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Recreational Computation

Computation & Analysis

Edit Your NaNoWriMo Novel with the Wolfram Language

If you're like many of us at Wolfram, you probably know that November was National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). Maybe you even spent the past few weeks feverishly writing, pounding out that coming-of-age story about a lonely space dragon that you've been talking about for years. Congratulations! Now what? Revisions, of course! And we, the kindly Wolfram Blog Team, are here to get you through your revisions with a little help from the Wolfram Language.
Zach Littrell, Technical Content Writer, Technical Communications and Strategy Group John Moore, Marketing and Technical Content Team Lead, Technical Communications & Strategy Group
Announcements & Events

The 2016 Wolfram One-Liner Competition Winners

Could you fit the code for a fully functional game of Pong into a single tweet? One that gives you more points the more you take your chances in letting the "ball" escape? Philip Maymin did, and took first prize with that submission in the One-Liner Competition held at this year's Wolfram Technology Conference. Participants in the competition submit 128 or fewer tweetable characters of Wolfram Language code to perform the most impressive computation they can dream up. We had a bumper crop of entries this year that showed the surprising power of the Wolfram Language. You might think that after decades of experience creating and developing with the Wolfram Language, we at Wolfram Research would have seen and thought of it all. But every year our conference attendees surprise us. Read on to see the amazing effects you can achieve with a tweet of Wolfram Language code.

Honorable Mention

Amy Friedman: "The Song Titles" (110 characters)

Christopher Carlson, Senior User Interface Developer, User Interfaces
Best of Blog

Finding Pokémon GO’s Shortest Tour to Compute ’em All!

There's a Computed Pokémon nearby! Here is a Poké Spikey. This will help you catch ’em all! In this blog post I will share with you several data insights about the viral social media phenomenon that is Pokémon GO. First I will get you familiarized with the original 151 Pokémon that have now invaded our real world, and then I'll show you how to find the shortest tour to visit your nearby gyms.
Bernat Espigulé-Pons, OSW Operations
Computation & Analysis

Wolfram Community Highlights: Animation, Chernoff Faces, Fingerprint ID, and More

Wolfram Community members continue to create amazing applications and visuals. Take a look at a few of our recent favorites. Wolfram Language animations make it easier to understand and investigate concepts and phenomena. They're also just plain fun. Among recent simple but stunning animations, you'll find "Deformations of the Cairo Tiling" and "Contours of a Singular Surface" by Clayton Shonkwiler, a mathematician and artist interested in geometric models of physical systems, and "Transit of Mercury 2016" by Sander Huisman, a postdoc in Lyon, France, researching Lagrangian turbulence.
Emily Suess, Technical Writer, Technical Communications and Strategy Group
Announcements & Events

Ready? Review. Register: The 2016 Wolfram Technology Conference Is on the Way!

Mark your calendars now for the 2016 Wolfram Technology Conference! Join us October 18--21 at Wolfram headquarters in Champaign, Illinois, where we'll be getting things off to an exciting start with a keynote address by Wolfram founder and CEO Stephen Wolfram on Tuesday, October 18 at 5pm. Our conference gives developers and colleagues a rare opportunity for face-to-face discussion of the latest developments and features for cloud computing, interactive deployment, mobile devices, and more. Arrive early for pre-conference training opportunities, and come ready to participate in hands-on workshops, nonstop networking opportunities, and the Wolfram Language One-Liner Competition, just to name a few activities. We are also looking for users to share their own stories and interests! Submit your presentation proposal by July 15 for full consideration. Last year's lineup included everything from political data science to winning hackathon solutions to programming in the Wolfram Cloud... and literally almost everything in between. Review a sampling of the 2015 talks below, or visit our website for more. Commanding the Wolfram Cloud---Todd Gayley
Wolfram Blog Team
Computation & Analysis

Wolfram Community Highlights: LEGO, SCOTUS, Minecraft, and More!

Wolfram Community members continue to amaze us. Take a look at a few of the fun and clever ideas shared by our members in the first part of 2016. How to LEGO-fy Your Plots and 3D Models, by Sander Huisman This marvel by Sander Huisman, a postdoc from École Normale Supérieure de Lyon, attracted more than 6,000 views in one day and was trending on Reddit, Hacker News, and other social media channels. Huisman's code iteratively covers layers with bricks of increasingly smaller sizes, alternating in the horizontal x and y directions. Read the full post to see how to turn your own plots, 3D scans, and models into brick-shaped masterpieces.
Emily Suess, Technical Writer, Technical Communications and Strategy Group
Computation & Analysis

What Are the Odds?

"What are the odds?" This phrase is often tossed around to point out seemingly coincidental occurrences, and it's normally intended as a rhetorical question. Most people won't even wager a guess; they know that the implied answer is usually "very slim." However, I always find myself fascinated by this question. I like to think about the events leading up to a situation and what sorts of unseen mechanisms might be at work. I interpret the question as a challenge, an exciting topic worthy of discussion. In some cases the odds may seem incalculable---and I'll admit it's not always easy. However, a quick investigation of the surrounding mathematics can give you a lot of insight. Hopefully after reading this post, you'll have a better answer the next time someone asks, "What are the odds?"
Brian Wood, Technical Communications & Outreach Manager
Computation & Analysis

Wolfram Community Highlights: Medicine, Drones, KenKen, and More!

With some impressive new features, new forums, and many new members, Wolfram Community has had a great year. As we approach the end of 2015, we wanted to share a few highlights from the last few months' excellent posts on the Wolfram Community site.

Drones

Interested in drones? Check out these posts. Connecting ROS to the Wolfram Language, Or Controlling a Parrot ArDrone 2.0 from Mathematica, by Loris Gliner, a student in aeronautical engineering. Loris Gliner used his time in the Wolfram mentorship program to work out how to connect the Wolfram Language to the Linux Robot Operating System. He includes code examples and a video showing the flight of a Parrot ArDrone 2.0 controlled via the Wolfram Language.
Kathryn Cramer, Technical Communications and Strategy Group
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