Sip

Oh they don't teach you stuff like this in school! Ok I'll slowly give the answer Solution to Coin Toss among untrusted parties ... it has to do with prime factorization. It is very hard to find out the prime factors of a number ... especially if it is very big. It basically comes down to checking things one by one! So if the number is huge, you have many many things to check which will basically take "forever". But, it is relatively easy to find (generate) really big prime numbers. I am not too familiar with the math involved, but I know they can do it since basically crypto relies on it. So if you are the person tossing the coin, you generate 3 huge prime numbers. If the answer is head, you multiply 2 of them and send it. If the answer is tails, you multiply all 3 of them and send it! The key is, that when I have the number that you sent, it would be very hard for me to figure out what it's factors are (i.e. to check to see if it has 3 prime factors or 2 prime factors). However, later on, when you provide me with the factors, I can simply check to see if I only need to multiply 2 of them to get the answer or three of them (heads or tails)! Pretty amazing huh?! Again I am not a crypto expert but I am told that if you can find a way (an algorithm) to do prime factorization very quickly, you will basically break most major encryption schemes. It's probably a little more complicated than that though So since you have no more hair left, I can just throw out as many problems as I want right? So here's another one. The previous was trusted communication ... this one is shared secrets: Shared Secrets Problem Suppose you and I don't trust each other. But, we have to keep a piece of information, like a password to some account. There is a third party that we both trust. So now, the problem of the third party is to give out that piece of information (let's say it's a number) to both of us, such that neither one will know what the real information (like the password) was, on our own. But both of us together will be able to recover it. This means, come up with a scheme to split a piece of information (a big number) between 2 people, such that neither one on their own can figure it out ... but both together can recover it when they need to. Note: There are many ways to do the above. So as long as you can show your method will work its great! Also, have in mind that the general form of this question is having n people sharing a secret, such that k of them can get together and recover the secret. I have heard this general case but don't have a good solution. If anyone has any ideas, let me know!!! (there could be an answer somewhere but I haven't looked). However, I do have a scheme in mind for the simple case above which I think works... oh and my answer doesn't deal with prime numbers (I re-read this whole thing and realized that it may seem like the problems are related ... they may be but I am not sure!) [ March 09, 2002, 07:49 PM: Message edited by: Sip ]

Wow THOTH, that is an amazing story! Actually, the only memory I have of my great grandmother is of her making breakfast. She died when I was 3 and I don't remember anything else about her ... other than these few images of her that one morning making me breakfast in the kitchen. Actually, she was making what we call "gogli" (I don't know if it is a standard term) ... that's when they beat raw eggs and sugar really fast ... extremely delicous! I guess the vivid sounds and her quick motions (exactly that energy that you are talking about) wipping the eggs in the glass made a very deep impression in my memory since I remember that instant extremely well. Believe it or not, I can even recall the appliances, the chairs, the table, even the color of the her cloths she was wearing that day! Pretty mind boggeling considering I must have been about 3 years old and I didn't spend much time in that place Actually, it may be one of the earliest things I can trully remember in my life. [ March 09, 2002, 07:16 PM: Message edited by: Sip ]

quote:Originally posted by Domino:Sip In case you missed my point, it was a "satire" Damn! This is the second time you got me in 2 days. I re-read your post and now I understand what you meant. I find it that using things like ... really help sometimes.

Ok so here's my problem. Anytime there is an "Armenian" gathering, official or un-official, like at someone's house, IMMEDIATELY after food is served and eaten things are cleared away. This is not so much of a problem in the official settings when I am a guest ... ... but when among friends, relaxing somewhere, maybe on vacations, the females can't wait till everyone is done eating before they jump and start cleaning, putting things away, running around like chickens with their heads cut off ... in most cases making another round of "Armenian" (or Turkish) coffee. That just makes me feel horrible since I HATE when the men just sit while the women do all the cleanup. BUT, I don't know about anyone else but usually when I have finished eating, I just can't move for about 30 mins ... especially at the pace where women usually run around cleaning things up. So then I feel bad that I didn't help So here's my question: Why is it such that especially in our Armenian culture, the food table is cleared away soooo quickly after eating? Why can't people wait a few minutes or maybe an hour? I understand that some food must be put away in the fridge or it will go bad. But the plates don't care if you wash them 5 mins or 50 mins after being used!!!! Oh and one more thing ... sometimes the women even insist that you go away and let them do their job. I don't know which one is worse, sitting and doing nothing or trying to help and being told that you are doing something wrong (but that's a different topic). I am NOT lazy, just give me a few minutes to relax after eating and I will be happy to help in the cleanup efforts ... I sometimes get the feeling that the women are "programmed" to jump and do the things that I mentioned above, otherwise they will be looked down upon and thought of as being lazy. Just wanted to say, I don't think so ... am I then "not a real Armenian" as our friend Arthur would say?

quote:Originally posted by Domino:I have a suggestion. Why not making political parties, "Conservatives", "Progressists" etc... and start an ellection and from the votes decide the president of this forum and the ministers(moderators) ? ... I think the people that started and are operating this forum own it. You have to play by their rules or you are welcome to leave. As far as I know, Movses and Garo are they guys in charge. It is their forum, their servers, their rules... no one is forced to participate here so please, lets take some time to thank these guys for making this place possible. Suggestions, comments, criticisms are always great but after all, this is a "free" service provided by these guys who contribute out of their free will. I trully appreciate that right now, there are no pop up banner ads, solicitations to buy, and to pay, etc etc (as far as I have seen). I think if there are any organized efforts what so ever, there should be some funds collected and sent to these guys for their efforts. Running a server like this is NOT FREE ... it's not even cheap!!!

quote:Originally posted by Domino:... You tough you got me on that, did you not ? ... I thought I did but you got me back! Very good recovery I think you have a very good point that I was not thinking about at all. I had just assumed that all variables represented finite values. quote:Originally posted by Domino:... what if there is a kind of 1/0 for that will end up of having a 0/0 form. See ? I think I understood everything you said except that line. Can you please clarify? I agree now that in the general case, if you don't specify finite ( alpha < a < beta, alpha < b < beta, ... , alpha < z < beta, for a finite alpha and beta) then that polynomial is not well defined ... i.e. you could have an inf*0 type of a a situation.

I just assume it is zero becuase you have the term (x-x) in there

quote:Originally posted by ARTURian:Sip, childish? How much money have you made in your life to call me a child? Once again, believe it or not in the SAME thread, I had to resort to pictures since I am at a loss for words. http://zr2.cs.ucla.edu/Sip/zr2/crazy.jpg To everyone: I am 99.9% sure this "Arthurian" person is not serious. I was not sure before (I had a feeling for a while) but now I am certain. It is just someone trying to have "fun" Arthur or whoever you are, this is not funny anymore because people are under the impression that you are serious.

quote:Originally posted by nellie:... Imagine this: you live in a small, dark room. ... Ah Plato! Now there is some intelligence I am sorry to say but ironically, Arthur's very childish behavior is bringing out some very interesting replies.

Yes, basically that's what has to be done. So we are looking for a function F(x), that has these properties: 1) F(x) must be completely defined. Both parties have to know it before tossing the coin. 2) F(x) is uniquely defined for any given x, i.e. if you have any different x1 and x2, then F(x1) is NOT equal to F(x2) 3) It must be VERY hard to determine inverse of F(x). That means one should not be able to easily go back from F to x. This way, if I do the toss and the outcome is x, I send you the F(x). You still have NO idea what x is but later, when I tell you what x was, you can verify it by applying F(x) to it and checking to see if it matches to what I sent earlier. Basically, this is how 1-way hash functions work (like MD5 and SHA). I have a feeling that the square rooting method you proposed first has a problem with #2 above. You have to specify your method very clearly and then we can check to see if it works Edit: In this problem things are simple since there are only 2 things that can happen ... heads or tails. So our function is just a simple way of "encoding" the heads or the tails information. [ March 08, 2002, 02:34 PM: Message edited by: Sip ]

I am thinking that maybe it's time for another hint ... sorry if it is annoying to give slow hints but I always think once a problem is "solved" it is not fun anymore The hint from cryptography is about prime number factorization (it is VERY hard to do). --- Light bulb solution as Azat mentioned ... The key is to use another piece of information that physical light bulbs provide! What you do is: turn 2 lights on. Wait a while, turn one of them off. Go to the room with the lights. You have 3 lights. One will be on, 2 will be off, one of those 2 will be WARM! So the one that is WARM is the one that you turned off after waiting for some time. [ March 08, 2002, 08:18 AM: Message edited by: Sip ]

quote:Originally posted by aurguplu:... loving your culture, your way of life does not mean you have to hate everything that doesn't fit it.

quote:Originally posted by sdcheung:...are these the sites where you go looking for love and Romance? Yes Why, should we be looking somewhere else? I think you can find ANYTHING on google

quote:Originally posted by ARTURian:I will simply leave this forum. But close this topic. It is not nice to talk about person behind his back. This is a public forum. There is no way anything can be said behind anyone's back on these pages.

quote:Originally posted by ARTURian:... You different guys everyday? Chinese, brazilian etc... Smoke it have sex like a cat, then tell fairy tails to your kids with your smoked with hash brain how many black you've had in your life and how many times you've cheated on your husband!!!!! Arthur, I can't find any words to describe what I think of your post but I think this picture describes it best: http://zr2.cs.ucla.edu/Sip/zr2/fishing.jpg What is it that bothers you so much? You don't smoke? You don't drink? You don't have sex? (oops, I said the bad word, sorry about that last one). I forgot that Armenians aren't supposed to have sex since Armenian childeren are delivered in boxes made of gold from Heaven. By the way, I am fairly certain you drink alcohol especially because of your picture in your profile. So what is soooo different about the alcohol that you drink and the hash that Kazza is talking about ... and I hope you won't say "because it was written somewhere" or "because my dad told me" ... tell my why, I, as hopefully an intelligent human should be able to drink alcohol and yet NOT touch hash at all [ March 07, 2002, 08:00 PM: Message edited by: Sip ]

Cool!!!! Now only if I had about $49,996.23 more I could bid on it

Are you sure Hasmik jan? Some of us are really lazy and only want to do it with 1 trip Is it possible? (hint, it is!)

Oh and I forgot to say that the answer I have in mind basically comes from cryptography. It uses the same principles as what your browser does to do public key encryption But to those who have no idea what I am saying, don't worry, you don't have to know cryptography to understand the answer.

hmmmm that's very interesting Azat jan. The thing is that if I know you are taking square roots 3 times, then when you give me the number I can work it backwards, determine if the original number was odd or even and then base my decision on that. So can you come up with a "function" where going backwards would be very very hard to do. I don't think square root would work but I am not 100% sure. Edit: On second thought, since you said you are giving the last 5 digits (I had assumed least significant, but I am thinking maybe you meant most significant) then it could maybe work. The think is that maybe there are two numbers which have the same "last 5 digits" that work out to odd and even things initial numbers ... [ March 07, 2002, 11:59 AM: Message edited by: Sip ]

Ok for those who figured out the light thing (Azat, Hasmiek, etc) already ... do you want another one? This one is actually one of my favorites... Question How can two people do a "coin toss" on the phone (or by email, fax, etc) if they can't trust each other? As you know with a coin toss, someone calls heads, the other calls tails, you flip a coin and then whoever called the right thing wins. The problem here is that the 2 people can't trust each other but they still need to do a coin toss. To make matters worse, is that one will do the toss but the other is not physically there to make sure everything is ok. So, any ideas on how it can be done? [ March 07, 2002, 10:23 AM: Message edited by: Sip ]

Ok I'll give another hint and PM you the answer. Check your personal messages when you really give up I am assuming that you are probably thinking computer science-ish (like I did) ... i.e. you are thinking that with each trip you can figure out 2 lights (on/off) ... since there are 3 lights, you have to have at least 2 trips. So clearly pure "logic" (1/0) analysis will not work Of course, I did NOT get the answer to this problem myself. Some one had to tell me!

quote:Originally posted by Edita:DE karaq aseq,e....... Ten people can paint 60 houses in 120 days, so five people can paint 30 houses in how many days? 10 people, 60 houses, 120 days ... that means 1 person, 6 houses, 120 days ... that means 1 person, 1 house, 20 days. If that's true, then we have 5 people, 30 houses ... 5 people, 6 houses each, meaing 120 days again. Assuming that is correct ... here's the next problem. It is fairly well known in certain crowds these days as it has been known to appear on Microsoft internship interiew tests. It's a cool problem (not really math but I guess math has many meanings!): Question: There are 3 light bulbs in a room. There is another room with 3 switches with ON/OFF positions. Each switch controls one of the lights. How many times do you have to go from room to room to figure out which switch controls which light? (the goal is to figure out the switches with as few trips between rooms as possible). [ March 06, 2002, 11:43 PM: Message edited by: Sip ]

Very interesting thoughts guys. I agree HighFlyer that the key will be abstraction, i.e. each individual human will be an expert on a specific thing and many humans combined will from an amazing intelligence that together can create something that is much more amazing than a single human alone Now to computers vs. Brain ... maybe I have a different perspective than the average person since I can see that today's computers are not really that intelligent. They have to be told pretty much everything ... they also have to be told every step on how to process things. However, I was recently exposed to some research results on how the human mind works. More specifically, on how the brain detects objects that it sees. It is completely fascinating ... we still know fairly little but it's just amazing how complicated the process is and if you think about it how well humans can recognize different objects that may even look very similar. A single neuron in the human brain is a very simple thing. But when you have billions and billions of them interconnected together, you get some very amazing abilities with extremely complex behavior! Currently we are reaching the point of having billions of transistors on a single chip. However, their connections are almost always very well defined and do not change during the lifetime of a chip. So in this way, computers can do fairly regular tasks amazingly well. However, they will never (or at least it will take a VERY long time) till they can become as sophisticated as the human brain. Our brain is NOT very fast (I think the neurons fire on the order of a few micro seconds or something like that). It will never be able to compete with even a 1 GHz chip that can do at least 1 BILLION operation per second (1 per nano-second). But the brain can do many many things at the same time and most important of all, it is always adapting and learning. The connections keep changing and so do the patterns to which it responds. I think the Turing test is still a very good one. It was proposed by Alan Turing in the 50s. It is a well known subject among the AI (Artificial Intelligence) crowd. The test basically says, let a human interact with the "AI". If after a short period of time, the human is NOT convinced that it is dealing with another human, then it is NOT intelligent!!!!

Talking of where games are going ... Anyone ever heard of or played Zac McCracken or Maniac Mansion? These two are the most amazing computer game creations I have ever seen. Both done by Lucas Arts in the early 80s ... I played them on C64 first but I also have them on PC. Both together take less than a few kilobytes of memory and the graphics and sound are naturally very very primitive. But they have such amazingly deep storylines and gripping design that is just amazing ... Anyone heard of these? [ March 05, 2002, 07:51 AM: Message edited by: Sip ]

That is a very interesting point and I have often thought that myself. However, on this board at least, there seem to be a number of very open minded and intelligent people, as well as a number of very close minded traditionalists, as well as a number of conservative religeous types. I don't think your observation that most will dismiss anything non-armenian is true ... also, I am not sure about what you mean about feelings of killing, murdering, etc etc for beings who are not Armenian. I am an Armenian and I have never had those feelings!!! As always, stereotyping never works. Generalizing from a small sample also rarely works. Keep in mind that anything you see, including this, is basically individual opinion and personal statements. What you have to keep in mind is that Armenia is a christian country isolated in a very hostile environment. I am sure you are aware of the systematic attempts that have always existed to erradicate this small nation. If the Armenians did not have this amazing sense of national and self pride, they would not have survived for so long. It may be difficult to understand for someone who has not been in an environment like that. I have never been in Armenia but I was raised in Iran and we faced similar situation there after the Islamic revolution. If we didn't have our Armenian pride, if we didn't have guts to stand up and say we WILL KEEP OUR SCHOOL open, we will continue to teach armenian to our childered, we would have disappeared