Talk Binary » Uncategorized

P ?= NP Proof found?

Diego — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 18:39:05 +0000

P vs NP Problem has us wondering if there is a way to determine whether we can solve problems quickly in polynomial time. Why? Because solving problems in exponential time isn’t doesn’t always allow us to solve these problems due to the explosive growth when the input starts getting large.

For example, the Traveling Salesman is an NP Complete problem. Given a list of cities and their distances between them, the task is to find the shortest possible tour in which each city is visited exactly once. Sure, heuristics have been made to solve sets of these problems, but a single algorithm to solve these problems in polynomial time hasn’t.

Solving the following P ?= NP question would determine if it would be possible to find if these NP problems could be solved in linear time. So yes, solving this problem is kind of a big deal. It may be regarded as one of the top (or the top) question in Computer Science. It also is a Millennium Prize Problem so whoever solves it is awarded 1M dollars.

For now, all we can do is wait and determine if the paper forwarded from Vinay Deolalikar proves that P != NP. The paper is over 100 pages and is quite a read. So if ever thought reading publications in the science field was tough, get prepared.

This was first uncoverd by Greg Baker at his blog.

Sources:
P vs NP
Traveling salesman problem

Rubik’s Cube can be solved in 20 moves or less (or with 35 Google CPU Years)

Diego — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 18:19:31 +0000

Apparently God’s Number is 20 and Google was there to witness the discovery. This number represents the number of moves the Rubik’s cube can be solved in. But what is the big deal anyway? This number has been in question and worked on for nearly over 30 years.

So how did they solve the 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 positions on the cube? They partitioned the problem into 2,217,093,120 problems compromising of 19,508,428,800 positions. This allowed them to have problem sets that could be solved on a modern computer. Then some symmetry was exploited, some clever mathematical and programming tricks they were able to solve this problem. Oh yes, don’t forget they also used lots of computers which amounted to 35 CPU years. (How are CPU years calculated btw?)

The team consists of Morley Davidson, a mathematician from Kent State University, John Dethridge, an engineer at Google in Mountain View, Herbert Kociemba, math teacher from Darmstadt, Germany, and Tomas Rokicki, a programmer from Palo Alto, California. Feel free to e-mail Tomas Rokicki at rokicki@gmail.com if you have any questions. Let us know how it goes!

Now, if we would’ve known this, it would’ve saved me a couple of hundred moves.

God’s Number is 20

TalkBinary around the Web: Weekly Recap 8/2/2010

Diego — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 16:00:05 +0000

Starcraft II: Wings of Libertyis out. Have you bought it? I picked up my copy already and have been playing it since! I can’t really judge the game yet since I haven’t put in as many hours as I’d really wish. Interested in playing? Drop a line in the comments.

Below are the articles and websites that I enjoyed the most this past week. To keep updated, sign up for our RSS feed or Subscribe by E-mail. You can even stay updated through Twitter and Facebook.

Weekly Links

Tips for Linux Explorers

Man arrested at Large Hadron Collider claims he’s from the future

How Grad School is Just Like Kindergarten (Comic)

The Wonderful World of Prison Inventions

Ten Steps to Becoming the Designer You Want to Be

Learn Python in 10 Minutes

What To Do When You See the Google Street Car Coming Your Way

14 Most Useful Web Design Cheat Sheets

30 HTML Best Practices for Beginners

10 Must Dos for the First Week of College

40 Free and Essential Web Design and Development Books from Google

TalkBinary around the Web: What We Read 7/19/10

Diego — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 18:00:32 +0000

Starcraft 2 is around the corner. Are you going to purchase it? I am, and I’m looking forward to it.

Below are the articles that I enjoyed the most this past week. To keep updated, sign up for our RSS feed or Subscribe by E-mail. You can even stay updated through Twitter and Facebook.

If you wish for me to feature a link to your article, just Contact us and tell us about it!.

Weekly Reading list

Nvidia rocks a DirectX11 graphics card for under $200

Get a Free Year of Amazon Prime If You Have a .Edu Email Address [Dealzmodo]

How to put SNES games on your iPad

Preparing for College: Tech Essentials for Your First Year [Education]

How to Create Your Own Customized Ubuntu Live CD [Live CDs]

Logitech does 5.1 surround sound on a budget with $100 Z506 speakers

40-Foot Optimus Prime Transforms Beijing Skyline [Transformers]

The 12th Russian Spy Worked at Microsoft [Spies]

How to Hack Your Nintendo DS for Easy Backups and Single-Cartridge Playback [Gaming]

Weekly Videos

And here is my personal video of the week.

TalkBinary Around the Web: What We Read

Diego — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 17:19:13 +0000

Spain won the world cup! Did your favorite team win? Mexico didn’t win, so I’ll be waiting for 2014 to find out!

Below are the articles that I enjoyed the most this past week. I’ll also be adding some images or videos that I think are deem worthy of your attention. If you wish for me to feature a link to your article, just Contact us and tell us about it!.

Weekly Reading list

Researchers say any USB peripheral could steal your data, even a coffee-cup warmer

iPhone 4: Largest ‘console’ launch ever?

StarCraft II Will Support 3D

Alleged Russian spies used WiFi and pre-paid cellphones, got caught anyways

Employees Challenged To Crack Facebook Security, Succeed (Updated)

Awesome Super Mario Bros sidewalk edition

The Government’s “Perfect Citizen” Program Will Protect Companies By Monitoring Them

Second Facebook Movie Trailer Looks Even More Ridiculous

How to Run Mac OS X in VirtualBox on Windows

Geohot teases iPhone 4 jailbreak, no plans for release

Judge Slashes “Unconstitutionally Excessive” File Sharing Fine By 90%

T-Mobile, RadioShack Top 2011 List of Potentially Doomed Companies

Weekly Videos

And here is my personal video of the week.

TalkBinary Around the Web: What We Read

Diego — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 05:10:36 +0000

I want to take a moment to say “Happy Independence Day!” and with that, let me introduce the weekly reading list of Talk Binary. This is something I plan to keep doing since I tend to read hundreds of technology/gaming related articles every week thanks to Google Reader.

Below are the articles that I enjoyed the most this past week. I’ll be sure to include more articles in next week’s issue and also within the one week time frame as well.

Weekly Reading list

Best Buy Trying To Fire Employee Over Those Hilarious EVO Versus iPhone Videos

RoboCup Soccer Finalists Flop Even More Than Their World Cup Counterparts

Cameras
Budget compact shootout finds the best little digicams for your buck

Top 10 Clever Google Voice Tricks

Hey Apple, you’re holding it wrong

Weekly Videos

And here is my personal video of the week. Make sure you read the accompanying article I listed above.

Google – Please be polite

Diego — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 18:45:34 +0000

So Google invited me this one day to check out their RSS reader by looking at a couple of items. I was surprised

Prolog, Google, and more reveal the answer to life and everything

Diego — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 07:54:11 +0000

Prolog apparently reveals the answer to life if you try finding a binding for the variable X. Since it tries proving X for any value, apparently it decides to use the answer to life as the binding. Mysterious!? Tell us what you think.

Even Google agrees

Why is 42 the answer to the universe and everything in life? Beats me but apparently its the true answer. Try asking Google it doesn’t disagree.

And before you start doubting the big G, you have to consider xkcd webcomics, which are awesome btw. Check out Ask the admin and find out how xkcd is related to the answer to life as well.

Is this starting to get creepy? Look at the palm of your hand, it is also said you have 42 major creases. Weird? Well it might because I just made that up but wouldn’t surprise me if it was true! (In case it is, tell me!)

Share with us your programming encounters!

Encountered something similar? Why not share it with the everyone?

This prolog interpreter can be installed from the command line with a simple

sudo apt-get install swi-prolog

Or depending on the OS you have, you might simply have to use your content manager to download it to your system.

Cubecraft – Download, Print, Cut, Fold

Diego — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 05:17:18 +0000

Cubecraft allows you to print out your favorite characters such as Mario, Kirby, Obama, StormTrooper, MegaMan, Bender, Indiana Jones, and others so you can cut them and fold them up! There are new ones being posted up every week alongside with limited edition cube crafts that cease to exist after a period of time. So go check it out before you realize your favorite character is taken off from Cubecraft.

Cubecraft – Simply download, print, cut, and fold!

Are you ready? Simply head over to Cubecraft and fold away to your favorite character! All characters are distinguished by a scissor rating. The more scissors it contains, the more difficult it is. There are about a hundred characters or more, so you are bound to find something you like.

Cubecraft doesn’t require any special skill or tools. All you need is patience, scissors, and if possible a hobby knife (of course, after you print it out, the thicker the paper the better).

I decided to make Kirby since it seemed to be the simplest one and I also since I love the character. It took me approximately 7-10 minutes to complete. So it wasn’t bad. It did bring back memories of playing Kirby SuperStar on the SNES (which was an awesome game imo).

A representation of the actual printout is below as well as my own creation.

Show us your Cubecraft!

Do you have one you want to show off? Go ahead and post the link in the comments. You can use ImageShack to upload your pictures.

Lijit is down, little girl is our last hope [The world is doomed]

Diego — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 07:16:36 +0000

Lijit is down! Meanwhile, they are providing a direct feed of the current repair of the server.

Hopefully I can rely on this little girl not throwing my account information in the gutter. Would you trust this girl?? This is what the crowd has to say about the following…

What does the crowd have to say?

thedudeoforkut
I think you guys are breaking some child labor laws. That and you need to clean up your server closet. – Source