[Chicago] January Meeting Recap.

[Martin Maney]

On Fri, Jan 13, 2006 at 12:55:46PM -0600, Jason R Huggins wrote:
> * Michael Tobis attempted to explain the winning, losing, and cheating 
> solutions to pycontest.net. Brains were broken in the process. For the 

BTW, I found what may be a piece of someone's brain in my jacket pocket
afterwards.  If you're missing a sliver, let me know.  Messy work,
breaking brains...

> record, #5 (Ian) and #196 (Michael) were in attendance. (There were a few 
> others who competed, too, but I can't remember the names.)

The version I submitted came it at #98.  I didn't talk about it too
much since there wasn't much left to add after having gone over
Michael's fairly readable verison and Ian's scrunched-up one. I did get
an opportunity to mention the Chinese Remainder theorm while
"explaining" where the magic numbers in the winning entry came from. 
(although as Andre described it, he actually found the values by a
simple brute force search, and so felt lucky that they all existed).

-- 
Microsoft, which used to say all the time that the software business
was ruthlessly competitive, is now matched against a competitor whose
model of production and distribution is so much better that Microsoft
stands no chance of prevailing in the long run. They're simply trying
to scare people out of dealing with a competitor they can't buy,
can't intimidate and can't stop. -- Eben Moglen