Recent Posts

Improve German Public Transportation Public transportation in Germany is much worse than it could be. I've got quite angry today because of that and thought about ways to improve the situation. A story from today: I've bought two tickets to get from Karlsruhe to Augsburg (230 km) in about a month. I wanted to … Read More »

Google Reader Alternatives On July 1, 2013, Google will retire Google Reader (source). A first step should be to save your data (especially your subscriptions). You can do that with Google Takeout. You could also sign a petition against closing Google Reader, but I doubt that this will have any effect. Currently, 106 … Read More »

Google Code Jam 2012 – Round 1C 2012 4230 tried the first problem, but only 3189 people are listed in the scoreboard. Problem 1 (Diamond Inheritance): Small Set: 3077/4230 users (73%) Large Set: 2387/3044 users (78%) Problem 2 (Out of Gas): Small Set: 471/766 users (61%) Large Set: 73/253 users (29%) Problem 3 (Box … Read More »

Google Code Jam 2012 – Round 1B 2012 5614 tried the first problem, but only 3281 people are listed in the scoreboard. So quite a lot tried to solve a problem, but couldn't even solve one. I think these problems were much harder than the ones from Round 1A 2012. Problem 1 (Safety in Numbers): Small Set: 2695 … Read More »

Google Code Jam 2012 – Round 1A 2012 3691 people are listed in the scoreboard, but 3851 tried the first problem. So I guess the number of contestants might even be higher. Problem 1 (Password Problem): Small Set: 3511/3851 users (91%) Large Set: 2329/3376 users (69%) Problem 2 (Kingdom Rush): Small Set: 1912/3466 users (55 … Read More »

Google Code Jam 2012 - Qualification Round I've passed the Qualification Round of Google Code Jam 2012. I've learned, that I am not allowed to submit the large dataset after the first 8 minutes. 18,365 programmers took part in this contest. 15,692 had at least 20 points and advanced to the First Rounds. These are … Read More »

Google Ngram Viewer On October 14, 2010 Google announced that the number of scanned books is over 15 million. They did not simply scan those books, but they digitalized them. They can access not only image files, but the actual text. This allows Google to search in those books and to analyze the … Read More »

Ingenious Autocomplete Did you notice some strange autocomplete-results? Keep in mind that Google gets those suggestions by other searches. They don't employ someone who tries to guess what you mean. So many others have searched for the term which is suggested. Here are some I've tested: Some nations: If you really like … Read More »

Epic Translation Fails Online translation programs are getting better and they are great if you want to get a vague idea of the content of a Chinese website. Never the less you should know that the translations are not good enough by now: "Spielzeugladen" is German and means "toy store" Note the missing … Read More »