CocoLife: a Cocoa version of “Game of Life”

Since my mental illness is still not cured, and I’m very much into this “game of life” thing, I also developed a version of Conway’s game of life for Mac OS X using Objective-C and the framework Cocoa.

Esthetically speaking the Cocoa version is much more cool then the Java one… but the algorithm is actually the same. I named it “CocoLife” fusing “Cocoa”, the name of the framework I used, and “Life”. The application’s icon represent a particular configuration of the game of life called “glider”.

Since I cured much more the develop of this version I filled up the application with many “cool” features! In CocoLife is possible to:

 

• Configure the colors of background and automata
• Choose between 4 different world sizes (50×50, 100×100, 250×250 and 500×500)
• Choose the world type (bordered-world or loop-world)
• Change the execution speed of the simulation modifying the interval of pause between transitions
• Create personal world configurations using the bult-in world-editor

The application, released under the license GNU GPL v2, requires Mac OS X 1.5 Leopard to work.  

Download CocoLife from here:

• XCode Project source code: CocoLife-src.zip
• Mac OS X Universal Binary: CocoLife.zip

 

jLife: the last son of my mental illness

Do you know the Conway’s Game of Life? Well for them who don’t…

The Game of Life is a cellular automaton devised by the British mathematician John Horton Conway in 1970. It is the best-known example of a cellular automaton.

The “game” is actually a zero-player game, meaning that its evolution is determined by its initial state, needing no input from human players. One interacts with the Game of Life by creating an initial configuration and observing how it evolves. A variant exists where two players compete.

Yesterday I read an article about it ad I felt an insane necessity of developing a little java version of this useless game (of course it is not the first implementation of the life game… but it was just for my fun)!

Here you can download it:

• Source code: jLife-src.zip
• Mac OS X Universal Binary: jLife.zip
• JAR Multi-platform executable: jLife.jar

Here you can find bit different version… the world-loop one. In the previous version the world was a 100×100 bordered matrix, in this version instead it is a 100×100 infinite-loop matrix (each border is connected to the opposite one creating an infinite loop).

•  Source code: jLife-loop-src.zip
• Mac OS X Universal Binary: jLife-Loop_Version.zip
• JAR Multi-platform executable: jLife-loop.jar

My new MacBook Air

Two weeks ago I did it! I bought the new Apple’s super thin computer… the MacBook Air! Obviously the model with the 1.6 GHz CPU and 80 GB PATA Hard Drive since I’m not rich enough to buy the Solid State Disk model (I’m also not a fan of solid state technology… so having the money I would have opted for a 1.8 GHz CPU and PATA HD).

You know… I don’t care if it hasn’t any dvd drive or neither a ethernet port! On my old MacBook the ethernet port was still virgin after 2 years of use… and the dvd drive is useless since I have my iMac to burn and read DVD (I usually rip my dvd-movies and put them on a portable HD) so I got only advantages from the Air: less weight to carry around at uni, less space occupied in my bag and a battery with a much longer duration (tested… it truly worked for 5 hours)!

Another thing I love of the Air is that it has all the “coolnesses” of the pro series (like the ambient light sensor for automatic adjustment of keyboard illumination and screen brightness). So I can say I’m pretty happy with my new toy!

I did a video of the unboxing… I hope you’ll appreciate it:

Sun: Project Blackbox

A few days ago, in front of our university (MIT – Politecnico di Milano), appeared a big black box with the Sun logo on its sides.

Sun’s guys were here to present the “Sun Modular Datacenter S20″ also known as Project Blackbox: it is a virtualized datacenter, built into a shipping container, first announced in October 2006, but officially presented in January 2008. The project is a computing powerhouse, placed among the top 200 fastet supercomputers globally, which maximizes energy efficiencies and reduces electronic waste.

The container is 6.06m (20 feet) long, 2.44m (8 feet) wide and 2.59m (8 feet 6 inches) tall; empty its weight is 8,000 kg (18,000 lb.), but reaches 15,000 kg (34,000 lb.) when fully loaded. It house 8 40U racks (7 for server, storage, etc. and 1 for network and system management equipment) and, with its 4 water hook-ups (2 per side), can cool up to 25kW per rack.

The cooling system keep the inner temperature under 35°C (95°F) with maximum noncondensing relative humidity under 80%. The system can operate between 10°C (50°F) and 35°C (inner temperature) and can be placed in an enviroment between -29°C (-20°F) and 54°C (130°F) and at a maximum altitude of 3,000m (10,000 ft).
The cooling system works using both air and cold water. Each rack has 10 fans, 5 in the front and 5 in the back: the frontal ones bring fresh air inside and the others let hot air outside the rack. Between each rack tubes with cold water cool hot air to bring new fresh air to the next rack.

The container has one power panel on both sides providing 415 VAC (300 A) per panel at 380 V (3 phase).

Concerning network connectivity, SMD supports two network panels offering different option starting from standard RJ-45 and/or LC fibre -single or multi mode- connectors to bulk cable pass-through panel.

The container offers 320 RU divided in 280 RU for IT equipment, 25 RU for network equipment and 15 RU reserved for SMD monitoring and management system. Customers can choose between different Sun equipments such as Sun Fire servers, StorageTek systems, Blade system, etc. but also third part material.

The box is also provided by an efficient fire preventing system in charge of keeping safe the internal environment.

SMD can work even in very difficult condition: for example it can resist a magnitude 6.7 earthquake without stopping his service as you can see in this video: SMD Earthquake Test.

More information can be found at Sun’s website.

Here are some photos of SMD:

Sun Modular Datacenter 1

Sun Modular Datacenter 2

Sun Modular Datacenter 3

Kubuntu… not so bad!

I have never had a good relation with kubuntu (and ubuntu too…) for reason that I’m not going to discuss here, but yesterday, having to fix an old laptop for my cousin (that has never used Linux), I decided to give it a chance!

It impressed me! It fixed a malfunctioning HD and it installed perfectly on a pretty old (2.8 GHz P4) laptop of a “never heard brand”! I used the default installation (formatting the HD with ext3)… in 30 minutes everything was finished! All hardware recognized and correctly installed (and the machine, that previously mounted Windows, seems to be reborn faster and lighter).

Adept, the packet manager, is also quite impressive… very easy to use. I just plugged in the ethernet cable to connect to the web… updated all packages pressing few buttons and installed extra software with the same easiness!

So… I’m still preferring my beloved Slackware but I must admit that kubuntu is a pretty nice choice for quick jobs and for people who are new to GNU\Linux!

New Domain: www.geek-time.com

Few days ago we have registered the domain www.geek-time.com!

For the moment it works through redirect… but right after this week, when I’ll have some free time to spend on this, I’ll manage how to repleace geektime.wordpress.com in the URL with www.geek-time.com (for firs I have to buy the service from wordpress… then understand how to let it work! With my .Mac account wasn’t too difficult!).