Philistinism tranquilizes itself in the trivial — Kierkegaard — Paul Epps (@paulepps) June 17, 2018 Read more →
Author Archive: Paul Epps
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 →
When Bad Things Happen to Psychics
It’s fun when bad things happen to psychics because you can always say “She didn’t see that coming!” Read more →
I Was in the House When the House Burned Down
I may be old and I may be bent
But I had the money till it all got spent
I had the money till they made me pay
Then I had the sense to be on my way
I had to stay in the underground
I was in the house when the house burned down
Experts and Empty Suits
Our inability to predict in environments subjected to the Black Swan, coupled with a general lack of awareness of this state of affairs, means that certain professionals, while believing they are experts, are in fact not. Based on their empirical record, they do not know more about their subject than the general population, but they are much better at narrating — or, worse, at smoking you with complicated mathematical models. They are also more likely to wear a tie. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan Read more →
Greatest Living American Authors
With the recent deaths of Philip Roth and Tom Wolfe, I’ve moved a couple more notches up the list of greatest living American authors. Why not celebrate by picking up a copy of my book? Read more →
Philip Roth, 1933-2018
The final question assigned to the class was “What is life?” Merry’s answer was something her father and mother chuckled over together that night. According to Merry, while the other students labored busily away with their phony deep thoughts, she — after an hour of thinking at her desk — wrote a single, unplatitudinous declarative sentence: “Life is just a short period of time in which you are alive.” “You know,” said the Swede, “it’s smarter then it sounds. She’s a kid — how has she figured out that life is short? She is somethin’, our precocious daughter. This girl is going to Harvard.” But once again the teacher didn’t agree, and she wrote beside Merry’s answer, “Is that all?” Yes, the Swede thought now, that is all. Thank God, that is all; even that is unendurable. — American Pastoral RIP Philip Roth Read more →
Making Better Decisions
I can’t decide which one to get . . . Read more →
Competitive Programming: POJ 1159 – Palindrome
Description A palindrome is a symmetrical string, that is, a string read identically from left to right as well as from right to left. You are to write a program which, given a string, determines the minimal number of characters to be inserted into the string in order to obtain a palindrome. As an example, by inserting 2 characters, the string “Ab3bd” can be transformed into a palindrome (“dAb3bAd” or “Adb3bdA”). However, inserting fewer than 2 characters does not produce a palindrome. Input Your program is to read from standard input. The first line contains one integer: the length of the input string N, 3 <= N <= 5000. The second line contains one string with length N. The string is formed from uppercase letters from ‘A’ to ‘Z’, lowercase letters from ‘a’ to ‘z’ and digits from ‘0’ to ‘9’. Uppercase and lowercase letters are to be considered distinct.… Read more →