Solution to Coin Puzzle

Before I left, I posted the problem statement to The Coin Puzzle. The solution has been eloquently stated on this page [kwc.org]:

"...split the coins into two piles, one with 40 coins and one with 60 coins and then flip over all of the coins in the pile of 60.

Note: if all of the heads-up coins are in the pile of 60 then both piles now contain zero heads. In general, for every tail in the pile of 60 there is a head in the pile of 40. If the pile of 60 contains x tails, then the pile of 40 contains the remaining (40-x) tails and x heads. When Billy flips all of the coins in the pile of 60, he turns the heads in that pile to tails, and tails to heads, so both piles will end up with exactly x heads."

Coin Puzzle

A friend recently posed the coin puzzle to me, which I had never heard. Although, he kind of botched the description, so I ended up looking up what the problem statement was supposed to be.

Anyway, if you want to lose sleep over a stupid puzzle, here goes:

100 coins are placed on a table in a dark room. You are told that 60 are face up. You can flip the coins, but cannot turn on a light so that you can see what state individual coins are in. How would you ensure that exactly 50 become face up, and exactly 50 become face down? The solution must be deterministic, not probabilistic (exactly 50 must end up face up, not "about" 50 coins).

Another version of the problem statement can be found here [kwc.org]. I'll post the solution later.

Remaindered

Latest linkdump:

• The New York Times Magazine recently ran a piece called Stylish Blight [nytimes.com], with pictures of an architecture firm being run out of a run-down former auto mechanic's garage. The pictures are like porn for interior decorators.



• The iconic F-117 Stealth Fighter is being quietly retired [cnn.com].
  
  


• Matt Haughey recently wrote a weblog entry [wholelottanothing.org], describing an experience where 2 guys came to look at a car he had posted for sale on Craigslist, who then tried to con him into selling a car for a much lower price than he intended. It is an interesting piece on the marketplace that we operate in.

Picture of F-117 via James Gordon's Flickr photostream [flickr.com].

Matlab Gripes

I have a lot of gripes about software. Here's a grip that I currently have with Matlab (at least, the version that I own).

Let's say that you have a directory full of figures you have created in Matlab:


But you want to delete them. So, you open up the directory in Windows explorer, highlight them all, and hit delete. Except that you have a brain fart, and instead of hitting the delete key, you hit the enter key. What will happen is that Matlab will try to open 20 (or however many figures you have selected) Matlab sessions. And if it can't, it will crash and take your computer down with it.

If you already have Matlab running, why can't it open a figure without trying to launch a completely different session of Matlab? Why would it ever be desirable to run multiple sessions on the same computer (unless you were trying to make your computer crash)?

If you highlight 20 image files (whose extensions are associated with Photoshop), Photoshop won't try to launch 20 different sessions of itself. It will just open all of the images in the one Photoshop session that is running.

Of course, this problem requires you to have .fig files associated with Matlab. This problem is so annoying that I am debating about breaking that association.

225/45ZR17 Tires

Anyone need some 17" tires? I am trying to clear the garage, and I have two (2) General Exclaim UHP tires of size 225/45ZR17. Exclaim UHP are ultra-high performance summer tires.

They are used, but have plenty of tread left (see pictures below). The tread is still way above the wear bars. They have never been patched or plugged or anything like that.

Click for larger version:


New ones sell for $80 on Tire Rack [tirerack.com]. I am looking for $80/obo for the pair. Anyone want to make me an offer?

Formula One

I have been waiting for this weekend for a long time. It will be the start of the Formula One racing season.


Last season went down to the wire before it was decided which driver was going to win the championship. There hasn't been a Formula One season that exciting in a while. There were incredible battles on the track, nutty behavior by drivers off the track, a spying scandal between teams, and a driver nearly won the championship in his rookie year (Lewis Hamilton, seated middle in the below picture).


I have no reason to believe that this season won't be the same. New cars, same incredible drivers....

Picture of Ferrari via chrispercival's Flickr photostream, and picture of post-race interviews with Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton and Kimi Raikkonen via varlen's Flickr photostream.

Kitchen

I have been posting about the disaster in our kitchen. Hopefully, this will be the last post on the subject for a while.

The last time I posted about my kitchen, the ceiling had been repaired, but the room needed to be repainted.

It is becoming increasingly likely that we will be moving in the next 5 or so years. Everything is so uncertain at this time. But anyway, although we loved the color of the walls in the kitchen, we felt that they did not look good in pictures, and may make the house more difficult to sell at a later date. So, we decided to go with another color (since it had to be repainted anyway). Here's a picture I took of our kitchen back when we bought the house:


We decided to have it changed to a more neutral color. Here is a picture of the kitchen in the new color:


The big cubby hole on the upper left is where our microwave normally sits. We are currently in the midst of cleaning everything top to bottom, since a ton of dust got all over the place during the demolition process.

Hopefully, our house will return to normal soon.

[More entries on this subject: Feb 18, Feb 19, Feb 25, Mar 6]

Enough with the Snow Already...

Dear Terence,

You are a dumbass.


The next time there is a forecast for a foot of snow and near-blizzard conditions, check that you have enough gas for the snowblower. Because it will take about 5 seconds, and will save you from having to drive all over the city in the middle of the storm, looking for the one gas station that is crazy enough to try to stay open in those conditions.

How they ever let an idiot like you get a PhD is beyond me.

your snowblower

Office Design Zen

Recently, I found a weblog focusing on pictures of office areas, called Office Design Gallery [officedesigngallery.com].


Some are beauties to behold. Some are just wacky (and not in a good way). And then there are the ones that are actually functional.


It's a great resource if you are trying to look for ideas for designing an office.

House Update

A little while ago, I posted about how our kitchen is a disaster area due to a pipe freezing and then bursting. Here's an updated picture:


We're almost there. The joists have been repaired, a new ceiling has been put up, and the texture on the ceiling has been replicated. Speaking of the ceiling texture, I have to tell you that I never really looked closely at our original ceiling. To us, the new texture looks really exaggerated, but it's really hard to say. Here is a closeup of the way it looks now:


It's entirely possible that it looks almost exactly the same as the original ceiling, but the texture looks exaggerated to us because we are scrutinizing it right now.

At any rate, we are close to having a normal kitchen again...

[More entries on this subject: Feb 18, Feb 19, Feb 25, Mar 12.]

So THAT'S What 2 Inches of Sleet Looks Like...

We basically got freezing rain and sleet all of last night. Here's a picture looking out of my garage. In the foreground is where the sleet built up against the garage door.


The miniscule dent off to the left is where I tried (and failed) to shovel it. And you can see all of the footprints that I made walking around on it. It was totally incompressible.

Commuting this morning should be interesting...

Ohio Primary Day

Today is the Ohio primary, so if you are an Ohio-an make sure you get out and vote today.

I am one of those people who think that both major political parties have their heads completely up their asses (as they almost always do). I am therefore registered as an independent and will be an issue-voter today (meaning that I won't actually be voting for any of the many elderly, out-of-touch morons that are currently trying to become the most beholden to special interests, and thereby become that party's nominee for the President of the United States).

So, I will be waiting for an hour or more in line today, just so that I can spend 5 seconds voting for the one issue that is actually on the ballot in my city.

All of you annoying, self-righteous assholes who will be standing outside of the polling locations, holding signs, and trying to convince me why your candidate's attention to special interests are more superior to any others can go shove it right up your asses. Just because I am exercising my right to participate in the democratic process doesn't mean that I have to listen to any of your crap.

To the rest of you, make sure you get out and vote!

Buying Car Parts

Recently, I bought some car parts off of some guy on a message board. I was buying a set of used wheels, and the guy was in Indiana (which is a few hours drive from here). I decided to drive it, because the cost of shipping them to me would have been almost the amount that the wheels cost in the first place.

I think that it goes without saying that any aftermarket wheels I would be buying would be gaudy chrome-plated spinners. For my '92 Tercel.

Ok, anyway, the thing that I always worry about with these exchanges is being held up. You know, like, at gunpoint. I mean, call me paranoid, but it probably wouldn't be that difficult to spoof an IP address, post a few items that are for sale, and then use a prepaid cell phone to make contact with any potential buyers. Boom, instant cash. Wheels aren't cheap, which is why I was buying them from some potentially-shady guy on a message board.

Luckily, as usual, my fears were wildly out of proportion with the actual threat, and the exchange went off without incident. Being paranoid has given me a bunch of ideas for novels I could write, though...