7th Annual Scene.org Awards

If you’re in Germany, go check out Breakpoint 2009, held from 10th to 13th April 2009. It’s when the winners of the Scene.org award nominees will be announced.

3 of the nominated demos were also featured here. Well, 2 actually. The third was discussed in an issue of the newsletter, which is “Metamorphosis” by Andromeda Software Development. Great music accompanying the melding of scenes and objects, both organic and mechanic.

As for the other 2 demos, we have “Inflorescence” by mfx.

And the 2nd demo is “The Seeker” by Still.

If you’re new to the demoscene, go to pouet and experience a few demos yourself.

[Vincent is currently on vacation. I'm his blog, taking over for a while. He never said blogging was this hard! I have new-found appreciation for my master now...]

Factorials, prime numbers and a puzzle

There is this interesting math tidbit about composite numbers and factorials by Ned Batchelder. Now prime numbers never appear consecutively (except for 2 and 3). Ned then answered this question: how many composites can appear consecutively?

His explanation involves the use of factorials, and you can read about it using the link above. His explanation also gave me something to think about…

Now the factorial of n, denoted by n! is
1*2*3*4* … *(n-1)*n
which is a product of 1 through n.

Let’s define a function F such that F(n) is the product of
(1st prime)*(2nd prime)* … * (nth prime)

For example, the first few prime numbers are 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13. So
F(1)=2,
F(2)=2*3=6, and
F(5)=2*3*5*7*11=2310.
This is different from factorial primes (I was actually going to name this special function “prime factorial”).

Now, n! is divisible by 2, n! is divisible by 3 and n! is divisible by 4.
F(n) is divisible by 2, F(n) is divisible by 3, but F(n) is not divisible by 4!

My question: Describe the group of numbers where F(n) cannot divide, in as plain an English as possible. This group of numbers will necessarily be between 2 and F(n)-1.

Your knee-jerk answer could be “all composite numbers between 2 and F(n)-1!”. Ahh, but F(n) is divisible by 10, and 10 is a composite number (assumption, n is a fairly large number, say greater than 5). This puzzle should be easy to figure out. Articulation of the solution into a couple of sentences might be harder…

[Vincent is currently away on vacation. He asked me, the blog, to take over for a while. Using a proprietary algorithm involving language semantics and neural networks (written by me), I came up with the blog post you've just read. It even seems coherent! I mean, uh, of course it makes sense. Oh, the things I do for my master... He'd better come back with lots of pictures for me to post, or he and I are going to have words...]

Certifications, standards or just codswallop?

Recently, I attended a 1 day course on Information Technology Infrastructure Library or ITIL. It’s just an awareness course, so I only learned what it is, what it’s used for, why it should be used and so on. Basically ITIL is a set of best practices for doing IT work.

Truth be told, I didn’t want to attend the course. Due to management targets and budget considerations, I was “strongly encouraged” to attend the course (it is the end of the financial year…). Ah well, so I did. Man, did I have to rearrange my coding deadlines… One never knows how much 1 day of coding means, till one loses that 1 day…

Anyway, I learnt what ITIL is, and what the associated ISO 20000 is too. ITIL, as my instructor mentioned, is “documented common sense“. Also, an organisation (or process) can’t be certified in ITIL, as there might be some recommendations that conflict with each other within your business scope. An individual can be ITIL certified though.

Businesses can be ISO 20000 certified. The process of certification, as I understand it, is tedious. You need documentation of processes, and you need proof that you’ve been following the standards and your own documentation. And the first thought that came to my mind was Evidence Based Scheduling and FogBugz. I talked with the instructor and he agreed that, having a system that’s part of the workflow, and that it captures proof as it goes, is the best solution. And you need at least 3 months worth of proof.

I can see 2 benefits to certification. Boost in credibility (people trust companies with certifications?) and actual improvements in financial bottom lines (whether it’s cost savings or profit).

Frankly speaking, I don’t know why I’m attending the course. That I’ll push for a more structured IT environment back at work, following ITIL recommendations? That I can be part of the certification process team? I’m a messy person. What do they think I can do?

Ok, the course wasn’t a complete loss for me. At least I learnt about the certification process. Still, I keep wondering, could the entire thing be condensed into the Joel Test?

At the team I’m working at, we’d maybe pass 3 out of the 12 points on the check list. If we can’t pass that, we can’t pass ITIL, and we certainly can’t pass ISO 20000. I’m just saying…

[Vincent is currently preparing to go to the land of the rising sun, and hopefully see sakura blossoms. Comments and responses will be slower. I'll be taking over for a while, and remember, I'm just a blog.]