You may have noticed the new page – Words With Josh

I play words with friends (a scrabble rip-off basically) with a few people on my iphone, and I wanted to wrap some intelligence around finding the optimal word based off what letters were already played.  Now, I do not condone the act of cheating when you’re playing the game.  I was more intrigued at the logic that your brain does to determine what words to play.  Scrabble is a measurable science, and there is always a best word to play, it’s just a matter of whether you know that word and whether you recognize where to place it.

I at first wanted to write a complete scrabble game, that would track the entire board and value changing tiles, so that you could play against a computer.  I could still do that, but I would think that no one really wants to play scrabble by themselves, right?

So I set off to at least code what could be useful -IF- you decided to use it as a reference tool.  I made a version available through the blog but also a better mobile version for iphones and such here – http://sixf00t4.com/wordswithjosh.  Give it a shot.  It will help you find anagrams, words with letters in specific places, and even includes the option for blank tiles.  I was thinking about adding the functionality to set letter spaces as score modifiers (triple letter, double word, etc), but I got lazy and really just satisfied with what I have now.  It’s all php and mysql.  Let me know what you think!

Here’s an update on some Hill District projects:

YMCA: This is going in 2 blocks from my house on Centre Avenue. It is currently slated for an early 2012 completion. Should be awesome to have an indoor basketball court and pool so close! Also, it’ll be one of the city’s largest green certified buildings. Post-Gazette

Grocery Store: Shop ‘n Save has committed to putting in a full service store (FINALLY!). It is scheduled to be completed in November of 2011. This is going to be 3 blocks from my house. Post-Gazette

Consol Energy Center: The new home of the Pens will be opening with Paul McCartney on August 15th. On my walk to work, it’s looking just about done from the outside. still some paint, shrubs, and lights to finish though. It’s on its way to being the highest LEED certified sports center in the nation. http://www.consolenergycenter.com/

Connelley School: At the upper corner of the Mellon Arena’s top parking lot, there’s this old school that has been closed due to asbestos. Now, there’s money to convert it into a place for green start ups and research facility for Pittsburgh Green Innovators. Seems like a pretty cool thing.Post-Gazette

Pharmacy: Duquesne has announced they’d open a pharmacy in the Hill. I’m not sure exactly which store front it’s going in, perhaps the old Carnegie Library Space? That might be too large though. It is slated for later this year. >Post-Gazette

Cambria suites Hotel: The hotel in between the Washington Plaza apartments and Consol Energy Center is close to being structurally done. It has all the blocks in place, now just time to brick it up and put some windows in and finish the interior. Looks like it will open in December 2010. More & pictures

Kaufmann Auditorium: Right next to the Hill House, they’re making a bunch of modernizations and upgrades to this auditorium. Plans also include an outdoor amphitheater. link

Dinwiddie Street: Not sure what all is included here, but they are tearing down a bunch of abandoned houses and blight. I think they plan to build new houses, but maybe it will be apartments. I’m watching the HDCG for updates.

I am officially converted over to wordpress 3.0 now. The old site is still operational at http://joshuadhall.com/nukeindex.php, but wordpress is handling all the traffic by default now.  I’ll work on getting polls back up and the download section converted.  I’m a little sad to see the statistics reset…but what are ya going to do?  If you’re reading this on facebook, check out http://sixf00t4.com and tell me what you think!

I’ve taken a few pictures of the sti(c)kman.  I first saw him in Philly with Kallie.  Then down in DC, and I think I saw him somewhere in pittsburgh too.

I recently came across a similar work of graffiti art called the "Toynbee tiles".  I vaguely remember seeing something on the street at the corner of Smithfield street and Forbes Avenue, but I never paid much attention to it.  Apparently the tiles are in a lot of major cities, and speculative roots are in philly.  It’s this weird license-plate sized box that makes reference to toynebee‘s idea about striving towards the future and always having goals that are almost impossible.  There’s also something in there about colonizing Jupiter like the movie 2001 space odyssey.

Here’s a link to the post gazette story – http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06151/694320-42.stm and to the wikipedia article – en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toynbee_tiles

So, I’m going to leave the phpnuke system and convert from ravennuke to wordpress.   I’ve had this blog running on phpnuke for a long time, and I loved having the flexibility of editing the code and writing my own modules and having a very full featured site, but I think it’s time to shave it down to what is useful and also maintainable.  I’ve written a php script to convert all the stories from ravennuke to a fresh install of wordpress and I’ll be messing with templates and features in the next month or so.  The demo site is http://joshuadhall.com/wordpress and I’ll eventually switch it over to the main URL once I’m done playing and find something I’m satisfied with.  RavenNuke is still a great product, don’t misunderstand me, but it’s not the best system for blogging.  I’ve made my concerns known to the community for a long time, and have even contributed code that it lacked, but there were projects that kept getting delayed that are already available in wordpress, so that’s tipped me over to the switch.

Here’s the link to the script – http://sixf00t4.com/downloads/?did=65

It’s been a while since I’ve put up a post in the "memories" category.  I was thinking about times I’ve almost died.  There aren’t many, I think, but still something worth sharing.

When I was in high school, I dug up my Uncle Jay’s 250 watt 15" Pevey bass amp from my dad’s barn.  The funny thing about this amp was that it didn’t have a ground wire in it.  It just had a 2 prong plug.  I ended up cutting off the plug since it was damaged and put a new grounded plug on the end, which at least gave me a sense of security that it wasn’t going to come out of the wall.

Later on, my Uncle Kenny gave me my first 4 string base.  IT was a black "series 10" bass.  Nothing special about it, but it did the job.  I had gotten it in my head that I’d like a natural wood finish instead of the black matte, so I got some sand paper and started to go to town on the bass.  This was a lot of work.  When it got time to get around the pickups and bridge, I had to undue the strings.  I had the bass plugged into the amp, and the amp on, just so I could hear the awesome tones as I detuned.

So there’s me, in a damp basement, sitting in a metal chair, next to a 250 watt bass amp, that’s plugged into a surge protector on the floor next to me with a bunch of other devices, and 4 nickel wound, 1/8-1/4 inch diameter bass strings flopping around in my lap.  As luck would have it, something like the alarm clock was barely plugged in to the surge protector, and one of the strings found it way in the gap.  You want to know how I was sure something was wrong?  Because one of the base string starting glowing bright orange.  I jumped out of my seat, which was enough to move the bass string, but after some damage to the surge protector, which I still use today.  Here it is:

I think that counts as almost dying. 

One of my favorite things in industrial and functional art is efficient use of space.  People design their furniture and living spaces to make life work well in small places.  This ins’t your feng shui movement/placement, this is getting the best use out of space.  I’ve seen hgtv shows where couples fit everything they own, neatly and conveniently, in a 400 sq ft condo.  I should pull out some of those links…everything from single foot staggered stairs, to entire walls that move and can be used for storage.

This little idea of storing books in the staircase is pretty awesome.  Kallie and I have a lot of books, and if we ever live on a boat, this would be one place we could store them all.  Kind of gives a new meaning to treading lightly on the words you speak.

http://www.geekologie.com/2008/02/bookshelf_stairs_are_freaking.php

http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/ny/at-europe/at-europe-london-closeup-the-amazing-staircase-042543

So I activated a feature of the blog for smart phone browsing.  It’s an extremely limited version of the site that only has the last 10 or so posts, but it’s only text based so you can read it on mobile devices easily.  I’ll probably create a nifty URL like http://joshuadhall.com/mobile or /iphone in a few minutes to point to it, but you can access it from the ‘mobile browsing’ listing in the menu.

another addition along those same lines is an icon for the iphone.  if you add the link to your home on your iphone, you’ll get a nice icon.  The screen shot is below.

So I’m playing with my new iphone, and I’m fascinated by all the possibilities.  I’ll be sure to tell you about productivity enhancers later.  For now, I want to share a little app I found called Fstream (direct link to app store download page here).  There are other music apps that cost money to use, like simplify media and tuner internet radio too, but I was looking for a free solution, and this is it.  That’s the perfect solution i was looking for.  Thanks Fstream!

Legend of the Green Dragon is a text based RPG (Role-Playing Game).  All you need to play is a web browser, an internet connection, and a sense of humor and imagination.

I’ve hosted this game before and had 1500+ players from around the world.  I stepped away from the game for personal reasons almost 2 years ago, but now I’ve found the time and desire to get it back to the game it once was.  It’s all PHP based and it’s a ton of fun.  It’s quite addicting!