Archive: July 17, 2003

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Thursday,  07/17/03  11:20 PM

In Half Moon Bay, at the C-15 Nationals...

I just knew this was going to happen, but I didn't think it would happen this fast: Cafepress now lets you sell "print on demand" books with no upfront fee.  How long do you think it will take before we're reading about how the publishing industry is threatened by online "booksharing"?

VentureBlog considers VCs and Golf.  Included, the four biggest lies VCs tell:

  1. We knew this was coming.
  2. We have lots of dry powder to invest.
  3. We're doing more deals this year than we ever have.
  4. We think this is a time to build great companies.

It continues, "meanwhile, golf handicaps are plummeting"...

Are you a Tivo fanatic like me?  Then you must visit PVRblog.  Every day.  Without fail :)

Wired: Bionic eyes benefit the blind.  Wow.  "Earlier this year, three people were successfully implanted with a permanent 'retinal prosthesis' by researchers."  How cool is that?

Halley comments on Girlism.  "It will hit you so hard.  It will be SO under the radar.  It's already here.  It's over."  Cool.  I for one am ready, girlism seems much nicer than feminism.

Ottmar on why humans find music to be beautiful.  He thinks maybe music came before language.  Fascinating!

Rob Smith skewers Erin Brockovich.  (As does Time Magazine!)  I have to agree 100%, whatever the merits of her previous "crusades", the Beverly Hills High School cancer scandal is a trumped-up hoax.

Slate: Digging for Googleholes.  "Google may be our new god, but it's not omnipotent."  Well, true.  But it is way better than anything which came before or since.

Finally, you know how I keep talking about blogs vs. media?  Well, there was this tragedy today, an elderly man ran down a bunch of people at full speed in L.A.'s Farmer's Market.  You can read all about it on CNN.  Or you can read all about it on Andy's blog; he was on the scene.  Read the reports and compare...

P.S. Scoble has lost it - he thinks he's an ant.  Oh, maybe he is...  On the internet, nobody knows you're an ant :)

 

Even More Bridgework

Thursday,  07/17/03  11:45 PM

Okay, here it is, the optimal solution for 25% flashlight carry:

Alex -> far side, Sam + flashlight -> 3/4 across (1½ minutes)
Sam + flashlight -> 1/4 across (1 minute, total = 2½ minutes)
Sam + flashlight -> near side, Francis -> 1/4 across (2 minutes, total = 4½ minutes)
Pat + flashlight -> far side, Francis -> 3/4 across (4 minutes, total = 8½ minutes)
Alex + flashlight -> 3/4 across, Francis -> far side (2 minutes, total = 10½ minutes)
Alex + flashlight -> 1/4 across (½ minute, total = 11 minutes)
Sam -> 1/4 across, lit by Alex (½ minutes, total = 11½ minutes)
Sam + Alex + flashlight -> far side (1½ minutes, total = 13 minutes)

You can see how subtle the addition of flashlight carry to the problem really is.  In almost every case, a movement involves the flashlight holder remaining 1/4 from either side.  And notice that as Francis is crossing the bridge, first a programmer goes toward the near side (while he does the first 1/4), and then a programmer comes back from the far side (while he does the last 1/4).  It would be really hard for a human to examine all the possibilities and devise this solution, I think...

(If you have no idea what this is all about, please see the bridge of the four programmers, revisiting the bridge of the programmers, and more bridgework.  The program which found the optimal solution can be found here.)

 
 

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