What's it all about, Alfie?

Another trip around the sun, and my birthday has arrived. I don't imagine I'll be doing anything all the special today... probably just watching the last three Mission Impossible movies - so good... and just staying home.

There is a little snow on the ground, and it's chilly, so the crazy 50s weather seems to have moved on, for now, and it's back to more normal December weather becore the cold stuff really arrives. Oh... it's coming, it's always coming...

No big plans for this year... just want a little peace. 🙂

Today, the first part of Advent of Code was to run an Intcode program, and move a droid around the inside of Santa's ship. It was really just an Adventure Game, and after exploring the game, you needed to pick up certain items, and then bring them to the pressure plate to make sure you "pass", and get through to see Santa.

I remember doing something like this with the original Zork, on the machines back at Purdue in the early 1980s... and so I was used to the idea of making a map as I explored:

Once I picked up all the things I could pick up - and there were plenty that I couldn't, I took them all to the room, and dropped what I couldn't carry. That was a lot easier than changing up the path each time to pick up only what I needed.

Now I need to go back and solve three more days to get all the stars... it's going to be challenging... but I've got a little time. 🙂

It's been a very interesting Christmas Break - as I use up my use-it-or-loose-it vacation time at The Shop, and still... I attend the meetings on Hangouts, and I do what I can to help those that are working during the break... but it's been an interesting time - no doubt about it.

I've watched some interesting TV... I really enjoyed the first season of The Morning Show - but then I really don't like bullies... and I've really enjoyed watching the last three Mission: Impossible movies... and it's been fun to do as much Advent of Code as I can.

There are certainly problems I don't understand the background for, and while I could learn it - I'm not going to learn it now, in 20 min, for a single problem. That's not going to last. But I can come back to it any day, and dig deeper into things like inverse modulo... and some serious computational search space pruning... but in all, it's been fun.

Christmas in a few days, and then a week and it's back to The Shop and the New Year. Lots of changes ahead... lots of things to think about in the next week.

Just finished the Day 1 puzzle to Advent of Code for 2019. And as expected, it was funny, and fun to do. I've been playing with the LeetCode examples - just to stay sharp, and one of the things that Advent of Code provides that LeetCode doesn't is the data files. Sure, I get it... they test after you write the code, but if, like me, you don't choose one of their languages, then you're really out of luck.

Still... I'll keep doing these as long as the authors make them, because they are fun and keep my mind sharp. I am very grateful for these folks... 🙂

UPDATE: some days are going well - others are computationally very hard, and I clearly need to figure out how to solve those. I won't get them all in the first go, but I'll keep at it... 🙂