The Whiteboard

1:42 AM

> The trivial solution is to have all points be the same point, such that the distance is zero. The point (0,0) lies on the sine curve and therefore represents a solution.

Er... What? Do mathematicians really think like this? A solution with no practical value whatsoever.

user20683

@RobertHarvey Yes.

Robert Harvey

However, the rest of the answer looks quite good, though I'm not sure I understand it fully.

user20683

You want someone practical go find a Statistician or a Physicist.

Robert Harvey

Meh, physicists work with particles I'll never see in my bedroom or office.

And statisticians are all liars. :P

@WorldEngineer Y'know, I don't think they ever taught me the function/subscript notation that he used in that answer in school. The only thing that I can pull out of that answer that makes sense is d=1/n, but that's just an approximation.

Or is it?

God, I'm terrible at math.

user55340

2:32 AM

Whee... another train ride today - North Freedom and the Mid-Continent Railway. Nephew quite enjoyed it. Then went and opened birthday presents for my brother... and he got the Lego cargo train (that they also enjoyed playing with).

user55340

user55340

Don't see it there, but that train has a remote control - which the kids really liked playing with.

user15026

Both the train ride and the lego train are great

user55340

@AshleyNunn cake was decorated with train candles that we got at the giftshop... 30 some odd years ago, my brother's birthday cake was also a train... though my mother didn't quite put as much preparation into it this year.

user15026

Neat. :)

user15026

2:37 AM

I have only ever been on a train once in my life. This is a thing that I really, really need to fix

user55340

Went on a train to Washington DC many years ago... as in I was ~12 give or take a year or two... can't quite nail it down to other contemporary events to identify the exact year.

user15026

I was pretty young and it was only like a half hour ride on this tourist train thing that goes from my city to another very close city

user55340

And then when in SF, I often took a commuter train up to the city - cheaper than parking and you didn't need to worry about having a drink if you went out for dinner.

user15026

There's a train between here and Toronto but the bus is cheaper and runs more often so I tend to take that instead

user55340

Bus from Redwood city to SF: samtrans.com/schedulesandmaps/timetables/kx.html

user55340

2:41 AM

From Redwood City to Mission and 7th is 1h 6m.

user55340

And that's only half the distance from Mountain View to SF... runs on the hour.. but only half the day (its an into SF commuter route)

user55340

But, its only $5 for the distance.

user55340

For caltrain: caltrain.com/schedules/weekdaytimetable.html

user55340

From Redwood City to SF is 1 zone different... so thats $3.

user55340

Its also... lets see... assuming Redwood city itself... thats 6:45 to 7:19 for a an express route or just over 30m.

user15026

2:44 AM

Now I wanna ride trains places.

user55340

For a non-express route, kicking int later in the day... 8:51 to 9:45, still under an hour.

user15026

Well, I always do, but extra so.

user55340

I lived in Mountain View... zone 3 to zone 1... for non-express service that was 9:30 to 10:40... 50 min. still faster than the bus...

user55340

And thats a 3 zone... so $7.

user15026

I don't kknow which one takes longer, but if I remember right the GO Train is significantly more than the GO Bus or Greyhound

user55340

2:47 AM

I recall something for high school students getting a discount during the summer...

user55340

the local small colleges on the peninsula also have free passes based on their student ID.

user15026

I have free city bus with my still valid student card but it doesn't extend to anything inter-city really

user55340

I also recall a former co-worker had a free pass on BART (east bay) from his Oakland A's season tickets.

user55340

user15026

That map is pretty.

user55340

2:51 AM

There's bart, caltrain, amtrack commuter rail, ace commuter rail, muni in SF, and the VTA (south bay)

user55340

and then there were all the local city buses that aren't on that map.

user55340

Cities were 'responsible' for the east-west transport... the regional transit handled the north-south transport.

user55340

It was kind of difficult to get from Mountain view to Redwood City by bus (for example)... it was quite possible you'd need to do a 3 legged journey to get there... MV VTA bus to Caltrain, then caltrain MV to RWC, then RWC city bus.

user15026

That sounds kinda confusing

user55340

3:00 AM

Btw, red circle is where I used to live. Blue is the bus lines for the city... orange was caltrain line and green was light rail line. I had a very public transit connected location.

user15026

So tonight I learned our chat ban system at work doesn't take NaN into account, because it allowed me to ban someone for "insulting minutes" (Ban command is /ban usernumber time reason, I forgot a time entry)

user55340

The only other place that was that connected was down in San Jose.

user15026

I live a 10 minute walk from the main bus terminal for Kitchener/Waterloo

user15026

and it is the inter-city terminal as well

user55340

Thats only 3 blocks I had to walk.

user55340

3:02 AM

So, some areas were able to get a regional bus line. VTA did mountain view to San Jose... all those cities kicked in.

user55340

Looking at it... went as far north as Palo Alto for busses (Stanford).

user55340

But, if you wanted to go further north, you had to get on a different bus line... but the two bus lines didn't connect except by train.

user15026

I feel like I could get easily lost

user55340

Glance at vta.org/sfc/servlet.shepherd/document/download/…

user55340

and you can see that it was easy to go 'east west' on bus (if you consider the train going north / south...)

user55340

3:04 AM

But it was hard to go north/south by bus.

user15026

Our bus routes are really weird because technically they cover Elmira/StJacobs/Kitchener/Waterloo/Cambridge (but really k/w/c are the only ones with decent service, k/w even more so)

user55340

Glance at google.com/maps/dir/37.3762007,-122.0626847/…

user15026

I can't find the map of all the routes, though. :(

user55340

And you can see the 22, to caltrain local, to another route.

user15026

Found the map. Forgot it was like in mostly dayglo unreadable colours. Icky.

user55340

3:09 AM

user55340

Each blue bar is a different transit system.

user15026

Can you use one fare to transfer between?

user15026

Or does each system use different fare/

user55340

Nope.

user55340

Different agencies.

user15026

3:09 AM

Oh, that is nasty

user55340

VTA day pass will cover both VTA bus and light rail... but not caltrain.

user15026

At least here the ION LRT and the GRT buses will be the same system (I checked)

user15026

@MichaelT See that would make me super grouchy

user55340

As I said, getting up along the peninsula is easy... going along the city is whats hard.

user55340

Here's a fun constraint problem for public transit: cityofmadison.com/metro/schedules/SystemMaps/WeekdayMap.pdf

user15026

3:12 AM

There is a lot going on there

user55340

the isthmus causes lots of headaches.

user55340

Madison Isthmus

The Madison Isthmus is an isthmus in Madison, Wisconsin between Lake Mendota and Lake Monona. It is located between Madison's Northeast side to the east and the University of Wisconsin campus to the west. The southwestern portion of the isthmus is home to the Wisconsin State Capitol, State Street, and Madison's main business and financial districts. The street grid within the isthmus is laid out in a southwest-to-northeast pattern. Madison, Wisconsin is one of only two major U.S. cities built on an isthmus, the other being Seattle, Washington. == Notes == == External links == Google Map...

user55340

the idea behind the layout is having loops that handle the various areas that include a transfer point (four of them) and then routes that go from trannsfer point to transfer point.

user55340

So if you're going to do a east to west side, you're likely going to have 3 busses again... loop to transfer to transfer to loop.

user55340

Fitchburg to east town for example.... you'd go 40 to S, take the 5 from the south transfer point to something on the isthmus, and then get on the 6 that gets out to East town.

user55340

3:20 AM

Note that the 6 route is actually a W - East Town run - straight down the middle.

MetaFight

6:01 AM

Anyone here go to EMF?

Stack Exchange

1:17 PM

The Codeless Code: Case 160: The Eye of the Beholder

posted on August 31, 2014

A monk of the Laughing Monkey Clan found master Banzen humming before his whiteboard with an uncharacteristically happy expression on his face. Intrigued by this, the monk hid behind a large potted plant to investigate. As the monk watched, Banzen filled his whiteboard with a class diagram of hideous complexity. The master then took a step back to consider his work. “Beautiful!” said Banz…

ratchet freak

6:58 PM

september monday, no-one around

user55340

US holiday... many universities have their classes start the tuesday after labor day...

user55340

I recall my father (lab director at a university) being glad when labor day was early because of how it finished up the semester's schedule.

user15026

8:23 PM

@MichaelT It's a holiday here too. Well, not for me (working 4pm-11) but hey whatever money is money :P

MetaFight

8:37 PM

@AshleyNunn where is here there?

Ah, kitchener. I miss Canada :)

user15026

8:54 PM

Yeah, sorry, I am used to people knowing I'm Canadian :P

user20683

10:17 PM

@MichaelT Remember that FizzBuzz code review from a while back?:

user20683

String Deduplication

user15026

Welp, found a site problem no one ever considered would happen on my work site that involves about 3 different systems failing (and one needing a major overhaul and perhaps a consideration about its implementation)

user55340

11:08 PM

@WorldEngineer the LOLcode one?

user20683

@MichaelT The Java one

user20683

apparently Java 8's latest update adds a way of deduplicating strings

user55340

Oh, the one I wrote about...

user55340

11

A: Which FizzBuzz is better, and why?

This is a review of the second one - I think the first one is perfectly acceptable, the second one I've got issues. Strings There's a string in there that is printed out at the end. Ok. However, whenever the integer is divisible by 5, the string is being changed with the instruction: str += "...

user20683

@MichaelT that's the one

user20683

11:12 PM

Also, any knowledge of Kotlin?

user55340

That would be a reasonable thing, but for short running apps, where gc is unlikely to be invoked, doesn't make too much of a difference... still better to not need it in the first place.

user55340

Just what I've read.

user55340

Aug 29 at 21:03, by MichaelT

Unrelated to that... neat Java8 Update 20 feature: String deduplication: https://blog.codecentric.de/en/2014/08/string-deduplication-new-feature-java-8-u‌pdate-20-2

user55340

The thing with the situation of dup strings in that fizzbuz example was that the strings were thrown away within a few lines of being created.

user55340

11:15 PM

String dedup is useful for long living strings... things you find in ORM fields and the like.

user20683

@MichaelT ah

user55340

The register software I worked on for example... the department name was a String that was fetched back from the database... and now there are hundreds of "Plumbing" strings floating around.

user55340

The string dedup would handle those that stick around in the cache to reduce memory usage.

user55340

Which in turn would mean that you need less memory for the cache, and can store more in the cache making the cache more efficient again...

user55340

Grab a heap dump of any long running java web app... and go poke at what strings are string in permgen... how many ""s are just sitting there.

user55340

11:19 PM

That this is done for you, in the background is a good thing... you don't have to worry about it and it will clean up the heap for you.

user55340

There was a period of time I debated going through and interning the string when I got back from the ORM on fields I knew only had a few dozen values... so that the character arrays that backed them could get collected more easily itself... but its one of those "this is an optimization that probably won't do anything for me and just confuse the next guy who doesn't know what .intern() does..."

ratchet freak

but doesn't the "don't check dupes for this one" flag eventually cause dupes?

I mean an old string that has fallen out of the checkable generation won't be checked against a new string which can then fall out of the checkable generation and so on

user55340

Interesting question.

ratchet freak

11:42 PM

unless it's like generational GC

sometimes looking at the whole while looking more often at the new

I mean it is an experimental feature

granted it's less dupes than would be there without the dedupe

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