I'm a traveling man, don't tie me down

RE: I'm a traveling man, don't tie me down

Alan Dean — Tue, 30 Sep 2003 15:15:00 GMT

It seems to me that the solution is a probabilistic algorithm. Each time you view a film, you gain more knowledge as to the probability of watching the film more than once. This explains the behaviour of buying classic movies from the past without having watched the DVD version. If you watch a film once, the probability of watching becomes more known than before you watched it. For example, if the film was dross you may think "the chances of me watching that film again are nil! Heck, if it comes on I'm leaving the room." When you make it probabilistic, other behaviours start to make more sense too - why do we ask our friends and peers what they think of a new release? Because we can factor in the extent to which those who share our tastes enjoyed a film to our decision to view. As an aside, I think that this is the driver behind the Amazon "people who bought this also bought" feature set.

RE: I'm a traveling man, don't tie me down

Ben Wilhelm — Fri, 26 Sep 2003 08:53:00 GMT

The only problem with precalculating is that if your data changes, you have to remember to precalculate it again. I write games for the PS2, and we'd be doomed without some form of precalculation . . . but on the minus side, rebuilding a level takes anywhere from an hour to a day to get it in full working order again. Luckily it's all automated - in fact, we can rebuild the entire game with two commands if we want - but it's just a bit slow.

RE: I'm a traveling man, don't tie me down

Bruce — Thu, 25 Sep 2003 06:25:00 GMT

Another good trick is to pre-calculate when possible. If the program is always calculating the postman's path for the same set of cities, you're better off just calculating the ideal path once in advance, and hard-coding that knowledge in your program.

RE: I'm a traveling man, don't tie me down

Eric Lippert — Thu, 25 Sep 2003 04:46:00 GMT

Indeed. In fact, I've taken to doing crossword puzzles. I can usually do the entire USATODAY crossword puzzle in one shuttle trip, but USATODAY publishes pretty unchallenging puzzles.

RE: I'm a traveling man, don't tie me down

Deadprogrammer — Thu, 25 Sep 2003 04:17:00 GMT

You can always sell a dvd on ebay. Also, you can read while waiting for the shuttle. And you can also read on the shuttle.

RE: I'm a traveling man, don't tie me down

Eric Lippert — Thu, 25 Sep 2003 04:13:00 GMT

Hmm, come to think of it, it would be better to buy the DVD on the fourth viewing. Then the worst case is 4 viewings for $42, which is less than twice the optimal case. But whatever, you take my point I'm sure. Don't forget people, my degree is in MATHEMATICS, not ARITHMETIC.