Studio711 - Ben Martens - All Comments

re: Whips

Dudley — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 23:58:05 GMT

((2x4)+(2x2))/4 = Average of 3 wheels per vehicle.

Sounds like you're not that far from the trike you started with. (I really wish I could post a photo here.) Of course if we could factor in average speed, there might be a difference.

re: Vancouver Olympics Day Trip

ChelseaS — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 15:37:26 GMT

Wow! Canada makes me look creepy.

re: With This Ring

Chris — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 02:39:22 GMT

I look forward to seeing those rings up close and personal. Made reservations for Seattle two days ago.

Happy anniversary to "Dudley" and his bride.

re: With This Ring

BenM — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 17:24:34 GMT

Haha Dad, look down at your hands. Hold out your thumbs. The one that makes an L shape is your left hand.

re: With This Ring

SuperStar — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 15:58:17 GMT

WOO!! Imagine my excitement when I opened your blog to see a picture of my beautiful ring! I can't wait till you get to wear yours too!!!

re: With This Ring

Karen — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 12:36:09 GMT

right hand?

re: With This Ring

Dudley — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 12:09:51 GMT

Mine is on my right hand, where my bride placed it 33 years ago today.

re: DAWG Part 2

bwmartens — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 16:59:22 GMT

For this specific case when you're looking up a whole word, a hashtable does perform well (about the same as this data structure.) However, it is impractical in a real Boggle environment because there you are constantly looking to see if a string is a valid word OR a valid prefix. So if I used a hashtable, I would have to store every prefix of every word and that 100K word list explodes into a seemingly infinite (but not really) number of hashtable entries. So this little test was just to see that, since I have to use the dawg, what is the worst case? Turns out to be not that bad really. Although actually it's more than 89 nodes because I would have searched for "s" and then "su" and then "sup" etc.

re: DAWG Part 2

JimM — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 13:27:15 GMT

Why don't you put your nodes into a hashtable for quicker lookup? You're loading all of this into memory anyway, yes?

re: Directed Acyclic Word Graph

Dudley — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 18:42:00 GMT

Great post! I really want to say "Mind Boggling", but you explained it very well, so by the end of the article, no boggling remained.)

I think I need to get a phone like yours so I can take advantage of the free apps! (They would be free for friends and family, right?)

re: Credit Card Fraud

Mom — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 16:44:17 GMT

Our card is a charge card. We agree, don't use debit online! I suppose I'm just upset since we should have cancelled the card the first time. We didn't have to pay then, and I'm sure we won't have to pay now. There is just a lot paper work and its a slow process. Not to mention its unsettling.

re: Credit Card Fraud

Chris — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 00:45:16 GMT

Was your Citi card a debit card? The dispute process is different for them and requires the completion of a sworn statement. Also, with a debit card YOUR money is gone, not the card company's. With credit cards, it's the card company's money that is gone since you do not have to pay disputed items until they are proven. For that reason, the bank I work at suggests that people not use debit cards online.

re: Credit Card Fraud

Mom — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 13:03:34 GMT

To add to my comment above...our Universal card is with Citi and the charges were for close to $2000!! We don't get the charges taken off until we send in a form disputing them. I have really lost faith with Citi.

re: Credit Card Fraud

Mom — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 12:23:29 GMT

It sure is unsettling when this happens. Its strange our card numbers were stolen near the same time, but ours was for over $1000 and all online USPS charges. We have a Master Card with Universal Card, and while they have been okay in helping us (and they called when they saw the charges come through), we have lost faith in them and will be looking for a new card. This is the second time our number was stolen. The first time Universal encouraged us to keep our card as it was only a $100 online purchase and they felt it wasn't fraud but an entry mistake. Then 3 months later we have over $1000 to dispute! To hear that Chase caught a $5 charge and called you, really makes me unhappy with Universal!!! I will never assume a charge I didn't make was just an entry mistake again, and will cancel my card immediately. I guess we were a little stupid and believed people we shouldn't have.

re: Valentine’s Day

SuperStar — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 15:45:18 GMT

Thanks for dinner, it was DELICIOUS!!!!!!! I love you too!