The Nineteenth Byte

Geobits

4:18 PM

Oh, this might make a nice challenge. Dibs!

Mondrian Puzzle - Numberphile

►

Nathan Merrill

@Geobits I mentioned this earlier: the sequence doesn't exist OEIS

Geobits

Oh, I wasn't sure which you were talking about there.

Nathan Merrill

its fine, I wasn't being specific

unless the sequence covers the rectangles as well

you should make the challenge "Given the following 10,001 size square, minimize the distance"

and simply score by the submission that finds the smallest distance

Geobits

That's what I was thinking, but with multiple sizes, and sum the scores.

Nathan Merrill

oh boy....there's likely a mathematica builtin: demonstrations.wolfram.com/MondrianPuzzles

Geobits

4:22 PM

-_- Now why does that not surprise me?

Although that's doing something different, so it may be okay.

El'endia Starman

@Geobits Ha, I watched this just minutes ago! :P

Nathan Merrill

oh, I actually have a good idea: Have the submissions print out their best solution for each N as high as they can go. You rank the answers for each N. Meaning that if I find a better solution for a lower N, my solution is better than yours

but if we are equal, but mine produces more, then mine is better

Geobits

That would seem to encourage brute forcing the smaller Ns

Nathan Merrill

true, but if they are brute-forcable, then they should be solvable by any advanced solver

Geobits

True. But I'd just hate to essentially give it to whoever has the most cpu time to use to brute force. If all it takes is one mistake in the other solvers to win...

I think I need to figure out if there's a general method, though. The video implies there isn't a general formula for the minimum score, but it doesn't necessarily follow that there isn't a general method to placing the rectangles optimally.

Nathan Merrill

4:27 PM

true. However "most cpu time" is an inherent problem in the fastest-code-solve-yourself probems

Geobits

If there is, then an optimization challenge isn't the best, and it'd be better as a golf or something.

Nathan Merrill

yeah

therefore, you post it as an optimization challenge, then when the general method is found, simply post it as a code golf :P

Geobits

I like the way you think :P

popularity-contest Draw pretty boxes!

betseg

are these beautiful?

Geobits

Are they boxes? :P

betseg

4:35 PM

box
a container with a flat base and sides, typically square or rectangular and having a lid.

Geobits

The top two might be. I'm not so sure about the bottom one.

Nathan Merrill

@Geobits I think the general algorithm here is: popularity-contest to find a cool way of doing a task, fewest-operations to find a general algorithm to do it, then code-golf to get it in as few characters as possible

we've basically got the entire software development life cycle here

at least the important parts :P

TimmyD

┏┓
┗┛

Editing the CSS to determine appropriate spacing between lines is left as an exercise for the reader.

betseg

line-height: 1;

Stewie Griffin

Any comments on this one.

Nathan Merrill

4:44 PM

there's an entire wikipedia page on box-drawing characters

TimmyD

@NathanMerrill Where do you think I copy-pasted from? ;-)

Dennis

@El'endiaStarman Switched to that logo. It might not be the final one, but it seems to be an improvement. (I liked the original one, but it seems that I only understood it because I made it myself...)

El'endia Starman

I did understand the original, but it took a few seconds. The newer one is immediately obvious.

Dennis

Yea, I meant understood immediately.

Nathan Merrill

I'm getting a privacy error on tio.run

you probably know, but FYI :P

mınxomaτ

4:47 PM

Always sad to see nice box drawing ruined by line spacing.

betseg

@Dennis chrome gives cetificate error

oops ninja'd

Dennis

Um, I'm on Chrome myself and it works fine.

mınxomaτ

Definitely invalid cert.

Nathan Merrill

Chrome says:

There are issues with the site's certificate chain (net::ERR_CERT_DATE_INVALID).

El'endia Starman

I also get a certificate error on Chrome.

Dennis

4:49 PM

Argh, the certificate expired.

mınxomaτ

> There are issues with the site's certificate chain (net::ERR_CERT_DATE_INVALID).

Dennis

Mine was cached.

Kritixi Lithos

Cookies, cookies everywhere...

Nathan Merrill

at least it happened while still in beta :P

also, I do like the new logo significantly better.

Dennis

Ugh, the automated renewal doesn't work because the httpd is blocking the port. Just a sec.

That should be fixed.

Kritixi Lithos

4:52 PM

It works now

Dennis

Having to shut down the server for each renewal kinda sucks though.

El'endia Starman

Yep, works for me too.

Kritixi Lithos

Liking the new logo

El'endia Starman

Oh yay, tooltips on the buttons!

Dennis

Yup. Just added.

The keyboard shortcuts are currently not telling the truth. I should remove that until I actually implement them.

Kritixi Lithos

4:54 PM

What is the difference between the header and the footer?

Dennis

Could we move this to talk.tryitonline.net please?

betseg

Is the current supermoon the best since 19something?

Geobits

Yes, if by "best" you mean closest to Earth and visibly biggest.

Kritixi Lithos

But we won''t be able to notice the difference with our human eyes

Geobits

Right. It's going to look like any other "supermoon" does.

As in, just like a regular moon, but minus glasses and plus cape.

TimmyD

5:04 PM

TIL -- syzygy is a great Scrabble word.

Geobits

syzygy is a great scrabble word if you hate people and like to play alone.

Its best trait is having three Ys in a straight line, though.

TimmyD

You mean, a syzygy of Ys?

Geobits

Something like that ;)

TimmyD

Very different than a syzygy of Ys, though.

Geobits

It's been quite a while since I've played any Ys games, but IIRC the early ones were fairly linear.

I have Ys: Memories of Celceta, but haven't gotten around to playing it yet for some odd reason.

ETHproductions

5:11 PM

@Downgoat Idea to fix the multiple wheres:

where {
  #end -> array.len - 1
  #mid -> floor array.len / 2
}

TimmyD

I've never played them. It was only recently (within the past couple of years) that I was even aware of their existence.

betseg

If I look at the moon with the side of my glasses it disperses the light and I see the Moon as red-white-blue.

Geobits

I remember Ys 3 being my favorite, but it's been a long time.

Nathan Merrill

hey, can somebody take a look at my ability list on my KoTH? I have bold tags and italics tags, but they aren't showing

TimmyD

They're in a < pre> tag block.

Nathan Merrill

5:13 PM

...they used to work. I know it works

Geobits

I see the bold, but not italic. I assume they don't have a monospace-italic font?

Nathan Merrill

and the bold tags work

El'endia Starman

Wait, I do see the bold. Just not where I was looking initially.

TimmyD

Huh. Why so they do. Yeah, likely don't have monospace italic?

Nathan Merrill

I swear italics used to work

let me look through my sandbox history

ETHproductions

5:14 PM

abc

Geobits

IMO the ability names look fine as is, though. I'm not sure they really need to be italic.

ETHproductions

Yep, they have monospace italic

Nathan Merrill

I want certain ones to be italicized

as they are actions

TimmyD

What if you made the sections _Section_ and have the action abilities bold?

Geobits

Ah, I thought they were all italicized.

Yeah, either bold or maybe marked with an asterisk?

Martin Ender

5:15 PM

I don't think the bold is very visible

I was just going to suggest asterisk or something :D

ETHproductions

The problem seems to be that there's a leading space on every line...

Geobits

I think bold would be visible if the names in the list were some bold, some not.

TimmyD

Umm

You've got \ instead of / for your closing tags

ETHproductions

I found the problem... it's exactly what TimmyD just said

Nathan Merrill

that was it

thanks :P

El'endia Starman

5:18 PM

Yup, I see the italics now.

Also, it's nice to know that my Pytek influence is spreading... :P

Geobits

Now that I see the italics, I'm not sure they're the most immediately visibly indicators :/

Nathan Merrill

er...I've never used Pytek :P

@Geobits I don't need a huge indicator

just some way for somebody to tell which ones are actions

El'endia Starman

@NathanMerrill Doesn't matter! :P

Martin Ender

@NathanMerrill maybe group them by Actions/Passive?

Geobits

^ I was going to say that :(

Martin Ender

5:20 PM

ninja revenge!

Nathan Merrill

is that more useful than grouping them by what they do?

Oliver

hi guys

Martin Ender

I meant in addition to the current grouping

Geobits

No, group by what they do, then by action/passive

-_-

Martin Ender

:)

El'endia Starman

5:20 PM

*kicks Geobits and Martin*

4

Nathan Merrill

how would that look? A line saying "Active" or "Passive"? Centered?

Geobits

Keep them italics, just have them all grouped up so it's not italic/normal/normal/italic/normal

It'll make the separation easier to see.

Nathan Merrill

ah ok

I think I'll also alphabetize them within those groups

Martin Ender

and maybe add an empty line between the active and the passive set in each category

Geobits

And maybe marquee the subsection title, or blink the passives.

Martin Ender

5:25 PM

that would be nice

TimmyD

Blink and marquee.

And host the controller on Geocities.

Geobits

Everything I know about web design I learned on Geocities.

That why I know the magic black background / yellow text combo.

TimmyD

feature-request An "Under Construction" GIF on the Sandbox.

Geobits

And a hit counter on the loopholes page.

Also, we need to sidebar our webring.

Martin Ender

and a guestbook on "GolfScript and J are sucking the fun out of golfing..."

mınxomaτ

5:28 PM

A "best viewed on" badge is also missing.

TimmyD

Don't forget the MIDI background music.

betseg

@mınxomaτ IE 6.0!

mınxomaτ

Tiled CSS background

Custom scrollbar colors.

Geobits

@TimmyD MIDI? Pfft. With a simple RealPlayer plugin, I can do better than that :P

betseg

April 1st ideas for the graduation design :p

Nathan Merrill

5:29 PM

updated my post. Does it look better?

Geobits

Better. Still no blinking though.

Martin Ender

also the empty line was a real suggestion :P (it's fine as is though)

Geobits

I think if you add an empty line, you should also add an extra between main sections.

Nathan Merrill

ah, I missed the empty line suggestion

Martin Ender

"Each character starts out with 4 ability slots, and abilities take 1 slot by default." Every time I read this I think there's a way to get additional ability slots, but as far as I can see there isn't, right?

Kritixi Lithos

5:32 PM

You can always H4CK 1T to gain more ability slots :P

Geobits

I put H4CK1T into a base36 converter, but I don't know how 1035229313 is going to help.

Nathan Merrill

@MartinEnder there is. Take the Weak ability

Anonymous

@Geobits You should create Geobities

Kritixi Lithos

@Geobits You found the cheat code!

Geobits

@Mego Only if Doorknob creates AngelKeyboardFire

Martin Ender

5:35 PM

@NathanMerrill ahhh, that's the one I was looking for

Anonymous

I don't even know what 90s-era website my name could be punned into

Anonymous

Megopets?

Nathan Merrill

oh, that sounds great

I'd play it

Anonymous

Maybe my next project should be recreating neopets, but with 1000% more sarcasm

Anonymous

Wait that's just Kingdom of Loathing...

Kritixi Lithos

5:37 PM

@Mego Megolosaurus

Geobits

Yep, pretty much

Anonymous

I don't even remember enough about Neopets to make even a terrible imitation

Anonymous

It's been too many moons

Geobits

You can always do research, but that doesn't sound fun at all.

Nathan Merrill

@Geobits oooh, be back tomorrow

Anonymous

5:40 PM

I heard that they changed the site dramatically from the version in the 90s, to the point that it barely resembles the original

Geobits

The main thing I remember about neopets was that half their daily games had optimal algorithms, so they were basically free points for being a robot.

Like peg solitaire. I mean, really.

Anonymous

Yep, there was a game that, once you beat all of the main levels, had a side level that would give the maximum amount of currency possible for a game if you beat it, and it was incredibly easy. 3x (max game currency cap) in about 10 minutes per day.

Anonymous

Remember Marble Drop?

Geobits

Oh wow... yes I do

I think I've played all the old Maxis games. Sierra too.

Anonymous

Ahahahahah

Anonymous

5:44 PM

Someone is selling it on Amazon for $36.75

Anonymous

Nobody in their right mind is going to pay anything for a 20-year-old mediocre PC game

Geobits

Yeah, but all you have to do is find one person who isn't in their right mind ;)

quartata

I think eclipse is drunk right now

Geobits

Is it ever completely sober?

mınxomaτ

I recently sold an ancient Motorola flip phone for $80, because Amazon listed the original $300 price tag and I had the only "used" offer. It's probably worth $2.

Kritixi Lithos

5:46 PM

IntelliJ is sober

Nathan Merrill

and you forget the power that nostalgia has to turn right minds in to wrong minds

quartata

It's saying that I can't do for (Map.Entry entry : map.entrySet())

but when I do for (Object ent : map.entrySet()) { Map.Entry entry = (Map.Entry) ent

It doesn't warn me about anything unchecked

(i.e it is of that type and it knows it's safe)

So I'm super confused now.

Anonymous

Eclipse's automatic error checking has gotten significantly worse in the past few years, in my experience

quartata

I guess I'm going back to NetBeans

@Mego I should see if it builds, maybe that would shut it up

Geobits

@mınxomaτ Oh, that reminds me. I need to dig out my old nokia from the closet. Thanks!

Nathan Merrill

5:49 PM

wait

does your map have generics on it @quartata ?

TimmyD

@Mego Depends upon the condition. I know several collectors that would pay plenty of money for a CIB of various games.

quartata

No, it doesn't. This is in equals() so I can't make any assumptions about the type of the map.

Nathan Merrill

I can duplicate your issue with IntelliJ with a un-generics map

Anonymous

@Geobits Why? Are you planning on going into a warzone and need an indestructible phone?

quartata

Seriously?

Anonymous

5:50 PM

@quartata No, Java

Nathan Merrill

yep

quartata

The type of the iterator returned by entrySet() wouldn't change like that....

So what on earth is going on

TimmyD

> Why? Are you planning on going into a warzone and need ~~an indestructible phone?~~ a bulletproof vest?

Nathan Merrill

no idea

quartata

I'll do Map<Object, Object> I guess

Nathan Merrill

5:51 PM

do Map<?, ?>

Geobits

@Mego Uh, the usual. A niece has been begging for a phone all year. So she's finally going to get one for her birthday, but I've been asked to provide a gag-gift one for her to open up first.

quartata

Yeah, that it's fine with. So I'm blaming Java

@NathanMerrill Oh yeah, sure.

Anonymous

@Geobits So what's the gag gift?

Nathan Merrill

yeah, I have no idea what's happening there

that's really bizarre to me

quartata

The type for entrySet().iterator() is probably Iterator<Entry<K, V>> and it's too stupid to complete the type without the generic.

Nathan Merrill

5:52 PM

7

Q: Problem with entry set of java.util.Map

I'm having a strange problem with the following code works. Map<String, Object> map = new HashMap<String, Object>(); for(Entry<String, Object> entry : map.entrySet()) { // } while the code below does not compile. Map map = new HashMap(); for(Entry entry : map.entrySet()) { // compile e...

Geobits

@Mego Either an old nokia or a sanyo razr-style one I have laying around. They just want to see her face drop when realizes it's not a "real" phone.

Kritixi Lithos

SO FTW!

Geobits

As in, she is getting a smartphone.

Anonymous

I thought the nokia was the real gift

TimmyD

I think I have a Motorola Q around somewhere ...

Anonymous

5:54 PM

Careful giving her a nokia as a gag gift - if she gets upset she could kill someone with it

Nathan Merrill

oh, I understand the issue.

if you choose not to have generics, you don't get any generics

Geobits

Too bad I don't have a pager laying around, too. She wouldn't even know what to make of that.

Nathan Merrill

regardless of whether the two generics are related

quartata

@Geobits Or you could do one of those baby toy Elmo phones

Geobits

Or even a house phone with a curly cord.

quartata

5:56 PM

Rotary-style?

Geobits

Of course rotary style. Only the best for my niece >_>

quartata

I mean, she didn't specify touch-tone cell phone specifically

Geobits

Well, she probably has, multiple times. She's probably been very specific, to be honest.

That won't stand in the way, though.

TimmyD

Kritixi Lithos

Android > iOS

Anonymous

5:59 PM

@TimmyD It's impossible to not see a face there

TimmyD

Actually, that phone looks slightly surprised

Geobits

@TimmyD I don't like the way that thing's looking at me.

mınxomaτ

I'm on HN frontpage again. I'm now confident that I have found the formula for viral FOSS projects.

Geobits

Everyone mark down this day. Your children will one day ask: Where were you the day mınxomaτ turned evil?

7

Anonymous

> turned

quartata

6:05 PM

@mınxomaτ What for?

mınxomaτ

What What for what?

betseg

@mınxomaτ what is the formula?

Kritixi Lithos

@Geobits Well son, I was wasting time at the 19th byte, instead of doing homework, when mınxomaτ turned evil.

quartata

@mınxomaτ No I mean what project

@MarkyMarkov no

Anonymous

I just remembered that Marble Drop relies on being able to distinguish colors

Anonymous

6:08 PM

No wonder I was always so terrible at it

Geobits

@quartata Aw, don't be mean. He's just listening :(

mınxomaτ

@quartata github.com/turbo/git-brag

More specifically: news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12950449

Martin Ender

@mınxomaτ is minimaxir your evil twin or something?

mınxomaτ

@MartinEnder I did have to look twice at that name to be sure that I didn't just go completely insane. But no, no relation.

New Main Posts

6:47 PM

0

Q: Smallest number of contiguous monotonic subsequences

Challenge description A monotonic subsequence is a sequence of numbers [a1, a2, ..., an] such that a1 <= a2 <= ... <= an or a1 >= a2 >= ... >= an. [1, 3, 3, 7, 9, 13, 13, 100] is a monotonic (non-decreasing) subsequence, as well as [9, 4, 4, 3, 0, -10, -12] (this one is non-increasing), but [1,...