I use Gwibber to keep up with the various micro-blogging (Twitter, Facebook updates, identi.ca etc) services and having just installed Ubuntu 11.04 ‘Natty Narwhal’ (which includes Gwibber by default) I thought now is a good time to work on some themes. The supplied themes – ‘ubuntu’ and ‘default’ plus those available in the gwibber-themes package – are good but I found they didn’t contain exactly what I needed so have now been creating some of my own that also integrate with the UI settings.
|
||||
|
As previously written about here I, like many others, thought there “must be” a way to solve the Eternity II puzzle… Not deluding myself that I would be the one to win the prize exactly (although there’s a possibility [1] I might have said during last year that I was “about 50% confident” that I would solve it…) but more that ‘surely’ it should be possible, that although no algorithm can exist that would solve ‘all’ problems of this class, that it could be solved by the combination of human intelligence and computing power. Stepping outside the system is what’s required to solve most problems of this type, and why computers are terrible at it (in general) and artificial intelligence is probably, not only light years away, but conceptually not actually possible. In this previous post I installed a kernel module for the Wacom Bamboo tablet under Ubuntu 10.10. With my laptop this was all working fine, but I now also have a separate monitor (a Samsung Syncmaster F2380 for anyone keeping track), it’s a widescreen monitor that allows landscape or portrait orientation by physically rotating the monitor screen. A graphics tablet works by “mapping” the screen (or window) area to the tablet surface, so how does it work when the tablet and screen have a different aspect ratio? I set out to get this working, with a semi-elegant solution… I mentioned previously that I’d decided to try to solve the Eternity II puzzle game and write a ‘solver’ for it, possibly using some kind of AI. Of course, I haven’t yet found a solution, though I do have a couple of promising approaches. The ‘final’ deadline is December 31st and it won’t be solved by then, though it would be nice to see them extend it for another year (no-one has yet won, and it would be much more satisfying from both a company and buyer perspective to have a winner, rather than it just be abandoned!) but I don’t know if this will happen. See what happens when we get a few days off over Christmas!! You’d think trying to solve a (seemingly) intractable problem (the general class of problems like Eternity II must surely be NP-complete, so an AI approach might come up with a “very good” solution but won’t guarantee to find the exact solution, though it may do of course…) would be quite frustrating and frankly a waste of time but in fact there’s a certain stubbornness and determination that “no-one can solve that, I can solve it!” amongst people like me that makes problems like this almost more worthwhile to work on than mundane things like a ‘solver’ for those sliding number puzzles. What bothers me about all this though is that although an AI algorithm might “happen” across an exact or at least very good solution (which I’d then be tempted to tweak by hand) it’s a fuzzy approach by nature in that a solution evolves or is stumbled across; what I’d really like is to truly understand the puzzle to the extent that a solver could find all possible solutions based on a deep structure or rule. Where I’m starting to look is the number of solutions they mentioned that there are, and how else this number can be generated. In a previous post I looked at the drivers for the Wacom Bamboo ‘Pen & Touch’ graphics tablet and installation on Ubuntu 9.10 which was quite a long-winded procedure to download and compile the drivers. Now I’ve updated to Maverick Meerkat 10.10 I’ve needed to go through the process again to get it working on my new installation! It’s better now though… (Updated 30/04/2011: I’ve now installed 11.04 ‘Natty Narwhal’, more in a separate post, and it is working with the Bamboo with the same method as detailed below.) I’ve been a bit quiet lately as (among other things) I’ve been foolish enough to start work on a ‘solver’ for Eternity II (TM) – a puzzle game similar to a jigsaw in which 256 numbered pieces have to be re-assembled onto a 16×16 board so that all edges match (the website gives a lot more details), basically it’s a special case of the edge matching problems class with the solution being an arrangement of the pieces so that all 480 edges match in terms of pattern and colour. (The rules of the game say that entrants are not allowed to disclose any of the details of the pieces or of any solution so the information I’ve put here is quite general.) → view the rest of the post: Having installed Ubuntu Lucid Lynx 10.04 I was now ready to begin working with the OS and although it comes with some useful applications installed by default there’s quite a few things I normally add and change as part of the setup. The roundup below shows working with the Software Center, Package Manager (Synaptic) and Update Manager and differences from 9.10. → view the rest of the post: As Ubuntu 10.04 ‘Lucid Lynx’ was released a couple of days ago I’ve downloaded it and done my first installation! (honestly, the things I’ll do to avoid working on an Open University assignment…) I already had 9.10 on that computer but decided to overwrite it with a fresh install – there’s an ‘Upgrade’ process available but having had a bad experience with this in the past (flaky internet connection from my ISP dropping halfway through and I had to do a clean install anyway) I’ve always installed from CD (or USB) since then and this also ensures I have a live CD to hand in case of someone asking about Ubuntu, needing to recover files from a Windows system, etc. Anyway the first part of the installation process is as below – if you are coming to this page via a search then hopefully the below and subsequent posts will be useful. → view the rest of the post: Updated 27/12/10: I’ve made another post about installing this tablet, this time under Maverick Meerkat 10.10 (which should also apply to 10.04 – I didn’t have 10.04 installed for very long!). The updated method is much easier as it no longer needs to be compiled by hand from the drivers as a developer has very kindly packaged up the required drivers. So if you are using 10.04 or later then have a look at that instead/as well. (Original text:) I’ve been after a graphics tablet for a while and chose the Wacom Bamboo Pen and Touch based on good reviews, previous good experience with a Wacom tablet (Volito 2) and assurance from the interwebs that this tablet can be used successfully under Ubuntu! As a Linux user it is often the case that supplied driver CDs that come with hardware only support Windows and sometimes Mac, resulting in a little more ‘fiddling’ to get the device to work under Linux. I’ve now got the Pen and Touch working so it is possible – as some of the guides on the internet contradict each other and contain different steps I had some difficulty initially but following this method allowed me to install and use it successfully including pressure sensitivity with the pen, and the touch navigation. If you have found this page through a search then you could try following the steps below and if there are any further problems check sources such as the Ubuntu forums. I’ve been a user of Ubuntu Linux and other distributions for a number of years now and primarily work on a laptop. I finally got one of the ‘netbooks’ to use when out and about etc and chose the Acer Aspire One 531 model with Windows XP (there’s a new one out with Windows 7 and a higher capacity battery which also seems to be branded as 531 – mine is the more ‘basic’ one and cost £220 as of today). Not being a Windows enthusiast I know it’s possible to use Ubuntu or other distributions on a number of the netbooks so decided to try this today. → view the rest of the post: |
||||
|
|
||||
