Oddments

DVD Library

I am somewhat of a movie fan, and have quite an impressive DVD collection (and a tiny but expanding BluRay collection!). You can find the list here.

Why I am an Atheist

I wrote a 20,000 word essay on my 'deconversion' back in February 2009. You can find it here. For those put off by the mammoth size, there's also a link there to a much smaller article I wrote for a college publication.

Other sites

  • www.thequizzery.com: A site I knocked together in a week a number of years ago. As one may guess, it allows you to create quizzes, of a few different types. The site is not managed and has just been left to its own devices; it does however earn me 40p a day, enough to buy a Crunchie (don't fall off your chair!). At its prime though (as with the Narnia Quiz) it was a pleasant source of not inconsiderable income.
  • www.mattfrost.co.uk: My brother's photography website. Considering it's merely a hobby, he's rather bloody good at it (see in particular the 'Animals' section). The squirrel picture above is taken from his site.

Old (Experimental!) Projects

The following are predominantly JavaScript-based games I made when I was 17. Look at the source-code at your own peril; they're examples of how NOT to code in any kind of sensible or structured way.

  • Connect 4: Connect 4 is without a doubt my favourite boardgame. Back in 2003, after getting into the game, I decided to have a stab at artificial intelligence and produce a computer player that could beat me. At least on this premise, I accomplished that target. "Al" the AI player is definitely beatable, as long as you're not a beginner. Have fun!
  • Maze Generator: A random maze generator. It was part of my investigation into 'recurring function execution', where the maze grows organically by expanding out from each square. The hard part was making sure the maze filled every available square without 'closing off' any areas. Due to some bug this still happens sometimes. Instructions: Select a block type at the bottom below the grid to select it, and then click on the grid to place it. The yellow block is where the generator starts from. Ignore the green or orange blocks, or the 'Find Route' button, which were not entirely finished. The grey block can be used to blank out squares - allowing you to shape your maze. Click Start when you're ready, and 'Generate 3D' after the maze has been generated for a 3D version.
  • Towers of Hanoi: The classic game where you have to get all the tower pieces from one peg to another. The 'recursive' way of solving it is as follows: To get 'n' pegs from source to target, solve for n-1 pieces from source to spare peg, move the one remaining piece from source to target, then recursively move the n-1 pieces from spare peg to target peg.
  • Cluedo: A ridiculously ambitious project I think I did during the summer holiday before I started Oxford. You are Professor Robert Winston, and you are the pink counter. Click the 'Start Game' button, and just follow the instructions. BUT unfortunately you can't finish the game, I just never had the time to finish it unfortunately. And there's glaring things wrong such as the rooms not being labelled, etc. The other player's AI is only as advanced as making there decision based on which cards they have or have directly seen - there's no deductional logic based on other player's guesses. It's a shame it wasn't finished because I put so much work into it - over 2000 lines of code. A small bit of trivia - I used the 'route finding' algorithm from the maze generator to find the AI's path to a room. Given my interest in the game, I almost did my 4th year dissertation at university on "The Epistemic Logic of Cluedo", but switched to a Linguistics related project after I discovered my potential supervisor was going on sabbaticial. I should note that, like Connect 4, I am pretty good at Cluedo in real life.
  • Crossword Helper: This is a bit of a weird one. In the 'Word' box, type in a word, and put a ? for any letters you don't know. After hitting 'Submit' all dictionary matches will come up.
    There's also a very experimental and not very good web search. So say you put "English prime minister" into the "definition search" box and "T??? B????" into the "word" box", then hopefully 'Tony Blair' will match.
  • "Pick the right one" quizzes which include Who's the Brit?, and Who's the Scientist?. There was a 'townie or gownie' one, but I felt it was taking the whole stereotype thing beyond the grounds of decency!