© In the Time of Pandemic

by Kitty O’Meara

And the people stayed home.

And they listened, and read books, and rested, and exercised, and made art, and played games, and learned new ways of being, and were still.

And they listened more deeply. Some meditated, some prayed, some danced. Some met their shadows. And the people began to think differently.

And the people healed.

And, in the absence of people living in ignorant, dangerous, and heartless ways, the earth began to heal.

And when the danger passed, and the people joined together again, they grieved their losses, and made new choices, and dreamed new images, and created new ways to live and heal the earth fully, as they had been healed.

© Copyright of all visual and written materials on The Daily Round belongs solely to Catherine M. O’Meara, 2011-Present. Unauthorized use is strictly prohibited, without Catherine O’Meara’s written approval. No one is authorized to use Catherine O’Meara’s copyrighted material for material gain without the author’s engagement and written permission. All other visual, written, and linked materials are credited to their authors.

• Kitty O’Meara, Author of “And the People Stayed Home,” Opens Up About Writing That Viral Poem
• The story behind ‘And the People Stayed Home,’ the little poem that became so much more

Problem

1275. Find Winner on a Tic Tac Toe Game

Java

my solution

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class Solution {
    public String tictactoe(int[][] moves) {
        final int len = moves.length;
        List<int[]> listX = new ArrayList<int[]>();
        List<int[]> listO = new ArrayList<int[]>();
        for (int i = 0; i < len; i++) {
            if (i % 2 == 0)
                listX.add(moves[i]);
            else
                listO.add(moves[i]);
        }
        String r = "";
        if (hasWin(listX))
            r = "A";
        else if (hasWin(listO))
            r = "B";
        else if (len == 9)
            r = "Draw";
        else
            r = "Pending";
        return r;        
    }
    
    private boolean realContain(List<int[]> list, int[][] arr) {
        boolean b = true;
        for (int i = 0; i < arr.length; i++) {
            boolean b2 = false;
            for (int j = 0; j < list.size(); j++) {
                b2 = b2 || ((arr[i][0] == list.get(j)[0]) && (arr[i][1] == list.get(j)[1]));
            }
            b = b && b2;
        }
        return b;
    }

    private boolean hasWin(List<int[]> list) {
        int[][] a1 = {{0, 0},{0, 1},{0, 2}};
        int[][] a2 = {{1, 0},{1, 1},{1, 2}};
        int[][] a3 = {{2, 0},{2, 1},{2, 2}};
        int[][] a4 = {{0, 0},{1, 0},{2, 0}};
        int[][] a5 = {{0, 1},{1, 1},{2, 1}};
        int[][] a6 = {{0, 2},{1, 2},{2, 2}};
        int[][] a7 = {{0, 0},{1, 1},{2, 2}};
        int[][] a8 = {{0, 2},{1, 1},{2, 0}};
        boolean r = realContain(list, a1) || realContain(list, a2) || realContain(list, a3)
                || realContain(list, a4) || realContain(list, a5) || realContain(list, a6)
                || realContain(list, a7) || realContain(list, a8);
        return r;
    }    
}

Submission Detail

• 100 / 100 test cases passed.
• Runtime: 2 ms, faster than 8.21% of Java online submissions for Find Winner on a Tic Tac Toe Game.
• Memory Usage: 38.9 MB, less than 6.40% of Java online submissions for Find Winner on a Tic Tac Toe Game.

• Tic-tac-toe
• Tic-Tac-Toe

by Virginia Woolf

Moths that fly by day are not properly to be called moths; they do not excite that pleasant sense of dark autumn nights and ivy-blossom which the commonest yellow-underwing asleep in the shadow of the curtain never fails to rouse in us. They are hybrid creatures, neither gay like butterflies nor sombre like their own species. Nevertheless the present specimen, with his narrow hay-coloured wings, fringed with a tassel of the same colour, seemed to be content with life. It was a pleasant morning, mid-September, mild, benignant, yet with a keener breath than that of the summer months. The plough was already scoring the field opposite the window, and where the share had been, the earth was pressed flat and gleamed with moisture. Such vigour came rolling in from the fields and the down beyond that it was difficult to keep the eyes strictly turned upon the book. The rooks too were keeping one of their annual festivities; soaring round the tree tops until it looked as if a vast net with thousands of black knots in it had been cast up into the air; which, after a few moments sank slowly down upon the trees until every twig seemed to have a knot at the end of it. Then, suddenly, the net would be thrown into the air again in a wider circle this time, with the utmost clamour and vociferation, as though to be thrown into the air and settle slowly down upon the tree tops were a tremendously exciting experience.

The same energy which inspired the rooks, the ploughmen, the horses, and even, it seemed, the lean bare-backed downs, sent the moth fluttering from side to side of his square of the window-pane. One could not help watching him. One was, indeed, conscious of a queer feeling of pity for him. The possibilities of pleasure seemed that morning so enormous and so various that to have only a moth’s part in life, and a day moth’s at that, appeared a hard fate, and his zest in enjoying his meagre opportunities to the full, pathetic. He flew vigorously to one corner of his compartment, and, after waiting there a second, flew across to the other. What remained for him but to fly to a third corner and then to a fourth? That was all he could do, in spite of the size of the downs, the width of the sky, the far-off smoke of houses, and the romantic voice, now and then, of a steamer out at sea. What he could do he did. Watching him, it seemed as if a fibre, very thin but pure, of the enormous energy of the world had been thrust into his frail and diminutive body. As often as he crossed the pane, I could fancy that a thread of vital light became visible. He was little or nothing but life.

Yet, because he was so small, and so simple a form of the energy that was rolling in at the open window and driving its way through so many narrow and intricate corridors in my own brain and in those of other human beings, there was something marvellous as well as pathetic about him. It was as if someone had taken a tiny bead of pure life and decking it as lightly as possible with down and feathers, had set it dancing and zig-zagging to show us the true nature of life. Thus displayed one could not get over the strangeness of it. One is apt to forget all about life, seeing it humped and bossed and garnished and cumbered so that it has to move with the greatest circumspection and dignity. Again, the thought of all that life might have been had he been born in any other shape caused one to view his simple activities with a kind of pity.

After a time, tired by his dancing apparently, he settled on the window ledge in the sun, and, the queer spectacle being at an end, I forgot about him. Then, looking up, my eye was caught by him. He was trying to resume his dancing, but seemed either so stiff or so awkward that he could only flutter to the bottom of the window-pane; and when he tried to fly across it he failed. Being intent on other matters I watched these futile attempts for a time without thinking, unconsciously waiting for him to resume his flight, as one waits for a machine, that has stopped momentarily, to start again without considering the reason of its failure. After perhaps a seventh attempt he slipped from the wooden ledge and fell, fluttering his wings, on to his back on the window sill. The helplessness of his attitude roused me. It flashed upon me that he was in difficulties; he could no longer raise himself; his legs struggled vainly. But, as I stretched out a pencil, meaning to help him to right himself, it came over me that the failure and awkwardness were the approach of death. I laid the pencil down again.

The legs agitated themselves once more. I looked as if for the enemy against which he struggled. I looked out of doors. What had happened there? Presumably it was midday, and work in the fields had stopped. Stillness and quiet had replaced the previous animation. The birds had taken themselves off to feed in the brooks. The horses stood still. Yet the power was there all the same, massed outside indifferent, impersonal, not attending to anything in particular. Somehow it was opposed to the little hay-coloured moth. It was useless to try to do anything. One could only watch the extraordinary efforts made by those tiny legs against an oncoming doom which could, had it chosen, have submerged an entire city, not merely a city, but masses of human beings; nothing, I knew, had any chance against death. Nevertheless after a pause of exhaustion the legs fluttered again. It was superb this last protest, and so frantic that he succeeded at last in righting himself. One’s sympathies, of course, were all on the side of life. Also, when there was nobody to care or to know, this gigantic effort on the part of an insignificant little moth, against a power of such magnitude, to retain what no one else valued or desired to keep, moved one strangely. Again, somehow, one saw life, a pure bead. I lifted the pencil again, useless though I knew it to be. But even as I did so, the unmistakable tokens of death showed themselves. The body relaxed, and instantly grew stiff. The struggle was over. The insignificant little creature now knew death. As I looked at the dead moth, this minute wayside triumph of so great a force over so mean an antagonist filled me with wonder. Just as life had been strange a few minutes before, so death was now as strange. The moth having righted himself now lay most decently and uncomplainingly composed. O yes, he seemed to say, death is stronger than I am.

• The Death of the Moth, and Other Essays
• Woolf battled mental illnesses throughout her life, and eventually committed suicide by drowning herself in 1941, a year before this essay was published.
• Virginia Woolf, after a vain effort imagining how Shakespeare “coined his words,” writes in her diary: Indeed, I could say that Shakespeare surpasses literature altogether, if I knew what it meant. (Shakespeare, Newton, and Beethoven: Or, Patterns of Creativity, by Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar)

1. Life is not fair. Get used to it.

2. The real world won’t care as much about your self-esteem as much as your school does. It’ll expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself.

3. Sorry, you won’t make $40,000 a year right out of high school. And you won’t be a vice president or have a car phone either. You may even have to wear a uniform that doesn’t have a Gap label.

4. If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss. He doesn’t have tenure, so he tends to be a bit edgier. When you screw up, he’s not going to ask you how you feel about it.

5. Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping. They called it opportunity. They weren’t embarrassed making minimum wage either. They would have been embarrassed to sit around talking about Kurt Cobain all weekend.

6. It’s not your parents’ fault. If you screw up, you are responsible. This is the flip side of “It’s my life,” and “You’re not the boss of me,” and other eloquent proclamations of your generation. When you turn 18, it’s on your dime. Don’t whine about it, or you’ll sound like a baby boomer.

7. Before you were born your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way paying your bills, cleaning up your room and listening to you tell them how idealistic you are. And by the way, before you save the rain forest from the blood-sucking parasites of your parents’ generation, try delousing the closet in your bedroom.

8. Your school may have done away with winners and losers. Life has not. In some schools, they’ll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. Failing grades have been abolished and class valedictorians scrapped, lest anyone’s feelings be hurt. Effort is as important as results. This, of course, bears not the slightest resemblance to anything in real life.

9. Life is not divided into semesters, and you don’t get summers off. Not even Easter break. They expect you to show up every day. For eight hours. And you don’t get a new life every 10 weeks. It just goes on and on. While we’re at it, very few jobs are interested in fostering your self-expression or helping you find yourself. Fewer still lead to self-realization.

10. Television is not real life. Your life is not a sitcom. Your problems will not all be solved in 30 minutes, minus time for commercials. In real life, people actually have to leave the coffee shop to go to jobs. Your friends will not be as perky or pliable as Jennifer Aniston.

11. Be nice to nerds. You may end up working for them. We all could.

12. Smoking does not make you look cool. It makes you look moronic. Next time you’re out cruising, watch an 11-year-old with a butt in his mouth. That’s what you look like to anyone over 20. Ditto for “expressing yourself” with purple hair and/or pierced body parts.

13. You are not immortal. (See Rule No. 12.) If you are under the impression that living fast, dying young and leaving a beautiful corpse is romantic, you obviously haven’t seen one of your peers at room temperature lately.

14. Enjoy this while you can. Sure parents are a pain, school’s a bother, and life is depressing. But someday you’ll realize how wonderful it was to be a kid. Maybe you should start now. You’re welcome.

This list was the work of Charlie Sykes, author of the 1996 book Dumbing Down Our Kids: Why American Children Feel Good About Themselves But Can’t Read, Write, Or Add. Sykes’ rule list form the meat of Sykes’ 2007 book, 50 Rules Kids Won’t Learn in School: Real-World Antidotes to Feel-Good Education.

• Rules for Students
• Some Rules Kids Won’t Learn in School
• Syke’s 11 Rules

Problem

1492. The kth Factor of n

Java

simple

© https://leetcode.com/problems/the-kth-factor-of-n/discuss/993800/Java-100-Fast-or-Easy-Solution

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class Solution {
    public int kthFactor(int n, int k) {
        int count = 0;
        for (int i = 1; i <= n; i++) {
            if (n % i == 0)
                count++;
            if (count == k)
                return i;
        }
        return -1;        
    }
}

Submission Detail

• 207 / 207 test cases passed.
• Runtime: 1 ms, faster than 43.12% of Java online submissions for The kth Factor of n.
• Memory Usage: 35.5 MB, less than 90.14% of Java online submissions for The kth Factor of n.

Brute-force search

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import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;

class Solution {
    public int kthFactor(int n, int k) {
        List<Integer> list = new ArrayList<Integer>();
        for (int i = 1; i <= n; i++) {
            if (n % i == 0)
                list.add(i);
        }
        if (list.size() < k)
            return -1;
        else
            return list.get(k-1);        
    }
}

Submission Detail

• 207 / 207 test cases passed.
• Runtime: 1 ms, faster than 43.15% of Java online submissions for The kth Factor of n.
• Memory Usage: 35.8 MB, less than 48.68% of Java online submissions for The kth Factor of n.

Canadian English is in some ways midway between British and American varieties. The written standard is very close to that of British English, but American spellings are quite common. Informal speech has a distinctly American flavour and pronunciation is fairly close to that of the northern United states. Canadian vocabulary naturally includes words reflecting the local environment and culture, many of them taken from the native American languages spoken in Canada: for instance husky, moose, toboggan, anorak, kayak. French, the mother tongue of around one third of Canadians, has also given words to Canadian English vocabulary, e.g. cache(a hiding place). — Michael Swan, Practical English Usage, Fourth Edition

© Moving To Canada? Here Are 75 Canadian English Slangs & Phrases You Must Know

Are You Hungry?

Double Double

an oversized cup of coffee with 2 creams and 2 sugars

homo milk

homogenised/whole milk

Tim Hortons’ Timbits

bite-sized fried-dough confectionery similar to American doughnuts but uniquely Canadian (they’ve been around since the 70s!)

serviettes

paper napkins

A napkin, serviette or face towelette is a rectangle of cloth used at the table for wiping the mouth and fingers while eating. It is usually small and folded, sometimes in intricate designs and shapes.

icing sugar

Powdered sugar, also called confectioners’ sugar, 10X sugar or icing sugar, is a finely ground sugar produced by milling granulated sugar into a powdered state.

two four

Canadian informal a box containing 24 bottles of beer

a case of 24 beers – cans or bottles

Mickey

A half-sized non-EU Standard Liquor Bottle, considered a US metric “pint”. Called a mickey in Canada. -> Alcohol measurements

A 13-ounce bottle of hard alcohol (give or take)

chocolate bars

A chocolate bar (Commonwealth English) or candy bar (some dialects of American English) is a confection containing chocolate, which may also contain layerings or mixtures that include nuts, fruit, caramel, nougat, and wafers. A wide variety of chocolate bar brands are sold. A popular example is a Snickers bar, which consists of nougat mixed with caramel and peanuts, covered in milk chocolate.

Chocolate candy

Molson muscle

beer belly

Kraft Dinner (or KD!)

The product known as Kraft Dinner (KD) in Canada, Kraft Macaroni & Cheese Dinner or Kraft Mac & Cheese in the United States and Australia, and Macaroni Cheese or Cheesey Pasta in the United Kingdom is a nonperishable, packaged dry macaroni and cheese product by Kraft Foods, traditionally cardboard-boxed with dried macaroni pasta and a packet of processed cheese powder. It was first introduced under the Kraft Dinner name simultaneously in both Canada and the U.S. in 1937.

macaroni-and-cheese

freezie

A freezie (Canada), freeze pop (United States), zooper-dooper, juice pop, freezer pop, otter pop, ice-pole, pop stick, icy-pole (Australia), ice pop, popsicle, tip top, lolly (UK), marciano or chupps (Peru), chihiro (Cayman Islands), ice candy (Philippines, Japan), chup-chup, sacolé, geladinho, gelinho, dindim (Brazil), or ais batu Malaysia(Malaysia) is a water-based frozen confection. It is made by freezing flavored liquid such as sugar water, fruit juice or purée inside a plastic casing or tube, either round or flat.

freeze (ice) pop

dépanneur

A convenience store, convenience shop, or corner store is a small retail business that stocks a range of everyday items such as coffee, groceries, snack foods, confectionery, soft drinks, tobacco products, over-the-counter drugs, toiletries, newspapers, and magazines.

A convenience store may also be called a c-store[citation needed], cold store, party store (Michigan), bodega, tienda de barrio (Latin America), carry out, mini-market, mini-mart, konbini (Japan), corner shop, deli or milk bar (Australia), dairy (New Zealand), superette (New Zealand and parts of USA), corner store (many part of English-speaking Canada and New England) depanneur or dep (the last two are loanwords from the French term used in parts of Canada).

convenience store

Rotten Ronnie’s

McDonald’s

booze can

illegal after-hours bar

Caesar

cocktail (not a salad!) similar to a Bloody Mary but made with clamato juice

Clamato juice

clam and tomato juice

poutine

French fries (thin potato chips) covered with cheese curds and gravy

Tortière/tourtière

Meat pie

beavertail/whale’s tail

fried pastry dough smothered in toppings like Nutella chocolate spread

Nanaimo bar

multilayered brownie with icing

Butter tart

Sweet pastry shell tart with a filling of butter, sugar, syrup and egg, baked to get a semi-solid filling and crunchy top

Peameal bacon

Wet-cured, un-smoked back bacon made from trimmed lean boneless pork loin and rolled in cornmeal

Bumbleberry pie

Mixed berry pie (there is no such berry as a bumbleberry!)

Mind Your Habits & Manners!

Canadian tuxedo

informal outfit consisting of a blue denim jacket and blue jeans

Pop

carbonated soft drink/soda

Washroom

Bathroom, restroom, toilet

Queue

Lineup

Tap

faucet

Canuck

Canadian person

kerfuffle

commotion, fuss or disagreement

keener

brown-noser, sycophant

beauty

exceptionally great person

Life’s Good In Canada

Loonie

1-dollar coin

Toonie

2-dollar coin

parkade

parking garage

gas bar

petrol station

chinook

the warm wind that comes over the mountain during winter to melt the snow and raise the temperature

hydro bill

electricity bill

Toque (or tuque)

knitted hat

snowbirds

Canadians who head south to sandy beaches and tropical waters to escape winter

Toboggan

Snow sledge

writing a test

Taking a test, giving an exam

In Canada, the testee writes a test, not the tester!

Just Hanging Out

knapsack

backpack

klicks

kilometres

6ix

Toronto

track pants

Comfortable sweat pants

runners

Comfortable running shoes/sneakers

thongs

Slippers, often worn to the beach

housecoat

Bathrobe or dressing gown

Stag

Bachelor party (US), Stag do (UK)

Stagette

Bachelorette party (US), Hen do (UK)

Darts

Cigarettes (not the bar game!)

Bill

Check (US)

Chesterfield

Sofa, couch

pencil crayons

Coloured pencils

What you sayin’ tonight

What are your plans for tonight? (informal)

True

Okay, fine

Home & Away!

Hang a Larry

Turn left while driving

Hang a Roger

Turn right while driving

dinged

Fined money (not damage to a car in an accident!)

Mountie

member of the highly-respected Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP)

eavestroughs

rain gutters on the roof of a house

garburator

Garbage disposal, usually installed under a kitchen sink

fire hall

Fire station

deke

physical outmanoeuvring of an opponent in ice hockey

stickhandle

skilful controlling of the puck in ice hockey

pogie

On Government welfare assistance

give’r

Go for it, give it your best shot

Elementary school

Grades KG-5

Middle school

Grades 6-8

High school

Grades 9-12

University

After-school college (different from ‘community college’)
Time measured in Years – First Year, Third Year, etc

Grade

School class

书不尽言，言不尽意
言者所以在意，得意而忘言
书到用时方恨少，
事非经过不知难

见者易，学者难
纸上得来终觉浅，
绝知此事要躬行

路不行不到，事不为不成
为事在人，成事在天
人在做，天在看
举头三尺有神明
不畏人知畏己知

谁人背后无人说，
哪个人前不说人，
人无千日好，花无百日红
莫笑他人老，终须还到老
人有八疵，事有四患，不可不察也，
责人之心责己，
恕己之心恕人，
己所不欲，勿施于人

山河大地尚属微尘
而况尘中之尘
事实上我们全都是些集体性人物
我们所特有的东西是微乎其微的
就像我们个人是微乎其微的一样
我们的发展要归功于广大世界千丝万缕的影响

人是条件的产物
不可能是理想的化身
生活可以彻底改变一个人

花开花落春不管
水寒水暖鱼自知
生于忧患，死于安乐
夫大块载我以形，劳我以生，佚我以老，息我以死

世事如棋局局新
生活本来就是由一个接一个意想不到的事件组成的
如果它不是那样的话
那么它就不值得我们去体验

天人合一，物我两忘
天地与我并生
万物与我为一

阴阳于人，不啻于父母
天地者，万物之父母也
巍巍乎，惟天为大
获罪于天，无所祷也
自天佑之，吉无不利

Problem

260. Single Number III

Java

XOR with bitmask

In computer science, a mask or bitmask is data that is used for bitwise operations, particularly in a bit field. Using a mask, multiple bits in a byte, nibble, word etc. can be set either on, off or inverted from on to off (or vice versa) in a single bitwise operation.

A bit mask is a predefined set of bits that is used to select which specific bits will be modified by subsequent operations.

the bit mask blocks the bitwise operators from touching bits we don’t want modified, and allows access to the ones we do want modified.

© https://leetcode.com/problems/single-number-iii/discuss/982092/Python3-XOR-with-bitmask

© https://www.bookstack.cn/read/solve-leetcode-problems/problems-Single%20Number%20III.md

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class Solution {
    public int[] singleNumber(int[] nums) {
        int xorResult = 0, firstNum = 0, secondNum = 0;
        for (int num : nums) {
            xorResult ^= num;
        }

        int bitMask = xorResult & (~xorResult + 1);

        for (int num : nums) {
            if ((bitMask & num) != 0)
                firstNum ^= num;
            else
                secondNum ^= num;
        }

        return new int[]{firstNum, secondNum};        
    }
}

Submission Detail

• 32 / 32 test cases passed.
• Runtime: 1 ms, faster than 96.24% of Java online submissions for Single Number III.
• Memory Usage: 42 MB, less than 5.92% of Java online submissions for Single Number III.

Mask (computing)

Nature and nature’s laws lay hid in night;
God said “Let Newton be” and all was light.
(Alexander Pope)

It could not last; the Devil shouting “Ho!
Let Einstein be!” restored the status quo.
(J. C. Squire)

Plato is my friend — Aristotle is my friend — but my greatest friend is truth.

If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.

tis due to nothing but industry and a patient thought.

I have not been able to discover the cause of those properties of gravity from phenomena, and I frame no hypotheses; for whatever is not deduced from the phenomena is to be called a hypothesis, and hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical, whether of occult qualities or mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophy.

To explain all nature is too difficult a task for any one man or even for any one age. ‘Tis much better to do a little with certainty, & leave the rest for others that come after you, than to explain all things by conjecture without making sure of any thing.

I keep the subject constantly before me, and wait ‘till the first dawnings open slowly, by little and little, into a full and clear light.

I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.

In default of any other proof, the thumb would convince me of the existence of a God.

It is the perfection of God’s works that they are all done with the greatest simplicity. He is the God of order and not of confusion.

As in Mathematicks, so in Natural Philosophy, the Investigation of difficult Things by the Method of Analysis, ought ever to precede the Method of Composition.

By this way of Analysis we may proceed from Compounds to Ingredients, and from Motions to the Forces producing them; and in general, from Effects to their Causes, and from particular Causes to more general ones, till the Argument end in the most general. This is the Method of Analysis: and the Synthesis consists in assuming the Causes discover’d, and establish’d as Principles, and by them explaining the Phænomena proceeding from them, and proving the Explanations.

Godliness consists in the knowledge love & worship of God, Humanity in love, righteousness & good offices towards man.

Isaac Newton, a posthumous child, born with no father on Christmas Day 1642, was, as Maynard Keynes has aptly written, “the last wonder child to whom the Magi could do sincere and appropriate homage.”

One of the most remarkable aspects of Newton’s most remarkable life is the explosive outburst of his genius. He was not an infant prodigy; and it is probable that when he went to Cambridge in 1661, he knew little more than elementary arithmetic. And it must be remembered that the new outlook on scientific thought that we associate with the names of Galileo, Kepler, and Descartes had hardly yet penetrated the walls of Oxford and Cambridge. Nevertheless, by 1664, when Newton was in his twenty-third year, his genius seems to have flowered. Thus, Newton recalled in his old age that he had “found the method of Infinite Series at such time (1664-65).”

By the summer of 1665, when Cambridge was evacuated on account of the plague and Newton had gone to Woolsthorpe, his genius was fully in flower. It manifested itself in a manner unsurpassed in the history of scientific thought.

An account of a philosophical discovery – which I doubt not but will prove much more grateful than the communication of that instrument, being in my judgement the oddest, if not the most considerable detection, which has hitherto been made in the operation of nature. (January 18, 1672)

I should like to draw your attention especially to the words, “the oddest, if not the most considerable detection.” This is the first and the only time that Newton expresses a trace of enthusiasm with respect to any of his discoveries.

By now Newton’s mathematical genius seems to have been fully aroused, and Newton appears to have been caught in its grip. Newton now entered upon a period of the most intense mathematical activity. Against his will and against his preferences, Newton seems to have been propelled inexorably forward, by the pressure of his own genius, till, at last, he had accomplished the greatest intellectual feat of his life, the greatest intellectual feat in all of science.

By Newton’s own account, he began writing the Principia towards the end of December 1684, and he sent the completed manuscript of all three Books of the Principia to the Royal Society in May 1686, that is, in seventeen months. He had solved two of the propositions in the first Book in 1679, and he had also proved eight of the propositions in the second Book in June and July 1685. There are ninety-eight propositions in the first Book; fifty-three in the second; and forty-two in the third. By far the larger proportion of them was, therefore, enunciated and proved during the seventeen consecutive months that Newton was at work on the three Books. It is this rapidity of execution, besides the monumental scale of the whole work, that makes this achievement incomparable. If the problems enunciated in the Principia were the results of a lifetime of thought and work, Newton’s position in science would still be unique. But that all these problems should have been enunciated, solved, and arranged in logical sequence in seventeen months is beyond human comprehension. It can be accepted only because it is a fact: it just happens to be so!

It is only when we observe the scale of Newton’s achievement that comparisons, which have sometimes been made with other men of science, appear altogether inappropriate both with respect to Newton and with respect to the others. In fact, only in juxtaposition with Shakespeare and Beethoven is the consideration of Newton appropriate.

No account of Newton’s life, however brief, can omit some indication of the manner of man he was. The subject is a complex and a controversial one. But this much can fairly be said: Newton seems to have been remarkably insensitive: impervious to the arts, tactless, and with no real understanding of others.

Newton’s most remarkable gift was probably his powers of concentration. As Keynes wrote:

His peculiar gift was the power of holding continuously in his mind a purely mental problem until he had seen straight through it. I fancy his pre-eminence is due to his muscles of intuition being the strongest and most enduring with which a man has ever been gifted… I believe that Newton could hold a problem in his mind for hours and days and weeks until it surrendered to him its secret.

Besides, as De Morgan has said, he was:

…So happy in his conjectures as to seem to know more than he could possibly have any means of proving.

But the central paradox of Newton’s life is that he deliberately and systematically ignored his supreme mathematical genius and through most of his life neglected the one activity for which he was gifted beyond any man. This paradox can be resolved only if we realize that Newton simply did not consider science and mathematics as of any great importance;

I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.

In view of Newton’s insensitiveness to others, doubts have sometimes been raised about the sincerity of this statement. I do not believe that such doubts are warranted: only someone, like Newton, who can view knowledge from his height, can have the vision of an “ocean of undiscovered truth.” As an ancient proverb of India says, “Only the wise can plumb the wells of wisdom.”

(Shakespeare, Newton, and Beethoven: Or, Patterns of Creativity, a talk by Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar)

• Isaac Newton: The man who discovered gravity - A genius with dark secrets
• Isaac Newton in popular culture
• https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton
• Isaac Newton was a genius, but even he lost millions in the stock market: Back in the spring of 1720, Sir Isaac Newton owned shares in the South Sea Company, the hottest stock in England. Sensing that the market was getting out of hand, the great physicist muttered that he ‘could calculate the motions of the heavenly bodies, but not the madness of the people.‘ Newton dumped his South Sea shares, pocketing a 100% profit totaling £7,000. But just months later, swept up in the wild enthusiasm of the market, Newton jumped back in at a much higher price — and lost £20,000 (or more than $3 million in [2002-2003’s] money). For the rest of his life, he forbade anyone to speak the words ‘South Sea’ in his presence.

Problem

674. Longest Continuous Increasing Subsequence

Java

Sliding Window

Sliding Window problems are a subset of dynamic programming problems, though the approach to solving them is quite different from the one used in solving tabulation or memoization problems.

© Approach 1: Sliding Window

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class Solution {
    public int findLengthOfLCIS(int[] nums) {
        int maxLen = 0;
        int anchor = 0;
        for (int i = 0; i < nums.length; i++) {
            if (i > 0 && nums[i] <= nums[i - 1]) anchor = i;
            maxLen = Math.max(maxLen, i - anchor + 1);
        }
        return maxLen;
    }
}

Submission Detail

• 36 / 36 test cases passed.
• Runtime: 1 ms, faster than 98.29% of Java online submissions for Longest Continuous Increasing Subsequence.
• Memory Usage: 39.7 MB, less than 70.15% of Java online submissions for Longest Continuous Increasing Subsequence.

my solution

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class Solution {
    public int findLengthOfLCIS(int[] nums) {
        final int N = nums.length;
        if (N < 2)
            return N;
        int len = 1, tempLen = 1;
        for (int i = 1; i < N; i++) {
            if (nums[i] > nums[i - 1]) {
                tempLen++;
            } else {
                if (tempLen > len)
                    len = tempLen;
                tempLen = 1;
            }
        }
        if (tempLen > len)
            len = tempLen;
        return len;
    }
}

Submission Detail

• 36 / 36 test cases passed.
• Runtime: 1 ms, faster than 98.29% of Java online submissions for Longest Continuous Increasing Subsequence.
• Memory Usage: 39.9 MB, less than 41.25% of Java online submissions for Longest Continuous Increasing Subsequence.

• How to Solve Sliding Window Problems