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I implemented this as an XScreensaver hack a few years back: https://github.com/Acedio/mystical

Was hoping it would be included in the distribution, but sadly never got a response D:


The presenter, Devine, is one of the folks behind 100r :)


:facepalm: no wonder it rang a bell… I thought, “I wonder if these are the same folks” and even looked at their route map but somehow missed that key detail. Appreciate the graceful response :)


Tried seeing how small of a program I could fill the screen with. Came up with this, but feels like there has to be a more elegant solution ^^;

[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[F]]]]]]]]RRF[[R]R]]]]]]]]]


Naive micro-optimization of your program (namely, things like FF is 1 char shorter than [F]) got that down to 40 chars:

    [[[[[[[[[[[[[[[FF]]]]]]]RRF[RRR]]]]]]]]]
I then found a solution in 37 which uses a slightly different approach (namely, create a pattern that spans the full X and Y output space, then shift it by one step each iteration):

    [[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[FFF]]]]]R]]]F]]]]]]]]


I was a projectionist at a local 14-plex for a couple of years back in college. It was a really excellent job for getting homework done while the machines buzzed in the background. I miss the simplicity and meditative quality of threading the machines and keeping everything on schedule, and often find myself wishing I could retreat to a job like that again. The occasional brain wrap (or worse, a thrown film) always kept us on our toes, but otherwise it was generally low stress and gave me plenty of time to think about whatever hobby I was into at the time :)


That's a better solution in general IMO, but the author's approach can guarantee that you'll never go over N calls in a sliding window rather than fixed windows. I don't believe that's possible with the timestamp + count solution. Gotta bring up both solutions and ask the interviewer what they want :)


What's the problem with a sliding window and the timestamp + count solution? lastTime is the timestamp of the last call. newTime is the timestamp of the incoming call. If newTime - lastTime > 60 seconds then you're good to proceed, set count to 1 change lastTime to newTime and go on. Otherwise, check whether count is less than n and proceed accordingly (incrementing count if so). This accomplishes the sliding window and rounding down to the last whole minute handles the fixed window - right?


Reminds me of SimTunes! "Bugs" move around the screen according to simple rules, triggering notes as they pass over them. For example: https://youtu.be/DAluHrsCKxw


SimTunes was (and will always be) a huge source of inspiration for me. Played it a bunch as a kid. :)


From the article:

>> It's to be expected that these cameras might have little impact on the behavior of police officers in Washington, D.C., he says, because this particular force went through about a decade of federal oversight to help improve the department.

Seems as though the D.C. PD didn't have many issues that needed correcting?


Could be wrong, but I believe the areas you're referring to as continuous are the areas where it takes a while for the first flip to occur (if it ever does). Once a flip happens, neighboring cells seem to diverge quite quickly.


The actual play starts at 29:00 (https://youtu.be/Ukq29ePnTqI?t=29m00s), but the video streaming through the SNES starts at 55:50 (https://youtu.be/Ukq29ePnTqI?t=55m50s).


Thanks for the timestamps. That's incredible!


Yeah, I think the effect would have been better had they explained what was going on immediately rather than saving it until the end. Very cool tech, regardless :)


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