I've been working on a home-grown AI simulation for the past week or so.  The code is posted here:

http://code.google.com/p/kindohm-life/

If I get some free time tonight I'll post some more interesting details about it.  Basically it's an environment with herbivores, carnivores, and plants that carry out their short lives walking, eating, mating, and then dying (usually of starvation - at least up to this point). 

The motivation for this?  Just because.

What have I learned so far?  A little bit about threading (in the user interface), and that adding one variable to your AI increases the complexity exponentially. 

Thanks to everyone who attended the MODIG tonight on the MOSS Search API.  Slides and code are posted here: http://tinyurl.com/6y5hc7

Goodbye to the 2007-2008 season. It was a great season, Wild. See you next year.

Last night the Wild lost their Quarterfinal playoff series to Colorado.  This series loss seems to sting a little more than last year.  I think it's because I thought the team would beat Colorado in as many games as they beat the Wild.  Jose Theodore somehow had the Wild's number the entire series.  The Wild would have won a few of those games by about 5 goals if it weren't for him.

Plus there were all the injuries.  Who knows what might have been different if Branko, Parrish, and Schultz had all been healthy for the entire series.  Those are three solid players that played few very games throughout the series. 

Oh, what to do about it....  I don't know if the Wild should change a whole lot for next year.  I'd bank on their young talent getting better.  Koivu is going to become the Wild's most rock-solid player next year.  And look at the young talent like Burns, Bouchard, and Sheppard...  I'm eager to see what they do next year.  The Wild are still a young team emerging from expansion.  I think a lot of die hard fans out there are going to be pissed about this year, but for a team that has only existed for seven seasons, I'd say the future looks very, very bright. 

People will say that Gaborik didn't step up in the playoffs.  I'd say that Colorado just knew to focus on him and shut him down because the Wild don't have many other offensive weapons right now.  Colorado had three first-class scoring threats in Sakic, Forsberg, and Hejduk.  Minnesota had Gaborik.  Next year as Koivu and the other young talent develops I think that our own scoring threats will begin to increase.

But what else could the Wild management do to help push them further in the playoffs?  Again, I wouldn't mess with the core of the team too much, unless they try and pick up a top free agent.  That's exactly what Colorado did with Forsberg.  Who knows why Minnesota didn't get Forsberg (as per league rumors about MN's talks with him).  But that is the only large scale type of change I can see making a difference.  Here are some of the 2008 (unrestricted) free agents that might be available (thank you http://tinyurl.com/5j4rho):

Sakic, Fedorov, Sundin, Weight, Straka, Peca, Stu Barnes, Roenick

It's not like the Wild to go after big free agents like those names, but the Wild are beginning a different phase of their franchise.  Time to introduce some other talent?  They did it before with signing Pavol Demitra.  I don't know that it's a requirement to sign a free agent to push the Wild to the next level, but it would definitely help. 

I'll be presenting on the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) Search API at the next Minneapolis Office Developer Interest Group (MODIG) meeting on April 22, 2008 at 5:30 PM.  I wasn't originally scheduled for this talk, but I'm filling in for Neil while he tends to his new paternal duties. 

The talk will be almost the same as the one I did at the last Twin Cities Code Camp, except this time there will be a little more time available for the presentation. 

I'll add that you can now buy a MODIG t-shirt!

http://www.cafepress.com/cp/customize/product.aspx?clear=true&number=%20253292961

Hope to see you there with a new shirt!

I stumbled across these two videos by accident a few days ago.  They were sitting as unfinished video projects in my software and hadn't been compiled into a video file yet.  So here they are...  two versions of the same recording session on 9/28/2006:

This morning my "J" key officially died:

This is the second time in two months that I've needed a new keyboard. 

• http://kindohm.com/archive/2008/02/12/busted-keyboard.aspx
• http://kindohm.com/archive/2008/03/21/the-busted-keyboard-saga-continues.aspx

Either I need to change my typing style (not an option) or Dell needs to change keyboard vendors. 

After watching the Canada on Strike South Park episode and seeing the nunchuck guy as one of the "internet stars" in that episode, I couldn't help but recall this video of some other guys taking the nunchuck guy footage and mashing it up into their own video:

I love it.

It's playoff time in the NHL.  For NHL fans, it's an awesome time of the year - especially the quarterfinals, because there are about 2-4 games a night for the first week or two.  Plenty of hockey to watch on TV! :)

Looking back at the predictions I made in October, I only had one team wrong for the West's eight playoff spots.  I predicted Vancouver would make it in, but they didn't.  Detroit, San Jose, Minnesota, Calgary, Dallas, Anaheim, Nashville, and Colorado are in.  I was disappointed to find that I didn't predict a conference winner, so I can't reflect on that at all.  Both Detroit and San Jose ran away with the Western conference this year and they are are the obvious favorites. 

In the East, I didn't predict much more than Ottawa and the Rangers facing off in the Eastern finals, and that the Rangers would come out ahead.  Both Ottawa and NY are in contention this year.

My predictions for the West:  Detroit and San Jose will easily with their series' against Nashville and Calgary, respectively.  Minnesota will beat Colorado because I'm a Minnesota fan boy.  Anaheim will beat Dallas in their series - Anaheim has a better record and finished the season very strong.  Minnesota will lose to San Jose in the semis because we can never beat them.  Detroit will win their series.  San Jose vs. Detroit is a tough call in the finals...  I'll go with San Jose because today is a day that ends in Y.

For the East... I never have a clue about the East: Montreal will beat Boston by default because of the 1st vs. 8th seed matchup.  Pittsburgh will beat Ottawa because Pittsburgh is finally a legit team that cannot be stopped.  I hate admitting that.  Washington will lose to Philadelphia because Washington is an over-rated 3rd seed.  Washington's SouthWest division is weak and they're only the 3rd seed because they won their division.  New Jersey vs. Rangers...  I'll go with the Rangers because I predicted them last year.  Rangers will beat Montreal, and Pittsburgh will beat Philadelphia in an epic Pennsylvania battle.  We'll see the Pens and Rangers in the final and the Rangers will win because they are more experienced. 

San Jose beats the Rangers and wins the Stanley Cup.  San Jose and the entire West is more defense oriented and defense wins in the NHL. 

We'll see in June how wrong I am about all this :)  Last year my playoff predictions were pretty much all wrong. 

The slides and real-time demo code from my presentation on the SharePoint Search API are available for download:

• TCCC.SearchApi.Slides.zip - both PowerPoint 2003 and 2007 formats [1.2 MB]
• TCCC.SearchApi.Code.zip - [4.7 MB]

And of course, SharePoint Search Bench can be found on CodePlex:

http://codeplex.com/SPSearchBench

Thanks to everyone who attended! 

I've posted three new tunes for your scrutiny, enjoyment, annoyance, rapture, etc:

Ely [5 MB - 5:28]
Pure sliced-beat joy on a backdrop of some soft textures.

Raising the Roof of the Lab [3.52 MB - 3:50]
The scientist lives [link]. Honestly, I'm not sure how I feel about this tune, but I decided to post it as a set up to the remix...

Raising the Roof of the Lab - Chemist Mix [3.71 MB - 4:03]
The scientist dances.