Tom 7 Radar: all comments

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6140. homer simpsons dad (host28.201-252-92.telecom.net.ar) – 21 Aug 2007 15:15:32 Pac Tom report #1 ]
Males should be allowed to go shirtless at home only - Or vary with places for another persuasive speech topic
 
6139. Anonymous (71-14-73-244.dhcp.stls.mo.charter.com) – 20 Aug 2007 17:58:51 Found: RAP SNACKS ]
So retarted...
 
6138. Tom 7 (gs82.sp.cs.cmu.edu) – 20 Aug 2007 15:00:37 Satisfactory ]
Everyone can be happy together!
 
6137. EJCLT (c-71-206-196-149.hsd1.pa.comcast.net) – 20 Aug 2007 13:38:15 Satisfactory ]
Those guys are my very favorite band right now!
 
6136. Kacper (c-68-43-131-149.hsd1.mi.comcast.net) – 19 Aug 2007 20:05:47 New! Escape 200704130 ]
I made and sent some levels and I will make and send many more!
 
6135. Tom 7 (h-66-167-250-247.phlapafg.dynamic.covad.net) – 19 Aug 2007 15:50:58 Song of the Month, June 2007 = So Begins Our Alabee ]
I'm glad!
 
6134. Sophia (76.24.8.10) – 19 Aug 2007 14:11:10 Song of the Month, June 2007 = So Begins Our Alabee ]
That suggestion has proven very wise...
 
6133. Anonymous (cpc2-port3-0-0-cust425.cos2.cable.ntl.com) – 19 Aug 2007 11:48:49 Bathroom? Mushroom! ]
Wow. Excellent site. Now I'm convinced I have to take this seriously. Unfortunately, if there's a leak it's coming from the flat above and who knows how long it will take to fix...
 
6130. Justin (c-24-131-18-182.hsd1.pa.comcast.net) – 19 Aug 2007 01:33:27 Pac Tom update: The periphery ]
Congratulations on your running progress! That's awesome. Those /educational/ PhDs are so overrated.

...I mean... hopulator...
 
6129. Anonymous (c-24-131-18-182.hsd1.pa.comcast.net) – 19 Aug 2007 01:29:54 Harris Grill catches fire ]
God how I loaatthee KDKA.
 
6127. Tom 7 (h-68-166-207-78.phlapafg.dynamic.covad.net) – 18 Aug 2007 19:03:02 ICFP Contest 2007 writeup ]
My head is exploding!!
 
6126. spoons (aannecy-256-1-108-206.w90-9.abo.wanadoo.fr) – 18 Aug 2007 12:48:12 ICFP Contest 2007 writeup ]
That's true, Tom, I never read blogs.
 
6125. Anonymous (12-218-54-76.client.mchsi.com) – 17 Aug 2007 20:39:39 Bathroom? Mushroom! ]
does anyone have spores that have a little stalk and light brown oval ball on the end,,I know I did a terrible job replastering the wall behind my shower and im scared it will just fall down and a million of these spores will be behind it...oh I so want to move!!
 
6124. Tom 7 (gs82.sp.cs.cmu.edu) – 17 Aug 2007 19:30:45 Pac Tom update: The periphery ]
It's true, but with a tongue-twister name like that, isn't Hopulator a bit easier to say?
 
6123. Arthur (p5480544f.dip.t-dialin.net) – 17 Aug 2007 19:01:06 Pac Tom update: The periphery ]
Google it and you'll find it's inventors call it Randall as well: http://www.dogfish.com/news/Randall_The_Enamel_Animal/28/index.htm
 
6122. Tom 7 (gs82.sp.cs.cmu.edu) – 17 Aug 2007 16:41:46 Pac Tom update: The periphery ]
I know I am beating back the fans with your disused iMac.
 
6121. William (c-69-181-80-160.hsd1.ca.comcast.net) – 17 Aug 2007 02:03:58 Pac Tom update: The periphery ]
".in", baby -- that totally trumps my intel.com! At Harris Grill, apparently they call it Randall the Enamel Animal, the organoleptic hops transducer module -- but when you can't remember all that, you call it a hopulator :)

Tom, you realize this means your blog is world^Wpittsburgh-famous?
 
6119. Tom 7 (h-72-244-65-128.phlapafg.dynamic.covad.net) – 16 Aug 2007 22:46:32 Pac Tom update: The periphery ]
Well Rob, a Hopulator is a device (I think maybe William and I are the only ones that call it this, but also sometimes other things like "hoppifier") is a device that forces beer through fresh hops (those flowers that some beers their citrus bitter flavor) in order to give them even more citrus bitter flavor. I love that thing. I wish it was always running. East End brewery will stick some fresh hops in your growler for you sometimes if you go during grahler 'ahrs. Wait, if you are Rob Simmons in India then you know all about those particular hops and have movie evidence.
 
6118. Rob (abts-kk-dynamic-057.25.167.122.airtelbroadband.in) – 16 Aug 2007 22:34:22 Pac Tom update: The periphery ]
But what's a hopulator?
 
6117. Rob (abts-kk-dynamic-057.25.167.122.airtelbroadband.in) – 16 Aug 2007 22:34:08 Pac Tom update: The periphery ]
You beat me to it!
 
6116. William (scfwpr04.sc.intel.com) – 16 Aug 2007 21:46:28 Pac Tom update: The periphery ]
Yay! Hopulator lives!
 
6115. Clive (ip-58-28-208-41.ubs-dsl.xnet.co.nz) – 16 Aug 2007 20:54:57 ICFP Contest 2007 writeup ]
Oops - just realised I called myself a one person team. Just in case my "team-mate" reads my earlier comment, we were more like a "one and a bit" person team this year. As in about 1 and 1/8th.... :-)
 
6114. Clive (ip-58-28-208-41.ubs-dsl.xnet.co.nz) – 16 Aug 2007 20:04:33 ICFP Contest 2007 writeup ]
Enjoyed your write-up. It also makes me feel so much better to know that team K.I.S.S. outscored the organisers from last year. Thanks for that! :-)

I get kind of nervous now when I hear about a new ICFP07 Contest write-up, because I'm still trying to solve this problem in my slow, plodding way - they did say it was a 72 day contest right?! This means I don't want to accidentally get any more clues, yet I also don't want to not read them!! So it's a case of skimming quickly the first time (with short term memory power turned as low as possible) and then going back to read it again more carefully if it seems "safe". Yours is nice and safe (from my perspective), and very interesting.

I wasted a huge amount time during the contest trying to track down a bug caused by an a very stupid mistake I made (and insufficient testing later). My one line "empty bucket" implementation ("bucket = []") was effectively a NOP - and unfortunately the "self check" page didn't really tell you anything useful in that case! In fact only the bottom half was visible and that (apart from the incorrect colours) seemed to show things were working well. It seems obvious now, but I ended up thinking the DNA to RNA tool was the real cause. Still, it turns out I fixed the bug accidentally when doing more testing (of the colour stuff!) and some associated refactoring very late in the contest but then threw in the towel without running the self-check again. I didn't find out it was fixed until the next morning when I started comparing my outputs to those from tools from another team.

I'm really looking forward to hearing if this year's organisers really expected teams to solve all those puzzles, etc., or whether those were really a red herring/honey pot/something to play with later when you realised time was running out and turned instead to patching the daylight image, or perhaps generating the whole thing from scratch. I guess solving the puzzles was feasible if your team was big enough (and smart enough) and perhaps also a little bit lucky, but as a one person team (and not particularly smart either!) it seems rather challenging! Unless of course, it really was meant to be 72 days... oops, look at the time... I better get back to working on a way to extract page 23!
 
6113. Tom 7 (h-72-244-65-128.phlapafg.dynamic.covad.net) – 16 Aug 2007 19:53:25 ICFP Contest 2007 writeup ]
Thanks Robert, I appreciate that! I should also mention that Spoons helped a bit with the writeup and was mostly responsible for creating the movie. But Spoons never reads blogs so he probably will never know that I neglected to mention that.
 
6112. Robert Hulme (cpc1-cmbg4-0-0-cust628.cmbg.cable.ntl.com) – 16 Aug 2007 19:25:34 ICFP Contest 2007 writeup ]
That was awesome! Thanks!

This is one of the best (if not the best) ICFP write ups I've read (and I've read almost all of them), if only because you explained how you ended up solving the problem in a different way to everyone else :-)
 

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