Solving Mushroom Man 113 with Dynamic Programming

Here’s something that might sound strange. Today, while playing the retro puzzle game “Mushroom Man” — a great throwback to “Chip’s Challenge” — I noticed how similar one of the levels was to solving a programming contest question. In level 113 “Don’t …

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Tiny Windows programs that are awesome

I consider myself a Windows power user, having used this OS almost exclusively on all my PCs and laptops since I was a student with Windows 95, and now as a professional software developer on Windows 10. Over the years, I’ve …

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Replacing a dead battery on a Mazda key fob? Don’t buy a cheap one (updated)

Six months ago, the battery in my 2010 Mazda 3’s key fob (aka “flip-key”) totally died and I needed to replace it. The battery in these things is a CR1620, which I couldn’t find anywhere in stores, so I ordered the …

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How I fixed my Logitech G500 mouse click problem

Several months ago, my favourite gaming mouse, a Logitech G500, developed an annoying problem that I will call “ghost clicks”. This is how I explained it to Logitech support: If I hold the left mouse button for a long time, …

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Kongregate Night-mode script

This is a bookmarklet that sets a dark background colour on Kongregate game pages. The goal of this script is to dim nearly all the elements on the page, so as not to distract the player with bright lights, while keeping …

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Banjo-Kazooie Maps

I found these maps originally here, but there were two level locations missing (Clanker’s Cavern and Freezeezy Peak), so I decided to edit them. I added level labels, as well as colour-coded the cauldron portals — cauldrons with the same colour …

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Reversola – Reverse Engineering Sola Rola

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Introduction I was browsing the Kongregate forums one day, when a post caught my eye. It was a list of broken games on the site that still had achievements to earn, and the clever ways that people had found to …

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Spoiler-free VODs for Eurocup 2012 on TSN

TSN.ca offers free video-on-demand (VOD) replays of full Eurocup matches this year. However, on the same page, they also have links to highlight clips, whose titles are unfortunately shown along with the final scores. So if you were planning to watch …

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Why I sold my Apple iPad and bought an ASUS Transformer tablet

When Apple first announced their first ever tablet, the iPad, I wasn’t too interested. Like many people, I laughed it off as a giant iPod Touch with a silly name. A large, expensive touchscreen with no physical keyboard or buttons, …

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Kongregate Stats and Graphs

Some interesting graphs I conjured up a while back for achievements earned on Kongregate, the popular Flash gaming portal. The first one is based on user data collected by MrRubix in late August 2011. It shows how many users have collected a …

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