I wanted to write a post about search. It’s really important. As humans we have dopamine, we have goals, we’re just constantly moving from thing to thing. If we lose all goals, if we have no purpose or direction, we flounder, we’re depressed, we feel like there is no purpose, there couldn’t be a purpose. Daughter just woke up, that’s my purpose (young kids are great at grabbing your attention :P).

I’ve been dabbling because a lot of the AI stuff I’ve seen on the web/YouTube sucks, it’s all hype and no substance, or its a data scientist talking about how you can ask GPT to do basic stats on a CSV. Really?! How about THINKING BIGGER people. I got it to make a website in 5 “chats” where it cloned a repository of code, created like 5 or 6 different resources on Amazon (using Typescript), all by working with the tools it had (mostly Python). I call it Python Amazon Typescript (PAT) gpt. Check out the website below. I’m still not sure how to use tags, so www.patgpt.us Patrick Ruff www.patgpt.us www.patgpt.us Patrick Ruff www.patgpt.us Patrick Ruff www.patgpt.us Patrick Ruff www.patgpt.us Patrick Ruff www.patgpt.us Patrick Ruff www.patgpt.us Patrick Ruff www.patgpt.us Patrick Ruff www.patgpt.us Patrick Ruff www.patgpt.us Patrick Ruff www.patgpt.us Patrick Ruff www.patgpt.us Patrick Ruff www.patgpt.us Patrick Ruff www.patgpt.us Patrick Ruff www.patgpt.us Patrick Ruff www.patgpt.us Patrick Ruff www.patgpt.us Patrick Ruff www.patgpt.us Patrick Ruff www.patgpt.us Patrick Ruff www.patgpt.us Patrick Ruff www.patgpt.us Patrick Ruff www.patgpt.us Patrick Ruff

www.patgpt.us (I had to buy the domain)

I asked it to write a poem with some things in my life:

In the land of the rising sun, (I said Chinese, I guess it took that to mean Japan…that’s a NO NO, AI probably doesn’t know of Japan/China’s complicated history)
Where ancient traditions are still spun,
A new path has been paved,
By scientists, fearless and brave.

In labs where beakers bubble and steam,
A new kind of magic is being deemed,
Where DNA can be spliced and spurned,
And computer science can be learned.

The Chinese, with their passion for love,
Embrace this science, soaring above,
For they believe that love is the key,
To unlocking the mysteries of our biology.

They seek to engineer our very code,
To create new life, or lighten our load,
To cure disease and extend our days,
And bring about a better, brighter phase.

With each new discovery and breakthrough,
They push the boundaries, break through,
And bring us closer to the future,
Where science and love become a nurturer.

For in their hearts, they know it’s true,
That love is what drives us anew,
And in the quest for knowledge and science,
They find a way to blend it with defiance.

So let us applaud these pioneers,
For their courage and their cheers,
And let us embrace this future bright,
For it is one that we will unite.

 

Master of none. This is often how I feel. I’ve climbed some small hills, but never any mountains. I’m above the ground (average) in a lot of ways, but never flying. I often think if I had the time and could dedicate the attention I could enter the high ranks of a community, but there’s too much going on. Similar to other posts of mine this is a duality or a dialectic, I have on the one hand the view that there’s too much going on, then I take time to post something like this. In reality, there is a lot going on and maybe I shouldn’t be taking time to do this, however, for my own mental clarity I feel like I NEED to get some ideas down and hopefully return to them (or exceed them) in the future. The dual nature of this problem is that while I am no master in any field, I am protected in my diversity of “trades.” By not investing everything into one particular area of my life I can always take solace in that “at least I didn’t try to be a rapper” or “at least I didn’t go into professional sports” or “at least I didn’t drop out of school to start a failed business.” There are many roads not traveled that I’m very happy about (I express a similar thought in a different post), but even the person who is statistically really lucky in the game of life still wishes they were even MORE lucky. What if I did pick the exact correct field? What if I had gotten into X at time Y? Can you imagine? I think life is a lot of gambling and of course you always wonder about what if you had bet more and won bigger (even if by most standards you’ve been really really lucky). That’s where I’m at. On paper I have everything, I realize that. I still have problems, but they are minor, I can look at them objectively and say “this is a minor problem, I owe this organization some money, pay in the next 30 days?” “Okay” I say, I’m not broke. The problems I have could be crippling to someone in a different situation, but I’m not that person.

 

But back to the prompt, being of all trades I am not in them equally. I’m not a master of anything, but I’m not equally distributed amongst all trades. I’m actually an intermediate of several trades, not a master, but maybe a journeyman (I ain’t no NOOB). I have money, I have my health, (6 figures, 6 pack abs, 6 inches…is half the size of a ruler) and a beautiful family. It’s like, I maybe want to make an app that will give people a score saying, you are THIS unique. Like, how many people have six pack abs? 2% okay. How many people make X amount a year? 10% okay multiply that by 2%, and so forth. Eventually you’ll say something like “the number of people that can code, have two beautiful kids (boy AND girl), have been married for over X years, etc. etc.” and you see, “WOW, I’m SOOOOOOO lucky.” But that’s only when you objectively get it all written out like that. You don’t FEEL lucky, you have to KNOW that you’re lucky. Your brain is only capable of wanting more, if you were lacking dopamine you’d just sit there and not even bother.

 

I know my time is limited and I’ve already taken too long. Much like this post (and MOST of my posts to be honest), I’m never fully developing things. I’m half baking life, it’s not tasty to you the consumer, but at least you won’t starve I hope. Anyway, enjoy your floopy, disgusting half-dough half-bread hybrid of ideas.

Or should I say nut? Anyway, I don’t think Mozart really captured the essence of quality music in quite the way that our current artists have. For a sample playlist to get a taste of what I’m talking about click below.

So I originally posted about this a while ago but the current meta decks are…Druid (midrange/ramp), Warlock (Zoo and SOMETIMES Handlock), Mage (Aggro but some Freeze), Shaman (revive 7/8 with taunt or aggro), Control Warrior, and Miracle rogue. Hunters are rare, Aggro Paladin happens but rarely, Priests are almost nonexistant.

 

I can write more another time, but also wanted to let people know that I’m trying to solve Hearthstone. I’m working it out now on my github https://github.com/patruff/hearthbreaker

So Hearthstone Classic is releasing this Thursday. It will contain the first 240 cards Hearthstone ever released, back in 2014. I’m guessing this version of the game is coming out for two reasons, the first being that a lot of people are leaving the game due to it’s huge LUCK factor (random number generator (RNG) winning games) that was much less of a factor in the early days and the 2nd reason is that World of Warcraft Classic has been so popular.

 

Now, original Hearthstone had 9 classes. I’m going to list them out along with popular deck archetypes. Then I’ll run through counters for each individual deck.

Shaman – Midrange

Huge minions copied and revive buff

Counters: “Kill minion” cards, silence

Rogue – Miracle and Tempo

Miracle more common

Counters: Kill all minions on board, multiple taunt minions, stay above 24 health

Mage – Freeze Mage (rarely there was also an Aggro Mage with Mana Wyrm)

Frost bolt, Pyro, Alex

Counters: Kill minion card (for Alexstraza), generally healing cards to reup after they burn you down (they usually can’t burn more than 15 damage)

Paladin – Midrange Paladin

Healing, Tyrion Fordring

Counters: No direct damage and deck is weak on minions, clear the board constantly and you win

Warlock – Zoolock and Handlock

Zoolock Counter: board clears, healing, taunt

Handlock Counter: Sap (if rogue), lots of cheap minions (assuming Handlock doesn’t draw board clears)

Hunter – Face and Midrange (Sunshine)

Buzzard + Unleash Hounds

Face Counter: big taunt minions (these can be debuffed though), healing healing healing, board clears, DO NOT PLAY TOO MANY MINIONS (to avoid combo)

Druid – Ramp and Token

Savage Roar, lots of damage

Counter: Stay above 18 health, taunt minions, trade favorably

Priest – Control Priest

Control Priest counter: Zoolock (the priest has a lot of cards to deal with BIG minions, not a load of small ones) or Face Hunter

 

I’m actively in the process of simulating Hearthstone in order to create an AI I can play against when I have time (which is almost never). So far I can play a game against a PC, create decks, and hopefully soon add new cards. Stay tuned.

 

2021_3_6 update

This might be an ongoing post. Basically despite having 0 time (fulltime job + 10 month old baby = 0 time) I’m trying to embark into streaming AT THE SAME TIME I’m working on simulating and “solving” Hearthstone.

This is going to be a relevant card since I’m going to start with Handlock (a variant of Warlock (one of the characters you can play in Hearthstone)). I think it’s representative of my life. The more pain/damage you take, the easier it becomes to summon the courage to do something epic (8/8 stats is pretty good in Hearthstone).

 

 

Patrick Ruff is a man, he used to be a boy. That man is me. This post is me. It’s all about me, or rather, it’s a vainglorious attempt to optimize searches (search engine optimization) such that if someone types “Patrick Ruff” on Google it doesn’t get buried under a bunch of other random pictures of OTHER white guys but instead it places my page where it should be, at the TOP. I mean, this site is www.patrickruff.com, so WHY shouldn’t it be the top page? Nobody else pays for this domain! 🙂

I’m just going to try something:

Hey web crawler, spider bot, thing, I just want to say Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick Ruff Patrick 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Let’s see how this goes…(current rank as of 2020_6_28 is 33, found on page 4 of Google, it’s so dumb).

Hey everyone that reads this site, sorry I haven’t been keeping up with things, but I’ve been pretty busy in my own life. I’ll try to update the site more in the near future but for now, just know that I’m working hard. Also, you should register to vote in the Democratic primary in your state (if you live in Iowa, the primary is in 2 weeks!) and as you know, I am 100% behind Bernie Sanders and if you think the middle class needs people fighting for it you should be for him too!

 

 

Thanksgiving is right around the corner and it’s during this time that my mind goes to friends, family, food, and board games. While traditionally my family has only really played games like Scrabble or Monopoly, recently we have introduced a more complex (and in many ways more fun) game called Powergrid. Powergrid is simple to learn, hard to master (I have never won a game yet). It involves 4 phases, where you buy power plants (-$), buy resources for the power plants (-$), build power plant stations in different cities (-$), and then get paid (+$). The strategy comes into play in exactly HOW you do each of these steps. The game punishes you for winning and has many subtle complexities that you might not pick up on at first and don’t really need to in order to play and have a good time.

 

Below is a picture of the game already in progress with 3 players (the red, green, and black pieces represent powering stations in several different cities). The numbers on the pipe-looking things are the connection costs that must be paid before you can build in that city (the powering stations must form a connected network between cities). So building costs money to A) make a powering station and B) the cost to connect to the city you want to build in.

 

In addition to building powering stations (the build phase) you need to buy resources to power the plants (resource phase) as well as buy the power plants (plant auction phase) themselves. These phases (mentioned before) involve auctions between the other players. The power plant market is just a randomly drawn set of power plants that people bid on, whereas the resource market (shown below) is composed of a finite set of resources that get replenished (but only by a set amount, meaning that there can be shortage, which means that prices can skyrocket). So who gets to buy resources or power plants first? The player in last place! So the more you’re winning, the more disadvantaged you are for buying stuff. This aspect of the game and many others are what make it fun, there’s usually a chance for you to come back and win after being down. Looking forward to playing (win or lose) soon!