Tag: HackerRank

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”

Grid Traveler or Unique Paths

The weather is acting somewhat erratic. Today the forecasted high in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul will be 20F lower than yesterday. Tomorrow it should be 10F lower than today and should be raining. The water level in pond in my backyard is very low. Some rain should help. I noticed that a couple of cranes have made their home for summer the pond. Not sure if they are the same that return every year or they are an offspring of the ones from last year. I do not know much about cranes.

Since the weather will be nice today; my wife and I will go for a walk after the end of the workday. Not sure what we will do tomorrow. Perhaps we will go to the Mall of America.

On a different note, as you might know, I work in 2-hour blocks. After each block I go up and get something to drink. A few minutes later I head back to work. A few weeks ago I moved a stationary bike from a utility room and set it up in the lower level living room. I started biking for 5 minutes after completing a 2-hour block. That is working very well. I get between 20 to 25 minutes biking each workday. Since the bike is indoors I can do it year round. Continue reading “Grid Traveler or Unique Paths”

Sam and Substrings

It is a sunny Tuesday in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. The earlier forecast was calling for thunderstorms. I just check the revised forecast and it seems that we might have some rain after dark. That is good news because my wife and I are invited to our oldest son’s house today to have the next version of the burgers we had last Saturday as I commented on the Roads and Libraries post. Will let you know tomorrow how it goes.

As I mentioned in a previous post, a few weeks ago I had elective surgery performed on my left knee. All is going very well with the recovery process. So far most of the physical therapy sessions have been on Tuesdays and Thursdays towards the end of the day (04:30 PM or 05:00 PM). Today the session is at 01:30 PM. My wife changed our daily lunch schedule to accommodate it. We will be having lunch after therapy.

Yesterday we spoke over Skype with a couple friends of us that live in Peru. Things are not going well in Peru or Latin America in general. Seems that communism is creeping at alarming rates. In the next presidential elections to be held on June 06, 2021 there are two candidates. One candidate represents the right and the other the left. The left has mandated voters in different places to take a picture of their secret ballot to allow party representatives to verify that the votes are for the communist candidate. If voters refuse their lives would be in danger. Not much to say about a secret and fair election!

Of course the bottom line is always money. In this case some foreign nations will benefit by getting several mines at a much discounted price. It seems like a repeat of what transpired and is still going on in Venezuela. Such is life. Continue reading “Sam and Substrings”

Roads and Libraries

Good morning! It is a foggy Sunday morning in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. In the past week or so the mornings have been sunny. That said, the forecasted high for the day is 76F. If the fog clears and with sun shine we might be a couple degrees warmer.

Yesterday the high temperature was forecasted to be 70F. My wife and I stopped by our older son place. He lives in Lakeville which is about 15 minutes away by car from our place.

We spent a few hours outside chatting and drinking a couple adult drinks while he was cooking some delicious burgers. He enjoys grilling and smoking meats. In the past couple weeks he decided to meet or better yet, improve on a butter burger sandwich from Culver’s.

I am not going to get into the details but in my opinion the burgers he made were a notch better than the ones from the food chain. That said, my wife and I would have cooked them no more than one minute per side. My son likes burgers very well done while we prefer them just done. He did not only cook the burgers, but in addition served them with all the trimmings and in waxed paper in the shape of a bag. We all had a good time. Today my wife and I will grill steaks but next week, we will do burgers with all the trimmings. We will be skipping the paper bag! Continue reading “Roads and Libraries”

Largest Triple Products – Revisited

!!! UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE !!!

I received a comment indicating an issue with the largestValues() function. The issue has been corrected. The code has been updated. Thanks for noting the issue.

Good morning! It is 04:15 AM and it is a relatively warm day. Last evening before going to bed I decided to hopefully get up a little earlier than usual. I have a permanent alarm on my phone for 06:00 AM. I use it as a fail-safe in case I do not naturally wake up before. Today I wanted to get this post done and take a look at a test I left running overnight. My wife has a doctor’s appointment early today and it is a 45 minute drive from home. She has to fast so I will follow suit. We should be leaving home around 06:45 AM.

On a separate note, I visited the ProtonMail web site. As we all know there are companies that offer free email services. They have redefined what the word free means. The cost is quite heavy regarding your privacy. In the past couple weeks I have been reading about email services. My wife and I are contemplating on opening accounts on a service in the near future. When that happens, you will see a new email address at the bottom of the posts. Continue reading “Largest Triple Products – Revisited”

Halloween Party in Java

Today is January 21, 2021. Yesterday was the United States presidential inauguration. As you know I do not like politics. That said; I like facts so later when something does not seem right I will be able to make my own educated decision as to what the real reasons were for  the results we are observing. That said; I would invite you to find out about the executive orders signed yesterday by Joe Biden. Then put aside your political associations, and think what would the effects of the executive orders be for the future of the USA and for the citizens of the USA and the free and democratic world?

As I was generating this post I checked and the blog has exceeded the 6,000 followers mark!!! Thank you all for making this happen. Hopefully it is having some type of positive impact on your learning journey. Continue reading “Halloween Party in Java”

Can you solve it? Java Solution

Good morning. Hope you are doing well. It is a dark, foggy and cold morning in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. I woke up around 05:00 AM. I finished reading the article Does Facebook Use Sensitive Data for Advertising Purposes? article in the Communications of the ACM magazine. I though the article was interesting. Apparently Facebook has a set of several thousand categories of which up to 1000 can be applied to each user. Not sure if there is an opt out setting. The authors of the paper suggested a tool that can be used in a couple browsers to check and delete the advertising labels assigned to your account. Continue reading “Can you solve it? Java Solution”

Spiral Matrix – Revisited

Good morning. Hope your day is starting on the right note. Yesterday was a long and busy day. Something at work stated on Saturday extended at least through yesterday. I spent a lot of time on the phone, browsing code and looking at log files. It seems we know what is causing the problem. Currently I am in the midst of formulating approaches to address the issue. Hopefully all will be solved by tomorrow.

On a separate note, yesterday I had the opportunity to meet on-line a software engineer that works at a large software company. You never know what the future has reserved for you. Continue reading “Spiral Matrix – Revisited”

Inorder Successor in BST

As you might know, I work on 2-hour blocks. At the end of a block I go upstairs and get something to drink. I chat with my wife for a few minutes and then head downstairs to my office for the next 2-hour block. I just got back and was about to start a new task when I noticed that I had not finished a post I started earlier today. Will finish it right now and will post it. Then I will move on to the next task.

This morning we woke up to a balmy 11 F degrees. The good thing about the COVID-19 pandemic is that we can work from home and do not have to deal with the car and parking. I fully understand that is nothing to what other people are going through. Hopefully we will be getting a vaccine in the next few months. If all goes well we might start going back to something that resembles how things were before the pandemic. Continue reading “Inorder Successor in BST”