Remember this guy?

Any PSU alums who attended the University Park campus will fondly</sarcasm> remember the Willard Preacher. It turns out he has a website! Yes, it is every bit as bad as you probably expect.

Here's a tidbit on atheism from the "Musings" section, topic "Atheism":

Blather on...

In memoriam, Benoit Mandelbrot (20 November 1924 – 14 October 2010)

Dammit.



Later,

Quasi-Final version of Sudoku Solver

This is going to be the last update to my sudoku solver for a while.



So here's the rundown:

1) I changed the way the dialog to set values works. To reset a box to null, press the button for the current value again. The GUI will not let you set a box to an illegal value.

2) Guessing works. Boxes solved without guessing are filled blue. If it can't finish the puzzle, the solver will ask if it can start guessing. The boxes set after guessing are filled red.

3) Trying to guess on a sudoku without a unique solution will cause the solver to enter an infinite loop.  Refresh the browser to end.

4) Added a reset button.

I may add advanced techniques later, to get it to solve further before needing to guess, but I'm kind of losing interest now, so we'll see.

Later,

Blog stuff

I don't think the hide-post-thingy I have been using likes blogger's latest revisions.  But blogger added their own jump break stuff, so I changed over to that.  I really liked the one I had been using, though.

Later,

Sudoku Solver

I think I've learned enough Java to try to write a Sudoku solving applet.

The first step in running the solver will be setting the board. Click on a box to set it's value (right now, each click increments the value, later I might use a dialog to pick the value, but this is good enough for now)

UPDATE: I added a dialog to set a box value.

UPDATE2: It was a hell of a fight, but I managed to get the GUI to look pretty much how I want. I ended up having to draw the heavy dividing lines manually, so they don't quite re-size right.

UPDATE 3: Added functionality.

UPDATE 4: Changed the look a bit. The boxes now change color when manually set. Adding the advanced techniques is tougher than I thought. I may take some time. After hitting the "Solve" button, the dialog function changes. Instead of setting the box value, it allows you to change the restricted values (blue means value is restricted).

this is just the GUI. the "Solve" button does nothing yet.
The applet goes as far as it can with the very basic algorithm it uses.
It successfully solved the NYT Easy and Medium Sudokus for July 15, 2010.
It wasn't able to completely solve the Difficult one, but I have ideas for more advanced techniques to add, so it shouldn't be long. YAY!!!

Note: it doesn't error check (yet). If you enter an impossible sudoku, it will still try to solve it.

*** Removed. See post dated 7/23/2010 for sudoku solver applet. ***

"I am so smart! S-M-R-T... I mean S-M-A-R-T!"
</Homer>

Praise me! PRAISE ME!
</GIR>

Later,

Some sidebar clean-up

Several bloggers at ScienceBlogs have left due to the kerfluffle about the PepsiCo blog (Which I really don't get, especially since the PepsiCo blog is gone now anyway. But it's their decision, and I'm cool with that.)

Some of those that left I read regularly. I have updated the links to the ones that I still follow, and have taken the opportunity to remove the ones I really don't anymore.

Later,

Thoughts on why you can't logically disprove god to a theist.

Consider this:

given some real, non-zero value, a

        a = b
     a*b = b2
 a*b-a2 = b2-a2
a*(b-a) = (b-a)*(b+a)
         a = b+a

This is obviously wrong. You don't even need to understand the algebra to see that it's wrong. If a is not zero, and a equals b, then a cannot equal a+b. The argument is nonsense. Identity is not a conclusion. It is an axiom. It is foundational to mathematics.

As far as theists are concerned, the same thing applies to their god. If your logic leads to the conclusion that their god doesn't exist, then, to theists, there is obviously something wrong with your logic; even if they can't say what that is, exactly. For them, their god is an axiom, foundational to reality. Only when a theist is able to reject that premise as false can they be reasoned with.

That is why I stick to "Evidence or STFU" when someone challenges my atheism.

Later,