Examine this pattern of asterisks and blanks and write a recursive method that can generate exactly this pattern:

* 
* * 
  * 
* * * * 
    * 
    * * 
      * 
* * * * * * * * 
        * 
        * * 
          * 
        * * * * 
            * 
            * * 
              * 

With recursive thinking, the method needs only seven or eight lines of ode (including two recursive calls). How is this pattern a fractal? Your method should also be capable of producing larger or smaller patterns of the same variety. Hint: Have two parameters. One parameter indicates the indentation of the leftmost line in the pattern; the other parameter indicates the number of stars in the longest line.

WARNING: Cheating is bad, mmmmkay children? Don’t cheat.

Make improvements to the car was simulation program

from Section 7.2.

Note: Portions of code taken from Michael Main’s version.

WARNING: Cheating is bad, mmmmkay children? Don’t cheat.

Suppose that you have n queens from a chess game, and that you also have an n-by-n chess board. Is it possible to place all n queens on the board so that no two queens are in the same row, no two queens are in the same column, and no two queens are on the same diagonal?

WARNING: Cheating is bad, mmmmkay children? Don’t cheat.

No doubt there is already some vastly superior date manipulation library already out there… stupid school.

Just kidding. I learned a LOT with this assignment.

Update:
Including a link to the album, “Covering 20 Years of Extremes“. I want to test my new auto affiliate link plugin.

I’m all for optimism anyway– I just think it feels better. But this guy is not simply telling us to change our attitude if we want to feel happier. He’s talking about the real, tangible results of a paradigm shift¹. (¹ See The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People“).

Here’s a quote:

I asked a group of lucky and unlucky volunteers to spend a month carrying out exercises designed to help them think and behave like a lucky person. These exercises helped them spot chance opportunities, listen to their intuition, expect to be lucky, and be more resilient to bad luck.

One month later, the volunteers returned and described what had happened. The results were dramatic: 80 per cent of people were now happier, more satisfied with their lives and, perhaps most important of all, luckier.

I swear I’m a case study of this principle! In the last two years my outlook, and in turn my life, have changed so dramatically for the better that I’m considering listing “luck” on my resume as a skill.

This is exactly the sort of thing that The Secret talks about, although it attributes success to “the universe,” which sounds much more mystical. Either way they both contain universal truth that is worth heeding.

So if you don’t feel lucky, then look on the bright side.

UPDATE: Apparently this guy has a book called Luck Factor. (Yes, it’s an affiliate link. I’m feeling lucky. )