http://www.necessaryandsufficient.net Damien Wintour's personal musings on technology, mathematics, startups and leadership. Fri, 02 Jul 2010 09:54:34 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Code Jam 2010 started with a qualification round that was harder than previous years. The first problem, Snapper Chain, involves a series of N switches arranged in sequence, that toggle when you snap your fingers if they are receiving power. The problem asks that you indicate if a light plugged ... http://www.necessaryandsufficient.net/2010/05/google-code-jam-2010-snapper-chain/ To understand the current sovereign debt problems in Europe one has to understand the monetary policy options available to the government of a sovereign state. Basically, there are several options available to manage national debt: Print More Money Devalue the Currency Raise Taxes Raise More Money Default Let's run through each of these options and consider ... http://www.necessaryandsufficient.net/2010/05/a-greek-tragedy-sovereign-debt-and-liquidity-issues/ Here's my top 10 for a good architect / team leader (in no particular order): Has superb technical and communication skills that make him/her equally adept at communicating to business stakeholders and technical personnel. Owns the day-to-day execution of a team by comitting to objectives, driving decision-making, and removing obstacles. Understands the current ... http://www.necessaryandsufficient.net/2010/04/a-good-architect-team-lead/ Lifted Conversions These apply to nullable value types that were introduced in .NET 2. Prior to this reference types were obviously nullable but value types, like int, long, double, decimal, etc, were NOT nullable making it hard to figure out if a value had been set or not without resorting to ... http://www.necessaryandsufficient.net/2010/04/lifted-conversions-and-operators-in-c/ Not so long ago the magazine Fast Company published a list of the most innovative companies. Business Week also seems to run periodic articles on corporate innovation as well [that's Marissa Mayer of Google on the cover]. And, of course, there is a World Innovation forum for conference-junkies. Lots of ... http://www.necessaryandsufficient.net/2010/04/a-culture-of-innovation/