Not sure if I'm going to make it...

There is an awful lot of red over there in that graph.  I'm currently standing at 32,742 words in <a href="http://www.nanowrimo.org/userinfo.php?uid=128318 ">my novel</a>.  I'm supposed to be at 50,000 words in two days.  I'm beginning to accept the fact that that's probably not going to happen.  However, I am determined to finish the story - maybe I'll shoot for 40,000 words instead.

I think looking back on it, I just cared too much about the story to JUST WRITE.  I kept editing what I had written and worried too much about what somebody may think of it when they read it in December.  Forgetting all along that this was supposed to be a ROUGH DRAFT.  I kept wanting it to be a GOOD rough draft - good enough that people would actually want to read it.  And that, I think, was the problem.

I didn't possess "literary abandonment" as the Nanowrimo website loves to put it.

Oh well, there is always next year!

J

--
http://www.jasonmwilliams.com/

Watch "Resonance" on Google Video

Very cool video demonstrating resonance. Looks like it is a speaker under a piece of sheet metal with some sand sprinkled on top.

Resonance

2 min 4 sec - Oct 29, 2006
Average rating:   (245 ratings)

Picking up steam

Alright, the novel is getting back on track. I'm almost at the halfway mark, with 10 days to go. That's going to put me on a pace of about 2500 words a day. Definitely do-able. But with Thanksgiving coming up, it is certainly going to be a challenge. Definitely taking the laptop out of town with me and hopefully won't offend the fam that much.

Plot is coming together and just cranked out a painful passage where the main character has a big loss in his life. "What happened?" you ask? Well, if I told you that I'd spoil the surprise wouldn't I? You'll just have to wait to find out!

J

--
http://www.jasonmwilliams.com/

Bad counter widget

Ugh.  I just realized last night that the widget to the right is not giving me accurate goals to shoot for.  I don't know if it is a bug in their software or it doesn't do what I thought it did.  In any event, this is the 10th day of the month, and according to the widget I'm only 1200 words in the hole which is not bad at all.  But, in reality I should be at about the 17,000 word mark about now.  Which is about 5000 words behind.  Big difference.

I know what I'm going to be doing this weekend!

--
http://www.jasonmwilliams.com/

Novel is up and going

It's starting to get some legs.  I'm up over 4000 words now and chugging hard.  Hoping to use all this enthusiasm to build a good buffer going into week 2.  I'm thinking this weekend should be pretty productive.

J

Day One Over

Well, Day One has passed of NaNoWriMo.  I'm at 1300+ words.  Not a bad start, right?  Good news is I have my ending now in mind.  I like it a lot, so that's good motivation.  Last night, I was so sleepy I couldn't finish the scene I was working on, so tonight I think I'm going to treat myself to a Starbucks Frappuccino at about 10pm - that should keep the wheels turning for a while!

J

1 day, 11 hours left!!

Only 1 day and 11 hours before the madness begins. I've added a word count ticker on the sidebar so you can see my progress. I'm pretty pumped about the whole thing and eager to get started. I'm trying not to think too much about my plot because I want to be free to go where the character/story takes me.

I have a general idea of the beginning, a couple of ideas of how it might end up and a title: Singularity. I've also done a little character sketching (I guess that's what you call it) and have determined my main character's physical characteristics and personality.

Access to Healing

Jesus said "He who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do
also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My
Father." (John 14:12)

This has had a resounding effect on me during the past year. I have
long asked God to move through me in power. Paul declared that the
"kingdom of God is not in word, but in power" (1 Cor. 4:20). God has
been doing some incredible things lately. I've personally ministered
healing to numerous people for things like kidney stones, back aches,
eye problems and shoulder pains. It has been incredible to watch and
be a part of. Usually there is instant relief from the problem.

All this to say, I wanted to just take a moment here and ask whoever
is reading this blog: Do you need prayer? Is there something you need
healing for? Jesus said to "Ask, and it will be given to you" (Matt.
7:7)

Leave me a comment and I'll be glad to pray for you.

I'd also recommend the book "When Heaven Invades Earth" by Bill Johnson.

Grace.

Officially a NaNo

I am now a proud member of the NaNoWriMo community. Check out the nice participant icon on the sidebar and click through to my NaNo profile. You can check my progress there.

This is going to be insane. 50,000 words in 30 days. That's 1667 words per day. That's me typing 40 words per minute, non-stop for almost 42 minutes straight....each day....for 30 days. Now, I know that I'll have "good" days and "bad" days, but still...on the average this is what I'm looking at. It's also about 2 and 1/2 pages in a 12-point, single spaced Word document....per day. :)

Why am I doing this again? And will my family remember who I am in December? Better question...will they forgive me? Come Thanksgiving, I'll probably have a turkey leg in one hand and pencil in the other.

I took a typing test and my speed varied from 68 to 82 wpm. So, maybe it won't be quite so bad...as long as I can think of a plot that quickly.

NaNoWriMo

I've decided to write a novel in 30 days. A 50,000 word novel. The folks over at NaNoWriMo are to blame. It just sounds like a lot of fun and I hope to learn some things about myself over the process. Still trying to decide where to keep the daily entries. I like the idea of using a blog to do it, but I'm not sure yet.

I've bought a copy of "No Plot? No Problem!" by Chris Baty. He is one of the guys who founded the NaNoWriMo. Lots of helpful info there. For one, setting your expectations on the quality of your work very low. It's a rough draft, the operative word being "rough".

No sure of my plot yet, but will almost certainly involve time travel. A bit of mystery has to be there as well. We'll see what happens.

How Nerdy Are You?

This was fun to do. Good to know that I'm not quite as nerdy as I once thought.

Teen Buzz Ringtone

There is a new ringtone called "Teen Buzz" that uses higher frequencies so that adults cannot hear the ring. This apparently helps them to use their text messaging devices during class when they are not supposed to. The sound was originally developed by a European company to help store owners drive loitering teenagers away from the front of their store. See article at MSNBC.

Ummm... I could be missing something here but, couldn't you just set the ringer to "vibrate"? I guess I should not make the assumption that all phones and messaging devices have a vibrate feature.

Interesting technology nonetheless. If you want to see if you can hear it, go here.

J

Finally Moved In...

Here we are, we are finally here. We moved in the last week of April and are finally getting settled. Our computer is still on a piece of plywood (old computer desk didn't survive the move) but we have window treatments up and most boxes are out of sight.

Best of all, I have my Comet pinball machine back and its in the garage. Ahhh....

We have trees!

 
They did our landscaping this week. They are also installing all the trim stuff like lights, outlet covers, etc. The sinks are in and the floors are in as well! It's getting close...4 more weeks to go. 

Siding is on!

 They've put the siding on the house. The bottom half with no siding is where a stone apron is going to go.
 

New House Coming Along

 The new house is coming along. Closing date is set for April 11. We're getting excited about having more space!
 

Stanislav Petrov

I ran across this link in the wikipedia
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov).

Having never heard of Stanislav Petrov before or the events of September 26, 1983, I was amazed and grateful for his actions. I'm not sure I would've trusted my intuition that much - I'm glad he did.

Top Grossing Movies Of All Time

I got curious the other day about what are the top grossing movies in the USA. IMDB has a great site and provides just the list I was looking for. However, they state at the bottom that the "figures are not adjusted for inflation". Bummer.

Being the guy I am though (and also that I don't consider Titanic to be all that great of a movie despite it's #1 ranking), I decided to find an inflation calculator and adjust the numbers to see what would turn up. Wow, what a difference!

Here is the top 20 from the original list that is NOT adjusted for inflation. As you can tell, with a few notable exceptions, most all of these movies are from the late 1990's and on. Which makes sense since the price of a ticket has gone through the roof. (not sure why there's a big white space here...scroll down...)

Rank	Title	Year	Unadjusted Sales
1	Titanic	1997	$600,779,824
2	Star Wars	1977	$460,935,665
3	Shrek 2	2004	$436,471,036
4	E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial	1982	$434,949,459
5	Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace	1999	$431,065,444
6	Spider-Man	2002	$403,706,375
7	The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King	2003	$377,019,252
8	Spider-Man 2	2004	$373,377,893
9	The Passion of the Christ	2004	$370,270,943
10	Jurassic Park	1993	$356,784,000
11	The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers	2002	$340,478,898
12	Finding Nemo	2003	$339,714,367
13	Forrest Gump	1994	$329,691,196
14	The Lion King	1994	$328,423,001
15	Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone	2001	$317,557,891
16	The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring	2001	$313,837,577
17	Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones	2002	$310,675,583
18	Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi	1983	$309,125,409
19	Independence Day	1996	$306,124,059
20	Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl	2003	$305,388,685

To adjust the figures, I used the Consumer Price Index tables found at ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/cpi/cpiai.txt. I took the CPI from this year (2005), divided it by the CPI from the year the movie was released and multiplied by the unadjusted amount. If this is the wrong way to do this, somebody please let me know.

Now, here's the list adjusted for inflation. Now we're talking! Classics all the way down the list. And only ONE (Titanic) was released after 1983. In fact, the first movie from the 2000's that enters the list, does so at number 31...and it's Shrek 2...ugh...grossing $443M

Rank	Title	Year	Adjusted Sales
1	Gone with the Wind	1939	$2,744,015,350.79
2	Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs	1937	$2,465,673,133.33
3	Star Wars	1977	$1,460,390,225.74
4	Bambi	1942	$1,210,862,134.97
5	The Sound of Music	1965	$994,829,933.71
6	One Hundred and One Dalmatians	1961	$982,474,916.39
7	Jaws	1975	$927,881,040.89
8	The Exorcist	1973	$884,605,405.41
9	E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial	1982	$865,391,669.72
10	The Jungle Book	1967	$815,388,428.26
11	Titanic	1997	$718,689,882.92
12	The Sting	1973	$690,162,162.16
13	Doctor Zhivago	1965	$680,972,190.48
14	Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back	1980	$676,098,060.58
15	Mary Poppins	1964	$633,600,000.00
16	The Godfather	1972	$619,277,865.65
17	The Graduate	1967	$600,127,053.41
18	Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi	1983	$595,904,402.89
19	Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid	1969	$535,240,021.80
20	Grease	1978	$534,066,257.67

Just thought this was interesting. Also, if you do the numbers, each successive Star Wars movie has made less and less money when adjusted for inflation:

Star Wars - $1.492B
Empire Strikes Back - $736M
Return of the Jedi - $590M
Episode I - $491M
Episode II - $330M
Episode III - ?? (so far, it's $191M)

I guess this is why I get a little irritated when they say a movie had a "record breaking" weekend. It's only record breaking because a ticket cost $8 now instead of 50 cents (or whatever it cost it 1939). Oh well...it's interesting nonetheless.

Accessing Private Fields

I had read an article about unit testing private methods. As the article states, there are several approaches to this and also several reasons why you should consider NOT doing it (such as considering your design more carefully and testing public methods will indirectly test private ones). And while I'm still thinking about the merits of when you really need to test private methods, one thing did stand out to me and has proven very useful for my Monopoly Simulator.

I found that my Player objects should not expose their amount of cash as a publicly accessible field or method. Players in the real game of Monopoly, need not reveal how much money they have on hand. However, this presented a problem from two standpoints:

1. The Bank (or some other aspect of the game) might need to know how much money they have left in order to properly control the flow of the game - I have yet to actually run into this scenario yet, so I'm going to employ the principle of YouArentGonnaNeedIt - and not worry about it until I need to.
2. During unit testing, the cash level of a player indicates a successful test or not. This I have ran into and have used reflection to solve the problem.

Here is a method that accesses a private int field of any object:

private int getObjectPrivateIntValue(Class clazz, String fieldName, Object object) throws SecurityException, NoSuchFieldException, IllegalArgumentException, IllegalAccessException {
   Field field = clazz.getDeclaredField(fieldName);
   field.setAccessible(true);
   return field.getInt(object);
}

This is my first time bypassing the security of a class like this, so I'm not sure of all the ramifications yet. One thing I've noticed though, is that I'm tempted to put this kind of method into my actual application. This seems like a really bad idea. But, for unit testing code, it seems ok.

My next challenge, which is along these lines, is going to figure out how to make it so certain methods on Players (such as sendToJail() and pay(int amount) ) are only accessible to authorized classes (such as the Bank or Board objects). I can't make these methods package protected because other Player objects should not be allowed to call these methods. I need either some sort of SecurityManager. Maybe this is another place that aspects could help?

Monopoly Simulator

I have been working on a Monopoly Simulator for the past week or two. It's turning out to be an interesting project. At first I thought it would be interesting to simulate games to see if I could glean any strategic points, but a quick Google search turned up all kinds of Monopoly statistics. But, the more I thought about it, the more I thought it would be interesting to have a "pluggable" architecture so that different "players" could have different rule sets. Of course, because of my competitive nature, this quickly leaped to having people develop their own players with their own set of behavior rules (e.g. when they buy property, which properties they go after, trading, etc...) that could play against each other. On the other hand, I have a hard enough time finding people to play the regular Monopoly board game with me, much less code their own player rules in Java.

So, now I think I'm resigned to develop it just for learning's sake - which is sort of freeing.

I started out ok last week and identified which objects I would need and came up with what I thought would be a working model. Things were going ok, but then in typical form, I got a little excited about the whole thing and threw TDD out the window. Several lunch hours later, I had a Monopoly simulator that was "working" in that it actually simulated games and had a winner at the end, but I had no idea if it was working properly because I had no unit tests. The design also ended up in a rather unsatisfying mess with little room for expansion or flexibility. I need to refactor, but looking at it again I think I need to start over and just pull bits and pieces out as I need them.

I'm really interested in trying to integrate AOP in here somehow. I think in the area of generating statistics this will be great because that is certainly a cross-cutting concern. Each action in the game should be able to register some statistic of what just happened. Also, I'm thinking of using a rule engine for the player rules. That way, it's much easier to modify the player behavior using pseudo-english and, who knows, may even help get someone else to develop their own player.

More on this later.