Month: March 2014

Did it!

by dougpete, posted in application, Computers, Read/Write Web

I got 2048!

and no … I didn’t get it by cheating or by digital editing.  It was done legitimately, and with a great deal of work and effort.

It just wasn’t with the original game.

As I blogged yesterday, the 2048 game is a very addictive time consumer (waster) game that had its code released as open source.

So, I was investigating an intriguing mathematics Tumblr site called “Visualizing Math” which is a fantastic resource for animations and visualizations in mathematics.  This is well worth the time, effort, and exploration for such visualization.

In the middle, there’s a discussion of the 2048 game.  It was here that I read about the 9007199254740992 game!

Let me see here:

2

4

8

16

32

64

128

256

512

1024

2048

…

and so on and so on.  All made easily available through the benefit of open source.  The only problem is that the 8×8 grid is too large to display on the screen at default.  I had to do a few Command – keystrokes to make it all visible.  I thought, just for a moment, that I had a rationale to purchase a higher resolution screen!

It begs the question – there undoubtedly are more variations of the game available.

Do you have one to share?

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OTR Links 03/31/2014

by dougpete, posted in Links

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

The 2048 Game

by dougpete, posted in application, Read/Write Web, software

And now for something completely different…

I’m posting this on the weekend because it just wouldn’t be fair to get you started on something and then have to go to work.  The game is based on multiples of 2 – I wish that I could say that you could use this to teach binary numbers or something but that wouldn’t be right.

I put this game in the category of Flappy Bird.  Simple, easy to get started, easy to play, and it will have you addicted.  Can you hit 2048?  I started with the web version and was hooked.  Poking around reveals that there are many copies as well as portable versions.  The original is located here and can be played on your portable device so it really isn’t necessary to download a mobile version.

2048

As the instructions say, just move the tiles with the arrow keys on your keyboard (or swipe on the web), merge the tiles, and try to generate the highest score.  Can you hit 2048?

As I started to poke around, it’s not without its controversy.  The original author attributes the design to the game THREES.  iOS Android

The authors of THREES share their thoughts in a blog post and their comments to those who they claim have ripped off their original concept.

It is there that I do see room for classroom discussion.  Where does original work end and rip off begin?  Are we better off with only one variation of a theme?  THREES…2048…1024…Numberwang 2048.  What about WordPerfect…Word…Pages…LibreOffice?

It’s a great discussion to have – provided you can put this addictive game down long enough to have it!

The code is open source and you can download to make your own or add to the project.

In the meantime, I’ve hit 256 but I have a plan…

OTR Links 03/30/2014

by dougpete, posted in Links

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

More Spring Cleaning

by dougpete, posted in Just Rambling

This past week, I had three people that I know end up spewing garbage into their Twitter stream.  I know this because one of the spewings was directed at me.  It’s a reminder that a little bit of spring maintenance might be in order.

More on that in a second but it’s relatively easy to determine if someone has got access to your account and is sending out nasty messages.  If you’re just using the Twitter web interface, just head to your homepage http://www.twitter.com/<yourname&gt; and see what’s been sent.  You’ll know right away.  Or, if you’re using a third party application like Hootsuite or Tweetdeck, start a special column for Twitter messages “Sent”.

If there’s bad stuff, you’ll see it right away and you can handle it. 

How did they get access to your account?  Chances are, you clicked one of those links that says “LOL, I can’t believe this is you” and you’re in trouble.  Change your password right away and you should be back in business.

But, let’s go one step further.  Is there anyone or anything else using your account that you don’t know about?  Log into Twitter and head over to your applications menu.  Here, you’ll find a list of everything that you’ve approved access to your account.

If you don’t recognize the application or you did approve it once but now have a change of mind or you just don’t know, you can revoke access to your account.  The next time the application wants to use your account, you’ll have to approve it.  This is significant and worthwhile checking out regularly.

Since you’re on a maintenance roll, how about your other social accounts?  What has access to your Facebook account?  Find out by logging into Facebook and clicking here.

Are there any applications that you’re not using that need to be deep sixed?  This is the place to do it!

How about Google?  It’s so easy to log in to other services with your Google account.  It’s very handy but do you still need to give authorization?

Check these out by logging into Google and clicking here.

Have you used your Microsoft Live account?  Better check that too.

It’s not that these are bad things.  The trend is to use services by authorizing with an account that you already own.  It lowers the number of accounts (and passwords) that you need to maintain.  It’s up to you to keep an eye on what you’re authorizing and to revoke the access if you no longer need to do it.  This is one of those things that you have to do yourself.

So, when was the last time you did a little online account cleaning?