ගූගල් මෘදුකාoග තරඟාවලිය - අදම ඇතුල් වන්න!

ලෝකයේ හොඳම සහ වඩාත්ම උද්වේගකර පරිඝනක මෘදුකා0ග තරඟාවලිය 2011 වාරය දැන් ඇරඹී ඇත! ඔබටත් අදම ඇතුල් විය හැකිය.

මෙවර තරඟය කූඹ්යන් ගුලක් වර්ධනය කර ගැනීමට සහ ආරක්ෂා කර ගැනීමට ඇති ක්‍රීඩාවකි. අනෙකුත් ක්‍රම ලේඛණ පරදවා ක්‍රීඩාව ජය ගත හැකි ක්‍රම ලෙඛයක් සැකසීම අභියෝගයයි. ක්‍රම ලේඛ අතර තරඟ නැරඹීමට හැකි වීමත්, සජීවීව ක්‍රම ලේඛ ලකුනු සටහනේ ඉහල පහල යාමත් තරඟයේ උද්වේගය වැඩි කිරීමට මෙන්ම ඉක්මනින් ක්‍රමලේඛ දියුනු කර ගැනීමටත් හේතු වේ. උදාහරණයක්.

මේ වර්ගයේ අනෙකුත් තරඟාවලි වලට වඩා ගූගල් තරඟාවලිය (Google AI Challenge 2011) ඉදිරියෙන් සිටීමට හේතු කීපයකි. එසේම මේ සඳහා දැන්ම එක් වීමෙන් ලැබෙන වාසිද රැසකි.

1) විනෝදය. මෘදුකාoග නිර්මාණ/සැලසුම් කරුවෙකුට (software developer/engineer) මෙයින් ලැබිය හැකි ආශ්වාදය ඉමහත්ය! කීමට බැරිය. කරලාම බැලිය යුතුය.

2) අත් දැකීම් අනවශ්‍යය. නැති තරමට වඩා හොඳය!

3) විශාල මෘදුකාග දැනුමක් අවශ්‍ය නොවේ. සාමන්‍ය දැනුමක් හොඳටම ප්‍රමාණවත්ය.

4) විනාඩි 5ක් ඇතුලත මුල්ම ක්‍රමවේදය එක් කර තරඟ වැදීමට පටන් ගත හැකි වීම.

5) විශාල දැනුමක් සහ ක්‍රමවේද සැකසීමේ හුරුවක් කෙටි කලකින් ලබා ගත හැකි වීම. විශේෂයෙන් සoකීර්ණ ක්‍රමලේඛණ (programs) සහ ගැටළු වලට මුහුන දීමේ අනගි හුරුවක් ලැබේ. කරලාම බලන්න!

6) ලොව වටා විසිරී සිටින අනෙකුත් දක්ෂ ක්‍රමලේඛණ කරුවන් හඳුනාගත හැකිය.

7) මෘදුකාoග ගැන දනුම හෝ පලපුරුද්දට වඩා නිර්මාණශීලිත්වයත් (creativity) ගැටලු විසඳීමේ (problem solving) හා තර්කණයේ/ගණනයේ (analytical skills and logical reasoning) හැකියාවට වැඩි තැනක් ලැබීම.

8) සම්පූර්ණයෙන්ම නොමිලේ! නැති වීමට දෙයක් ඇත්තෙන්ම නැත.

9) ශ්‍රි ලාකීය නාමය ලෝකයේ මෘදුකoග ක්ෂේත්‍රය තුල ඉදිරියට ගෙන යාමට යොදාගත හැකි මහඟු අවස්ථාවකි. වැඩි තරඟකරුවන් පිරිසක් සහභාගී වීම තුලින්ම අප රට ගැන මෘදුකoග ලෝකය තුල වැඩි අවධානයක් දිනා ගත හැකිය.

10) තමන්ට කැමති ඕනෑම භාෂාවකින් තරඟ වැදිය හැකිය.

මෙයට සහභාගි වීම සහ දක්ෂකම් පෙන්වීම ඇත්තෙන්ම ඔබ හිතවාටත් වඩා පහසු සහ සරලයි. දැන්ම එක්වී බලන්න!

වැඩි විස්තර සඳහා.

පසුගිය වසරේ තරඟාවලියේ මගේ අත් දැකීම් මෙහි සඳහන් කර ඇත.

තරඟාවලිය සඳහා පිවිසුම මෙතනින්.

උදවු සහ මඟ පෙන්වීම් අවශ්‍ය නම්, ඔබේ ප්‍රශ්ණ කොමෙන්ට් කරන්න. දන්නා අනෙක් අයටත් කියන්න!

ජය!

Meditation and Chess (now officially too!) is connected. Programming too ?

Positive influence Meditation can have on Chess (and vice versa, I would add) is now officially acknowledged.

FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov signed an agreement with Mr. Anant Asavabhokhin, the World Meditation Academy Chairman. According to the agreement, chess federations throughout the world will receive scholarships to send participants to meditation courses. Those who love Chess and Meditation both, here's your chance!

In addition, World Meditation Academy chairman is now a senior adviser to the FIDE president. Academy too has appointed FIDE president as one of it's honorary advisers.


According to FIDE site,  "The benefits of meditation to chess players were reviewed" and amongst the principal achievements are Physical Benefits, Emotional Benefits, Mental Benefits and Spiritual Benefits.  For more on benefits of meditation, you can visit here. More about the agreement between FIDE and WMA can be found from FIDE official site in here.

Positive influence of Chess on education in children is well known and acknowledged throughout the world.  Chess is specially considered as helping students develop their critical thinking, analytical skills and the ability to concentrate. These studies are so comprehensive that many countries have already included chess in their primary school curriculum and some have even made it a mandatory subject.

Benefits of Meditation on emotional well being and mental prowess is also well known for years and proven by several scientific research carried on Tibetan monks for example.

Therefore it is hardly surprising that the two organizations has come together and publicly acknowledging the benefits of each can have on the other.

A separate discussion on how Meditation can help in computer programming is in here.

Progress (or otherwise?)

As often, progress happens gradually. However, when it happens it can sometimes be in unexpected fields, in unexpected ways at unexpected times!

Even though I have started this blog long ago, for one reason or the other, it never got enough attention it deserved. I always wanted to do a good blog for computer software and programming. Since I started that blog last month, I thought this blog will get even lesser attention and die down soon. How wrong was I!

Despite my best efforts, some articles kept coming for this blog and it seemed like I was wondering about few bit of extra things than I was aware of myself. Since the start of the programming/gaming blog, it was this wondering blog that have actually performed for some unknown reason!

In the last 20 days or so, this has recorded more than 3000 hits, more than 1000 new readers in more than 60 different countries... I know most of those visitors may have just stumbled upon an article and may never come back and most of those hits can be (very well be) just page hits and those pages might not have been red even.  Still..... it is not bad going for just 20 days. Specially for a blog which was supposed to die! And somehow I have ended up writing 15 - 20 posts, again, despite my best efforts to do otherwise!

There were few mysteries as well, one is our readers seem to be mostly foreigners, only 30-35% are form Sri Lanka. Again this too has come despite my best efforts to write more in Sri Lankan context! Also, this goes against the trend in other lankan blogs I have seen, where the heavy majority readers are from sri lanka. I don't know whether this is a good thing or a bad thing...

So, to make it bit more interesting I changed the blog heading for a start! Thos who have actually seen the previous blog title would know how ugly it really looked like. Well, current one may not be great either but at least it says what this blog trying to be. :-)

Right now, I'm in cross roads as to continue this blog further or to put myself more into the other blog. I will certainly try to keep this one alive as I liked the way things have gone in last 3 weeks. Or may be I should let it "die a natural death" like I did in last 3 week, if I want to see the blog succeeding! For it certainly seem to do better when I try to look away! May be I should let the other blog die down... :-) Now, that can be a good thought...

A special thank for all those who have visited, given me encouragement, comments, feedback and shared their thoughts with me during this time. That experiment about interactive blogging comes to mind, I still owe you a post there!

After my disastrous result in prediction business and the way things have gone with this blog recently, I dare not say anything about future.

We will see what tomorrow will bring... Or as was mentioned in the famous movie Cast Away, "who knows what the next tide will bring ?"

The New Blog

Today I started a new blog to dedicate to my long term hobby, Artificial Intelligence in games and puzzles.

This blog will discuss on gaming theory, algorithms and my experiences of developing games. More than theory, the blog will attempt to discuss individual puzzles/games and the challenges in solving/playing them.

It will also concentrate on winning strategies for AI engines. While I intend to share some of my code/algorithms to facilitate discussions among developers, the blog will mostly for anybody who has an interesting in solving puzzles, programmers or not.

see you there... !