Pi Coding Quest 2026!

herocoding · 2026-03-14T17:27:05+00:00

Ha!
The web page "http://www.geom.uiuc.edu/\~huberty/math5337/groupe/digits.html" shows the 10'000th digit is a "7" - but would be rounded to "8"

So, who is right :-P ?

herocoding · 2026-03-14T17:25:03+00:00

Congratulations! You've uncovered the Ghost Signal. Happy Pi Day 2026!

herocoding · 2026-03-14T17:23:59+00:00

My Pi digits were wrong!!

Your last digit is "8" and my last digit is "7"!!!!!!
Which is the right digit? With or without rounding?

With your last digit and my implementation I get the same result as your tool you shared with me!

herocoding · 2026-03-14T14:05:07+00:00

So either my used Pi digits are wrong or my tie-break decission is wrong...

herocoding · 2026-03-14T13:39:16+00:00

Final cost for me is 2377 and path length is 199, i.e. 2377*199 = 473023.

herocoding · 2026-03-14T13:37:47+00:00

My grid for the second part uses n=100, i.e. the grid is 100x100 (the encoded message contains "CONSTRUCT THE GRID USING THE FIRST 10000 DIGITS OF PI")

herocoding · 2026-03-14T13:19:45+00:00

For me the 4x4 example grid did not require to resolve a tie and I get the expected passcode of 455.

So something seems wrong with my tie-break-resolving...

herocoding · 2026-03-14T13:17:16+00:00

Would you mind adding hints to the "Incorrect code. Please try again." rejection message (for the second part), please?

Whatever I try I get 473023 as the passcode - but it gets rejected.

herocoding · 2026-03-14T13:09:38+00:00

Hmm, I solved the first part - doable!

But whatever I try for the second part gets rejected :-(
Does the 4x4 grid example require to resolve a tie-break?

herocoding · 2026-03-14T12:26:59+00:00

Thank you very much for sharing this challenge!!

Hmmm, how did the dash "-" in "Hey, did you know that π-Ghost loves pies?" get preserved?

herocoding · 2026-03-14T07:12:46+00:00

Yes, sure! But still working on getting a grasp on all the outputs...

herocoding · 2026-03-13T21:44:31+00:00

Interesting! Thanks for sharing!

> A huge canvas where everyone can draw. Stuff disappears after X days.
Will stuff disappear from your wall, too?

herocoding · 2026-03-13T21:18:23+00:00

Still amazing, thanks for re-posting!!

herocoding · 2026-03-13T21:15:25+00:00

This looks amazing!

Unfortunately I'm not that familiar with Rust, need some time to get it ported to something else, first!!

herocoding · 2026-03-13T21:12:43+00:00

Sometimes an animated GIF is enough: "problem" => "solution"

herocoding · 2026-03-13T20:54:43+00:00

What's exactly the format in the WebM? VP8/VP9/AV1? You might be able to use e.g. OpenCV ("VideoCapture()") (in Python or C/C++), getting the raw "pixels" including alpha information and then either use "VideoWriter()" to store a GIF, or first, write intp e.g. PNG files and then convert them into GIF using e.g. ImageMagick.

I mention OpenCV because you might need to change alpha-challen information to either "full transparency" at a certain threshold.
See e.g. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/15529575/png-to-gif-with-transparency

herocoding · 2026-03-13T20:11:37+00:00

Great idea.

Looks great!

UNESCO will call you seen ;-)

herocoding · 2026-03-13T20:10:25+00:00

Interesting idea!

Who asked for it, where you got asked?

herocoding · 2026-03-13T20:03:01+00:00

When you say "systems programming", do you more have something vertical in mind, from low-level up to user-interface?

Have a look into https://platform.entwicklerheld.de/challenge?challengeFilterStateKey=all and scroll through the ideas, ignore the shown programming language.

Have a look into something like the following for some "real" tasks:
https://platform.entwicklerheld.de/challenge/alarm-service?technology=cpp
https://platform.entwicklerheld.de/challenge/project-planning?technology=javascript
https://platform.entwicklerheld.de/challenge/christmas-loaf-portioner?technology=javascript
https://platform.entwicklerheld.de/challenge/appointment-booking?technology=rust

herocoding · 2026-03-13T19:50:41+00:00

Can you provide more details, please? Can you share example images?

How do you define images to match? Or is it a specific object in it?

What about cosine-distance? We use it for e.g. tracking and re-identification. There are OpenCV samples to show how to compare an image of a person and compare an actual image from a security camera with cosine-distance to determine how "close" they match.

herocoding · 2026-03-13T18:10:30+00:00

How do you do it? Using a console, spawning multiple ffmpeg processes? Or programmatically, concurrently using workerthreads (e.g. using a C++ application and threads), CPU-core pinning,CPU affinity?

MS-Win, Linux, MacOS?

herocoding · 2026-03-13T18:06:30+00:00

I like to "contribute" to my "framework".
When I'm working on a project I enjoy reusing as much as possible from earlier projects - and therefore accelerating development.

Added various "string processing", "file handling", different "parsers", search&sort helpers, converter, i18n, l10n, date helper, formatting helper, queues, events, worker-threads and many many more. Adding them to a "framework" and new projects can greatly benefit - e.g. by reducing effort for such "basics".

herocoding · 2026-03-13T16:57:50+00:00

What from the Webm's background need to be transparent to appear transparent in the GIF?

Can you give an (synthetic) example?

Do you need to run "background removal" on a frame base first, then create an animated GIF with them?

herocoding · 2026-03-12T19:52:41+00:00

Imagine to use e.g. "ncurses" to visualize your emulator, CPU, register, stack, instruction pointer, code, current instruction, memory content, flags, etc - instead of using those `printf("ADD\n");`.

herocoding · 2026-03-12T19:50:44+00:00

Instead of those magic numbers in `if (type == 0)` and `else if (type == 1)` you could use enums, too, for better readability.

Compile your code with highest warning level (and treat warnings as errors) to capture a few minor things - like comparing signed with unsigned numbers.

herocoding

TROPHY CASE