I count to 31 with one hand.
I use the standard count up to 5 with one hand just for communication purpose.
Ask HN: How have you applied computer science IRL?
21–30 of 39 posts
Re: Ask HN: How have you applied computer science IRL?
#22Sorting room full of dated reports from several dozens of years. First pass: put raports in the bins year by year maintaining sort order in the bins. Binary search used to place new report in the bin. Second pass: put year by year sorted reports in the correct order on the shelfs. I don't remeber the name of the algorithm used and the book from which it come was given to the library.
That's radix sort.
For what it's worth, I often have piles of sorted documents to sort together, so I've used merge sort on RL objects fairly regularly. Binary search, too, though I use the optimization where it's not strictly binary when I have a guess about where the item should be.
I've probably used a few other algorithms, but I can't think of any off the top of my head.
Re: Ask HN: How have you applied computer science IRL?
#23I count to 31 with one hand. I use the standard count up to 5 with one hand just for communication purpose.
how? I can understand 12 (use your thumb to count the 3 joints on each of your 4 fingers), but 31?
Re: Ask HN: How have you applied computer science IRL?
#24I count to 31 with one hand. I use the standard count up to 5 with one hand just for communication purpose.
how? I can understand 12 (use your thumb to count the 3 joints on each of your 4 fingers), but 31?
Binary. Five (biological) digits giving 5 bits.
So color me confused - your profile says:
> I love hardware hacking
> and low-level programming.
Re: Ask HN: How have you applied computer science IRL?
#25I count to 31 with one hand. I use the standard count up to 5 with one hand just for communication purpose.
I used to do that, but found some of the various combinations too difficult to maintain. I tend to count to 10 on each hand, counting the thumb as five and a fist as ten.
Re: Ask HN: How have you applied computer science IRL?
#26Was playing 9ball last night, used a quicksort to rack them in order.
Re: Ask HN: How have you applied computer science IRL?
#27I try never to use more than 70% of my available space or other resources.
If asked to do something, I usually give a promise that I'll do whatever asked but generally defer the actual work until forced.
I always follow the tit-for-tat strategy whenever dealing with anyone.
I make a point of including redundant details in all communications so that others can catch my errors.
Re: Ask HN: How have you applied computer science IRL?
#28I don't know about you guys but when I go grab dinner with my philosophical-type friends, we all share a fork and knife.
Any one of your friends starve?
Re: Ask HN: How have you applied computer science IRL?
#29I realised that throwing more of my time at a task is an O(n) solution to the problem of not having enough time. There must be a better way...
Re: Ask HN: How have you applied computer science IRL?
#30I count to 31 with one hand. I use the standard count up to 5 with one hand just for communication purpose.
I used to do that, but found some of the various combinations too difficult to maintain. I tend to count to 10 on each hand, counting the thumb as five and a fist as ten.
Slightly more efficient, and still easy to do, is to use one hand for 0-9 (thumb counts as five), and the other for 0,10,20,...,90. Easy counting, setting, and reading of the current number.