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The whole things seems to bring to mind that song "Suicide is Painless". Perhaps they should have just cleared off *that* continent and started fresh?
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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I think the Germans tried that a couple of times last century without much success ... 
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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W∴ Balboos, GHB wrote: Perhaps they should have just cleared off that continent and started fresh?
Some of them tried. they got 'Murica 
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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Judging by the accent, that lot settled in Louisiana.
Clearly, however, those that made the choice, in general, made the right choice.
Now, in these times, we need a place for the EU to flood with its inhabitants. Some suggest Atlantis - but I won't be judgemental at this point.
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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W∴ Balboos, GHB wrote: Clearly, however, those that made the choice, in general, made the right choice.
That's a matter of opinion. Reading the news coming from the US, it seems to be falling apart at the seams.
W∴ Balboos, GHB wrote: we need a place for the EU to flood with its inhabitants.
Agreed. 
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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Daniel Pfeffer wrote: Reading the news coming from the US, it seems to be falling apart at the seams.
Actually, when I get news from other parts of the world it seems they, too, are falling apart at the seems. The reality is, at least in my opinion, is that it's a steady and consistent process - fed occasionally with the fuel of hopes things are getting better - soon to be dashed by new problems that make the improvements seem so distant.
Except in China - where, according to CCP News, everything really is wonderful. Only criminals would speak otherwise and they, of course, are jailed to prevent further crimes and slander.
The Who had it quite right in their little ditty "Won't Get Fooled Again[^]" wherein they sang: "Meet the new boss"; a stark contrast (or compliment to?) Joni Michell's 'Big Yellow Taxi[^]' where, no matter what the change, someone will claim "Don't it always seem to go, you don't know what you've got 'till it's gone".
Note that even the music of our species can't seem to agree on anything. In which case, Mr. Hendrix really had a point and awesome coping method, here[^].
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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Nice musical reference. Two of my very favorite songs.
Joni Mitchell's song is mostly about lost lovers, however.
I got to see the Who live once and the Who 2.0 once.
Louisiana is OK. I live here. It's pretty good outside of New Orleans where the crime rate is significantly lower.  
Wear a mask! You are not invincible.
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Slow Eddie wrote: Louisiana is OK. I live here.
One great truth I've observed: people tend to like the place where they grew up. I think it's because adaption was built in.
From NYC, and it's suburbs, I spent years in Chicago and even Morgantown, WV.
The former I described then as "a small town of two million people". Timing, if of interest to you, is when Daly was there, died, and a non-Daly was elected as emperor (mayor). I was a newlywed and in graduate school.
As for the latter - we, now with two smalll kids in tow (and a bun in the oven) thought we couldn't wait to leave NY. Well, after the initial honeymoon, reality set it: the place just plain sucked. A person has no idea how much they miss (from their former venue of life) until it's gone - like the Big Yellow Taxi. There are the obvious ones: bagels, real pizza, knishes, Asian groceries. This, in a university town or it would have been far worse. Seventy miles to Pissburg in order to get anything like civilization and ethnic delights.
But the think I most dislike about the rural communities? Well, there are two things, actually. One of them is that religion interferes too much with the freedoms they pretend to support with flag-waving. This can and does exist at a state-wide level. The other is that the friendly smiles and greetings are also empty. The only real people that the locals would ever have social interaction with are those who went to school with them and "church friends".
And - as the backwaters come close to being the back yards - the (well, I'll drop it as I'd probably violet some Lounge rules).
I look at it this way:
- The US has Alabama
- The Canadians have Quebec
- Europe has France
No one has bragging rights, anywhere.
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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Quote: Is this Brexit thing finally out of the news?
Probably, but they might start the Brentry
Mircea
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W∴ Balboos, GHB wrote: Are they really over and one with it?
Well, the UK Government still has to get it through Parliament. Which could be "interesting"! There are bound to be some Conservative MPs who don't like that we've compromised in order to get a deal. Probably the same ones who have been whining about their constituency being put into lock-down - and who still think there's a British Empire!  So the Government will need the support of the opposition party - which they will get, because, even though Labour are against Brexit, they know it's this or "no deal".
In a nutshell: Some of the MPs from the party that want Brexit, will vote against it. And most of the MPs from the party that was against Brexit, will vote for it! 
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How about a little programming puzzle for the Holiday?
I found this puzzle in a text by G. J. E. Rawlins.
"You have a mixed pile of N nuts and N bolts and need to quickly find the corresponding pairs of nuts and bolts. Each nut matches exactly one bolt, and each bolt matches exactly one nut. By fitting a nut and bolt together, you can see which is bigger. But it is not possible to directly compare two nuts or two bolts."
Selecting the winner will be heavily influenced by upvotes and Reactions™ 
Wrong is evil and must be defeated. - Jeff Ello
Never stop dreaming - Freddie Kruger
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I'd be interested in seeing the test data set.
But more importantly, I'd like a more detailed spec.
Are there both left- and right- handed nuts and bolts?
Are there nuts and bolts with the same diameter but different pitch (or whatever)?
Are there nuts and bolts with incompatible composition? (E.g. leading to electrolysis or similar?)
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Whitworth or metric.
How about cap or flange?
Do we care about hex bolts or Phillips? (Or Robertson for the Canadians)
Wrong is evil and must be defeated. - Jeff Ello
Never stop dreaming - Freddie Kruger
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the only thing that matters in terms of "matching are pitch and diameter. The type of head is irrelevant.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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#realJSOP wrote: The type of head is irrelevant.
I'm unable to keep it KSS.
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Robertson is a screw. Not a bolt.
If you can't laugh at yourself - ask me and I will do it for you.
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First guess on an algorithm:
Grab a nut at random and test all bolts against it to form two piles "bigger than" and "smaller than" plus one bolt "same as".
Now use the matching bolt to do the same thing for all nuts to form two piles.
Process each pile the same way, to get 4 piles of nuts, 4 piles of bolts (and two matching pairs)
Repeat.
My gut feeling is that it'll be a lot quicker than a "brute force" compare all: it's kinda using QuickSort to match 'em up.
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
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If you always go back and compare with the already-matched sets, I can see that.
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Well, that would have been my method too.
Wrong is evil and must be defeated. - Jeff Ello
Never stop dreaming - Freddie Kruger
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But I think the devil might be in the details here, how would you implement the collection?
Wrong is evil and must be defeated. - Jeff Ello
Never stop dreaming - Freddie Kruger
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Binary tree, with two lists per node, probably - but it would likely depend on the language (and the size of N: it would probably be worth adding a test on that and brute-forcing low values as the memory allocations wouldn't be that cheap in time terms). An assembler solution wouldn't look anything like a C# implementation! 
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Binary tree maybe, I was thinking of an ordered List and a binary search.
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My first thought too. Somewhere I have a book describing the historical development of heapsort, and I suspect a lot of the nuts and bolts could be found there (awful pun intended).
[edit] On refection, and now with a measurable caffeine content, bits of Quicksort may be more relevant. Pivoting... [/edit]
Software rusts. Simon Stephenson, ca 1994. So does this signature. me, 2012
modified 28-Dec-20 17:57pm.
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Is there an implied constraint to stop testing once a nut and bolt match? In that case you have 3 piles (usually) at the end of the first sort. Big small and untested.
If you can't laugh at yourself - ask me and I will do it for you.
modified 29-Dec-20 1:27am.
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No, you test the whole pile and each becomes two piles and a match.
But since that means each pile is smaller than the source pile you end up with considerably less comparisons in total.
If I remember Big O notation correctly - and it's been 40 years since I last had to - it's something like O(n2) vs O(n * log(n))
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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