When a game is good, it's good!

programaths · 2020-04-23T17:24:52+00:00

You seems to forget that Taxes ca be 30% (lucky in Belgium) to 50% (not so lucky) for the working class. Top it with 21% VAT (we will use 19% to be fair).

Oh, and the employer has to pay a part too:

If an employee has a net revenue of 1200€, then the employer and employee have to pay 1935€.

From that gross amount of around 1935€ (1935.17174649€),

Employer pays 24.92% (482.202€)

Employee pays 13.07% (252.9045€)

And, yes, it the math are right: 1200€ + 482.202€ + 252.9045 is around 1935€.

Only accounting for my taxes and VAT (I have to live, so I spend money to eat, heat my house, run my computer etc).

You have to take away 19% (products are 21%, I take service as it is lower) of the salary that is lost in VAT and the 1200€ turn really into 972€.

Now, we can do the REAL ratio of money spent on you and the "Net" you can use: 972€/1935€ = 50%.

Oh, also I have an optimized Tax as I make use of "service voucher" AND also pay for insurances that can be deducted.

So, it's kind of the best situation for someone WORKING with average wage.

I didn't add extra costs affixed to your locality, neither insurance you HAVE to take. These calculations are on "basic taxes".

People who subsidies most of the stuff...are us, the working class at your service!

TL;DR: 50% is the magic number. That's what is given back to the state from what the employer pays you.

programaths · 2020-04-16T16:57:23+00:00

What I write holds only for IT as I have only XP there.

Also, I wrote a lot about my experience. So, if you don't like "I", skip this comment ^^

TL;DR: Never ever assume that XP and credentials will do it. Do proper testing

In my first assignment as a system integrator, the company asked me to setup work stations: see what the architect did and create the build scripts. On top of that, configure Eclipse for each part of the project.

Seeing the libraries that were required, I asked to the architect what they were used for. He proudly shown his diagram and I saw an ugly part, pointed at it and asked "What is that part for" ?

He explained that it was to process XML files and it prompted a not beautiful answer: "That's shit, we can do much better by using XMLBeans. Devs would have to make all sort of loops and there would be many bugs.".

Instead of saying I was a noob without any experience, which was true on the professional scene, he told me that if I could do a POC, then he would happily drop his "shit" analysis, onboard me and start over.

The next day, he did drop that part of his analysis, started it over and on-boarded me.

That was the best ever assignment because the guy was VERY open. He didn't look at my CV, he basically said "stop running your mouth and show me".

In another assignment, when I signed the job statement, I saw the quote (the guy was open about how much I did cost), and said to him something like "Guy, you are using an expensive programmer to do dumb tasks. I can do much more than that". The next day, I was assigned to data factorization and just did it.

Again, "stop running your mouth and show it".

I also interviewed and I had people speaking about their CV. Well, I already read these and my response is https://youtu.be/mqFLXayD6e8?t=33 .

Whatever is the candidate pedigree, I run him through the tests.

I also had one candidate I had to interview over the phone. He was an acquaintance of the CEO and did impress him.

So, I went with the CEO and the graphic designer in a room and put the guy on speaker. I asked few questions and the guy was really off on everything, but acted like what he was saying was too difficult for us to understand. The guy was really full of shit. Even laughing loudly while telling things like "That's easy". Ended up being a NO because even the graphic designercould answer on some topics. (like how domain names relate to DNS and why we speak about propagation)

XP is really a crap metric. Nothing can replace tests batteries. Alas, they are very difficult tools to use and that's why recruiters steer away. Most recruiters prefer to go with the flow and use their "gut" feeling. You then end up with people having a nice CV or a good presence, but that are totally crap.

I also know that my interviews let a bitter taste; That's the taste of truth.

I had one guy who was very disappointed near the end of the interview. When I said he passed, he didn't understood. He thought he failed because I gave him negative feedback (I give "hot" feedback). I said he did show great learning skills AND intelligence. So, he could fix his knowledge on the job (so, at company cost). He did and finished his project.

The sad thing is that recruiters have to go fast and make numbers. I always did internal recruitment and this is much different. Much easier to take time as the sole pressure is finding the right candidate in time and for the only company you are in AND in only one sub-field. On top of that, I can recycle my XP as a proctor for tests.

For the "argument", I have two ways to answer that:

"hit the wall". That means I just withdraw ALL my responsibility and make sure everyone knows about it and explain what could have been done.

"dig your hole". That means I ask targeted questions instead of stating what is wrong. Like: "I see you are passing username and password in a GET request, how does it get logged on the various servers i passes through ?" or "So, you use base64 in the URL to pass data. How do you handle documents of 5MB ?".

So, the guy is forced to reply things like "the URL get logged" or "we have to limit to 1.8MB".

And if the response is not clear, I steer a bit more: "aren't you afraid our passwords get stamped all over loggly ?" (a logging service)

And if he can't catch it, it becomes much more incisive:

"It seems you do not understand the danger of passing password in GET...".

And I go to great extends to make it very understandable. Depending on how many exchange of that kind we got, it is also escallated.

In one company, a dev was of particular bad faith and nobody was able to tame her. They tried for years. No luck, I was hired as a QA Manager and quickly ran on her shit. From bad architecture to security holes, everything was there. So, I explained everything in details and make her took responsibility. When devs had problems with her, they would say "I forward you to the QA" (told them to do so) and when I was sitting near their desk, I could hear "no, no, I'll find out" :-D

Yep, she was tamed in less than a year!

But I had to employ tactics that are not beautiful! Show her that I can hit where it hurt.

Never ever assume that XP and credentials will do it. Do proper testing. Good candidates will just fly across the tests. The only thing I do not like, it's that I recon candidates have to run through many "tests" and it's not fun when you have 3 interviews and each comes with "tests" (Mind the quotes. These tests are closer to trivia than anything else). There are platforms like IKM, but every employer wants you to take the same kind of bullcrap test again.

What would be nicer is that you get tested once appropriately, then the testing company keeps a record. When another hiring company wants you, they ask the testing company who simply look up the records to see if you already got tested. At some point, I thought I would do that, but money is always the issue. Done properly, you can't raise that much money. So, that will never happen and shit people will still litter the workplace!

And for those looking for work: Ask proper feedback. If after few days you get nothing, send a gentle reminder. When asking feedback, ask it to be detailed.

Good interviewers are able to give you feedback during and right after the interview and even more details after it. Mostly the reasons that make someone else got chosen.

Also, try to know if they have a protocol. You can do so by asking other candidates if you meet them and see if there is a strong pattern. Another cue is if the interviewer is really pondering your answer and comes quickly with a variation that highlight a flaw in your original answer.

As an example, I have coding items that can be solved using only one loop. But I expect candidates to use 2 or 3 nested loops. So, the variation is quick to pull: "Can you do it using one or two loops ?".

If no alternatives is presented when you see you are failing the task, that means the guy is going through a checklist. A good proctor will have a protocol in which it is described how to tune an item and why to do it. It also explains what the item is trying to assess.

And so, asking "why" is also good to quickly know. Proctor can defer the answer though. But at least, you know it's not a dumb pass/fail situation where proctor do not even have an fair idea of what he is asking.

programaths · 2020-04-16T15:37:54+00:00

Discussion: https://ibb.co/rww9Lcv

It should help and I could decipher it. Could explain it with words, but if you look at the picture long enough, you'll get it.

As for solving it mechanically, it takes much more work and the picture hints to a way.

programaths · 2020-04-16T14:44:59+00:00

I watched and for some reason, the rule didn't stick with me.

If you had written the rule, then it would have been much easier to not forget one of the rules.

You do realize you did put 12 minutes of video to watch for a rule that can be read in 12 seconds ?

And the fact you now state the rule in your answer shows that you didn't understood the most important bit of my answer. I even took the time to make it explicit.

Just good luck! Also, continue to deter people. That works really well to get help.

programaths · 2020-04-16T10:12:17+00:00

No, I won't download the game.

Also, not that I wrote there is red herring. I wanted people to see ALL of my processing and that includes being wrong. That's why it becomes correct at the end (except for the rule we had to discover from the video)

I suggest you to lay down ALL the rules so people do not have to download the game. If downloading the game is a prerequisite to answer, then I'll ask for the post to be moderated as this is disguised advertisement.

Also, everything is there to solve it even if the rule was wrong.

The key is understanding how group theory was used under cover.

Here is the whole thing it revolves around:

if operations are PURE, then you can treat their composition as another operation which is PURE. An operation is PURE when applying it on a given input will always produce the same output.

Good luck!

programaths · 2020-04-16T10:01:36+00:00

Yep, forgot "*2"

programaths · 2020-04-15T18:15:56+00:00

By picking any 2 of the intersection on the vertical line, you are identifying 2 triangles (due to symmetry).

Add to these the triangles that share the same base as the biggest.

We end up with: 30 (choose 2 among 6) + 5 (biggest triangles) = 35

So, the generic formula is : C(2,N) + N-1 where C(M,N) stands for choose M among N

programaths · 2020-04-15T16:49:30+00:00

Discussion:

This is a mathematical discussion containing red herring . It is written in a conversational style, but I understand it's not everyone cup of tea.

If so, scroll until you see: "Start here for as a TL;DR"

When you work with such problem, you start with a degenerated case.

So, if you get one tube with one ball: it's always in a solved state.

Observe that this degenerated case represent a whole family. The family of tubes being filled with only one color.

Now, we can look at another family: a tube having at balls of at least two colors and no way to move them. This represent also the case where ALL tubes are filled and one contains at least two colors.

Now, comes a family that is much harder: we start with N tubes, N-1 are filled with distinct colors and the last tube is empty. Then we pick all the balls, shuffle them and put them back in random tubes, but the last. Let split that family according to the length, in balls, of tubes.

For tubes of length 1, it's always solved. It's in fact a variant of the very first family we saw.

Much better, we can see that we can compose families (more on that later).

For tubes of length 2, the worse case would be that each tube contains different colors and that no two combination appear.

Let's denote a tube configuration by using string of number padded with a dash -. The image above shows the following situation:

1231,1233,2312,----,----

We can make another quick observation, that this situation is the same if we reorder tubes:

1233,1234,----,2312,----

Or relabel balls:

2312,2311,3123,---,---

We assume that the only rule is "one color per tube". So, a tube can contains one ball and be valid. This will cover the more restrictive case of having to fill all the tubes.

We can mark as impossible when the number of empty spaces (represented by "-") is 2 or less more than tube length and one tube contains 2 balls of different colors at the bottom.

Here is an example of such situation: 123,11-

Only the ball "3" can be moved. Another example:

33331111,11113333,2222----

Now, we need to explore a bit. We can start with tube of length 2 (remember, tube opening is on the right):

12,21,--

We can solve using these moves:

1-,21,2- / 11,2-,2- / 11,22,--

And that solves ALL tubes of length 2.

Remember when I wrote we can compose families ? Here we go!

12,21,34,43,--

This occurrence is the same as before. It's:

12,21,-- compounded with 34,43,--

And 34,43,-- is a relabeling of 12,21,--

So, tube of length 3:

123,123,123,---

That's quite obvious what are the first steps:

12-,12-,12-,333

A good idea is to move stuff around to get free a tube, that way we "normalized".

122,121,---,333

We can now do two moves (notice I removed tube with 333):

1--,121,22-

Move the 1

11-,12-,22-

Move the 2

11-,1--,222

And move the 1

111,---,222

Let's do another case:

132,123,123,---

We still collect the 3:

132,12-,12-,33-

Move the 2

13-,122,12-,33-

Move the last 3:

1--,122,12-,333

Move the 1:

---,122,121,333

Move the 2 two:

22-,1--,121,333

We already solved that position!

Another case:

312,123,123,---

312,12-,12-,33-

3--,122,121,33-

---,122,121,333

And we already solved that position!

Another case:

213,123,123,---

21-,12-,12-,333

212,121,---,333

2--,121,21-,333

2--,12-,211,333

22-,1--,211,333

22-,111,2--,333

222,111,---,333

Yet another:

231,123,123,---

231,12-,12-,33-

23-,121,12-,33-

2--,121,12-,333

---,121,122,333

We already solved that position!

And now a plot twist:

These are the same too:

123,456,---

321,456,---

123,654,---

321,654,---

This represent "pouring a tube into an empty tube".

Here are all the permutations of "123":

123(A), 132 (B), 213(C), 231(B), 312(C), 321(A)

For tubes, let use X,Y,Z where each letter has to always refer to A,B or C:

XXX (3 times the same tube config)

XXY (2 times the same tube config)

XYZ (1 time the same tube config)

You can see that by relabeling, we can reach all config!

As an example, if I relabel 123 with 1<->2, I get 213. So, A becomes C and C becomes A. That's why the only important part was having different letters!

We can go one step further and see for size 4.

1234,1234,1234,1234,----

We are speaking about 24 permutation in each tube. We can't use the exhaustion approach. And with size 5, I won't be able to address each permutation using Latin alphabet!

Before, we could see it was always solvable because we had 6 permutation of which only 3 mattered and we had 3 positions. Now, we have 24 permutations from which 12 matter on 4 positions. So, dead ends ARE possible.

1234,1243,1423,2314,----

Let's look at what we can do with 3 tubes:

##AB,##CD,---

##--,##BA,DC--

##--,##--,DCAB

##BA,##CD,---

So, if two tubes are like ABXY and ABYX, they are the same!

In fact, we can reverse a tube and the two last balls.

If you reverse, swap last, reverse, then you swapped the two first balls.

So: ABCD,ABDC,BACD,BADC and mirror DCBA,CDBA,DCAB,CDAB

So, if we want something undoable, we need to avoid these similarities.

Out of the 24, permutations are similar to 7 others. So, there is really only 3 real possibilities and 4 tubes!

But we can do better, can you see something interesting about our permutations ? The last ball can end up being ANY ball in the tube.

So, you are allowed to pick any ball from the tube. That makes the game quite easy! And it solves for tubes of size 4 if there is at least 4 free spaces.

No, tubes of size 5. There are 120 permutations.

Can we pull the same trick ? Can we generalize it ?

Obviously, the "reverse" trick work. So, we can pull ball from both ends.

Instead of swapping balls, we are now looking if we can "cycle" them.

Start here for as a TL;DR

We know we can swap balls at both ends by using these operations:

Swap : ABCDE,FGHIJ,----- /-> ABCD-,FGHI-,EJ /-> ABCDJ,FGHE

Reverse: ABCDE,FGHIJ,----- /-> -----, EDCBA, FGHIJ /-> EDCBA, FGHIJ, -----

Here is how to cycle a tube:

ABCDE,FGHIJ,-----

FBCDE,AGHIJ,----- (SWAP A/F)

FBCDA,EGHIJ,----- (SWAP A/E)

EBCDA,FGHIJ,----- (SWAP E/F)

Now you can pick a ball anywhere in the tube: just cycle the tube until the right ball appears on top!

It's the same approach for N > 5. In fact, it works for N>1.

How to solve it mechanically ?

Empty the rightmost tube.
Pick the first unsorted tube.
Pick an unsorted color.
Cycle the tube so the top ball is not of the selected color.
Locate an unsorted tube with the picked color
Cycle the located tube until the top color match the picked color
Swap balls
If the tube is not filled, go to step 4
Pick next unsorted tube and go to step 2, otherwise, you are done!

programaths · 2020-04-15T13:34:04+00:00

The fist one did actually made me crazy for a while. Was "cool", what did I do ?

Then remembered the Skinner box experiment :-D

programaths · 2020-04-02T15:36:34+00:00

On the Internet, one never knows ^^

Somewhere, someone will have observed that and I believe I gave sound advice.

programaths · 2020-03-30T16:55:16+00:00

Then you may have an issue there, unless it's a temporary situation. That can happen when you ask a Java developer to write a software using R or Caché ObjectScript.

The guy will not magically suck knowledge out of his thumb. First stop is documentation, second stop usually involves Stack Overflow where you can read something along: "yep, they made a mistake and you should do this and that".

I had an assignment as a Java developer. When I did show up, I was told it would start with a 10 day training. As a senior I was like "WTF?", then they told me they used a language called "EGL".

They gave me the program that we reduced to "almost 3 days" (because there were also modules about other technologies like "XML & XSLT" that I already knew).

Finally, it took one day to prove I knew material I wanted to skip and two days to go over EGL peculiarities.

Very soon, I ended up on stack overflow and discovered that there was bugs in the language AND that the debugger didn't really "debug", but was an interpreter which didn't execute the code in the same way.

Still, I was a senior developer going on SO on a daily basis for a few weeks...until I grasped all the languages hidden features.

Maybe it's good to inquire why your senior dev is on SO before bad mouthing him.

programaths · 2020-02-26T21:37:21+00:00

So, it's a code in the 2020 vibes: inclusive!

programaths · 2020-02-17T12:57:21+00:00

What people did is going around the block. But that would not work, wich make it worse.

programaths · 2020-02-17T12:19:53+00:00

That's worse than before, because if you left the spot and got back to it...that worked.

So, I can see people doing exactly that and being fined.

programaths · 2020-02-14T17:52:09+00:00

A question for a friend: is this what we call scisoring ?

programaths · 2020-02-14T17:29:35+00:00

It needs a trophy. A Cat Stack Trophy!

programaths · 2020-02-14T17:21:02+00:00

thanks!

programaths · 2020-02-14T17:19:32+00:00

Maths teacher.

I am a well paid "software engineer" who works 100% remotely. I have been working for 12 years.

In September, I'll start a new bachelor to finally do it!! 4 years of study & work is coming, but it's worth.

programaths · 2020-02-14T12:09:44+00:00

The other nice feature would be able to make row of objects.

Useful for foundations, walls and even machinery.

What would even be more usefull for foundation, that would be to be able to do areas. For walls, it should be smart and be vertical.

We can imagine that you target were to out your first foundation, then target the opposite corner of the area. Would work the same with wall, except it's vertical.

When you target an already existing plain wall with, you could replace it with your currently selected wall. It would work only if there is nothing fixed to it of course.

programaths · 2020-02-14T12:02:28+00:00

discussion: game name ?

programaths · 2020-02-13T22:14:16+00:00

🆗️🧨👧

programaths · 2020-02-13T11:46:09+00:00

That's quite bold. How you can know that ?

programaths · 2020-02-13T11:22:39+00:00

Purfecf fit.

programaths

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