A problem for real engineers
On the first of september 100 immortal prisoners with a life sentence are suggested an early release if they can find a solution to a problem. There’s a room with a hanging lightbulb. Every day, starting on the 1st of September, warder will let one prisoner into this room. When prisoner is in, he can see, whether lamp is on or off, or switch it. Each prisoner will be asked a question: “Whether every prisoner has been here?”. If he says “no”, game goes one. If he says yes and this is a correct answer, everyone is released. If he says yes and he’s wrong - everyone is executed. Warders can choose prisoners randomly, one prisoner can be choose as many times as warder wants. Prisoners do not see each other, cannot talk and cannot see the lightbulb; they can talk only once - on the 1st of September, before the game starts. Find an optimal strategy, estimate, how long it may take for prisoners to be released.
On the first of september 100 immortal prisoners with a life sentence are suggested an early release if they can find a solution to a problem. There’s a room with a hanging lightbulb. Every day, starting on the 1st of September, warder will let one prisoner into this room. When prisoner is in, he can see, whether lamp is on or off, or switch it. Each prisoner will be asked a question: “Whether every prisoner has been here?”. If he says “no”, game goes one. If he says yes and this is a correct answer, everyone is released. If he says yes and he’s wrong - everyone is executed. Warders can choose prisoners randomly, one prisoner can be choose as many times as warder wants. Prisoners do not see each other, cannot talk and cannot see the lightbulb; they can talk only once - on the 1st of September, before the game starts. Find an optimal strategy, estimate, how long it may take for prisoners to be released.
Producing Star War effects with Safari 4
Yes, it’s all for real. Look at the video.
Yes, it’s all for real. Look at the video.
In my Twitter (http://twitter.com/sigizmund/status/3840531748) I’ve added a link to video-manual, how to produce this breathtaking, but utterly useless effect.
R.
I want my iPhone - re-think of Sinatra’s hit
Really great to my opinion! Well, maybe there’s just a very little bit of pre-justice. R.
Really great to my opinion! Well, maybe there’s just a very little bit of pre-justice. R.
The Boat That Really Rocked
Richard Curtis is absolutely, unbelievably, unbearably and intolerably fantastic. It’s the best movie I’ve seen in the last few years, that’s so bad I didn’t have a chance to see it before. Maybe it’s a first time I’m feeling slightly sorrow I’ve never been here in Britain back then in 60s to see it all alive. That really rocked.
Richard Curtis is absolutely, unbelievably, unbearably and intolerably fantastic. It’s the best movie I’ve seen in the last few years, that’s so bad I didn’t have a chance to see it before. Maybe it’s a first time I’m feeling slightly sorrow I’ve never been here in Britain back then in 60s to see it all alive. That really rocked.
New posterous address
OK, I’ve made up my mind - an idea of photoblog didn’t work, so I’ve decided to switch my main domain - http://sigizmund.com - to my posterous account; it is now live and if you’re seeing this post, your address bar probably says “sigizmund.com/something”.
WOEID Info
Something what I wanted to do for such a long time - to make publicly available service, which can answer one simple question – what does this WOEID mean? So, I’ve made it - in a way that anyone can put a link to it with a WOEID in URL. Finally, everyone who wants to find out how does that look like, shouldn’t bother getting Yahoo! AppID, read API docs and so on and so forth (I am not saying that reading docs is a bad idea – it’s actually very good and you can save a hell lot of time and nerves by doing that, but sometimes, well … we just don’t feel like it). Anyway, take a look and maybe you will find it useful. In my plans to add a geocoder to the app (so you can type not the WOEID but the human-readable name, such as “London, UK”).
Something what I wanted to do for such a long time - to make publicly available service, which can answer one simple question – what does this WOEID mean? So, I’ve made it - in a way that anyone can put a link to it with a WOEID in URL. Finally, everyone who wants to find out how does that look like, shouldn’t bother getting Yahoo! AppID, read API docs and so on and so forth (I am not saying that reading docs is a bad idea – it’s actually very good and you can save a hell lot of time and nerves by doing that, but sometimes, well … we just don’t feel like it). Anyway, take a look and maybe you will find it useful. In my plans to add a geocoder to the app (so you can type not the WOEID but the human-readable name, such as “London, UK”).
Stop being greedy, BOSE - part 2
Griffin’s SmartTalk works at least twice better than Bose’s £30 mobile headset cable - just because it has a button and now I enjoy same level of comfort as when using Apple’s headset - but with incomparably higher sound quality. And I paid only £13.95 shipping included for this - if it’s not a bargain, I don’t know what it is.
Griffin’s SmartTalk works at least twice better than Bose’s £30 mobile headset cable - just because it has a button and now I enjoy same level of comfort as when using Apple’s headset - but with incomparably higher sound quality. And I paid only £13.95 shipping included for this - if it’s not a bargain, I don’t know what it is.
Windows 7 impressions
OK, so I’ve installed it (in form of a free 90-day preview version distributed by Redmond guys) and it’s running in VirtualBox on my MacBook. It’s running OK, really. Certain things do really make me happy - the taskbar, which uses the screen space in more optimal way is one of them; really nice and streamlined GUI is another. Snipping Tool, a nice little utility for taking screenshots - is just what many Windows users been asking for many years, is not built-in and shipped as a part of operating system - this could be a real win, but … you see - I can make a screenshot of a part of the screen. I can draw something using pen or highlighter. What else can I need? Probably, draw an arrow and write some text - and this cannot be done. So, it’s not win, really – and it lacks only a tiny feature. To be perfectly honest with you, it’s very unlikely that I will use it IRL any time soon – I’m poisoned, poisoned long ago by Apple venom, and there’s no known vaccine for it, but I must appreciate, what Microsoft is doing - 7 seems to work as fast as XP in virtual machine, and it is way faster than Vista - looks like a right thing to use.
OK, so I’ve installed it (in form of a free 90-day preview version distributed by Redmond guys) and it’s running in VirtualBox on my MacBook. It’s running OK, really. Certain things do really make me happy - the taskbar, which uses the screen space in more optimal way is one of them; really nice and streamlined GUI is another. Snipping Tool, a nice little utility for taking screenshots - is just what many Windows users been asking for many years, is not built-in and shipped as a part of operating system - this could be a real win, but … you see - I can make a screenshot of a part of the screen. I can draw something using pen or highlighter. What else can I need? Probably, draw an arrow and write some text - and this cannot be done. So, it’s not win, really – and it lacks only a tiny feature. To be perfectly honest with you, it’s very unlikely that I will use it IRL any time soon – I’m poisoned, poisoned long ago by Apple venom, and there’s no known vaccine for it, but I must appreciate, what Microsoft is doing - 7 seems to work as fast as XP in virtual machine, and it is way faster than Vista - looks like a right thing to use.
PlaceMaker + Flickr + YQL = PhotoMaker
Today I’ve created and published a PhotoMaker – mash-up, which geoparses articles, using Yahoo! Placemaker and finds photographs on Flickr which are relevant to found places. It uses YQL to glue them together - and initially was created as a demo of these three brilliant pieces of technology. Please take a look yourself at sigizmund.info/PhotoMaker.
Today I’ve created and published a PhotoMaker – mash-up, which geoparses articles, using Yahoo! Placemaker and finds photographs on Flickr which are relevant to found places. It uses YQL to glue them together - and initially was created as a demo of these three brilliant pieces of technology. Please take a look yourself at sigizmund.info/PhotoMaker.
