Pardon Me

Why isn't Pardon Me by Incubus the theme song for Heroes? I guess, with the rock-anthem way that Battlestar Galactica finished the season, it would almost be cliché.

I'm Popular

I was looking at my site statistics briefly tonight, and I noticed that almost half of my hits were for my Highly-Worthless Programs directory, where I store a few grease-monkey scripts that I have made. I was almost surprised, until I realized that the few people who use it will refresh the javascript page in there at least once a day.

So, that explains why my hits increased the last few months, but my page views did not...

Code Monkey

My Design Studio team put together a video for our special topics presentation today. I thought that I would post it here for kicks. Also, I want to see what this looks like with the <embed> tags.

Got Some Time on Your Hands?

If you have a few hours to kill, why don't you check out a huge list of pictures from my japan trip. These are not filtered at all, at a low resolution, and most are not named other than what the camera picked. However, they are all of the pictures, so check them out if you want. If you find one you like, let me know and I will post the full-res version.

Pictures!

The pictures I organized in the first couple days in Japan are available at http://stolee.dyndns.org/japan/. The pictures are organized into folders, and not all are created yet. If you get a 404 error, that folder isn't ready yet. Also, if you want the full resolution PNG of any picture, just click the version on the page, as it is a link to that picture. Also, the pictures have the same name except for their extensions (.jpg/.png for small/large, respectively).

Let me know how you like the pictures! I'll put more up soon, hopefully! I should also make a large directory available for browsing all of my pictures... maybe I will start that immediately and will put captions later.

Possible Delays

Apparently there may be something wrong with our plane and this may create some delay to our arrival in Lincoln. At least it was this short flight that has the delay as opposed to our long, international flight.

In Detroit

Well, that was a long and frustrating flight.

Now that I am back in the states, I am for once glad that the signs are in English and Spanish again. I am upset that people don't universally stay to one side when standing on the escalators instead of allowing people without any patience (ie: me) to pass by them. Japanese people did this without question at the train stations, and would let you know if you were in the way. However, if I just say "excuse me" when I need them to step slightly to the side so I can pass they give me harsh looks. Also, three-prong outlets rock.

I have half an hour before they start boarding my flight. I better go find some real food soon.

Last Night in Tokyo

Travis and I got into Tokyo at 5 PM today. We then checked into the Tokyo Green Hotel. There, I took a much-needed shower and hot bath. It was wonderful. Afterwards, Travis and I split ways so he could visit a friend and I could go shopping. I went to a place that had a pretty good shopping district, but everything was closing by the time I got there.

So, I sat down for dinner at an order-by-vending-machine place and jumped on the subway. From there, I went into a very residential district, looking for St. Mary's Cathedral. I found it, but it was closed. Also, it did not look nearly as pretty as the pictures in the Wikipedia article show, since it has some kind of reconstruction going on. What the article doesn't mention is a little cave-like structure that has a statue of Mary and Joseph along with a setup for candles and prayer. I don't fully know what's going on with that, and would have thought there would be information in the Wikipedia page about it. Oh well. I am just a bit disappointed that it wasn't open for a holy hour or something tonight.

I then walked back to the subway and took a different route back to Akihabara. I am currently sitting in a very cramped internet cafe. It has a smaller footprint than the others I have been to, as well as worse service. It has multiple levels, and only private rooms. The chairs are nice, however, as I am currently reclining comfortably. I don't think it is smoke-free, either. My eyes are stinging just the slightest bit. Also, I cannot figure out how to work the drink machine.

Tomorrow, I fly back to the states. My vacation to Japan has been a successful one, as I got in everything I wanted to do that the season and my wallet allowed. It's too cold to climb Mt. Fuji, and skiing isn't really an option even after the cost due to my timeframe and the difficulty of hauling my skis. I guess I will just have to come back some time. Hokkaido University looked nice, I wonder if they would want to do some research with me? Quite a few of their professors are into Algebraic Geometry...

Anyway, I shall be putting my pictures online as soon as I can. I will also put a detailed list of everything I did, and annotate a map accordingly. Travis and I want to find out exactly how much all of our Shinkansen tickets would have cost without the JR Pass. I am sure the $300 was easily worth it.

Haha on... me

At this moment, I am staying up crazy late to enjoy the most out of an insane travel schedule (by hanging out in an internet cafe... go figure) while most of my friends are currently in class. Katie is even giving a presentation right now, and I should be sleeping. I should be laughing at them, but I need to make up all of this work I am missing later. I have several homeworks due this week that will be delayed, unfortunately. Oh well. It will be worth it. I can now say that I have traveled the three main islands of Japan: Honshu, Kyushu, and Hokkaido.

A Warm Hello from Sapporo

This morning, we were comfortable in a capsule hotel near Akihabara in Tokyo. Tonight, we are cozy in an internet cafe in Sapporo, after a long set of three 3-hour trains. The trip combined to 10 hours long, so we can spend 8 hours wandering this northern Hokkaido city before heading back on another 10-hour train ride. The ride back will have a lot of sleeping involved, as we are staying awake all night until we get on the trains.

Right now, I am catching up on email, blogs, and listening to A Prairie Home Companion. There is not much I would rather do right now.

Earlier, we searched for a place to eat. We found a couple very drunk locals, and asked crudely: "dokoni PAA-BU deska?" He led us to a wonderful little restaurant/bar with excellent kebabs and sake. A particularly good drink was the apricot liquer with soda. Afterwards, we had a challenge to navigate our way to an internet cafe. We were directed to "5 North, 4 West," which we thought were directions, but then got lost and asked for directions somewhere else. They gave us a map, and when we arrived to the place, we saw a street sign, and realized that 5N4W is an address...

I am really enjoying the piles of snow around the streets and sidewalks. Since Sapporo was designed with the help of Americans, it reminds me of a midwest town. It is not quite the same as Lincoln, however. Even though Hokkaido University is nearby, there is not much nightlife right next to it. It seems we would need to walk 12 blocks south before we would find more nightlife. We got enough earlier, and the internet is all we need. We are such nerds.

A Song of Ice and Fire

I just finished the first book of the A Song of Ice and Fire series via a loan from a friend. The book is incredibly good, written from the perspectives of a different character every chapter, creating a lot of dramatic irony that is incredibly useful to aid the storytelling. Also, the incredibly deep history, geography, and cast are presented at the perfect pace. It turns out that buying all 4 currently published books on Amazon will run about 27 dollars initially, enough for free shipping, but then a $3 discount applies, so the total is less than 24. Sweet. I'll be reading some more about this soon.

By the way, the urgency of this order is very important when noting that the series will have 7 books when finished. There were many more plotlines created in the last three chapters than there were in the entire book up to that point. None of them were resolved, and I need to know before I go mad.

Strange Attraction

I don't know if it is my pale skin, my camera bag around my shoulder, or my sweet sport coat that attracts strange people, but I get a lot of odd-looking people trying to shake my hand or say hi, but probably really trying to steal something. I've been wary, clutching my bag like a baby and looking around and moving enough that it would be difficult to steal from me.

Maybe I'm just that darn good-looking. More like I'm that darn stupid-looking when my tourist face is on. It always seems to happen as I am getting close to a castle or a temple or something, with my head up in the sky, looking at the new wonderful sights.

Capsule Hotels Rock

Travis and I are staying in a capsule hotel tonight in Akihabara. We will probably come back on Wednesday night, too, so we can get a cheap place to stay the night before our flight. The capsules are roomy enough, and they have free wireless, so it's pretty much perfect. Another great thing is that we can leave our bags here while we run up to Sapporo tomorrow night for a quick exploration.

Yes, I'll have pictures. I already took a few.

Causality

Sometimes I wonder how I could possibly get in the positions I am in. Right now, I'm sitting at my laptop in an internet cafe late at night, halfway around the world from where I normally call home. I'm sitting a few terminals down from a couple male Europeans who laugh like girls very loudly, and frequently. And to think, it is because I came to Japan for a contest, qualified since Travis rocked at regionals (and consequently convinced me to stay extra days), but only because I was interested in programming, which traces back to middle school when my dad decided to teach me Visual Basic on our 486 running Windows 3.11. There are lots of steps before and in between, but here in the moment, nothing exists but me, the computer, and some annoying Europeans.

And to think, if I were at this very spot on August 6, 1945 I would probably be vaporized. Paying 300 yen for an hour of access to cyberspace seems utterly insignificant, yet so much more immediate. Odd how that works.

In Hiroshima

I am sitting in an overpriced internet cafe in the center of Hiroshima, resting my feet and checking email. Our incredibly cramped, but cheap, room at the Comfort Hotel does not have internet, so we came here.

We went to Himeji this afternoon, where we visited Himeji castle. It was easily the best place we have seen so far. Search Wikipedia for it, I am having too difficult a time with this foreign keyboard. I do not even know where the apostrophe is, so I am omitting contractions from this post.

We got to Hiroshima just as the sun was going down, so we could not see everything, but we got some pretty interesting pictures of the atomic dome and the Hiroshima Castle as they are lit up nicely. Hopefully the pictures turned out well.

The rest of Hiroshima is rather interesting, with an expansive shopping and nightlife district. We may actually go out for dinner and drinks, which we have limited in favor of recovering in our hotel rooms.

Vending Machines

One thing I will definitely miss about Japan is the inclusion of cans of hot coffee in the vending machines. I'm never too far from a delicious pick-me-up. It's unfortunate this stuff isn't popular in the States.

No Illinois

I talked with a math grad student after the contest on Thursday, and he told me a little story. Apparently, the department head at UIUC was fired afer he forgot to renew a major grant that helps the department pay for grad students. So, I wasn't surprised when I heard that I could have been admitted, but since I needed funding I would not be accepted.

I'm now down to the wire with two (CMU & UCSD) departments left unknown. However, it is likely that I will be in Lincoln next year, as UIUC was my last truly hopeful department. Good thing I like the department, and they gave me a good offer.

A Lack of Planning

Here comes the part of our trip with lots of freedom. From now on, anything we do has not been planned sooner than yesterday. It's exciting, but unpredictable as far as communication goes. I may be a little light on the blogging.

A Lack of Motivation

After a long day of tours and walking around a few of the many shrines and temples here in Kyoto, we're tired and want to stop moving. So, we are hanging out in the hotel. I have a lot of homework due next week, so I started looking at some of it. However, all motivation to do it is nonexistent at this point. Some is due Tuesday, some Wednesday, and some on Friday, when I'll be back. However, that Friday problem set covers materials that will be discussed on Monday and Wednesday, so I'll be in a mad rush to finish it on Thursday no matter what.

I guess being on vacation and away from the rest of the world is a little distracting.

On a side note, I've taken over 300 pictures in the past two days. I haven't sorted any of them. I'll have plenty of things to do when I get back, it seems.

The World vs. Japan: Exhibit A

Pachinko makes absolutely no sense and is an excellent example of why the world is broken, especially this part.

Tidbits on Kyoto

Shinkansen: There's nothing quite like riding comfortably at 160+ MPH while passing countless urban neighborhoods. It was interesting to see exactly how urban almost the entire trip from Tokyo station to Kyoto (400 km, it seems). Also, I really was amazed at some of the art that was done in anime to depict their urban environments, but they are incredibly accurate. The hapahazard way that they took 18th-century urban streets and built 20th-century buildings to fill the cracks is incredible. Also, the way they just throw power lines around is fascinating as well. I have some pictures of both urban planning disasters.

Kyoto: This town is not nearly as compact as Tokyo, but has a similar cramped feeling. The real difference is that the buildings are much more residential, as you would see in the outer 'burbs of Tokyo, and usually stop after three or four floors, unless the building is an apartment complex or a hotel. I even occassionally see a rice patty or two mixed in. They definitely don't waste any of their flat land that isn't populated. Every single spot is used until you get into the mountains, which surround this place.

Nara: We took an afternoon bus ride to Nara to see a few temples. We stopped at Todai-ji Temple and Kasuga Shrine. Click the link for info on them, but they are pretty interesting places. They have a lot of history, but have definitely been transformed into tourist traps when they are not used for official Buddhist/Shinto ceremonies. In fact, there is a gift shop right inside the Todai-ji temple. It was a little odd. A really cool feature of Nara is that it holds to the tradition of deer being sacred animals. Both of the temples are within what our tour guide called Deer Park, where deer roam free and are absolutely tame. They walk up to you expecting cookies. I'm too cheap for that, but took some pictures of me petting them just to drive Luke nuts.

Tonight, we wander Kyoto. We have free internet in our rooms, so I'll be updating occasionally until Sunday morning, when we check out. Then, we'll start our unplanned wanderings of Japan. Our reach goes anywhere along the Shinkansen, so let me know where you want us to go and take pictures.

Possibly Going Dark

We head to Kyoto after breakfast. We have a pretty good train ride to get there, but we need to leave the Disney resort by a monorail, then take a regular train into Tokyo, and then we can get on the Shinkansen bullet trains. However, I can not guarantee that we will have any internet access before we return, so I may go dark until next Thursday.

Team Pictures

If you want to see pictures of the team, click here.

Woah

In case you were not paying attention, the ICPC partial results are up. We didn't get another problem, although some teams did. However, getting in the top half is good enough. I also like how we're marked as ranked 12th. We got as high as 2nd early on, but we lacked the endurance to get problems solved later in the contest.

Oh well, we have an afternoon off before the final awards, I'll let you know how it turned out.

Universal Communication

I've been using a head nod to acknowledge others almost exclusively. I know my proper greetings and thank yous and goodbyes, but I feel as if using them would just be insulting to them or something. However, a casual head nod gets the message across non-verbally and without any issue of understanding.

You Really Have Nothing Better To Do

The contest starts tomorrow at 8AM. In central time, this will be 6PM Wednesday night. You don't have anything better to do from 6-11:30, right? You should probably search the contest home page for a scoreboard of sorts, which will be available and updated until the last hour of the contest.

Some Official Pictures

I'm not really caring to take contest-related pictures. I figure that is the least interesting part of this entire trip (most of it we have done before) and we can't even bring electronic devices to the contest. However, ACM has a slew of pictures involving the contest, including a few team pics. We're obviously more serious than last year.

Stumbled Upon History

As we searched for Tokyo Station in an effort to return to the hotel yesterday, we randomly came across a very strange site. In the middle of the financial district of Tokyo, only a couple blocks from the palace, we saw the tomb of Taira Masakado. Check the link for info about the guy, but the fact that his tomb is on some of the most expensive land in the world is not an understatement. On all sides are some serious skyscrapers.

Some Early Photos

I wasn't going to use my Flickr account anymore, since I'm out of space and it will start hiding my older pictures. I'm eventually going to put all of my full-resolution pictures with detailed comments here, but until that works I've got some on Flickr. Click the pic to continue:

I'm Still Jetlagged

I still have jetlag, and I'm really tired. As a result, I'm incredibly cranky. Therefore, I have absolutely no patience for crazy antics put on by über-nerds, such as pushing in line to show up one another in DDR.

More Japan Business

It appears that I have some issues with my G5 that need resolving before I can share some pictures. However, I will continue to compile my pictures into a blog-like format so I can upload all of them and make them available at http://stolee.dyndns.org/japan/ when possible. I can't log in remotely, or I would have this fixed already.

Today, we had to amuse IBM and let them tell us how great they are for innovating as well as sponsoring the contest. Afterward, they sent us to Tokyo Disney Sea for the rest of the day. We knew we wouldn't last long in there, but since the ticket was free, we decided to take a quick walkthrough. It was too much to bear. The fact that we were in a US-based company's theme park marketed towards Japanese featuring an AMERICATOWN was too surreal. We ditched the place and used the food money they gave us to head back to Tokyo downtown. There, we got to go into all those places that were closed yesterday, including the Palace East Gardens and the Museum of Modern Art. Look forward to pictures from the gardens. I don't feel like getting in trouble by supplying museum pictures right now, so I may not put those up.

Now, we're back in the hotel and gave up a few hundred yen for 24 hours of in-room internet since the hotel has no wireless and IBM is only supporting wireless during select hours. Now, I can keep up a bit with my email and other communication.

Tomorrow, we have a busy day with contest activities, including a couple practices at our machines. This will keep us from going anywhere, so few to no pictures will be taken tomorrow. This will give me a chance to catch up with labeling and captioning all of them. Yuliy and Travis are so sick of me taking pictures that they either actively try to hide from view, cover their faces, or show their butts. So mature.

Not Exactly Sanitary

As we walk around, we occasionally see someone with masks over their faces. It seems that some people are paranoid about getting sick while on public transit, and others are making sure they don't get other people sick. The whole city seems to be very clean in general.

However, I just went in the bathroom and saw a volume of the Full-Metal Alchemist on the ground. I'm glad I have no desire to touch anything on these shelves...

Beverage Report

This internet cafe has free drinks, and so I've had some delicious iced coffee, melon pop, and milk tea. Otherwise, nothing has been crazy yet, but I haven't had a need to get rid of my coinage in the vending machines, where it gets really interesting.

Posting from Japan

I have an hour at an internet cafe, and I'm taking advantage of it to tell you that I got here safely after a very long, but productive flight. I didn't have internet access at our hotel last night, but we'll have access tonight when we get to the contest hotel.

So far, I'm loving the food. We hit a conveyor-belt sushi place and I got my fill for 1500 yen. This morning the hotel breakfast was an elaborate affair. It was filling, but also very well presented.

The internet cafe I'm in is pretty cool. For 380 yen we get a computer station for an hour. However, we're also surrounded by manga everywhere, full volumes of almost anything you could ever want to read (it you're into that sort of thing). I could imagine it's a pretty good way for youth to hang out, get free drinks and chill.

So far today we have wandered a lot of downtown Tokyo. Our hotel was near Akihabara, which we checked out last night. However, it was really late and most of the stores were closed. We may check it out in more detail later. This morning we walked south to the imperial palace, and found every entrance and museum closed. Apparently Mondays and Fridays are holidays here. We walked around the palace, taking in the sights until we got half-way round near the Diet and went south-west to Rippongo, where we are now.

The Rippongo district is well known as a party district for foreigners, and I can see why. There are bars and clubs and karaoke places everywhere. It's quite impressive, except that not much of it is open this early. If it were the evening, the lights would be lit and people would be rushing in and out of these places. Perhaps sometime later when we want to get away from the other nerds and be crazy. However, I like being cheap so the less money I spend the better.

That's all for my update right now. I'll let you know how the afternoon pans out. I will also transfer my pictures later.

One Easy Decision

After deciding that UNC would not be a good fit for me, and hearing from the Computer Science department at UIUC, it seems I will not be going to graduate school in computer science.

Congrats Tom!

My little bro just got 14th in the National Finals of Race Walking for his division. Way to go!

I Broke My Own Rule

Last night, I went and got a corduroy jacket. It's nice and casual, nice color, very comfortable, and the price was unbeatable. However, it has two beautiful brown patches on the elbows. I guess I just couldn't wait until I got my doctorate...

Good news: it makes me look old enough that if I wore it to my recitation, they wouldn't think I'm a fellow student anymore.

I Don't Know What Merits "Severe"

I checked my weather.com widget for the first time in ages this morning, only to see a link to a severe weather warning. I don't really know how 50 degrees and melting snow equate to "HIGH FIRE DANGER." I guess I'll tackle anyone lighting up a cigarette or something. Yes, save the butt... save the world...

Rand's Webpage is Back

I'm very annoyed at Vista right now. I can't get non-ASP.NET compiled files to move through IIS. However, I have moved Rand's Webpage to my Mac, so check it out if you have missed it. He says there will be updates this weekend as the little brother race-walks at nationals in Tennessee.

My Girlfriend Keeps Me Warm at Night...

...because she made me a sweet blanket! Check it out, it looks sweet:

An Interesting Problem

A lot of people don't really know what Analysis is all about. I was in this group for a long time, and feared it due to my lack of interest in computation, which is what usually followed in most uses of calculus and differential equations. However, I'm rather enjoying some of the work I'm doing in my Elementary Analysis course, and I look forward to getting some more challenging problems. Here's one that I found to be quite interesting:

For each rational number x, write as p/q, where p, q are integers with no common factors and q > 0, and then define the function f(x) = 1/q. Also define f(x) = 0 for all irrational real numbers. Show that f is continuous over the irrationals, but discontinuous on the rationals.

The irrational part was left out of my required homework, but I'm an overachiever. Look forward to the solution on Thursday.

Japan Apporoacheth

Holy crap I go to Japan in 4 days.

That's way too soon, I don't have anything ready. However, I do know that I will be bringing my camera. I want picture requests. Of what things in Japan do people want pictures? Let me know and I'll see what I can do.

Here's my very rough schedule:

1. Fly out Saturday morning (Central time), arrive Sunday evening (Japan time)
2. Contest check-in Monday evening
3. Contest activities until Friday morning
4. 3-day, 2-night Kyoto tour until Sunday
5. Party all Sunday night until we ditch Yuliy and Riedesel at the airport
6. Wander Japan on our rail pass until our Thursday afternoon flight*

*this item is where the requests become especially important.

As far as I know, we don't have a plan for the four days after Kyoto, other than trying to go somewhere other than Tokyo, try to find cheap places to stay (hostels? cheap hotels?), and see lots of interesting places where English isn't used quite as regularly as the metropolis. We're thinking either North or South, but probably not both.

Anyway, comment to give me ideas.

Sorry, Microsoft Buddies

University of Washington is also a no.

New Notifications

MIT is a double-no.

Worst. Verification. Ever.

The latest and greatest* thing on the internet today is CAPTCHA, or "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart." This is commonly known as those squiggly letters that you need to recognize before you can submit a comment. The text-recognition tests have been the most popular, but there are some new ones coming in that show a few pictures and ask you to identify the shape or image. A sample question could be "which one is a duck?" or "find the square."

However, why don't these tests work the opposite way? Why can't we find out if the user is actually a spider? I propose the following CAPTCHA to tell if the end user is an advanced AI or a human: four images are presented (or any number of images) that correspond to the image resulting from painting the binary representation of several large numbers. The user must identify the proper image in order to continue. This is rather easy for a computer, as it could simply read the image and compare it with the numeric representation of the chosen number. Here is a sample:

Which image corresponds to
23131860008702247931725024401283924845840375233585978154883
45068930237651608072456776611921019000507569325025256487191
40926537596596274844146963344665387356650999754373550887510
22189457289706044689707678333823323495188906079270335480960
21447312265624850300006842820049339853152482484055890763565
16466940958401830833465039955020985526995381755528262262931
15860481662563353349694752788065454764531417718874101677909
37694846922598432598776703520819319832205693376635136426163
90149241809058841128075294718827086808600357096120027164879
73737308315968024522299408437148886741462473305130627451937
62966129615992845231038396797201818703300577819683680316984
93321499077460306367732014897346885335536240969971834403997
45859233300946328964294465059017737074611307279272515197480
47554505484935796008010253996760184885903821925183378231614
76732366399027081593283652730203067365505156007582625250521
64582128616287553229576026910738647633905928699998867700051
27600181255097615586952299961125942436691316963334437871270
03917967629216384157842365767763225372556069918063108494521
16470732524674673167573975484762379183117155444029686592086
11711118373898774419331121209205039419820813279354567633686
91948383471705015332623019885174497624811220552502403120303
10702687278911759377003219399273560181931392343039636463412
57265051000223689966505985958538465173518079588303600135832
07495189888183206705872836608571063930582997485544490134070
43315432519875051217123309274023704438864059119428641930990
08567019025377211080532630519450568858636936546549481220988
66993233089669894961135138597569127800279365964490340584492
98564692612208984467563219873236856212515377545370204184700
30082316318238163506050892018039502792240127446297900662928
99392385816774114967434031062619758645035205417772066892381
06345120549483706342504710636692653282726491509998624425637
47464934415156561090558422970965910399251001450658419992308
82788018688473894382973599078368413336648293666009071276824
00690877763091660459291306058318008473189829472993252835062
14555445390152592096826807562945275749795028628669294142130
89943814313094398881762961326676295705725349623753411892683
51366187586632666263531202330958379444611530501823058439268
33283207920921191288421694121634695695823858384838514490943
20910478147588989581184195544279057717899813396319412700933
43725233794979683133919308353817912556748170423598652380114
39115326478975639197709028880030373877064623293223705072994
60893897059709017246937922998867683866980739959283940756057
76470676206401314505671799714940982569867293901309724384423
84494178459844687570617161797543905889433098409586014486651
30026979018060231859312943490817967322022851700624660672069
38764985840535110131067594497633233937263828838105109209680
08461579133030718718750931467399702168030864406734404524606
01291187549803462265326107439177447551802620774387701136476
18113316650377538432373750227876910379610912526978155800825
58231681388555735762216592151101713043566162996365464125744
84417792823193654295174598316824427587581707692611607125744
68202028198369847692122183488061557565631928850666604431551
24930783772355602968167639187491392804692040575744874893343
48687786456308163682984133633409379211747446794733291695146
21047076103852903194928775504788842731797003927263997289118
76605266007544448265612496126778858366429579186517014896745
59555387150616588041467061223434692742519724756663579057146
96813292291306512988948144358906729862177239905399438796319
77523768560368418264510054945721421257566517943031747793266
28335994844718831136297659893022720000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
0000000000000000000?

As you may be able to tell, I constructed this number by multiplying random numbers between 1 and 2000 until I got a number big enough to fill the image. My original plan was to ask "which number is probable prime?" but it was taking too long to find a probable prime big enough. Also, my images use RGBA color-encoding, so that long string of 0's actually show up as transparent parts of the images on my form, instead of black lines.

Anyway, this is a really bad idea. No one should ever do it.

The Scoreboard So Far

• UNL Math - Yes.
• CMU CS - No.
• UNC CS - Yes.

I'll be sure to keep you posted with any new developments.