The earliest memory I have of ‘programming’ is in the early/mid 90s when my father brought home a computer from work. We could play games on it … so of course I took the spreadsheet program he used (LOTUS 123, did I date myself with that?) and tried to modify it to print out a helpful message for him. It … halfway worked? At least I could undo it so he could get back to work…

After that, I picked up programming for real in QBASIC (I still have a few of those programs lying around), got my own (junky) Linux desktop from my cousin, tried to learn VBasic (without a Windows machine), and eventually made it to high school… In college, I studied computer science and mathematics, mostly programming in Java/.NET, although with a bit of everything in the mix. A few of my oldest programming posts on this blog are from that time.

After that, on to grad school! Originally, I was going to study computational linguistics, but that fell through. Then programming languages (the school’s specialty). And finally I ended up studying censorship and computer security… before taking a hard turn into the private sector to follow my PhD advisor.

Since then, I’ve worked in the computer security space at a couple of different companies. Some don’t exist any more, some you’ve probably heard of. I still program for fun too, and not just in security.

But really, I still have a habit of doing a little bit of everything. Whatever seems interesting at the time!

AoC 2022 Day 20: Deencryptinator

2022-12-20

Source: Grove Positioning System

Part 1

Given a list of numbers mix them by moving each number forward/backward in the list based on it’s value. For example, in 4, -2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 moving the -2 will result in 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, -2, 9. Each number should be moved exactly once in the original order they appeared in the list.

AoC 2022 Day 19: Blueprintinator

2022-12-19

Source: Not Enough Minerals

Part 1

Given a series of given a series of blueprints, each of which gives instructions for how to build a single robot from a collection of materials that in turn will produce one of a given material per turn, determine the best order of builds to maximize your geode (the most valuable material) production for each blueprint given a time limit of 24 minutes.

AoC 2022 Day 18: Lavinator

2022-12-18

Source: Boiling Boulders

Part 1

Given a list of 1x1x1 cubes, determine the total surface area of the cubes.

AoC 2022 Day 17: Tetrisinator

2022-12-17

Source: Pyroclastic Flow

Part 1

Simulate Tetris on a 7 wide board with a given (infinitely repeated) series of left and right inputs to be applied on each frame before dropping the block and a given (infinitely repeated) set of blocks. Once 2022 blocks have been dropped, what is the total height of the placed blocks?

AoC 2022 Day 16: Pressurinator

2022-12-16

Source: Proboscidea Volcanium

Part 1

Given a graph of nodes, some of which have a pressure (per tick output value) and an agent that can move through the graph and activate specific nodes (so that they output their per tick value every future tick), what is the maximum total output possible in 30 steps?

AoC 2022 Day 15: Beaconator

2022-12-15

Source: Beacon Exclusion Zone

Part 1

There are a collections of Sensors and Beacons. As input, you are given the Beacon closest to each Sensor (using Manhattan Distance). If a Beacon is not closest to any sensor, it will not appear in this list. Calculate how many points in the given row (y=2000000) cannot contain a Beacon.

AoC 2022 Day 14: Sandinator

2022-12-14

Source: Regolith Reservoir

Part 1

Given a series of walls as input, run a falling sand simulation until any new sand falls of the map. Count how many grains of sand we end up with.

AoC 2022 Day 13: List Parsinator

2022-12-13

Source: Distress Signal

Part 1

Given pairs of Signals (where a Signal is a nested list ;example: [[1],[2,3,4]]), count how many pairs are ‘in order’.

One Signal is less than the other if:

Both are an integer and the first is less than the second
Both are a list and the first value is less than the second
- If the first values are the same, compare the second
- If the first has fewer elements, it is treated as less than the second
When comparing an integer and a list, wrap the integer as a single element list and compare them

AoC 2022 Day 12: Climbiantor

2022-12-12

Source: Hill Climbing Algorithm

Part 1

Given a height map, find the shortest path between two points such that the path can descend any distance but can only climb by a maximum of 1.

AoC 2022 Day 11: Monkeyinator

2022-12-11

Source: Monkey in the Middle

Part 1

Simulate a collection of ‘monkeys’. Each monkey will have a number of items which it will then apply a mathematical operation to, then always divide by 3, then test divisibility to pass to one of two other monkeys. Return as answer the product of the two highest number of times a monkey applies it’s main function to individual items after 20 steps.

Note: Monkeys will always be evaluated in order (so monkey 1 will evaluate any items passed by monkey 0 again in the same round).