Comment Feed for Countdown to PDC2008: Technical Fellow John Shewchuk Talks About His Talk at PDC2008 (Dan on Channel 9)

Re: Re: Re: Countdown to PDC2008: Technical Fellow John Shewchuk Talks About His Talk at PDC2008

Roger Wilson — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 07:08:46 GMT

-----------------SPOILER--------------------

Actually, I saw the challenge yesterday morning for the first time. I read the nice clues above fromFridjon (Thanks btw...), and I immediately associated everything to the good old Amiga-days, when we used to make demos with nice vector graphics in them... These numbers just had to be vectors. I figured that the groups of four numbers must be "Distance" (the length of the vector), a "Point" (X and Y coords) and "Direction" (the angle). The problem was just which number was what? The last number was the only one in each group that was larger than 0, so that had to be the length. The third number spanned from negative to positive numbers, so I guessed that had to be the angle. That left the coordinates to number one and two.
Then I created a small C# program that would draw all these vectors (using what's left of my old trigonometry knowledge from the scene). Of course nothing showed up... But then I thought about "the wrong direction", so I animated a rotation on every vector, and after some "trial and horror" a text magically appeared in front of me... "ASK THE BRAIN ABOUT XYZZY". So I did... :)

Re: Re: Countdown to PDC2008: Technical Fellow John Shewchuk Talks About His Talk at PDC2008

mswanson — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 23:03:22 GMT

And we have ourselves a winner! Congratulations, Captain JiNX! Awesome job. Drop us an e-mail at pdccount (at) microsoft.com, and we'll coordinate your limited edition PDC2008 t-shirt.

As with prior challenges, I'd love to hear the thinking process behind your solution, if you want to share it. :-)

Re: Countdown to PDC2008: Technical Fellow John Shewchuk Talks About His Talk at PDC2008

Roger Wilson — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 20:13:08 GMT

I asked the brain about XYZZY, and...

Brianna says:
A hollow voice says "PDC."

:P

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Countdown to PDC2008: Technical Fellow John Shewchuk Talks About His Talk at PDC2008

Sergey Smirnov — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 08:59:05 GMT

Let me guess... Olympics in Los Angeles (1984)? :) No, Fridjon, thanks for the tip, but I'm out. My kitchen timer rang up a couple of hours ago :) :) :)

Re: Re: Re: Re: Countdown to PDC2008: Technical Fellow John Shewchuk Talks About His Talk at PDC2008

Fridjon Gudjohnsen — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 08:27:18 GMT

I think this challenge "smells" a little bit of the eighties in more than one way...

Re: Re: Re: Countdown to PDC2008: Technical Fellow John Shewchuk Talks About His Talk at PDC2008

Sergey Smirnov — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 06:24:13 GMT

I think I know what the words are (there are only three object nouns in the sentences). I just can't get the point :) or I got it, but I didn't realize that. BTW, I appreciate you apparently knowing the answer and letting others to solve the problem. I think I'll give up on that one, although I can't get rid of a feeling that I'm almost there...

Re: Re: Countdown to PDC2008: Technical Fellow John Shewchuk Talks About His Talk at PDC2008

Fridjon Gudjohnsen — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 22:18:04 GMT

Well, I found the three sentences that Jennifer said while showing the picture, really said it all ;) ;) There was one word in each sentence that really gave the whole thing away...

Re: Countdown to PDC2008: Technical Fellow John Shewchuk Talks About His Talk at PDC2008

Sergey Smirnov — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 21:24:53 GMT

Speaking of the challenge, the longest distances I could go so far were between 31 and 52 hops depending on the assumptions. And that’s after quite a bit of rather contrived coding to eliminate loops. This one seems to be more difficult than the previous two (unless I’m heading in the wrong direction J ). I wonder what I’m going to do tomorrow lunchtime… J J J

Re: Re: Re: Countdown to PDC2008: Technical Fellow John Shewchuk Talks About His Talk at PDC2008

DouglasH — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 00:47:14 GMT

That is the format of the show. A timer is set when it rings the show is over. no matter where they are in the discussion.

Re: Re: Countdown to PDC2008: Technical Fellow John Shewchuk Talks About His Talk at PDC2008

NMStoker — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 21:40:33 GMT

yes - i get the ringing too and the video ends abruptly... did something go wrong with posting or editing?

Re: Countdown to PDC2008: Technical Fellow John Shewchuk Talks About His Talk at PDC2008

Scott — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 19:19:51 GMT

Rinnnng, cut it off in mid-sentence? Huh?

Re: Re: Countdown to PDC2008: Technical Fellow John Shewchuk Talks About His Talk at PDC2008

mswanson — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 15:20:28 GMT

Sure!

Re: Countdown to PDC2008: Technical Fellow John Shewchuk Talks About His Talk at PDC2008

Sergey Smirnov — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 07:34:06 GMT

Mike,

Is it possible to post a higher resolution image with the challenge? Until then, back to real life challenges :) :) :)

Regards,