Never have I undergone such mental pressure in my life.

My team only got one problem solved (#8), which was submitted at the 209th minute of a 300 minute competition. I regret not seeing that problem earlier, and submitting a correct solution before 2/3 of the contest was over. I would gladly bet that that could have motivated us to get another one finished. We were EXTREMELY close to solving #3 and #6, but a single itty-bitty mistake in both cases kept us from getting the correct answer. Our solution for #1 was correct, however it could not execute within the 10 second limit, due to my use of brute-force conversions of numbers to their binary representations (num % 2 for life!)

Here’s our solution to #8 for those interested. It really wasn’t that difficult, but still, it’s “Accepted Solution” receipt is our trophy:

import java.util.Scanner;

public class Problem8 {

	public static void main (String[] args) {
		String input = "";
		Scanner r = new Scanner(System.in);
		int index = 1;

			while (true) {
				input = r.nextLine();

				if (input.length() == 0)
					break;

				input = Problem8.flipAndPrepend(input);
				int[] sub_sum = new int[20];

				for (int i = 0; i < input.length(); i++) {
					int j = (i+1 >= input.length()-1) ? input.length()-1 : i+1;
					if (i == j)
						break;

					char c = input.charAt(i);
					char c2 = input.charAt(j);
					int val1 = Problem8.getRomanValue(c);
					int val2 = Problem8.getRomanValue(c2);

					if (val1 < val2)
						sub_sum[i] = val2-val1;
					else if (val1 >= val2)
						sub_sum[i] = val2+val1;
				}

				int total = 0;
				for (int i = 0; i < sub_sum.length; i++) {
					total += sub_sum[i];
				}

				System.out.println("Case "+(index++)+": total = "+total+"\n");
			}

	}

	public static String flipAndPrepend(String s) {
		String flipped = "";
		boolean even = (s.length() % 2 == 0);

		String t = (!even) ? s.substring(1, s.length()) : s;

		for (int i = t.length() -1 ; i >= 0; i--) {
			flipped += t.charAt(i)+"";
		}
		return flipped+s;
	}

	public static int getRomanValue (char c) {
		int value = 0;
		switch (c) {
			case 'I':
				value = 1; break;
			case 'V':
				value = 5; break;
			case 'X':
				value = 10; break;
			case 'L':
				value = 50; break;
			case 'C':
				value = 100; break;
			case 'D':
				value = 500; break;
			case 'M':
				value = 1000; break;
			default:
				value = 0;
		}
		return value;
	}
}

The hardest part was only having one computer to use between 3 people. The people on my team (myself included) are used to dynamic programming (testing our solution as we go along), and that ended up hurting us in the long run.

I would say there’s always next year, but for me, that isn’t the case. May is only 7 months away….

Why? Aren’t computer nerds constantly the source of being others entertainment by being on? Stereotypically, yes. Actually, I can’t answer, because I’ve never found myself in that situation.

Anyway, back to the point. It’s cool to be a computer nerd because …

(Did the suspense there get you? )

… you know how a computer works, and therefore can make it do whatever you want (within reason). My situation: having tasks to accomplish for homework assignments and class projects that happen to be repetitive. My solution: write a small little program to do the work for me.

This past semester, I have been enrolled in a Data Mining class, which, believe it or not, requires me to analyze and work with HUGE ( somewhere between the MB to GB range ) amounts of data. The calculations, transformations, and statistics that I need to acquire and perform on said data would take me more time than I would actually want to spend on the entire assignment / project. Writing a program saves me that time. Sure, I get headaches and frustrated by the little bugs that arise while I’m writing the program, but it saves me from the even greater levels of headaches and frustrations that come from doing it manually. Plus, you get that nice warm fuzzy sense of accomplishment when a task that would have taken you hours to do manually gets completed in less that 10 seconds.

Proof:

SN1950B_II processed in 0 seconds.
SN1957D_II processed in 0 seconds.
SN1968D_II processed in 0 seconds.
SN1978K_II processed in 0 seconds.
SN1979C_II processed in 0 seconds.
SN1980K_II processed in 0 seconds.
SN1981K_II processed in 0 seconds.
Total running time: 1 seconds.
Processed date from 7 supernovas.