If I don’t believe that I’m the prime cause of my life being the way it is, I’m doomed to a joyless existence in the victim position. Any prescription for peace of mind has got to include owning your own shit. Read more →
Author Archive: Paul Epps
Competitive Programming: POJ 2455 – Secret Milking Machine
Description Farmer John is constructing a new milking machine and wishes to keep it secret as long as possible. He has hidden in it deep within his farm and needs to be able to get to the machine without being detected. He must make a total of T (1 <= T <= 200) trips to the machine during its construction. He has a secret tunnel that he uses only for the return trips. The farm comprises N (2 <= N <= 200) landmarks (numbered 1..N) connected by P (1 <= P <= 40,000) bidirectional trails (numbered 1..P) and with a positive length that does not exceed 1,000,000. Multiple trails might join a pair of landmarks. To minimize his chances of detection, FJ knows he cannot use any trail on the farm more than once and that he should try to use the shortest trails. Help FJ get from the barn… Read more →
Exactly the Same?
Decisions Are Not “Right” or “Wrong”
Decisions are bets on the future, and they aren’t “right” or “wrong” based on whether they turn out well on any particular iteration. An unwanted result doesn’t make our decision wrong if we thought about the alternatives and probabilities in advance and allocated our resources accordingly. . . . It would be absurd for me, after making a big bet on the best possible starting hand (a pair of aces) and losing, to spend a lot of time thinking I was wrong to make the decision to play the hand in the first place. . . . When we think probabilistically, we are less likely to use adverse results alone as proof that we made a decision error, because we recognize the possibility that the decision might have been good but luck and/or incomplete information (and a sample size of one) intervened. Maybe we made the best decision from a… Read more →
Competitive Programming: POJ 2195 – Going Home
Description On a grid map there are n little men and n houses. In each unit time, every little man can move one unit step, either horizontally, or vertically, to an adjacent point. For each little man, you need to pay a $1 travel fee for every step he moves, until he enters a house. The task is complicated with the restriction that each house can accommodate only one little man. Your task is to compute the minimum amount of money you need to pay in order to send these n little men into those n different houses. The input is a map of the scenario, a ‘.’ means an empty space, an ‘H’ represents a house on that point, and am ‘m’ indicates there is a little man on that point. You can think of each point on the grid map as a quite large square, so it can… Read more →
You Think I’m Inept?
“You think I’m inept? You think I’m inadequate? If I’m inadequate, where are you going to get people who are adequate . . . if I’m . . . do you understand what I’m saying? What am I supposed to be? What are other people if I am inadequate?” — Philip Roth, American Pastoral Read more →
Sorrow Without Limits
The whole order of things fills me with a sense of anguish, from the gnat to the mysteries of incarnation; all is entirely unintelligible to me, and particularly my own person. Great is my sorrow, without limits. None knows of it, except God in Heaven, and He cannot have pity. — Sören Kierkegaard Read more →
Philistinism
Philistinism tranquilizes itself in the trivial — Kierkegaard — Paul Epps (@paulepps) June 17, 2018 Read more →
It Is Just Too Shaking and Wearing
We are just not strong enough to endure more! It is just too shaking and wearing. So often people in . . . ecstatic moments say, “It’s too much,” or “I can’t stand it,” or “I could die” . . . Delirious happiness cannot be borne for long. Our organisms are just too weak for any large doses of greatness. — Abraham Maslow Read more →
Non ridere, non lugere, neque detestari, sed intelligere. (Not to laugh, not to curse, not to lament, but to understand.) — Spinoza
Competitive Programming: POJ 3169 – Layout
Description Like everyone else, cows like to stand close to their friends when queuing for feed. FJ has N (2 <= N <= 1,000) cows numbered 1..N standing along a straight line waiting for feed. The cows are standing in the same order as they are numbered, and since they can be rather pushy, it is possible that two or more cows can line up at exactly the same location (that is, if we think of each cow as being located at some coordinate on a number line, then it is possible for two or more cows to share the same coordinate). Some cows like each other and want to be within a certain distance of each other in line. Some really dislike each other and want to be separated by at least a certain distance. A list of ML (1 <= ML <= 10,000) constraints describes which cows like… Read more →
Competitive Programming: POJ 1125 – Stockbroker Grapevine
Description Stockbrokers are known to overreact to rumors. You have been contracted to develop a method of spreading disinformation amongst the stockbrokers to give your employer the tactical edge in the stock market. For maximum effect, you have to spread the rumors in the fastest possible way. Unfortunately for you, stockbrokers only trust information coming from their “Trusted sources” This means you have to take into account the structure of their contacts when starting a rumor. It takes a certain amount of time for a specific stockbroker to pass the rumor on to each of his colleagues. Your task will be to write a program that tells you which stockbroker to choose as your starting point for the rumor, as well as the time it will take for the rumor to spread throughout the stockbroker community. This duration is measured as the time needed for the last person to receive… Read more →
USC’s Unreal Finish to Win Track and Field Championship
I’ve never seen a come-from-behind finish like this! The male announcer says twice in the home stretch that Purdue is going to win the race. Female announcer: “Here comes USC.” Male announcer: “Not gonna catch Purdue . . . oh my god . . .” The @usc_track_field Women of Troy had to win the 4x400m to win the national championship. WATCH WHAT #FIGHTON LOOKS LIKE! pic.twitter.com/BOrISxUXXq — USC Trojans (@USC_Athletics) June 10, 2018 Read more →
More People I’m Sick Unto Death Of: Grads
Why is it always “Dads and Grads”? Mothers get the whole month of May to themselves — despite the fact that a lot of graduations take place in May — but June is always Dads and Grads. Granted, Moms and Grads doesn’t rhyme like Dads and Grads or Highways and Byways . . . but why not Moms and Proms? Flowers for everyone! Anyway, Happy Fathers Day, guys. Read more →
Anthony Bourdain, 1956-2018
I think of Anthony Bourdain as the guy who started the whole “bad-boy chef” industry, which has been, in my view, bad for society. Or maybe it was Gordon Ramsay. Is Gordon Ramsay still alive? RIP Anthony Bourdain Read more →
I Feared That the Dam Might Break So I Loosed the River
I can never remake the thing I have destroyed; I brushed the golden dust from the moth’s bright wing, I called down wind to shatter the cherry-blossoms, I did a terrible thing. I feared that the cup might fall, so I flung it from me; I feared that the bird might fly, so I set it free; I feared that the dam might break, so I loosed the river: May its waters cover me. — Aline Murray Kilmer, “Shards” Read more →
Competitive Programming: POJ 2488 – A Knight’s Journey
Description Background The knight is getting bored of seeing the same black and white squares again and again and has decided to make a journey around the world. Whenever a knight moves, it is two squares in one direction and one square perpendicular to this. The world of a knight is the chessboard he is living on. Our knight lives on a chessboard that has a smaller area than a regular 8 * 8 board, but it is still rectangular. Can you help this adventurous knight to make travel plans? Problem Find a path such that the knight visits every square once. The knight can start and end on any square of the board. Input The input begins with a positive integer n in the first line. The following lines contain n test cases. Each test case consists of a single line with two positive integers p and q, such… Read more →
Those Weren’t Burglars, They Were “Confidential Informants”
F.B.I. Used Informant to Investigate Russia Ties to Campaign, Not to Spy, as Trump Claims — New York Times It’s too bad for Richard Nixon that he wasn’t able to come up with a similarly quick-witted explanation for Watergate. It reminded me of a joke: A man sees one of his neighbors scattering crumbs all around his house. “Why are you doing that?” he asked. “I’m keeping the tigers away.” “But there aren’t any tigers around here.” “That’s right. You see how well it works?” Read more →
Galactic Meetup Scheduled
Our nearest neighbor, the Andromeda galaxy, is speeding toward the Milky Way at 250,000 miles per hour and will crash into us in 3.75 billion years. The good news is that because of the vast distances between stars, it’s unlikely that any stars will actually collide. Before you mark this event on your calendar, however, remember that our sun is continually growing. About 3 billion years from now, the sun will be 40 percent larger than its current state and all life on Earth will probably cease to exist. Read more →
Amazon Devices Recording Private Conversations?
Is the woman’s name Alexa? No? It’s Danielle? Despite what we’re told, it’s impossible that these microphones aren’t listening until you say their name — Alexa, Siri, OK Google, etc. How do they hear their name if they’re not listening? I’m not listening until you say my name: Paul. Until then, I’m not hearing anything you say. Not listening, won’t repeat it to anyone. Your total privacy is assured. Read more →