Matthew Crumley

Welcome to silentmatt.com

Who is this guy?

I am a 26-year-old single guy living near Tampa, Florida. I enjoy any type of computer programming, including websites, which is why I am making this site.

I got the nickname "Silent Matt" at my old job where there were two Matthews. I don't talk much, so I became "Silent Matt", and the other one was "Phat Matt" or just Matt.

I have a twin brother named Michael who looks just like me and is a lot like me in most ways. He is more artistic than I am though.

What's New

July 18, 2009

Added a page for DSS, a CSS preprocessor.

June 27, 2009

Added a JavaScript expression evaluator.

March 12, 2009

Added a JavaScript big integer library.

November 20, 2008

I wrote a rectangle intersection demo to help visualize how an intersection test works. Someone on Stack Overflow asked how to test for intersection, and I realized that it can be difficult to understand how the solution works. So, I make a quick demonstration that should help.

September 19, 2008

Added a JavaScript function plotter that I ported from a command-line version I originally wrote for running in Rhino. It's not quite a TI-89 or Matlab, but it works.

May 15, 2008

Added a "Websites I've built or had a part in building" page.

April 5, 2007

Today is CSS naked day, so I disabled all of the style sheets on this site (it's wearing its birthday suit...). What's the point? To show the power of CSS and the usefulness of separating content (what you see) from its presentation (how you see it). Everything should still work correctly and be useable; it just won't look as nice.

February 2, 2007

Added separate yahtzee histograms based on the number of yahtzees rolled and the number of games with that number to the yahtzee statistics page.

January 27, 2007

I made another change to the Yahtzee game (thanks again Cyndi). Now you will only get a confirmation for zero-point rolls when there is no way to get points on that roll. i.e. you used all three rolls and all of the available options will give you zero points.

I also put the confirmation back on the new game button. It never made it into the new version.

January 13, 2007

Added a profanity filter to the yahtzee high-score list.

January 1, 2007

Happy New Year!

October 31, 2006

I Uploaded a new style I'm working on. You should see a link at the top of each page that will let you switch between the current style and the new style. Let me know if you like the new style by voting. You can also feel free to send me any suggestions or comments from my Contact page.

Oh yeah, happy Halloween.

October 15, 2006

I finally got around to converting over to the new Yahtzee game.

September 22, 2006

I am almost done with a complete rewrite of the Yahtzee game. I still consider it in beta (does that make it Web 2.0?), so if you find any problems or have suggestions, please let me know. Since it may have issues, it will be using a different high score table. Once I know there are no problems, I will merge the data from the tables, so your game will still count.

Improvements:

1. Shows the number of points available for each slot
2. Remembers your settings (requires cookies)
3. Better code (no direct benefit to you, the player, but it should be easier to make changes to)

September 16, 2006

Converted the Yahtzee high score system from a flat file (tab-separated) to a database. (If you had a high score, don't worry, I imported all the current scores) Now I don't have to worry about overwriting the scores file when I make changes. It's also a more robust way of storing the data and it simplifies the whole score system.

I also changed the high score dialog and score notification. They look mostly just look better, but the "window" that shows your score at the end of a game has a link to start a new game. Now you don't have to click "OK", then "New Game", then "OK" again; Just click "New Game" or "Close".

August 24, 2006

Added a page showing how not to make a web page. I used "old-school" HTML with no CSS to reproduce this page as closely as possible. Because of the limitations of HTML without stylesheets, it doesn't match 100%.

It uses tables and transparent gif's for layout, and lots of font tags. As a result of the complex markup, the file is about twice the size of the homepage and would be very difficult to maintain. For example, when I changed the menu layout about a month ago, I didn't have to make any changes to the actual pages; I just changed a few CSS rules. To change the menus with the old-style HTML page, I would have had to change the whole structure of the document.

August 1, 2006

Added source code for "hist", a command-line program to print histograms for files.

July 29, 2006

Added a confirmation dialog for the new game button in Yahtzee (thanks Cyndi!)

July 26, 2006

Fixed a (small) bug in the Yahtzee game. Yes, I know I need to put something else interesting on here. If you have any ideas, let me know.

July 23, 2006

Changed the color of the heading and changed the site navigation (exciting isn't it).

July 22, 2006

Updated the Yahtzee page to match the rest of the site. I also added a feature to warn you when you are about to take a zero, which should hopefully reduce errors from clicking the wrong button.

July 15, 2006

Added a statistics page for Yahtzee scores.

July 12, 2006

Added an 8-queens solver that only uses one variable.