Posts by ThePlanMan

The importance of complexity

I don't think I'e ever been asked to solve something NP-Hard that wasn't already 'solved' by just incorporating an external library that will give you the answer you want using the best current techniques.

However I have definitely been asked to solve algorithmic problems.

Have worked both in insurance and gambling/financial so they do crop up from time to time.

This was my favourite, not least because I got to design the solution on paper first, pass it around to my colleagues to verify then implement with great zeal.

Given two collections of objects containing the same type, one historical and one newer, separate them into three collections, objects that have been removed, objects that have been modified and objects that have been added.

Solution I came up with has worst case performance of n^2, best case of n and average of 2n.

Pirate Bay founder Warg jailed for two years for hacking and fraud

Any details of the evidence used to prove it was his computer used? static ip address? logs?

I would have thought that someone with as much knowhow as Warg would know how to hide the sources of this information.

Was always curious about this case.

SAP in search of autistic software engineers who 'think different'

Enjoying Being exploited

As a person with Asperger's working as a software engineer is perfect for me. I'm near the top of my field and my analytical skills coupled with an attention to detail enable me to perform my job well.

My day-to-day tasks involve problem solving at varying scales allowing me the freedom to investigate solutions thoroughly before arriving at an adequate conclusion.

Problems often arise when dealing with teammates, but thankfully in my sector the overwhelming majority are intelligent enough to understand how the condition can affect my speech and mannerisms and will account for them when interacting with me.

My obsession, if you can call it that, is on efficiency. I hate wasting things unnecessarily, be it time when travelling, food, or in the case of work: speed of execution, memory utilisation, ease of use and code elegance. Having a strong desire to maximise these is a real boon and is very much a valuable skill.

However, the 'distance' between myself and the average neurotypical person means that relationships are fraught with difficulties. Thankfully my girlfriend of a year is very understanding and enjoys some of how I perceive the world.

Given a choice though, I'd still rather be normal. The frustration of not being able to understand people and their behaviour is not worth it.

Amazon: Hard luck Microsoft, AWS will always be cheaper

New International

I was there yesterday and found it hilarious that a few minutes before News International's CIO came on (and referred the the company as NI the whole time) everyone was asked to turn their phones off.

Apple users: Only Apple can track us! Not Google

Re: er ... why not sue Safari ?

Not really. similarly if I was able to bypass restrictions on your computer, it would not be your fault (in the eyes of the law at least)

Android Firefox: Screaming, awesome, you'll go blind etc

idd reg fail. Been using Chrome on my Note since ICS was released for it.

CAPITALISM without PROFITS - Welcome to the Instagram Era!

While I certainly wouldn't defend Instagram's ridiculous $1bn valuation, I should point out that although a company might not be making profit, nor would ever make profit in its current form; that doesn't necessarily mean that there isn't value in the company.

Nor does it mean that the company isn't an attractive takeover target.

A larger or more established company can make use of technology or a customer base in a way that the original developer cannot exploit to make profit.

This is perfectly enshrined in capitalism.

Instagram weren't bought out by a pension fund or investment group looking to garner long term profits from the company, they were bought by a large existing social networking player with ridiculous amounts of cash lying around whose only long term profitability lies in innovation (think how myspace didn't innovate/improvie/evolve quickly enough and died out inversely fast).

Though the price tag is off, I think Instagram itself is a good acquisition for FB.

CRACK made by quakes FOUND ON MOON

I personally suspect that those cracks are caused by tidal forces from the Earth's gravity acting on different densities of material on the moon. Given what we know about how the moon formed, it doesn't have enough dense radioactive material to have a hot core after 4 billion years, nor does the Earth apply sufficient tidal energy to directly cause volcanism (think Io). I'm going to expect this to be debunked pretty soon.

GAME: Our website wasn't hacked!

I strongly take offence to the wording of that canned statement from Game. It implies that pastebin is responsible for the leak, rather than the user who posted it. Right when the anti-SOPA movement is about as well, very poor.

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's Apple's 3D recognition patent

I also have done this as part of a university computer vision course in 2006, and Apple gets a patent on it based on work done in 2010?

Sometimes it just appears that the American patent system is rather protectionist. Which, as any economist will tell you, is a self-defeating mechanism.

Pogoplug launches cloud sync'n'store service

err, £6/month(£72/year) for 50Gb is better value than £70/year(£5.84/month) for 55Gb in what universe?

BioWare Baldur's Gate

I remember this one fondly, 4 CD's and an option to do a full install, which, due to each area being stored as a massive bitmap, was (iirc) 2.2Gb. a HUGE amount for 1998! And let's not forget the 4xCD-ROM drives that we had back then, doing a full install on this baby took a few hours!

Great fun though, I always remember the map with the basilisks being the most frustrating :)

Samsung and Google's next Nexus specs leak

that thing looks HOT. 1Gb RAM and HD video capture, now THAT's what I call a smartphone :)

Rogue toilet takes out Norfolk server

Trying to get a TDWTF thread going on reg? Must be Friday.

Star Control

Can't Believe it

Haven't heard from this game in ages, but after playing SC:3 (not StarCraft newbies) on a demo disk from Computer Shopper in the mid 90's i actually pre-ordered it and then subsequently found that the game came bundled with the original Star Control and SC:2 with it as well!

SC:3 had some amazing real-time resource gathering and colony management.

After running through the game a few times I was finally compelled to play SC:2 and 1 and oh my god, they simply blew me away.

Simply one of my favourite gaming experiences of my early gaming career.