A 'Lucky Charms' Plot

I've been wanting to make a 'Lucky Charms' plot for years.

Here is one.

I've wanted to produce a plot with a `Lucky Charms' (@LuckyCharms) theme for years.

Now I just need to find a good way to put one in a scientific paper. pic.twitter.com/dHChWIkBTM

— Mason Porter (@masonporter) May 14, 2019

Long Live the Matlab Billiard Simulator!

A couple of undergrads, Caitlin Keady and Sam King (who were in an REU and worked with my fellow former Georgia Tech postdoc Mark Demers for a summer project at Fairfield University), decided to update our old billiard simulator to be compatible with the 2016a release of Matlab. (I used it successfully on the 2016b release of Matlab.) They also added both new examples and new types of plots. You can download their version from the Matlab file exchange website.

Some people have still been using this software even though it's been 12 years since our original release—my former undergrad Steven Lansel did this in one of the first undergrad projects I supervised, and in 2006 on Kris Kazlowski updated the software—and even though things had gotten to the point that they were required to use a several-year-old version of Matlab. But now the billiard simulator is up-to-date again!

We certainly didn't think that people would still be using our software so many years later.

Matlab Does Super Mario (Again)

If you are a reader of my blog, you might have noticed previous posts about listening to a theme song from Super Mario Brothers, playing Risk, and playing Tetris on Matlab.

Well, you can also try your hand at playing a short demo of World 1-1 (sort of) of Super Mario Brothers on Matlab. Sweet!

(Tip of the cap to whoever posts for Matlab on Facebook.)

XKCDifying Plots in MATLAB

In case you were wondering (and I know you were), there is a script to "xkcdify" plots in MATLAB. Enjoy!

(Tip of the cap to Sang Hoon Lee.)

MATLAB Does Super Mario

Do you want to listen to (a portion of) the theme song from Super Mario Brothers in MATLAB? Of course you do!

(Tip of the cap to whoever posts Facebook stuff for MATLAB.)

Why Not?

Go to the Matlab command line and type 'why'. Then do it several more times. (For bonus points, find a clever way to use this command as part of a loop or some other series of commands.) I wonder how long this Easter Egg has existed? I only just found out about it today. Maybe I'm easily amused, but (a) I think this is awesome and (b) there must be some clever thing that one can do with this. :)

(Tip of the cap to whoever posts things for Matlab on Facebook.)

Risk on Matlab

Do you know what's even better than playing Risk? That's right: playing Risk on Matlab.

Does anybody want to play? I swear I that won't betray any alliances...

Tetris for MATLAB!

Also, let me assure that that I would never, ever use Matlab to play Tetris---especially not while I am trying to eat my dinner, catch up on my almost-40 e-mails that have built up since 2:00 pm, finish reading the transfer thesis draft on my desk, do some reading of the PhD thesis draft on my desk, or pack for tomorrow's flight to Korea. Never.

(Tip of the cap to whoever in Matlab is posting stuff to FB.)

Super Mario and Matlab

The Matlab team made a Facebook post today about playing the beginning of the theme to Super Mario Brothers using Matlab. You can download the code here. You know you want to!

The Million Song Data Set

The new Million Song Data Set looks really cool! It makes me want to do some community detection.

(Tip of the cap to whoever does Matlab's Facebook postings.)

Solving Mazes Using Image Processing

I only looked at the pictures (and briefly at parts of the descriptions), but this use of image processing ideas to solve mazes is pretty damn cool.

(Tip of the cap to Matlab's post on Facebook and whoever is responsible for this particular post.)

Ooh.... Matlab is a place on Earth!

Over twenty years ago Belinda Carlisle insisted that Heaven is a Place on Earth.

Maybe that's true, but thanks to a tidbit of information I just received from my collaborator Peter Mucha, I have just found out that Matlab is also a place on Earth. (Come on: You know you want to record this parody.) I approve!

I can't wait until the long-awaited Where in Bangladesh is Carmen San Diego? game finally comes out! (It will presumably be before this game does.)

This just totally rocks.

Recommendation

Do you know what's astoundingly fun?

Spending several hours of one's time customizing colormaps in Matlab and adjusting the figure format in various ways (swapping axes and so on) at the request of a coauthor. (And I needed to rerun all of my numerics because in this case, it wasn't space-efficient to save the matrices but was easier just commenting out appropriate parts of the .m file and running things again.) Grrrrrr.....

Update: And you know what's even more fun? I'll have to do it all over again. (Sigh...) I'll deal with this in a while after I have dealt with various teaching duties. I could write a much longer rant, but it's not worth it. I don't think there's much to be gained by having a conniption (that's one of the words of the day), and I already spazzed out a little while ago (that's another of today's words/expressions) in an IM to Lemming. (But, believe me, my frustration really is justified here.)