Something I Shall Attempt

I recently was in communication with a human resources representative from Google, and learned some about their hiring process. She recommended Project Euler as a refresher in algorithms. I said I would be ready in three weeks. I shall give myself two for the "first stage", in which I shall attempt to solve five problems per day, so that I have completed a total of 70 problems October 26th.

In the process of writing this blog post my motivations changed from making the statement of "hey, look at me" so that I would be more inclined to keep my word to "good heavens, I really need some accountability so that I follow through with this." I am loathe to post answers publicly on this blog (because that would be like spoiling a puzzle and denying others the opportunity to solve it on their own) so I implore any mathematically inclined people out there who knew me at the University or otherwise to hold me accountable. Send me an email (demitri.morgan@gmail.com). Before submitting an answer to Project Euler I'll email it to you. I give every such volunteer permission (and encouragement) to e-harrass me if I am not forthcoming with solutions.

There will be a few days (October 19, 20 & 21) when I will not be at my computer, and thus not able to complete a solution. I will, however, attempt to come up with an algorithm for solving each problem, return on Sunday the 21st, and put it into code.

This may sound like pathetic bravado or delusions of grandeur, but I don't care how far I've fallen. but I'm bored with not giving myself intellectual challenges often enough. Instead of pleasure reading myself to sleep I'll sup on head-scratching and hard thinking in attempt to re-awaken mathematical problem-solving in myself.

This needs to exist.

If I had time and money, I'd start a business. Specifically, a website. This website would be the Yelp of grocery stores.

Imagine this, only only live, with local prices, updated whenever a grocery store updates their prices via product database integration. Grocery stores would use it for promotions and attracting customers by showcasing their deals. Customers will use it to have something akin to this, only online and stored in an online profile wherein prices are seen in real-time and they can mix and match to save time and money.

For a monthly service charge, consumers would be granted additional features, among them a mobile application (that would open locations for them in Google Maps/Navigate) and access to a tool that allows them to put in their starting point address, cost of gas, gas mileage of their vehicle, and their shopping list, and find (for any given day) the least costly grocery shopping route. That's where the fun happens; the underpinnings of the website would be an optimization problem like that of the traveling salesman.

For a monthly service charge, businesses would be granted the tools to automatically push and synchronize changes in their prices to the online database. Furthermore, as consumers add usage data, businesses could be provided with statistical predictions of how many more customers would be drawn to their store after the adjustment of any item's price. This would give them a means to gauge the elasticity of demand and adjust their prices to maximize profit.

Why does this interest me?

• It involves numerical methods, ergo it is awesome.
• It addresses a fundamental human need: to forage for victuals.
• It optimizes the effort to fulfill said human need, reducing gasoline consumption and wasted resources, time being one of them. That would free up resources for other pursuits.
• It exposes and makes readily available information where previously the best way of getting that information was physically going to a store.
• It's something that I want, so I could use it myself.

That being said, why does this not exist yet?