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Ask HN: What's the most creative 'useless' program you've ever written?

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Re: Ask HN: What's the most creative 'useless' program you've ever written?

#421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you use this to build your own “poop detector” where an object is routed around until you confirm with the robot if it’s “safe” to proceed in that area? I love my robot vacuum but I dare never run it when I’m not at home for fear or smearing poop all over my floor on accident. Sadly I didn’t shell out enough money for a bot with superior object detection.

Maybe just stop shitting on the carpet.

Old habits die hard

Re: Ask HN: What's the most creative 'useless' program you've ever written?

#422
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dissection of a square into an equilateral triangle (or vice versa) is sometimes known as the haberdasher's problem, and can be done in three straight-line cuts. https://mathworld.wolfram.com/HaberdashersProblem.html

Hm interesting, I thought it was 11 pieces, not 11 cuts, but that one looks like 4 pieces, which is surprising Now I am more curious to find this program Either I didn't do it optimally, or there is some variation like a triangle/rectangle/square I think there are some problems that have 3 shapes, or it could be triangle/pentagon or something

TIL that Gavin Theobald has produced several dissections from a triangle to a square on the surface of a sphere. Which would make pretty cool 3D-printed desk gizmos: make a ball with a triangular sector removed from one pole, a square sector removed from the other pole, and a set of wedge-shaped pieces that can be used to fill up either hole.

http://www.gavin-theobald.uk/HTML/Spherical/T90-S112.5.pdf

http://www.gavin-theobald.uk/HTML/Spherical/T100-S120.pdf

http://www.gavin-theobald.uk/HTML/Spherical/T120-S135.pdf

http://www.gavin-theobald.uk/HTML/Spherical.html

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