Programming as a Game: Google Code Jam & Topcoder

Registration for the Google Code Jam 2005 ends August 22nd.

The event is hosted by Topcoder, who has done impressive work creating automated online multiuser programming competitions.

The basic format is this:

  • You register and download the Topcoder client program.
  • The actual competition is in real time. You are placed in a group with perhaps 25-50 other users and are given three programming tasks of varying difficulty (make a program that given this input, returns this output etc…) which you can then solve in a number of different programming languages.
  • After having submitted your programs, there is a brief pause where you can go over the programming of your competitors and find flaws for extra points.
  • The Topcoder system then runs your program with a number of test cases. If your program fails, you get 0 points, otherwise your score depends on how quickly you solved the task.

The actual challenges seem to be mostly standard computer science “hard problems” – problems that are easy to solve if you have an infinitely big computer, but very hard if they have to be run in a few seconds. Find the shortest path through a changing graph, that sort of thing. (Which certainly favors people who have actually studied computer science.)

Programming is a strange activity, but kudos to Topcoder for using it as a game.

The Gambling Addiction Pill

It’s not a cure, it’s a pill that gives you gambling addiction.

Scientific American writes about a treatment for Parkinson’s disease that seems to lead to gambling addiction in a number of the patients.

Apparently the patients were given a drug that mimics dopamine (often missing in Parkinson patients I guess), and a number of them became addicted to gambling.

The scientists report that the good news is that only a small number of patients exhibit the compulsive gambling side effect. In addition, it is reversible and thus poses no reason to avoid these therapies, they say. When the patients tapered off use of the troubling medications, the desire to gamble compulsively also disappeared. “I’d want patients to be very forthcoming with their doctors about their gambling,” says study co-author M. Leann Dodd. “If you recognize this association early, you can possibly prevent financial ruin or destruction of relationships.”

I think there’s a huge untapped market for game-related medications, I suggest:

1) A pill that makes me enjoy Metal Gear Solid 2.
2) A pill that makes be better at strategy games.
3) A pill that makes me stop playing WarioWare: Twisted.

Façade Mirror: Download Here.

Update: I have taken the file down. You can download it from http://www.interactivestory.net/download/.]

Until my server bandwidth runs out, you can download Michael Mateas and Andrew Stern’s interactive drama Façade from this site.

Note! The official Bittorrent download will almost certainly be the fastest way to download. Try that first.

This service is provided for those of you who have problems with Bittorrent.

File size is 800MB.

Read the official announcement here.

If downloading is denied, you have probably hit the traffic limit. In case download via Bittorrent instead.

Happy Façadeing!