Month: September 2020

Masking Personal Information

Earlier this morning while having breakfast with my wife, around 06:30 AM she noted that the day was quite dark. I replied that this is normal this time of the year, especially because Daylight Savings in the United States was extended since the last update.

Around 07:00 AM, after showering and getting dressed, I descend to my home office. Around 10:00 AM I prepared coffee for my first break of the working day. It was sunny and windy with a temperature in the high 40’s. Hopefully the weather will remain like that for the rest of the day.

While browsing the LeetCode web site problem 831 Masking Personal Information called my attention. I develop software and systems that deal with medical records and images which need to be de-identified. This problem seemed to contain a very reduced set of data that needs to be anonymized. Continue reading “Masking Personal Information”

Count Negative Numbers in a Sorted Matrix

UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE

I wish to correct a statement in this post. I mentioned that my wife and I received ballots for the next presidential election. It turns out that the envelopes contain requests for ballots, not the actual ballots. One way or the other we will vote as usual in person at a assigned polling center on Election Day.

I have been reading a few articles regarding the next presidential elections. Some Democrats do not appear to want to use a voter ID to reduce election fraud. The reasons, which you may find on-line, seem to be somewhat childish to say reject a national voter ID registration and card. They are used in most countries.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic (thanks China), the brilliant idea (I am being facetious) is to have voters mail in their completed ballots using the secure  USPS. In addition you can request a ballot be mailed to you in most (not sure if in all) states. But that is not all, my wife and I live in Minnesota and we have received two (2) unsolicited ballots which we will not use. We will keep them as a souvenir to remember, what I consider, the last nail in the coffin for democracy in the USA.

I am not stating that all people or political parties will commit election fraud. But if you read the news, and we are still about a month away from elections day, fraud is happening all over. Fresh ballots are found in bulk, completed ballots which favor of the Republican candidate have been ditched. What prevents me or any other 3,460,663 registered voters in the state of Minnesota to vote once by mail and a second time in person at a voting site on Election Day? And that is only considering Minnesota.

Election fraud has been around in the US for at least five decades. We have never before seen so much fraud prior to Election Day. So what is going to happen Election Day? After the count of fraud ballots is completed, chances are that there are going to be more votes than registered voters. The elections might be dismissed and we will have to wait a few months or year before a mechanism is deployed (i.e., voter ID) to reduce (eliminate would be too much to hope for) fraud.

All of the turmoil to occur (i.e., riots, protests, looting, lack of groceries) will put the USA at a disadvantage to counter the push of China to dominate and enslave the world (including the USA). Who knows, we might have to buy all Chinese products from Chinese companies (bye bye Apple). We will be forced to work 996 (09:00 AM – 09:00 PM 6 days a week).

Please think before you vote. I personally want to maintain our way of life with some few changes to capitalism and democracy. Continue reading “Count Negative Numbers in a Sorted Matrix”

Merge Two Binary Trees – Java

It is Monday morning. I got up earlier to finish the code and this post. Hope to be done before 06:00 AM. Today is my wife’s birthday. She is an evening person. Every morning I get up, fix breakfast, and then wake her up.

This year due to the COVID-19 pandemic (thanks China) we have not planned a celebration. Dates tend to shift by a day on non-leap years. Yesterday I received a message with Google photos that we took on yesterday’s date several years ago. Last year for her birthday we were with some family, friends in Rome, Italy. In the evening we all had a nice dinner and walked to the Fontana di Trevi and tossed three coins. That was a nice way to close the day. We like Italy and have been there many times. Perhaps next year things will be back to the new normal and will be able to celebrate once again in Rome. Continue reading “Merge Two Binary Trees – Java”

Rotate String

It is Saturday morning in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. It looks like we will have a cloudy day about 10F colder than yesterday. Sooner or later winter will arrive.

Yesterday afternoon I took out a pork butt from the garage freezer and placed it in the kitchen for it to defrost. This morning after breakfast, my wife and I cut the pork into pieces and placed it into two tin foils. My wife added two different mixes of herbs and spices, some liquids and both tins went into the oven. I set the temperature to 325F. We expect to have lunch around 02:00 PM. We are debating if we will have the pork with some rice or potatoes. For simplicity we are leaning towards brown rice. Continue reading “Rotate String”

Maximum Depth of a Binary Tree

Good morning. Hope your day has started on the right note. A couple weeks ago, the extended weather forecast for the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul had the high temperatures in the low 60’s and 70’s. This week we have experienced high temperatures in the mid 80’s. It seems that with the power of the cloud, large models that make use of AI, and tons of data, accuracy predicting the weather is still out of our reach.

I have a lifetime friend. Our friendship started in elementary school. Now with the COVID-19 (or Chinese flu) pandemic we connect using Skype on Friday at 07:00 AM. By 08:00 AM we both start or work day. Continue reading “Maximum Depth of a Binary Tree”

Divide Two Integers

Yesterday I read a very interesting article “China is escalating its punishment diplomacy” by Jamil Anderlini in the Financial Times. If you did not get a chance to read it, please do so. You will be surprised how open China is manipulating politicians all over the world.

Another article of interest might be “China sharply expands mass labor program in Tibet” by Cate Cadell in Reuters. The Chinese communist government is picking up people in Tibet, teaching and deploying them to work in groups all over China. The article seems to validate the idea that the cost of manufacturing in China is going up and in order to continue to attract companies to manufacture in China, they need cheap labor. China uses a 72-hour work week which is getting expensive, and in order to continue to be the single provider of globalization, they need to get cheap labor. Continue reading “Divide Two Integers”

Recursive Digit Sum

Yesterday afternoon the technician for a company that cleans ducts showed up for our appointment. Our dryer was having issues with the exhaust duct. We had to clean the dryer filter and restart the unit over a dozen times per load.

The technician arrived half hour earlier. I showed him the location for the exhaust and the dryer. He brought in some type of industrial vacuum and some hoses. I believe he used a camera to watch the operation while vacuuming the duct. Continue reading “Recursive Digit Sum”

String to Integer

Last evening I read the news from September 06, 2020 that Steve Jobs widow has donated $500,000 USD to the Joe Biden presidential campaign. In my opinion this is quite interesting. Allow me to describe my train of thought.

Donald Trump has made it clear that he wants to start taxing all companies (including Apple) that manufacture outside the USA (in particular in China). On the other hand, Joe Biden will let companies to continue to import good without paying tariffs.

Most (never say all) large companies do not pay tariffs when importing their good manufactured OUS. The claim by most (once again, never say all) companies is that they are trying to provide US consumers with the best possible product at the lowest possible price. This might sound good to some people. The question is “do you understand what is actually happening”? Continue reading “String to Integer”

Reverse Words in a String

I am a morning person and I do not seem to need eight hours of sleep a day. Earlier this morning (around 01:00 AM) I woke up and browsed the news on my phone. Most (never generalize) were not worth reading. They seem to have a catchy title, but after a few sentences a political message that had nothing to do with the main topic would come up. To top it off you have to reference the information from different sources due to the amount of fake news circulating in most (never say all) platforms.

My wife and I left a window in the kitchen open overnight. We both tend to sleep better with fresh air. Given that we live in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, sooner rather than later we will have to keep the windows closed and the furnace on.

I just picked a random problem from LeetCode. Problem 151 Reverse Words in a String calls for reversing the order of words in a string. If interested please take a look at the description and spend a few minutes figuring out how to tackle the problem… Continue reading “Reverse Words in a String”

Concurrent Skip List Map

Before we start I would like to thanks all of you that have subscribed to my blog. We have reached 2,000 subscribers!!! As a matter of fact, we currently have 2,150 subscribers. Thanks a lot!!!

It is so hard to find real news not politically opinionated. For example, I ran into an article that discussed the AztraZeneca vaccine trial in the UK. Apparently there have been two cases in which people that received the vaccine got severely ill. In both cases the trial stopped until further investigation. In both cases it was determined that the issue was not associated with the vaccine. The trials continued in the UK. Continue reading “Concurrent Skip List Map”