Tribute to a top coder who called himself humblefool...Harsha Suryanarayana

Some leave a lasting impression after just one meeting

Some don't even after many meetings

There are some who leave a lasting impression even when you don't meet them

They inspire by their deeds and philosophy towards life

One such person that i heard of recently went by the handle 'humblefool' on topcoder. His name - Harsha Suryanarayana.

He was a Red coder in topcoder, one of the firsts from India.

Sadly, he was recalled by God on June 15th 2014. He was just 32.

Here's a tribute published on him.

Look for his answers on Quora here.

His friend Animesh writes about him here.

Here's the youtube channel that he and his friends started. Just watched a few videos and I am guessing that this video on maximum sum sub array could have been his. Beautiful videos - thank you humblefool, Animesh and gang!

He was fondly called 'The Lord' and may 'The Lord' live in the great code that everyone writes.

Introduction to Big Data by Gopal V at Foss.in - pure awesomeness

Watch it here on HasGeek.tv or on youtube. Just awesome!

CodeChef JULY long and cookoff problems

My performance was bad in July. Could solve 2 problems in the long contest:CSUB, RETPO and 2 in the Cookoff: RRCOPY, RRSUM.

Got stuck with FROGV in the long contest and FRNDS in the Cookoff. Need to do better.

Read Anudeep's blog to get more inspiration: 
http://blog.anudeep2011.com/ioi-and-acm-learning-community/
http://blog.anudeep2011.com/when-2-guys-talk-its-not-always-about-girlssports/

Neat introduction to Combinatorial games

I was looking to solve Hackerrank w7 challenges and one problem was about the game of Nim. After that, I started to look up good introductions to Nim. I found this one interesting: comb.pdf

I found it very useful to understand the game.

This one talks about Backward induction, P-positions and N-positions. Just what is required.

Udacity.com : CS101: Introduction to Computer Science done :-)

Got my CS101 completion certificate. Awesome learning and Prof.David Evans rocked the students for sure. 

Next will be start off my project (more later). 

Also, started the CS212: Design of Computer Programs by Dr.Peter Norvig.

Sad part is that Udacity is discontinuing the issue of certificates for the free courses :-(

CodeChef May 2014 Long challenge problems...

I have always regarded CodeChef very highly for the kind of problems they come up with and the tutorials after the contests. May 2014 has quite a few interesting problems of which I have solved 3: OJUMPS, RRSTONE and COMPILER. Attempting the Strange Matrix now (CHEFBM)

The name in CAPS are the problem codes.

Feels blissful to solve problems :-)

32 Most important algorithms...

Got to this link: 32 most important algorithms from Stefan Buettcher from Information retrieval: implementing and evaluating search engines and got here: wumpus-search.

Book: Elements of Programming Interviews

Elements of Programming Interviews (EPI) is an an amazing book. Here's the official link for the book. I tried solving one of the very first problems about maximizing the profit of buying and selling shares. A very interesting problem indeed. Strongly recommend this book for people interested to sharpen their algorithm skills.

I also have their previous version: AFI (Algorithms For Interviews).

A big thank you to the authors for a superb book.

How to visualize a nano second and a pico second!

Watch this video by Admiral Grace Hopper.
How did i get there? From the Udacity 'Introduction to Computer Science' class by Prof.David Evans.

Art of Guessing by Prof.George Polya - must watch http://vimeo.com/48768091 :-)

Reasonable guessing? Watch this video by Prof.George Polya and feel the bliss.

Book: How to solve it by Prof.George Polya

Bought the book 'How to solve it' by Prof.George Polya. Need to internalize the methods. Highly recommended for problem solvers :-)