The Load Factor Game

In this duo episode, Jason and Patrick introduce us to the world of hash maps, from buckets and hash functions, to differences between open and closed addressing, to minimal perfect hashes and locality sensitive hashing. A familiarity with hash maps is an oft-overlooked but highly sought-after skill, and it can be a valuable asset for those eyeing a career in programming.

Along with the main topic, Jason and Patrick also talk about some of their latest interests: books, gadgets, tools and games.

This episode touches on the following key topics and ideas:

00:01:27 Playing games with Oculus Quest: Acron, Racket: Nx, Gorn, Superhot 

00:11:05 News: “I Made a Water Computer” by Steve Mould

00:14:56 colinfurze

00:15:52 News: Comprehensive guide to Attention Mechanisms

00:21:53 News: Starship SN15

00:25:18 News: MailSync now Open source (GPL)

00:28:34 Jason’s Book of the Show: Elon Musk

00:32:04 Patrick’s Book of the Show: Ready Player Two

00:33:40 Jason’s Tool of the Show: Datadog

00:38:44 Patrick’s Tool of the Show: I Expect You to Die

00:40:30 Escape rooms

00:45:39 Sudoku

00:48:35 Hash maps: the promise and idea

00:50:59 Hash Functions

00:52:34 Examples of hash functions: Cryptographically Secure and Non-Crypto

01:01:05 Load Factors

01:03:43 Open vs Closed Addressing

01:15:10 Minimal Perfect Hash

01:16:25 salts

01:19:00 Locality Sensitive Hashing

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Tools

• Mailsync http://mailsync.sourceforge.net/
• Mailspring https://getmailspring.com/
• Datadog https://www.datadoghq.com/
• SHA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Hash_Algorithms
• MD5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MD5
• MurmurHash https://github.com/aappleby/smhashera
• xxHash https://cyan4973.github.io/xxHash/
• MapReduce https://www.ibm.com/analytics/hadoop/mapreduce

Books

• Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashlee Vance 
• Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline

Gadgets

• Oculus Quest 2 https://www.oculus.com/quest-2/
• Oculus Link https://www.oculus.com/accessories/oculus-link/

Games

• Acron: Attack of the Squirrels! https://www.resolutiongames.com/acron
• Racket: Nx https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/2255408847836468
• Gorn https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/3349689215139117
• Superhot https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/1921533091289407
• I Expect You to Die https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/1987283631365460
• The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the WIld https://www.zelda.com/breath-of-the-wild/

Videos:

• I Made A Water Computer And It Actually Works https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxXaizglscw
• colinfurze YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/user/colinfurze

Articles:

• Comprehensive guide to Attention Mechanisms https://www.analyticsvidhya.com/blog/2019/11/comprehensive-guide-attention-mechanism-deep-learning/
• Starship SN15 https://www.space.com/spacex-starship-sn15-launch-landing-success
• MailSync is now Open Source (GPL) https://community.getmailspring.com/t/a-free-open-source-future-for-mailspring/484

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