That’s fun to say and all, but I’m sure that there would be people who would like to have some proof of this: see below.

My method, shown above, tends to perform slightly better at the task using the test parameter. So, I figured, why not do some more vigorous verification on it?

After setting up the system to run at multiple data points, I found something peculiar, yet interesting:

Hand-rolled (at 10^3):
Difference in time: 0.000569
mathn (at 10^3):
Difference in time: 0.001286
Hand-rolled (at 10^4):
Difference in time: 0.008029
mathn (at 10^4):
Difference in time: 0.014407
Hand-rolled (at 10^5):
Difference in time: 0.14803
mathn (at 10^5):
Difference in time: 0.165025
Hand-rolled (at 10^6):
Difference in time: 2.823072
mathn (at 10^6):
Difference in time: 2.687332
Hand-rolled (at 10^7):
Difference in time: 62.096438
mathn (at 10^7):
Difference in time: 64.990647


For powers of ten, it seems as though my process is faster. 10⁶ doesn’t quite follow the pattern, though.

I then ran the same test on different data points:
Hand-rolled (at 2^14):
Difference in time: 0.014882
mathn (at 2^14):
Difference in time: 0.009224
Hand-rolled (at 2^15):
Difference in time: 0.036732
mathn (at 2^15):
Difference in time: 0.022161
Hand-rolled (at 2^16):
Difference in time: 0.085459
mathn (at 2^16):
Difference in time: 0.044076
Hand-rolled (at 2^17):
Difference in time: 0.208553
mathn (at 2^17):
Difference in time: 0.076775
Hand-rolled (at 2^18):
Difference in time: 0.498292
mathn (at 2^18):
Difference in time: 0.151843

Running everything as powers of two show a reversal of position for the results; the standard lib does better. This gives me some insight as to why the above 10⁶ test is reversed; the value for 10⁶ is very close to a power of two (2²⁰), and so the optimizations that are in the ruby library to handle near 2ⁿ are in effect at that point. Logically, I would see something similar for 10⁹, but I’m not going to let my computer sit for a day to crunch that out.

Called Paint, the idea is to have four main colors at the edge of the screens. By the phone’s tilt, those colors will bleed into the screen itself, causing the animation, and interactivity with the phone regardless of whether or not you’re actually accessing an app. The LWP actually becomes as fun to use as anything else on the phone.

The basic setup is contained in this Gist.  There’s more to add, but I made my quota for the day, and I want something to work on tomorrow.

Outside of that news, not much new going on here.  I’m single again, as Laura has decided she no longer feels anything for me.  I’m still a bit pissed off about the whole thing… it doesn’t seem like she’s losing much out of the arrangement (her parents never really liked me anyway, to the point of her dad saying that he wouldn’t come if we got married), where it’s been the second time I’ve contemplated giving her a ring.  Hooray for putting too much emotional attachment on something that doesn’t work.  But, in the process of that recovery, I’ve found a fantastic music group and group of friends that I couldn’t have ever imagined.  Toting the name I Fight Dragons, their music is part rock band, part 8-bit NES game, all crazy fun and awesome rolled together.  I suggest heading over to theSixtyOne and listening to them.  I’ve gone to one of their concerts, and am planning on going to another one at the end of this week. I’ve also made lego figurines of their 8-bit caricatures; some of the results of that:

Packy - Guitar, NES

Dave - Drums

Bill - Plays what I refer to as the "Octo-pod"

Laura - Vocals and Controllers

There are two more of the band members, Brian and Hari.  I didn’t forget them, I just ran out of legos.

I do need to get on here and put up some more things on occasion; I just don’t always have something to talk about, and so things get lost in the process.  I was humbled when I realized this comic was talking about me: http://xkcd.com/621/.

Have a good day, and I’ll catch you guys on the wire sometime.