In an effort to improve my algorithm design I have been working through some of the problems in the Euler Project and have found some of them to be quite intriguing.

Q: What is the largest prime factor of the number 600851475143 ?

I had the following issues to ponder:

• How to store and manipulate a 40-bit unsigned integer?
• To utilize recursion or not?
• Will the algorithm run in less than a minute?
  • If not, how do I make it more efficient?

The end result was simpler and much more performant than I had expected.  The 40-bit input fit into a long just fine.  Recursion was not necessary, and average runtimes are in the single digit millisecond range.  There was even an opportunity to use some very basic LINQ to retrieve the largest factor from the List

Here is the C# code:

using System;
using System.Collections;
using System.Collections.Specialized;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Diagnostics;

namespace Euler3
{
    class PrimeFactorization
    {
        const long ToFactor = 600851475143;
        public static List<long> theFactors = new List<long>();

        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            Stopwatch sw = new Stopwatch();
            sw.Reset();
            sw.Start();

            Console.WriteLine("Highest prime factor of (" + ToFactor + ") is " + HighestPrimeFactor(ToFactor));
            sw.Stop();
            Console.WriteLine("Factorization algorithm runtime was: " + sw.ElapsedTicks + " ticks or " + sw.ElapsedMilliseconds + "ms");
            
            Console.ReadLine();
        }

        private static long HighestPrimeFactor(long input)
        {
            bool searching = true;
            long highestFactor = 0;
            while (searching)
            {
                long factor = IsPrime(input);
                if (factor != -1)
                {
                    theFactors.Add(factor);
                    input = input / factor; 
                }
                if (factor == -1)
                {
                    theFactors.Add(input);
                    highestFactor = theFactors.Max();
                    searching = false;
                }
            }
            return highestFactor;
        }

        private static long IsPrime(long input)
        {
            if ((input % 2) == 0)
            {
                return 2;
            }
            else if ((input == 1))
            {
                return 1;
            }
            else
            {
                long threshold = (Convert.ToInt64(Math.Sqrt(input)));
                long tryDivide = 3;
                while (tryDivide < threshold)
                {
                    if ((input % tryDivide) == 0)
                    {
                        Console.WriteLine("Found a factor: " + tryDivide);
                        return tryDivide;
                    }
                    tryDivide += 2;
                }
                Console.WriteLine("Found a factor: " + input);
                return -1;
            }
        }
    }
}

Output:

-Surely a blog entry title such as this earns me some sort of special place in Geek Hell.

On my commute into the office this morning I heard of the most recent government bail-out of a private bank, CitiGroup.  This is the second second installment, at CitiGroup alone, of taxpayer dollars being used to try and fix problems the average taxpayer did not create.

While it makes some sense to put measures into place to ensure that major financial companies do not fail and collapse industries beyond the financial sectors, are we fundamentally doing the right thing by the American taxpayer?

Of course not!

photo courtesy of dalydose

Have we reached the point that our government is borrowing money to cover for haphazard and irresponsible behavior by investors and BANKS?  Why yes, yes we have.  But who started this mess?

The way I see it, here is how the snowball began rolling downhill:

• For the past 10 years or more since the tightening of regulation following the savings and loan crisis, government regulation of the U.S. financial markets has loosened significantly.
  
• Banks saw this combined with low interest rates as opportunities to increase their revenues significantly by tapping into the elusive "subprime loan" market.
  
• A increasingly credit hungry society took advantage of achieving the previously out of reach so-called "American dream" of home ownership, regardless of whether or not this made good financial sense for them at the time.  (The former "dream" is now more of a nightmare.)
  
• Banks decided they could crank up profits by closing a bunch of loans quickly and immediately selling the loans to someone else so they didn't have to keep these risky investments in-house, on their own balance sheets.
  
• Banks, unsure of exactly what was the current risk with these subprime mortgages started selling "mortgage backed securities" like hotcakes.  Investors and other banks bought them by the truckload.
  
• Ratings agencies tasked with rating the risk of these strange new investment vehicles did a rotten job rating the actual risk and kept slapping AAA ratings on everything in sight
  
• Mortgages within these investment backed securities start failing exponentially, and banks start cleverly hiding them off their balance sheets.
  
• Banks start to fail, starting with smaller players, then major banks and financial powerhouses start to fail when they can no longer hide their failing mostly-imaginary-now investments.
  
• And then....the story comes full circle....and here comes Uncle Sam to save the banks by throwing BORROWED money at the problem to buy up these toxic financial investments.

Who screwed up?  Most everyone involved screwed up in one way or another.  But who enabled this to happen?  As we have seen, given enough rope, investors and banks will hang themselves. 

Perhaps we should stop providing the rope and repeal the Gramm-Leach-Biley Act that allowed the creation of Citigroup and others? 

Hindsight aside, why did we let Lehman fail and others who made the exact same bad decisions survive?

It's time for a large helping of what everyone should have had more of all along, Fiscal Responsibility.

Likely a fake, but a cool video nonetheless....

Plane loses a wing during an air show and then flawlessly lands the plane.

photo courtesy of Travis S.

Video: planeLosesWing.wmv (1.51 MB)

The UAW and what's left of the ‘not-so-big-anymore’ Three.

Photo of the Renaissance Center by Casino Jones

The basic premise of any Trade Union is to work to achieve the common goals of its members. These common goals can range from higher wages, better working conditions, improved benefits, to any key factor affecting member workers. These organizations rose out of 18th century industrialization in order for personnel to collectively bargain for a better deal than they could negotiate on their own. With minimal labor laws on the books and significantly dismal working conditions in industry, these groups championed harsh and unfair conditions through various methods and put power into the hands of rank and file employees who otherwise would have had no capacity to make things any better on their own.

While they bear stark similarities to Medieval Guilds in their member composition, their basic premise diverges significantly. The key difference that makes many modern ones self-defeating is that their interests do not lie in the preservation of the Corporations their workers are employed by. In many cases their only role seems to spite the companies of their members.

Trade Unions exist in order to restore an order lost in the employer’s lack of vested interest in the goals for which the unions are created. They work to restore an order that would otherwise be lost without the collective bargaining power they provide. During early industrialization, these entities were essential to workers.

The case in point is the United Auto Workers Union (UAW). The “Big Three” in the U.S. are often referred to as “Pension Funds that just happen to have car companies attached to them.” Unfortunately, the realization of this just doesn’t become apparent to those who could do something about the situation.

General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler have become dinosaurs that simply cannot compete in today’s market, end of story. Fueled by big oil in more ways than one, they have consciously chosen to continue doing things the way they always worked, “build it and someone will buy it.” With a lineup of models orders of magnitude more numerous than leaner, more efficient competitors, they have lost sight of one of the most basic principals of doing business successfully. “Do one thing, and do it well” Compare the model offerings of Volkswagen or BMW and the problem becomes more apparent. American car companies have become Jacks of All Trades, inherently doing none of them well. Poor management, a disconnect with what consumers want and really need, and I would venture to guess Chronic American Isolationism and inflexibility have all contributed heavily to their serious loss of market share and profitability in the last decade.

However, the most serious problem they currently face is that without major changes in their fundamental ways of conducting business, they will all be gone and carved up to the highest bidder within a year. While too late to save Chrysler, Ford and GM could stand a chance if they would heed the following:

Disband the UAW immediately and fire every worker that refuses to burn their union card.

Harsh as this sounds, and it is, the only way they can hope to have a possible path to viability in the market again is to take this route, effective yesterday if possible. The UAW, and many other Trade Unions, are vestiges of a bygone time and lack relevance in today’s market. How does a group sworn to protect its members do so by being the single largest factor in putting their members’ employers completely out of business? Each and every worker has needs that should be met to the best of the ability of their employer, but let’s be realistic folks. The UAW jumped the shark years ago and this destructive path taken in the name of those it claims to protect is a ruthless paradox.

A recent strike organized by the UAW was one of the most laughable and pointless ventures imaginable. Shutting down the assembly lines for which the end products have few or no interested buyers? This just defies the most basic capitalist principals, Supply and Demand. If the demand for what you supply is severely waning, bullying those in charge of selling these outmoded and undesirable products has no hope of improving your situation.

The pension plans put into place by the Big Three during good economic times, and dependent on the continuation of that prosperity are going to have to be re-evaluated and modified such that they are sustainable. An overarching symbol that applies to several parts of this equation is Sustainability. Sustainable promises to employees, or none at all if nothing can truly be delivered, sustainable products that meet the needs of the consumer, and sustainable long term plans which take into account diminishing demands for the product the way it is currently made.

Obviously there is no silver bullet, but the UAW and the policies it has bargained for and put into place are killing auto-making in this country. This is not something that can be fixed; it needs to go away as quickly as possible such the Big Three can rapidly generate plans for a road to recovery. It’s only a starting point, but a crucial one that cannot be ignored. The dichotomy between what the workers really want and need and what the UAW is fighting for on their behalf should be abundantly obvious by now, but somehow is not. There is no blood to be had from a turnip, no matter how effectively you negotiate with said turnip.

The current efforts by the Obama camp, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Harry Reid, are wholly misguided and if carried through will only prolong the inevitable, and do so on our dime. If companies are poorly managed, make bad decisions, and can no longer compete in the market due to the culminations of decisions they have made and directions they have freely chosen to go, then they fully deserve their fate. Loans and government subsidies seem like a quick fix to do what we can to save these companies, but let’s face it they just aren’t worth saving. They had their fair chance, and face-planted in the dirt time and time again. It’s simple capitalism, and Darwin wouldn’t have it any other way.

 ---->   

Twitticator 0.1 is a little application that pushes your Microsoft Communicator status to Twitter each time you make an update to it.

The complete source code can be found below the binaries. Enjoy!

MD5 hash for TwitticatorApp.exe 5611D2B10CAC7B6387F96F3D0DE50EBF
MD5 hash for CommunicatorAPI.dll: 8EA40A1E7C6C3EA0527DD39AA892B72B

Updates and new features coming soon:

• Bi-directional support to push Twitter status to communicator
• Secure storage of your Twitter username and password
• I welcome your suggestions!
  

No Warranties, expressed or implied.  Use at your own risk.

Windows Binaries
twitticator.zip (29.83 KB)*Not currently working, will fix soon!

Source Code
TwitticatorSourceCode.zip (167.75 KB) *Not currently working, will fix soon!

While playing around with wireshark briefly as a possible tool to use around here, I ran into something rather interesting/weird.  Below is a packet Outlook sent to Exchange today from my box.  "Windows for Workgroups 3.1a" !?!  There's some old stuff in that protocol.  I'm pretty sure we don't have Windows 3.anything running here.

0000  00 00 0c 07 ac 00 00 1c  23 28 c2 c6 08 00 45 00   ........ #(....E.
0010  00 b1 86 15 40 00 80 06  bc e3 9d ab 27 bf 9d ab   ....@... ....'...
0020  54 38 0a 08 01 bd 05 82  c8 ae 9b 35 cb 90 50 18   T8...... ...5..P.
0030  ff ff ef 02 00 00 00 00  00 85 ff 53 4d 42 72 00   ........ ...SMBr.
0040  00 00 00 18 53 c8 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ....S... ........
0050  00 00 00 00 ff fe 00 00  00 00 00 62 00 02 50 43   ........ ...b..PC
0060  20 4e 45 54 57 4f 52 4b  20 50 52 4f 47 52 41 4d    NETWORK  PROGRAM
0070  20 31 2e 30 00 02 4c 41  4e 4d 41 4e 31 2e 30 00    1.0..LA NMAN1.0.
0080  02 57 69 6e 64 6f 77 73  20 66 6f 72 20 57 6f 72   .Windows  for Wor
0090  6b 67 72 6f 75 70 73 20  33 2e 31 61 00 02 4c 4d   kgroups  3.1a..LM
00a0  31 2e 32 58 30 30 32 00  02 4c 41 4e 4d 41 4e 32   1.2X002. .LANMAN2
00b0  2e 31 00 02 4e 54 20 4c  4d 20 30 2e 31 32 00      .1..NT L M 0.12.

The Green Drinks Greensboro chapter has its second meeting this evening at Natty Greens Brew Pub in downtown Greensboro.  With 88 members on the current email list and 30 people attending the first meeting, I would venture to say it's off to a successful start.  I look forward to seeing you there!

From Greendrinks.org:

"We're off to a great start.  Over 30 people showed up at the very first event!  The next date is....

When:   July 16th, 5:30pm                                        
Where:  Natty Greene's Brewing Company, 2nd Floor
Why:     See below...

What is Green Drinks Greensboro? It's a social hour.  It's a networking event.  It's unwinding with friends.  It's a time and place where it's okay to be green and to find out what others in your city are doing to be green, work green, play green, or live green.  And it happens all over the country and the world in over 300 cities.  Proving that it's never too late to join the green movement, Green Drinks Greensboro will be meeting every third Wednesday of the month on the 2nd floor of Natty Greene's Brewing Company (345 S. Elm St.) starting from 5:30 until 7:30(ish).

Green Drinks Greensboro invites all those who care about the environment, teach about and learn about the environment, work in an environment-related field, have interest in the environment, environmental products, sustainable building, environmental protection, eating local, ecological design, alternative energy…you get the idea.  There will be no agenda and there are no dues. From time-to-time we will allow a few minutes for short presentations. To get on our e-mail list, simply send an email to greendrinksgso@gmail.com and we will keep you posted on our events.  See you there!"

Good Job Plurk!  I won't be doing that again.

This is what happens when you use their built-in 'feature' to add people you already know from another service, such as Gmail. 

Have we not heard of using ssl or form submission without using querystring values?  It's really not that difficult guys...