Rest and relaxation...oh I wish...nope, this time it's RAILROADS!!! Last time I showed you how we placed bus stations, this time I'm going to give you an inside look at where ZooElite decides to put railroad stations. This is all subject to change, but the general idea will stay the same. Full info after the jump!

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Two things that have come to annoy me recently that I want to bring up.

First, I was trying to find flights today to go abroad. Naturally I started with Delta which has its hub in Detroit and which I know (when it was Northwest) had about 6 flights daily to Amsterdam. Northwest literally used to have 2 flights to Amsterdam within 15 minutes of each other.

Anyways, so I got on Delta and the first thing that comes up is some random flight connecting through Toronto. Come to find that the direct flight which is about 20% booked cost $1500 one-way. Are you kidding me? This is for something still 3 months out too. I want Northwest back. Needless to say I will be flying an alternate airline, although the DTW terminal still rox my sox.

Second, the RPI Men's Hockey Team. I've been waiting to rant about this one for awhile. During hockey games, the teams traditionally line up on their blue lines during the national anthem. Well there I am listening to our nice national anthem when the line, "And the rockets RED glare" comes up. Suddenly the entire team/audience decides that they are going to scream out the word red. Maybe they had a random vocal spasm, or maybe they just got so excited that they heard their school's color red in a song that they couldn't contain their enthusiasm. Apparently the RPI team/audience thinks it's cool to make the national anthem all about them. Whatever the reason, they might as well be screaming out "TOOL", because that's what the whole stunt is, toolish. Congrats RPI on having a school color that coincides with a word in the national anthem. Glad to hear your enthusiastic about the red WHITE and BLUE. (Oh hey, we're two for three!)

Can you tell that it's one of those little things I really hate? Anyways, that's what's currently bugging me. I'm de-bugging (nice segway) the train building portion of our AI: ZooElite right now, so look for a post about that later this weekend!

So ZooElite, our AI for Transport tycoon I mentioned earlier is now in full development. One of the first things I've been working on is determining the optimal placement for a given number of bus stations in a given city. This little info bit will explain how I'm choosing station placements. Read on for details!

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So for this post I had to create a whole new category of posts called TTD AI, in the future, the whole series can be found HERE. Anyways, this semester I am doing independent research with a friend on Intelligent Geographic Transportation Networks. At least that's the mouthful of jibber we can up with to describe this project. In reality, we are creating an AI (Artificial Intelligence) program for the game Transport Tycoon. Because I will be posting a lot this semester about my progress on the project, I wanted to give some background on what we hope to accomplish, what the game is about and why we chose it, and why any of this matters. More after the jump!

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So now that my week from hell is over, (as are two of my classes!), I thought I'd share some fun stuff from today. First, I awoke this morning to find a nice email from the police chief, who usually reports robbings and stabbing in my inbox. Naturally, I found this hilarious, but fake given the gmail address and link at the bottom (Which I scored 49 in btw).

Although I soon realized the threat was real, when I saw, with my own two eyes, a man clearly trying to protect his bananas and running in fear while being chased by a rather large escaped monkey and two researchers trying to recapture the monkey through Commons Dining Hall. The threat is real...maybe...

A Message to the Yale Community:

I write to inform you that five rhesus monkeys escaped from the neurochemical research laboratory of the Child Study Center (230 South Frontage Road) at 5:07am on Thursday, December 3, 2009. All members of the Yale community are urged to exercise caution in their movements about campus until the animals are recaptured. If you or anyone you know comes into contact with one of the monkeys, seek medical attention immediately. The animals are infected with the Motaba virus, a hemorrhagic fever native to central Africa; Yale-New Haven Hospital staff is ready to administer the E-1101 serum, but it must be administered within several hours of infection. Subjects escaped on S. Frontage towards Central Campus and were last seen near George and Church. If you have any information regarding this case or should witness suspicious activity, please report it immediately to the Yale Police at 203-432-1374.

Sincerely,
James A. Perrotti
Chief of Police

Yale University Official Message
NOTE: This official Yale University message can also be viewed at: https://light.its.yale.edu/messages/univmsgs/detail.asp?Msg=48459

Thankfully that link led me to a beautiful new fun site called theoatmeal.com, you should check it out. After figuring out how many monkeys I could take out, I clicked around and found some fun info here:
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/beer

Enjoy browsing around! Happy Finals Week / Reading week!