Matthew Consterdine's

Photos of the earth taken today by NASA DSCOVR EPIC. Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) captures images of a sunlit earth to monitor the atmosphere and the environment. View earth

This project demonstrates the ability to visualize, and trace transactions through the Bitcoin network, evaluating three different methods. Namely poison, haircut and First-In-First-Out (FIFO).

To achieve this, a web application was created to first build up a network graph representing Bitcoin addresses as nodes, and transactions as directional edges. This allows the user to easily grasp the history of any given Bitcoin address, and then trace any transaction either up or down the graph.

By clicking on a node in the graph, the application will automatically load that address and it’s associated transactions, adding it to the graph. By hovering over a node in the graph, the tool-tip on the right will appear. It displays a number of useful statistics about the address, and gives the user the option to trace transactions by clicking on any of the colourful buttons.

• Try online
• Read the report

I’ve started running the Southampton Parkrun, a 5K run every Saturday morning on the common. It’s great fun, and my times are slowly but surely improving.

This year in a team of five, we set out to investigate and experiment with the oneM2M standard, for our client InterDigital. Overall we were successful, here are our findings:

For the mass deployment of the Internet of Things to be a success, a global standard for machine to machine communication needs to become established. This report explores the oneM2M standard for Machine to Machine communication, researching its capabilities, how to make use of it, and ultimately builds systems upon it. Using them, data streaming, live video, and federation are put to the test.

This project is a oneM2M research project, with InterDigital as the client. They have created the oneTRANSPORT data marketplace, and this report with federate with their system, to demonstrate oneM2M.

• See the Poster
• Read the Report
• View the Code

This weekend, I participated in two hackathons. On Friday afternoon I took part in the Bloomberg CodeCon Grand Finals (again). Then in the evening everyone everyone went to Swingers Golf Bar. On Saturday morning I explored the city, swinging by the Tate Modern just before I left. Image courtesy Bloomberg.

Then on Saturday evening and Sunday morning I created a game for the Southampton Game Jam, the theme was transmission. Normally you have 48 hours, but I was lucky to even have 20. So I got to work, and created SnowDrift, a classic 2D platformer, using raw JavaScript no frameworks. Click on the image below to play in your browser. Overall, the weekend was busy, but fascinating. I really enjoyed it.

After recent browsing, I had the idea to convert the Puzzling Stack Exchange into a book. Overall, the project was a success, however maths is currently not rendered as such. The book contains the top 100 questions and answers ever submitted to the site, formatted nicely to fit into a small A5 book(let).

I would like to thank the Puzzling Stack Exchange community for writing the puzzles, Stack Exchange for providing the data, and creativecommons.org for making this possible. Like the puzzles within, the book is licensed under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license. The book was created using the Stack Exchange Data Explorer to gather data, Python to parse and structure the data, and Pandoc to typeset as PDF. And thank you, the reader for reading this “book”. I hope you enjoy the puzzles. If you wish to contribute to this book, it can be found on my github.

Download and happy puzzling!

Today I was playing a rather interesting variation of Cheat and Sh*thead with a group of friends, and thought it be worth sharing. But before doing so, I will fill you in on the rules of both games, for context.

Cheat

Setup: Shuffling a deck of cards and deal three to each player, leaving the pile in the centre of the table.

Gameplay: Players take it in turns to announce and play face down one or more cards of higher, lower, or equal value. If at any time a player suspects that the previous player cheated, they can loudly call CHEAT. All cards the player placed by that player are flipped. If the player has cheated, they pick up all of the cards, otherwise the accuser picks up all of the cards. The next player is whoever does not pick up cards. A player cannot call cheat on another if any cards have been placed atop of theirs.

Scoring: Once one player has placed all of their cards, a victor is crowned, and the game is over. If desired, count the number in each players hands to determine who came second, third, and so on.

Notes: The speed of the game depends on the group, but the faster they play, the easier it is to cheat. Unless the group is a hundred percent certain that a player is not cheating, it is worth accusing them after they place their final card. If desired, the game can continue after a player wins. However as players gather more and more cards, the game slows and lies become harder.

Sh*thead

Setup: The deck with Jokers is shuffled, and each player is given three face down cards. Then, each player is given an additional six cards, three of which much be placed face up atop their face down cards. Then the pile is placed in the centre of the table. The player with the greatest number of lowest value cards (excluding magic cards) in their hand starts. If multiple players draw, then the player who is first clockwise of the dealer starts.

Gameplay: Each player takes turns playing cards from their hands, face ups, or face downs - in that order. Cards must be of higher (Ace high), or equal value, but they must all be of the same value. After playing, a player draws back up to three cards if possible. Some cards are Magic and have special actions as denoted in the table below.

• If four of the same value are played, then the pile is burnt and the current player get another turn. Jokers cannot be burnt in this manner.
• If a player cannot legally place down cards, then they forfeit their turn and pick up the centre pile. Unless specified otherwise, magic cards can always be placed atop any other card, regardless of value.

The winner of the game is the first player to play all of their cards. However, the game can continue until all players bar one have played all of their cards.

Magic Cards: 2, Reset the current value. 7, Invisible, the next player must play equal or higher than the previous card. 8, Play Low, the next player must play lower than the previous card. 10, Burn, the pile is discarded and the player gets another turn. King, Change the direction of play. Joker, The next player cannot play a magic card.

Notes: Sh*thead can be played with any number of face down cards, as long as there are enough cards. Just ensure that each player is dealt that number plus three before choosing face up cards. If desired, players can choose different magic cards or different magic actions.

Cheathead

An amalgamation of both games. It is played like Sh*thead but instead of playing cards face up, they are placed face down so players must announce their actions. Players can call CHEAT at any time to force a check. As an optional rule, Jokers can be used as wild cards instead of magic cards for added confusion.

When making decisions, people negotiate to maximise utility and social welfare - agents are no different. Utilizing the GENIUS framework, this report tests time dependent concessions, and fitness proportionate selection putting them to test in a negotiation competition. The results are analysed and discussed.

• CSS Concept: Computing methodologies → Intelligent Agents
• Keywords: Agents, Negotiation, Competition, Selection, Roulette

Recently I decided to get back into playing the flute. Years ago I learnt the flute in school, but dropped it after a year or two, so I’m (fortunately) not a complete novice.

As practicing on your own can get a bit boring I have joined the Southampton Folk Society. Here we play folk tunes, sing folk songs, and put on Cèilidhs for students. I’m not very good, but I have fun. Download the Folksoc Tunebook.