https://master--suspicious-stonebraker-7d2d21.netlify.app/tags/google-code-jam/ Recent content in Google Code Jam on Nikhil's blog Hugo -- gohugo.io en-US Thu, 17 Jul 2008 18:39:00 +0000 https://master--suspicious-stonebraker-7d2d21.netlify.app/post/2008/failure-in-codejam-or-how-i-blew-up-my/ Thu, 17 Jul 2008 18:39:00 +0000 https://master--suspicious-stonebraker-7d2d21.netlify.app/post/2008/failure-in-codejam-or-how-i-blew-up-my/ Thursday morning, I saw the problems and took a printout of the Flyswatter. Then I spent about 3 hours figuring out the right area calculations, without success. Then I tried hacking away at the other 2 problems for a total of 1.75 hours. Again failed. Result: A total brain burnout Feeling: Really down for my not so leet algorithmic skills. Lesson learned: I seriously need 4 years of formal computer science education. https://master--suspicious-stonebraker-7d2d21.netlify.app/post/2008/always-turn-left/ Thu, 10 Jul 2008 17:13:00 +0000 https://master--suspicious-stonebraker-7d2d21.netlify.app/post/2008/always-turn-left/ This is with reference to the Google Code Jam practice problem. SPOILER WARNING: DISCUSSION ON THE SOLUTION BELOW This problem initially seemed vexing. After a little bit of thought about using bit twiddling to represent directions, generating the right codes was easy. If you have any experience with hexadecimal numbers, it should strike you that the direction table with 4 directions each of which can be yes or no, is a big hint that bit twiddles are exactly what is needed.