android

I have been playing around with the Google Android™ development environment a bit lately to see what I think about the possibility of developing an application in it at some point. I decided to build a test app that would simulate tossing a coin looking for three consecutive tosses that match a specified pattern.* The app outputs the number of tosses (on average) it takes to reach the specified pattern.

Overall, I think Google has done a great job with the development environment and the Android system, in general. The emulator works well and seems to emulate the hardware fairly realistically. (I had a change to install the app on a friend's G1.) It's too bad I don't have an idea for a killer app.

*The idea for the app comes from a lunch conversation I had with a group of co-workers about whether a HEADS-TAILS-TAILS sequence will show up sooner on average compared with a HEADS-TAILS-HEADS pattern. It does, by the way.


my pops

As a young boy (around 7 or 8) my father once drove a van from Philadelphia to Big Spring, Texas to be with me. (My parents separated before I was born and my mother moved back from New Jersey to her home state.) I remember sitting with him in the front room of his small apartment sipping hot chocolate as he talked with me about his life. I also vividly remember that as we walked around town, he would often let me sit on top of his shoulders. I felt like I was on top of the world up there, like I was flying. I am now quite a bit older than I was then, and my father has since passed away. But my dad lives on in my heart and in a line of a letter that he sent to me after he went back to Philadelphia: 

"When I was there with you, I put you up on my shoulders. You could reach higher than I could then. One day you will again... unaided."

duaneedmonds