In the Financial industry, "Quants" or Quantitative Analysts use statistics and sophisticated heuristics to feed ideas and information to organizations that deal with trading in the various markets (stocks, options, futures, commodities, forex, etc.), such as hedge funds, statistical arbitrage operations, and private investors. It's a high paying, highly challenging position that deals with all kinds of mathematical functions and techniques, such as optimizing adaptive filters. It's one of the best places for a mathematician to earn a great salary, but your skill and experience needs to be very top level.
I got really excited for a very cool-looking game called Spore that came out a few years ago. But then I read about it's DRM policy, which only let you install it a limited number of times before the key became invalid.
So I didn't buy it. And I've never played it.
Re:What does the hell does NP Hard mean?
on
Pac-Man Is NP-Hard
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· Score: 2
Correction: I confused PSpace with P. The above definition is for P and NOT PSpace. Haven't spent much time thinking about complexities ABOVE NP hard. PSpace actually considers the "memory" you need to solve the problem. This is relevant when you talk about Turing machines, where you have to use "tape" that you "write on" while solving the problem. The thing that's been proved is that you only need a polynomial amount of memory (relative to 'n') to solve problems that need NP Hard time.
Re:What does the hell does NP Hard mean?
on
Pac-Man Is NP-Hard
·
· Score: 2, Informative
To solve a problem that has 'n' parts in it:
PSpace hard means the problem is relatively simple, maybe check n things n times, which is only n*n things. For example, "For n cities, find the sum of all the distances between all the cities".
NP hard usually means you have to start at one part, then make a new decision each time you want to move on to the next part. The classic example is: "for n cities, start at a city and find the shortest possible distance to visit each city once". Since you have to make a new decision every time, you can solve this problem using permutations: you have n choices for the first city, then n-1 choices for the next city, then n-2 choices for the next city, and so on. To check ALL of the possible routes you can take and select the shortest, you need to check (n)*(n-1)*(n-2)*... * (2) * (1) things. That's a factorial, and is denoted n!.
So for 12 cities:
12*12 = 144
12! = 479,001,600
For 20 cities:
20*20 = 400
20! = 2.432902008×10^18
The "search space" for problems that are NP Hard explodes to quickly to solve any reasonably sized problem. So basically, computers can solve problems that are PSpace hard, but they can't really solve any NP hard problems that are worth solving. E.g., to solve the NP Hard "traveling salesperson" problem I described above for all the cities in Italy, there's something like 12000 cities, which is (almost) impossible to solve with a computer. For fun:
12000*12000 = 144,000,000
12000! = 1.201858406×10^43741 (and that's just nuts)
The above is not the only way a problem can be NP Hard, but all these kinds of problems have "similar" classes of "time complexity". If you model this "time complexity" (that is, count the number of things you have to check) as a function, PSpace hard problems are polynomials at worst. NP Hard are worse than polynomials. The notation used here is called "Big Oh", and the above two problems are O(n^2) and O(n!), respectively.
I've been told by a reliable source that at their new data center, Apple is building a large slingshot aimed at FaceBook and has been accumulating large quantities of caged birds.
Re:Is there an error in first time the date is use
on
Happy Programmer Day!
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· Score: 1
Shouldn't it be "255" and not "265"?
Sorry, they had to ship the article before it passed QA. We have created a support ticket and are working on a patch to resolve the problem.
Nikola Tesla invented wireless electricity transfer at the turn of the 20th (yes, 20th) century. He was trying to prototype it by constructing what was called the Wardenclyffe Tower. Of course, everyone during that time thought he was a nut and the funding ran out.
Tesla is a candidate for the title of "smartest person who ever lived," and without him we probably would not have alternating current, which probably means we would get zapped much more often from our PCs (or "PMFs", i.e. Personal MainFrames). Now, considering the way society neglects its heroes of innovation, just watch Sony finish this and claim to have brought "wireless power" to the world, without ever having mentioned Tesla. "Oh yeah, him? Well we figured this out on our own. We just read a lot of these old books on magnetic resonance and pieced it all together. So smart is we!"
Could you imagine the snowball scenario described in the example happening in real life? You would randomly see adults acting like idiots in the middle of the street. They'd be running in front of cars, diving across hoods, running into people, ducking behind old ladies, and pretty much just be acting like a-holes. You basically would just succumb to never being able to get laid again. I could imagine the scenario, "Well, he's good-looking, dresses well, and has 12-pack abs, but he play's SnoFight (tm)". Maybe the same argument can be made about MMORPGs, but at least you can hide that from the rest of the world. Then what would happen when RockStar games licenses the technology and makes GTA 10. "Your honor, I was just playing a game. I needed to get my money back from that girl so I could buy more ammo. She's supposed to respawn like every 5 minutes."
Just pour green ooze into the closest sewer drain. This will cause the rats to transform into martial arts sensais. They will then start working for you, training the nearest reptilian mutants into crime fighting ninjas with immature attitudes.
They obviously want to dig into the moon so they can build a giant laser on the surface capable of destroying planets.
In the process, they can mine the moon for cheese and repackage it as a U.S. export. That way, we can raise taxes on rising GDP which we can use to bail out mortgage-backed securities owned by the government so people who don't want to work can buy houses. See, war profiteering is your friend!
Slashdot Mirror
In the Financial industry, "Quants" or Quantitative Analysts use statistics and sophisticated heuristics to feed ideas and information to organizations that deal with trading in the various markets (stocks, options, futures, commodities, forex, etc.), such as hedge funds, statistical arbitrage operations, and private investors. It's a high paying, highly challenging position that deals with all kinds of mathematical functions and techniques, such as optimizing adaptive filters. It's one of the best places for a mathematician to earn a great salary, but your skill and experience needs to be very top level.
The page source shows me some beautifully nested divs indicating game components (like HUD). Is this all javascript?
...someone makes this in Minecraft.
I got really excited for a very cool-looking game called Spore that came out a few years ago. But then I read about it's DRM policy, which only let you install it a limited number of times before the key became invalid.
So I didn't buy it. And I've never played it.
Correction: I confused PSpace with P. The above definition is for P and NOT PSpace. Haven't spent much time thinking about complexities ABOVE NP hard. PSpace actually considers the "memory" you need to solve the problem. This is relevant when you talk about Turing machines, where you have to use "tape" that you "write on" while solving the problem. The thing that's been proved is that you only need a polynomial amount of memory (relative to 'n') to solve problems that need NP Hard time.
To solve a problem that has 'n' parts in it:
... * (2) * (1) things. That's a factorial, and is denoted n!.
PSpace hard means the problem is relatively simple, maybe check n things n times, which is only n*n things. For example, "For n cities, find the sum of all the distances between all the cities".
NP hard usually means you have to start at one part, then make a new decision each time you want to move on to the next part. The classic example is: "for n cities, start at a city and find the shortest possible distance to visit each city once". Since you have to make a new decision every time, you can solve this problem using permutations: you have n choices for the first city, then n-1 choices for the next city, then n-2 choices for the next city, and so on. To check ALL of the possible routes you can take and select the shortest, you need to check (n)*(n-1)*(n-2)*
So for 12 cities:
12*12 = 144
12! = 479,001,600
For 20 cities:
20*20 = 400
20! = 2.432902008×10^18
The "search space" for problems that are NP Hard explodes to quickly to solve any reasonably sized problem. So basically, computers can solve problems that are PSpace hard, but they can't really solve any NP hard problems that are worth solving. E.g., to solve the NP Hard "traveling salesperson" problem I described above for all the cities in Italy, there's something like 12000 cities, which is (almost) impossible to solve with a computer. For fun:
12000*12000 = 144,000,000
12000! = 1.201858406×10^43741 (and that's just nuts)
The above is not the only way a problem can be NP Hard, but all these kinds of problems have "similar" classes of "time complexity". If you model this "time complexity" (that is, count the number of things you have to check) as a function, PSpace hard problems are polynomials at worst. NP Hard are worse than polynomials. The notation used here is called "Big Oh", and the above two problems are O(n^2) and O(n!), respectively.
comment removed
I've been told by a reliable source that at their new data center, Apple is building a large slingshot aimed at FaceBook and has been accumulating large quantities of caged birds.
Shouldn't it be "255" and not "265"?
Sorry, they had to ship the article before it passed QA. We have created a support ticket and are working on a patch to resolve the problem.
...a young man whose parents-in-law move in to his home.
Jack Eisenmann will never need more than 256 bytes of RAM.
This is why I love Australia. The people have their priorities straight.
You will have to tear my loaded, 8MB ram 486 from my cold...dead...hands.
Nikola Tesla invented wireless electricity transfer at the turn of the 20th (yes, 20th) century. He was trying to prototype it by constructing what was called the Wardenclyffe Tower. Of course, everyone during that time thought he was a nut and the funding ran out.
Tesla is a candidate for the title of "smartest person who ever lived," and without him we probably would not have alternating current, which probably means we would get zapped much more often from our PCs (or "PMFs", i.e. Personal MainFrames). Now, considering the way society neglects its heroes of innovation, just watch Sony finish this and claim to have brought "wireless power" to the world, without ever having mentioned Tesla. "Oh yeah, him? Well we figured this out on our own. We just read a lot of these old books on magnetic resonance and pieced it all together. So smart is we!"
"Ok, the question for our next candidate goes to Mr. Handsome Dashing. Please explain your stance on HERF guns. You have two minutes, starting now."
Doing something right would piss off a US Democrat, doing something left would get you mad mod points on slashdot.
So does this mean they'll speed up the Netbeans build process by replacing the ant harness by writing to database and using stored procedures?
Could you imagine the snowball scenario described in the example happening in real life? You would randomly see adults acting like idiots in the middle of the street. They'd be running in front of cars, diving across hoods, running into people, ducking behind old ladies, and pretty much just be acting like a-holes. You basically would just succumb to never being able to get laid again. I could imagine the scenario, "Well, he's good-looking, dresses well, and has 12-pack abs, but he play's SnoFight (tm)". Maybe the same argument can be made about MMORPGs, but at least you can hide that from the rest of the world. Then what would happen when RockStar games licenses the technology and makes GTA 10. "Your honor, I was just playing a game. I needed to get my money back from that girl so I could buy more ammo. She's supposed to respawn like every 5 minutes."
Just pour green ooze into the closest sewer drain. This will cause the rats to transform into martial arts sensais. They will then start working for you, training the nearest reptilian mutants into crime fighting ninjas with immature attitudes.
By these standard, G.W. Bush is a genius.
They obviously want to dig into the moon so they can build a giant laser on the surface capable of destroying planets. In the process, they can mine the moon for cheese and repackage it as a U.S. export. That way, we can raise taxes on rising GDP which we can use to bail out mortgage-backed securities owned by the government so people who don't want to work can buy houses. See, war profiteering is your friend!