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Consider This Catharsis in General
Dintiradan
Guardian
Member # 6670
 written Thursday, November 1 2007 17:47 Profile Homepage #45
Bloody hell, I didn't come up with it.

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But I'll pwn you nonetheless.
Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00
Consider This Catharsis in General
Dintiradan
Guardian
Member # 6670
 written Thursday, November 1 2007 16:24 Profile Homepage #43
Wimps.

Define a subsequence of array X[1..m] as an array Z[1..k], where each element of Z is an element of X. The elements do not have to be adjacent, but must be in order.

A common subsequence of arrays X[1..m] and Y[1..n] is array Z[1..k] if Z is a subsequence of both X and Y.

For arrays X[1..m] and Y[1..n], consider the longest common subsequence Z[1..k]. Note the following:

* X[m]=Y[n] => Z[k]=X[m]=Y[n] and Z[1..k-1] is a longest common subsequence of X[1..m-1] and Y[1..n-1]
(If Z[k]!=X[m], append X[m] to Z to make a longer common subsequence.)

* X[m]!=Y[n] and Z[k]!=X[m] => Z[1..k] is a longest common subsequence of X[1..m-1] and Y[1..n]

* X[m]!=Y[n] and Z[k]!=Y[n] => Z[1..k] is a longest common subsequence of X[1..m] and Y[1..n-1]

Since the problem has optimal substructure, we can make a m x n matrix to store the intermediate values. Let matrix entry c[i, j] be the length of the longest common subsequence of X[1..i] and Y[1..j]. Use the following recurrence equation:

c[i, j] =

* 0 : i = 0 or j = 0
(The size of the longest common subsequence cannot be longer than either array.)

* c[i-1, j-1] + 1 : i, j > 0 and X[i] = Y[i]

* max(c[i, j-1], c[i-1, j]) : i, j > 0 and X[i] != Y[j]

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"Can we use ad hominem attacks now?"
Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00
Spiderweb Chat-Room in General
Dintiradan
Guardian
Member # 6670
 written Thursday, November 1 2007 10:58 Profile Homepage #6
I'm on the 18/6 schedule at the moment. Taking naps on the bus rides help, and as long as I sleep in on Saturdays, I'm reasonably good.

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People mourn when a person dies, but no-one mourns the billions of intestinal bacteria that his death dooms. Speciesism, I calls it.
- John McCarthy
Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00
Left or Right? in General
Dintiradan
Guardian
Member # 6670
 written Thursday, November 1 2007 10:55 Profile Homepage #23
When I look at the .gif, she's moving counterclockwise, and I can't change this. When I disassemble the .gif and view the images one by one, she's moving clockwise, but I can focus and make her move counterclockwise.

How did they determine the right/left brain distinction? Hook people up to a fMRI or something (hopefully I remember correctly and fMRI is the relevant technique)?

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It's just a pissing contest, but unfortunately the contestants never seem to run out of piss.
- John McCarthy
Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00
What have you been reading lately? in General
Dintiradan
Guardian
Member # 6670
 written Wednesday, October 31 2007 09:49 Profile Homepage #579
By Thuryl:
quote:
I'm not sure how much of it is the book itself and how much is Wikipedia, but that book looks pretty terrible. Then again, I'm of the opinion that Popper is the most overrated philosopher of science of the 20th century, so I would say that.
Preaching to the choir here. Although the book's chapters on Popperian epistemology are more anti-instrumentalist.

But yeah; the book ends with showing how Tipler's Omega Point works under Deutsch's theory of everything. I'd say more, but I really don't feel like writing more on the subject.

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He has the first half of the Golden Rule down pat: Do unto others.
- John McCarthy
Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00
Name Choice in General
Dintiradan
Guardian
Member # 6670
 written Wednesday, October 31 2007 09:39 Profile Homepage #35
By Kelandon:
quote:
I was aware of the Spidweb pseudonym tradition in the vein of Alcritas, so I wanted one of my own. Kelandon was a character in a story I wrote (not the protagonist, and not a character that I particularly identified with, but a rather snobbish elf prince).

I originally came up with the name in the way that Asimov came up with R. Daneel Olivaw: I took a normal name (Landon, as in Landon Donovan) and mucked with it. The "Kel" syllable seemed vaguely elf-ish.
O RLY?

And the city's name was Ephesus. Clearly different from Ephesos. Sheesh, people, world of difference.

Anyhoo, Dintiradan is bastardized Sindarin. It's missing an accent or two, methinks.

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Don't try to talk anyone out of concentrating his hatred on Ayn Rand or any other dead person. It can't harm the dead. Diverted to a living person, it might actually do harm.
- John McCarthy
Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00
Legends of Divinity OOC in General
Dintiradan
Guardian
Member # 6670
 written Wednesday, October 31 2007 09:34 Profile Homepage #723
Erm. Well, sure, just expect short posts from me. The above excuses still stand, albeit slightly less as of right now.

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Cynicism is a cheap substitute for sophistication. You don't actually have to learn anything.
- John McCarthy
Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00
Boo in General
Dintiradan
Guardian
Member # 6670
 written Wednesday, October 31 2007 09:31 Profile Homepage #11
I plan on performing a reenactment of Luther's actions of 1517 this evening. I have the ninety-five feces ready to nail on the church door and everything.

What's that?

Ninety-five theses?

Oh. Heh.

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Hmmm. Guess I won't be needing all these cans of worms either, then...
Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00
Protesting (In General) in General
Dintiradan
Guardian
Member # 6670
 written Wednesday, October 31 2007 09:27 Profile Homepage #20
Is your school parentally run? I side with Drew here, but it's worth noting that if your parents financially support your school, that may be another avenue of discussion.

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Comparing oneself with Galileo or Einstein is certainly good for the ego - provided one refrains from going into too much detail.
- John McCarthy
Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00
Iffy's contest idea in Blades of Avernum
Dintiradan
Guardian
Member # 6670
 written Wednesday, October 31 2007 09:16 Profile Homepage #23
Back to the original point, why would this be a bad idea for a contest? Yes, I know, cutscenes are cumbersome in either Blades game, but I don't see how it's any different than this.

EDIT: Punctuation;

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Barnum predicted that most psychoanalysts would have a hard time making living when he said,"There's a sucker born every minute and two to take him." One sucker isn't really enough to support two psychoanalysts.
- John McCarthy

[ Wednesday, October 31, 2007 09:17: Message edited by: Dintiradan ]
Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00
Graphics and the Louvre in Blades of Avernum Editor
Dintiradan
Guardian
Member # 6670
 written Wednesday, October 31 2007 09:11 Profile Homepage #15
Well, it's taken a few years, but it looks like the Blades Megasite will be ready in a short while. ;)

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As the Chinese say, 1001 words is worth more than a picture.
- John McCarthy
Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00
Consider This Catharsis in General
Dintiradan
Guardian
Member # 6670
 written Tuesday, October 30 2007 19:25 Profile Homepage #40
Homework load little less now - still a lot, but at least I can breathe now. Anyhoo, just popped in to say that O(n^2) is possible (use the dynamic programming, Luke!). Just 'cause, y'know, if I have to do homework tonight, so does everyone else.

That, and I was wrong before when I said P=NP => NPC=NP-P. Actually, NPC would be a subset of NP-P, perhaps even a proper subset.

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Fatty, you with your thick face have hurt my instep.
- Hong Kong subtitle
Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00
Moving Images in General
Dintiradan
Guardian
Member # 6670
 written Saturday, October 27 2007 17:20 Profile Homepage #16
When a GIF is animated, what you see is a number of still images being displayed for a short period of time. A GIF assembler allows you to create a .gif from a number of (precreated) still images, like bitmaps or JPEGs.

I've used Ulead GIF Animator 2.0 in the past, you can find it and several similar freeware programs here.

By Aran:
quote:
I think I'm beginning to understand a certain phenomenon: Namely, why some people insist on calling tech support with bewilderingly obvious questions or posting on forums when five minutes with a manual or Google would be enough.

They just cannot grasp the concept of a device smart enough to help them. It's a prejudice against machines. (You can tell I've been reading Asimov, again...)
No, it's just that not everyone can be an autodidact.

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Take my advice, or I'll spank you without pants.
- Hong Kong subtitle
Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00
What have you been reading lately? in General
Dintiradan
Guardian
Member # 6670
 written Saturday, October 27 2007 17:05 Profile Homepage #570
The Fabric of Reality, by David Deutsch.

Aaand I'm about to start my take-home midterm on it (well, two smaller essays on it due by Tuesday), so if anyone wants to wax poetic about Popperian epistemology, the relationship between the Church-Turing hypothesis and quantum physics, or Dawkins' theories on replicators and memes, now's the time to do so. ;)

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The Matrix: Massively Multiplayer Solipsism
Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00
a question in General
Dintiradan
Guardian
Member # 6670
 written Thursday, October 25 2007 19:52 Profile Homepage #47
In any case, the link on The Lyceum Proper still works, and I'm sure it hasn't been updated for aeons.

(http://pub26.ezboard.com/bthelyceum)

Additionally, my bookmark at home still works. I'm not at home right now (babysitting), but I'm sure its the same link as above.

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Grrraaa- shiny!
Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00
Character Editor please in Blades of Avernum Editor
Dintiradan
Guardian
Member # 6670
 written Wednesday, October 24 2007 16:24 Profile Homepage #1
There's one included with Blades of Avernum. On the main menu, it's the second last menu item, right above 'Quit'. However, if you haven't registered Blades of Avernum, you won't be able to access all the options (though you will be able to do most).

If you've disabled it, you can reactivate it following these instructions.

As far as I know, there aren't any third-party character editors. A while ago, I tried to reverse engineer the .sav format (with the eventual goal of extracting a character from one save and putting it into another save). I gave up after a short while.

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I have never had my cheeks altered or my eyes altered. I did not have my lips thinned, nor have I had a dermabrasion or a skin peel.
- Michael Jackson
Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00
Consider This Catharsis in General
Dintiradan
Guardian
Member # 6670
 written Wednesday, October 24 2007 11:16 Profile Homepage #16
Erm, not quite.

P stands for Polynomial time. This means that the running time is a polynomial function based on the input size. For example, finding the largest item of a list of size 'n' can be solved in 'n' iterations (not n^2, as Zeviz said; just devote some memory to remembering the current maximum).

NP stands for Nondeterministic Polynomial time. This means that, given a solution, we can verify it in polynomial time. For instance, consider the general boolean constraint problem: you have an arbitrary number of boolean statements of arbitrary length, sharing an arbitrary number of variables. There's no known algorithm to solve this general case in polynomial time, but if someone hands us a solution, we can check to see if it is correct in polynomial time (just see if every statement evaluates to 'true' with the given variables).

Note: All problems in P are in NP (P is a subset of NP). Trivial to show: we can get a solution in polynomial time, and assuming the algorithm is correct, the solution is correct.

One of the biggest problems in theoretical computing science is whether or not P=NP. That is, does every problem where we can verify a solution in polynomial time have a method of obtaining that solution in polynomial time?

Which brings us to NPC: NP-Complete. As Zeviz said, these are the problems that have been shown to be as 'tough' as any other problem in NP. Of course, if P=NP, then NPC is a subset of P. However, if P!=NP, then NPC=NP-P.

(There's also Co-NP, which is the set of problems where we can verify if a problem has no solution in polynomial time.)

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In other news, I just reinvented the wheel.
Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00
A Few Questions in General
Dintiradan
Guardian
Member # 6670
 written Tuesday, October 23 2007 15:25 Profile Homepage #5
I programmed a bit in QuickBasic when I was in high school. I was young! And foolish! I know a bit of Perl, am comfortable with C (at least, with the standardized C libraries). Most of my university work is done in Java, and Java is the only language I've done Real Work in. I know bits of SQL and HTML, but those aren't programming languages.

What type of beta testing are you talking about. Assuming you mean for Spiderweb games, black box testing is all that's needed. If you mean for BoA scenarios, knowledge of AvernumScript is useful for troubleshooting.

And I'm fine. Thanks for asking.

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I wasn't lying, Senator. I was presenting a different version of the facts.
- Oliver North
Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00
Consider This Catharsis in General
Dintiradan
Guardian
Member # 6670
 written Tuesday, October 23 2007 14:20 Profile Homepage #0
Meh; the last time I did something like this a few people partook.
quote:
A palindrome is a word that is spelt the same forwards and backwards; aba and a are palindromes, while ab is not. A substring of a character string is just the given string with zero or more characters left out - for example, abc is a substring of axbxzcd, while abcx is not. Every nonempty character string has a substring that is a palindrome, since each character on its own is a palindrome.

Design an efficient algorithm which, given a nonempty character string S, computes the length of a longest substring of S that is a palindrome.

Blah blah correctness blah blah complexity blah blah blah.
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quote:
For the next part, just pretend that I've already found the correct recurrence formula.
Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00
The Political Compass (Armed and Dangerous) in General
Dintiradan
Guardian
Member # 6670
 written Monday, October 22 2007 14:45 Profile Homepage #109
By Aran:
quote:
Also, how the hell have we managed to coexist so far, you fascist?
Dude, you're the one who's so far in the third quadrant that you're almost off the scale, and yet I'm the one who has problems coexisting?

Meh. I guess we're all easier to coexist with each other when we don't have enough time to make long posts. Maybe there's a lesson to learn there.

When I get into power, I shall institute a spoken word limit. Every person would have a limit on how many words they can say on a given day (extroverts will, of course, be able to buy talk credits from introverts). Language will be limited to what is really important, like "cheque's in mail", "large double-double", and "get beer now". Philosophical differences will disappear, as people would quite literally not want to waste their breath.

It would also solve people talking in theatres, too.

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All the waste in a year from a nuclear power plant can fit under a desk.
- Ronald Reagan
Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00
Do you like changes in Avernum or not in Avernum 4
Dintiradan
Guardian
Member # 6670
 written Sunday, October 21 2007 17:36 Profile Homepage #16
Forgive my possible ignorance, but wouldn't plain and simple A* work here? Collisions with NPCs aside.

EDIT: Ah, we're talking about moving across the entire grid. Duh.

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If you think about it, all philosophical debates can be made more enjoyable with someone on the sidelines chanting "Fight! Fight! Fight!"

[ Sunday, October 21, 2007 17:38: Message edited by: Dintiradan ]
Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00
The Political Compass (Armed and Dangerous) in General
Dintiradan
Guardian
Member # 6670
 written Sunday, October 21 2007 17:06 Profile Homepage #105
Why am I in the third quadrant? I'm (2.00, 2.92).

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Have you punched a solipsist yet today?
Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00
Need opinions in General
Dintiradan
Guardian
Member # 6670
 written Friday, October 19 2007 20:04 Profile Homepage #5
Depends. Would this be good study music? :)

dintiradan at yahoo dot ca

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Instead of a Seeing Eye dog, what about a gun? It's cheaper than a dog, plus if you walk around shooting all the time, people are going to get out of the way. Cars, too.
- Jack Handey
Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00
What did you do today? in General
Dintiradan
Guardian
Member # 6670
 written Thursday, October 18 2007 14:47 Profile Homepage #4
Does past midnight count?

Got mad at my cat for knocking a glass of water on my algorithms textbook and homework, as well as on my keyboard. Due to impressive self-restraint on my part, I merely threw the cat out of the room instead of kicking it out. Rebooted with a spare keyboard, finished psych homework, went to bed. Woke up, printed off psych homework, went to school. Finished off algorithms homework in phil. The prof was gone for algorithms, so the TA did review for the upcoming midterm (representing common system of distinct representatives as a maximum flow problem for the win!). Handed in psych homework; lecture was on knowledge representation (apparent it's like OO). Read one of my phil books. Then went to AI, which was on Bayesian nets. Continued reading the phil book.

One of these days I'll do my classes in order.

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Right click considered harmful.
Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00
Episode 4: Spiderweb Reloaded. Something like that anyway. in General
Dintiradan
Guardian
Member # 6670
 written Wednesday, October 17 2007 09:42 Profile Homepage #219
I dunno... rhinestones hardly make one nondescript.

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As Marx should have said, the principle of communism is, "From each according to what he can't get out of doing; to each according to whom he knows".
- John McCarthy
Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00

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