I wanted to write this down so I wouldn’t forget it, and to make it part of my Lifestream blog.  I was thinking yesterday about video games I like to play, specifically the old “Asteroids” game, where you move a spaceship around the screen and blow up asteroids that seem to appear at random from around the game area.

I don’t know what the algorithm is that determines when and where asteroids appear, or how, when hit by my blaster, they break up into smaller bits.  Of course, as asteroids hit each other, are shot with a blaster, or collide with my ship, the trajectories and speed of movement changes, again seemingly at random.

I was just thinking as I was playing the game, that I seemed to be spending more time and concentration now on detecting patterns in asteroid appearance and movement, and less on developing my skill as a spaceship pilot and gunner.  I owe this break in focus on what I’ve learned in this course about algorithms, or perhaps more to the point, what I think I have learned but really don’t know.

What I do know however, is that I will never look at or play another video game the same again.

. . . *sigh*

#mscedc