttons on the left and right, so the player could control it which either hand. And then, as legend has it, the directional controller was moved to the left side, because most people are right-handed and would lose more games, thus bringing more quarters to those arcade fat cats.

Thus, I decided to right a great wrong in this world (at least for the original NES), and create a reverse controller!

The Circuit Board

alangfiles

2013
Carol of the Bells
Rocking Around the Christmas Tree
Oh Tannenbaum (O christmas tree)
You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch
Baby it's cold outside
12 days of christmas

2014
Santa Baby

alangfiles

/standup Last week (10.10.2016):
*********************
+ work with new cashier for training (he was trained by the old cashier, but isn't doing things correctly)
+ find and update NHIF prices for items
+ discuss expiration issue with administration/ pharmacy, and try to resolve
+ Meeting with administration to discuss OpenHMIS progress
*********************
This week (17.10.2016):
*********************
+ work with cashiers and training

alangfiles

#Golfing down the code kata for Arabic Numeral to Roman Numeral conversion. *Note: all character counts disregard whitespace, and I just explode the example code for readability :) The basic idea:

for each roman numeral value:
  if that value is less than the input number:
    output the corresponding roman numeral, and 
    recursively call the function with the difference between roman value and input number as the new input number

alangfiles

From Alan:

• When the Ship Comes in - Dylan (https://vimeo.com/41782945)
• When I cross over jordan (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0-2MM-hV3k)
• Aupres de ma blonde (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0FvI67-Cys)
• The Weight - the band (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjCw3-YTffo)
• Never knew your name - Mason Jennings (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOIXamSKPuw)
• Happy Birthday Lisa - Jens Lekman
• Aicha - Khaled (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgCSzv5i5SE)
• John Hurt (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOd1VfagW3s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEjyBLm9--4)
• Bright morning stars (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmHhWWKEiAs)

alangfiles

Roleplaying is a way to play a game. Any game. I think a better definition is one that says: 'a game is more of a roleplaying game the easier it makes it for the player to submerse themselves in the game.' Maybe the spectrum should be 'strategy games' to 'roleplaying games' where checkers is a strategy game, just focused on winning, and WOW or D&D is a roleplaying game, focused on telling a story with the characters.

You can always pretend that in checkers you are the the checkers, but it's not (generally) as much fun as logically thinking out your next move (and your opponents). and in wow you can play to get the most experience the quickest or most guarenteed way but that's not (generally) as much fun as organzing a band of raiders who only have a chance at defeating the dragon.

So, I would say that game balance does matter. It's on a sliding scale. The more strategic a game is, the more balance matters. (somehow chess, which is highly unbalanced (one player goes first! with the otherside getting no compe

alangfiles

#FizzBuzzin' I recently read another article about how programmers don't know how to program FizzBuzz (I'm not sure I buy it, but who am I to argue with numbers). Anyway, I decided to write it myself in javascript real quickly, and then I decided to try to golf it down, and see how few characters I could use. What follows are my attempts:

Unfortunately, I didn't really set up a formal requirement for my program, does it need to be a function, where does the output have to go to, etc. So I kinda just wing it on some of those questions, and it changes over time.

##first attempt

function fizzBuzz(){
	for (var i =1; i < 101; i++) {
		var o = '';