Short Palindrome

Good morning! It is a cold and dark Sunday morning in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul in Minnesota. The silver lining is that the forecast for today calls for a high temperature of 80F. Perfect day for grilling outside and perhaps drink one or two adult beverages.

After finishing my 2-hour block, my wife and I will complete our grocery shopping by stopping by Trader Joe’s in St. Paul. It seems that lately we are doing groceries every other weekend. That saves around five gallons of gasoline every month.

It is too early (dark and cold) for box elder bugs to be out and about. As it gets warmer they seem to appear from nowhere. We are planning on grilling outside so they will become a nuisance. In the afternoon hours most homes in our area have a few hundred box elder bugs on the walls. As long as we do not have to interact with them, let them be. Continue reading “Short Palindrome”

Valid Words

I had to add this post today. Earlier I was chatting with a software engineer and we were discussing a simple problem. As the discussion progressed a new requirement appeared. After our conversation I decided to just generate this post with two simple solutions. I understand they can be streamed further. Continue reading “Valid Words”

Minimum Swaps 2

Once again it is Friday. Time seems to be flying by. The temperature in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul continues to drop. The day light continues to get shorter and shorter. That said; my wife and I are now walking after work. Yesterday afternoon at 05:00 PM CDT was 72F and the day was sunny. Hopefully we will have a few more weeks with similar days. Winter is coming.

No special plans for the weekend. During breakfast this morning my wife and I were discussing if we will grill beef steaks or make pork ribs. I believe we have both in the garage freezer. I am inclined to grilling due to the fact that nice days for grilling outside are coming to an end. We can prepare ribs in the oven in the mid of winter and they taste great.

This morning while browsing LinkedIn I noticed that my son’s best friend has been assigned as Director of Engineering at Apple. Congratulations on your career achievement! Continue reading “Minimum Swaps 2”

Minimum Loss

Good day software engineers and developers! It is a Thursday morning and seems like it will be a sunny day with highs in the low 70’s F. Like I mentioned in a previous post, the days are getting shorter and cooler. My wife and I decided to walk after the workday is over. We tried it yesterday and by 06:00 PM we were back home. At that time there is daylight and the temperature is much higher than earlier in the day. Continue reading “Minimum Loss”

Fraudulent Activity Notification

Good day software developers and engineers. Hope your day is going well. The days are getting shorter and colder in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul.

As usual, my wife fixed lunch. It was quite good. Some type of meat stew. For desert we had `gypsy’s arm`. If interested in this dessert please read the article “Gypsy’s Arm Explained“. My wife has been making this desert since we were dating. At some point she used a single can of `dulce de leche`. In the past couple years she is been using two cans. That makes for a much better dessert. Please do not confuse `dulce de leche` with `tres leches cake`. They are completely different things. Continue reading “Fraudulent Activity Notification”

Java Date and Time

It is a sunny day in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul.

Earlier today I read an article on Medium that described how bad are the crypto currencies and which actors are making money of it. I missed to bookmark the article. While writing this post, in an attempt to locate the article, I did a Google search using the following string: “medium crypto currency”. It returned several articles. I did not spend the time looking for it. That said; if you are investing on crypto currencies, perhaps it would be a good idea to read some of the articles that have reasons why you should stop doing so. That said, I have invested a few dollars on crypto currencies. My reasoning was to better understand what Bitcoin, among other crypto currencies is all about.

Today is the birthday of the wife of one of my wife brothers. We are invited later this afternoon. Hopefully the weather will hold. It is nice to attend a BBQ on a sunny day.

Today and for a few more days, I will attempt to solve some problems in HackerRank. In the past couple years I have concentrated on solving problems from LeetCode. Continue reading “Java Date and Time”

Longest Palindromic Substring

Good day! Hope your day has started on the right note. The days are getting shorter. Every morning after breakfast my wife and I head out for a 2.5 mile walk. We are leaving home a few minutes before 07:00 AM because earlier is dark. We prefer walking with day light. Continue reading “Longest Palindromic Substring”

Database Sharding

Good day software developers and engineers. Today is Wednesday and it seems it is going to be a sunny day in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Hope the weather cooperates in your neck of the woods.

I continue to read and experiment with the contents presented in the on-line course Introduction to Python Fundamentals: Lesson 02 by Paul Deitel published by Pearson Education, Inc. As a matter of fact, tomorrow I will start with lesson 03. So far I am pleased to be reviewing and learning new things during the process. Continue reading “Database Sharding”

Introduction to Python Fundamentals – Lesson 1

It is Thursday morning in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Even though we are still officially in summer, the highs and lows for the days are going down. Hopefully we will have at least two more months of decent weather to walk outside.

As I mentioned in the last posts, we are going to start solving problems in Python. According to the PYPL Index, for results collected in August 2021, the most popular programming language is Python with a share of 31.47%. Java is second with a 19.14% share.

According to the IEEE Spectrum article “Top Programming Languages 2021 Python dominates as the de facto platform for new technologies” Python is number 1. I guess it is time to start solving problems in Python. In our next post I will start solving easy problems. We will then progress to medium and hard.

As you might already know, I like to refresh on tools I will be using. I decided to start watching “Introduction to Python Fundamentals: Lesson 01” by Paul Deitel published by Pearson Education, Inc. Since I am a member of the ACM (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_for_Computing_Machinery) I have access to O’Reilly titles. If you work developing software, I strongly recommend you joining the ACM. They provide a wealth of information at your fingertips. For example, earlier today I attended the webinar “Quantum Computational Supremacy” by Scott Aaronson. I do not work with quantum computers, but enjoy learning about the technology. If you have a chance, watch the recording of the webinar which should be available in a few days.

Continue reading “Introduction to Python Fundamentals – Lesson 1”

Memory Pools – O(1) Storage

Happy Tuesday! Hope you had a nice long weekend. Labor Day in Minnesota marks the official summer season. The Minnesota State Fair ended yesterday. It flags the start of public schools and public universities in our state. In general, private schools and universities start a few weeks earlier.

My wife and I did not have too many things to do over the long weekend. Pretty much we did some grocery shopping, walking, and cook meals. We did watch on Amazon Prime an interesting and somewhat older movie. Trumbo was released on DVD in September 15, 2009. The movie provides interesting facts about the Hollywood Blacklist. It describes interesting and dark moments for liberty and freedom in the USA. Hopefully we have learned something and it will not repeat. The black list has nothing to do with African Americans. These events are associated with white people that disagreed with the main stream ideas of the time. The movie starts in 1947, a few years after the WWII ended. When you get a chance spend a couple hours watching this movie.

On a separate note, this post has as of right now 9,037 subscribers. Thank you very much!!! Continue reading “Memory Pools – O(1) Storage”