Why it failed...

Well, I programmed the thing in 3 days. In my rush to finish it before the draw, I made a stupid mistake.


I assumed the XOR operation would be balanced in the infinite. Well, it's not and it even depends on how many values I XOR. Histogram in black is with 2 operands, in blue with 3 operands.
Had the program not have had this mistake, I would have guessed 2 balls and 1 star.

Predicting EuroMillions...

Ok. I played 2 keys, and a friend of mine played other 2. The 4 are generated using the same algorithm but mine are a randomness prediction and his are a pattern prediction.

Randomness prediction:

25 14 42 10 28 + 8 7
9 6 40 46 13 + 6 4

Pattern prediction:

23 3 15 16 21 + 2 5
37 39 6 49 10 + 4 6

Let's see if this improves anything. :D (Oh, the predictions were made so the balls come out in the depicted orders).

The problem of precision...

Well, I finally have some  some keys to play in EuroMillions, but the PC ran out of enough precision to store the probability values, so what I have is a 1/8.6 chance of winning 10€ per key. LOLLLLLLL I'll try to replace the doubles tonight with 256-bit floating point numbers using Gnu MP and a C# wrapper.

Predicting the unpredictable...

I'm a little crazy, so this week I started trying to predict numbers in a random sequence. I actually had astonishing results with only a few calculations.

As you know, a 100% random sequence is equiprobable. If you generate numbers from 1 to 50, in the infinite all should have come out infinite/50 times. Furthermore, you can for example analyze the space that took for similar numbers to come out. Its distribution should also be 100% random. Every relationship you establish in the sequence should be random. How does this help us. Well, if there's a pattern occurring, probability says it shouldn't occur anymore to maintain randomness.

I tried this theory with a pseudo-random generator and a "true random" atmospheric noise based generator, generating a sequence of numbers between 0 and 49. As you know, the probability of guessing the next number by pure chance is 1/50 = 2%.

Results (Percentages at which the predictor became stable):

Pseudo-random sequence: 1.4% (-30% than chance)
True random sequence: 2.4% (+20% than chance)

Astonishing isn't it? :) And I think the predictor can be greatly improved yet.

Puzzle solved!!!

I finally solved the puzzle that had been bugging me for the last 4 years. I'll now write a book on the subject. It will probably be the most controversial work I'll ever write in this life. :D Well. I like to shock people. At least it gets them thinking about how the world works, which is a rare thing these days. :p

Another thoughts... control is evil. Control leads to fear. Fear leads to further control. And who could take advantage of this overall? Who knows?! Probably someone already does. ;)

Free thought, free will and never taking anything for the absolute truth are the ways to peace and freedom. :)

Back...

Back from a restful weekend in S. Pedro do Sul with Ines. I feel well rested and like I could take the whole world heads on and win! Probably not a good thing... :D

cough... cough... maybe this is the final one:

Well, time to list what you might do with this application:

• Make your traffic count by compressing it (useful for people with absurdly low caps, like most mobile internet plans).
• Surf the internet anonymous.
• Almost 100% unbreachable wireless communications (it would take decades to break one packet with the most powerful computer currently available on Earth).
• If you use proxies, avoid having someone inspect your traffic and which machines you communicate with (useful for corporate workers who have nosy bosses - by the way, your boss seeing what you're doing is illegal, so you don't have to be afraid of obfuscating your traffic).
• If you are an ISP or network provider, you will be able to serve traffic to your costumers compressed/encrypted. This, together with advanced caching techniques will save you precious bandwidth and improve the overall security of everyone which uses it. Not to mention your customers will be happy with the added speed they'll obtain indirectly due to the network not being "jammed" so often.
  
• etc... etc... etc...

Final TranShape logo

This one is actually copyrighted by me and has some deeper meanings. ;)

TranShape status update

TranShape entering Closed Alpha stage.


TranShape is my own commercial TCP/IP traffic compression/encryption client/server application.

The closed alpha will be conducted in servers in:

• Brussels, Belgium
• Aveiro, Portugal

Sales plan to be announced soon when the official site is up.

Work to live, don't live to work...

Some people think working should be about money. Maybe they like to eat, sleep with, talk to, live in, play with... money.
I think work should be about coming home at the end of the day and feeling like we've actually done something valuable and sleeping soundly and happy with ourselves.

When you feel tired...

...delegate tasks! :D

The river...

Why do most people go with the flow, live their mediocre lives doing and thinking the same everybody else does? Sometimes, someone with new ideas enters their lives and they hold tight to their boats, so they won't leave their path, fearing for their meaningless lives...
...when that person finally achieves something great, they insult him/her to hide their lack of ambition and narrow sight.
It's sad to see this huge flock of sheep, with their lives ticking toward their sunset and yet all they do is follow one another, never aiming for greatness, either in mind, achievements, art, etc... oh, they strive for something: money!!! And for what? To reproduce and get more money? To what end? None whatsoever. Sad really.

Don't be afraid to break the flow!

1984 revisited...

What makes some people think they have the right to meddle into others' private life, data, etc... Who draws the line at what can be done and what can't? How do you see if you're being watched if you can't stare back at them the same way? Here's the dilemma.

PS: Read the book by the way :D

Many news...

Well, where to start?

I got tired of waiting for the GP2x Wiz release and bought a GP2x F200 instead. It's an amazing console. I'm addicted to Sega Megadrive emulation. I can now play Dune, Sensible Soccer, Golden Axe, etc... I'm just sad in that I was porting UFO: Enemy Unknown to it and someone got ahead of me... oh, well. Let's port X-COM: Terror From The Deep instead. :D

I bought a crossbow pistol for christmas, so that I get a rest from computers and can do a little target practice. :)


I also bought a media player. A SmartQ T5-II. It has an amazing autonomy and I can play emulated games with it when I have spare time. It beats smoking any day. :)

On a last note. OpenCL 1.0 has been ratified and I'm looking forward to use it. I think it will revolutionize some applications. It is just a shame that integer calculations are not supported. :P

Turbo Amiga...

I finally have a Blizzard 1230 Mk-IV accelerator with 16MB fast RAM for my Amiga 1200. It's fast as hell. Just a few tweaks and installations and it will be a dream gaming machine. :) Ohhhh, the memories... :)

Wiz delayed... Fallout 3 finished...

Well, the GP2x Wiz console has been delayed again. This time, the ETA is February 2009. They better fix the TV-Out on the thing (and perhaps add Wifi) or I'll just go with the Pandora console instead.

I've finished the main storyline in Fallout 3. The ending sequence is very disappointing, as they don't tell us how our decisions influenced the lives of those who we've come across. It's just an empty ending...
Well, I think I'll go back to Fallout 2. At least I can play it on the EEE. :D And it has Gauss Rifles, cocktails Molotov... and better quests than just killing everyone everytime or speaking our way through the quests (Bethesda has a lot to improve still) and following a marker on the compass to end everything.

I'm 27!!!!!! :P

Well, I turned 27 today, which some say is a good thing, others say it's a bad thing. I'm trying just not to become sad and nostalgic. :P

So many news... where to start?

Well, I finally bought a netbook. It's the Asus EEE 1000h and I love it and called 'her' Idunn, the nordic goddess of eternal youth. It's good to have a small computer to work and play old and emulated games. :)
The Asus N10 could run recent games, but 200€ more for a GeForce 9300 Mobile and a fingerprint reader?!?! Asus must be crazy!



My Amiga 1200, now has wireless network, Kickstart 3.1 ROMs, card reader, an 68030@50MHz CPU, an FPU and 128MB of fast RAM. Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiii Ohh, and it has a Compact Flash 4GB hard drive for my games collection. :) Can you spell Turrican? ;)



I'll also have a beatiful silver and gold flute by next week, so I may learn how to play. Gorgeous!!!



By last, I'm playing Fallout 3 many years after I've played the first two! :) Violent as hell! :D I like it a lot, especially with VATS (Auto Targetting) and always having few ammo, but where the heck is a Gauss Rifle (and Monty Python jokes by the way)?!?!? I chose Small Guns for the gausses. :S It's just a shame that it doesn't have the same generous amounts of black humor as the first two. :(



Yesterday, I received a collection of Taito arcade games for the PC and lost myself with them all night... those days had the best games. :(



Well, that's it for today :)

Farewell Loki!!!

Loki, my home desktop just died (two weeks ago actually). :'( It had its case USB ports short-circuited due to bad manufacturing and now I'll have to buy a new motherboard and graphics card (and case of course). I really wanted to wait until 2009 to upgrade it. :S It looks like I'll have to go ATI this time, since nVidia is putting lead again on its parts and I'll have none of it in my bedroom.

Meanwhile, I've built a new, improved, Super Loki, but I've had problems again. One of the power supply cables is too short to reach the connector on the motherboard, so I've had to order an extension cable which will only be here by next week. :( Well, I can wait... (have to anyway :))

Finally...

...I've made up my mind on which netbook to buy, almost. :) Either the Asus EEE 1000H or the MSI Wind, because smaller keyboards might get on my nerves. :P

Now I'll just wait for one of them to drop its price below 350€ or so. Probably by christmas...

My favourite bookstore...

...has simply got to be:

http://www.bookdepository.co.uk

Free shipping worldwide, good customer support and most prices better than amazon, especially when you consider postage costs. I've bought 50+ books from them in the last year alone and don't have any complaints. :)