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Hi! I'm Joseff and along with being a student in chemical engineering, one of my great passions is language-learning. I learnt something really cool recently about Catalan (a romance language closely related to Valencian that's spoken in Andorra, Catalonia, and parts of Spain) — and that is how speakers tell the time.
While most European languages stick to the standard minutes-past / minutes-to between hours, Catalan does something really quite special, with a focus on the quarters (quarts [ˈkwarts]). To see what I mean, take a look at this clock made by Penguin___Lover on Instructables :
If you want to tell the time in Catalan, you should refer to the following hour (the one that's still to come), and how many minutes have passed or will pass for the closest quarter (sometimes half-quarter / mig quart [ˈmit͡ʃ kwart]) — clear as mud? It's definitely one of the more difficult things to wrap your head around as a learner. But fear not, with the power of MATLAB, we'll understand in no time!
To make a tool to tell the time in Catalan, the first thing we need to do is extract the current time into its individual hours, minutes and seconds*
function catalanTime = quinahora()
% Get the current time
[hours, minutes, seconds] = hms(datetime("now"));
% Adjust hours to 12-hour format
catalanHour = mod(hours-1, 12)+1;
nextHour = mod(hours, 12)+1;
Then to defining the numbers in catalan. It's worth noting that because the hours are feminine and the minutes are masculine, the words for 1 and 2 is different too (this is not too weird as languages go, in fact for my native Welsh there's a similar pattern between 2 and 4).
% Define the numbers in Catalan
catNumbers.masc = ["un", "dos", "tres", "quatre", "cinc"];
catNumbers.fem = ["una", "dues", "tres", "quatre",...
"cinc", "sis", "set", "vuit",...
"nou", "deu", "onze", "dotze"];
Okay, now it's starting to get serious! I mentioned before that this traditional time telling system is centred around the quarters — and that is true, but you'll also hear about the mig de quart (half of a quarter) * which is why we needed that seconds' precision from earlier!
% Define 07:30 intervals around the clock from 0 to 60
timeMarks = 0:15/2:60;
timeFraction = minutes + seconds / 60; % get the current position
[~, idx] = min(abs(timeFraction - timeMarks)); % extract the closest timeMark
mins = round(timeFraction - timeMarks(idx)); % round to the minute
After getting the fraction of the hour that we'll use later to tell the time, we can look into how many minutes it differs from that set time, using menys (less than) and i (on top of). There's also a bit of an AM/PM distinction, so you can use this function and know whether it's morning or night!
% Determine the minute string (diffString logic)
diffString = '';
if mins < 0
diffString = sprintf(' menys %s', catNumbers.masc(abs(mins)));
elseif mins > 0
diffString = sprintf(' i %s', catNumbers.masc(abs(mins)));
end
% Determine the part of the day (partofDay logic)
if hours < 12
partofDay = 'del matí'; % Morning (matí)
elseif hours < 18
partofDay = 'de la tarda'; % Afternoon (tarda)
elseif hours < 21
partofDay = 'del vespre'; % Evening (vespre)
else
partofDay = 'de la nit'; % Night (nit)
end
% Determine 'en punt' (o'clock exactly) based on minutes
enPunt = '';
if mins == 0
enPunt = ' en punt';
end
Now all that's left to do is define the main part of the string, which is which mig quart we are in. Since we extracted the index idx earlier as the closest timeMark, it's just a matter of indexing into this after the strings have been defined.
% Create the time labels
labels = {sprintf('són les %s%s%s %s', catNumbers.fem(catalanHour), diffString, enPunt, partofDay), ...
sprintf('és mig quart de %s%s %s', catNumbers.fem(nextHour), diffString, partofDay), ...
sprintf('és un quart de %s%s %s', catNumbers.fem(nextHour), diffString, partofDay), ...
sprintf('és un quart i mig de %s%s %s', catNumbers.fem(nextHour), diffString, partofDay), ...
sprintf('són dos quarts de %s%s %s', catNumbers.fem(nextHour), diffString, partofDay), ...
sprintf('són dos quarts i mig de %s%s %s', catNumbers.fem(nextHour), diffString, partofDay), ...
sprintf('són tres quarts de %s%s %s', catNumbers.fem(nextHour), diffString, partofDay), ...
sprintf('són tres quarts i mig de %s%s %s', catNumbers.fem(nextHour), diffString, partofDay), ...
sprintf('són les %s%s%s %s', catNumbers.fem(nextHour), diffString, enPunt, partofDay)};
catalanTime = labels{idx};
Then we need to do some clean up — the definite article les / la and the preposition de don't play nice with un and the initial vowel in onze, so there's a little replacement lookup here.
% List of old and new substrings for replacement
oldStrings = {'les un', 'són la una', 'de una', 'de onze'};
newStrings = {'la una', 'és la una', 'd''una', 'd''onze'};
% Apply replacements using a loop
for i = 1:length(oldStrings)
catalanTime = strrep(catalanTime, oldStrings{i}, newStrings{i});
end
end
quinahora()
So, can you work out what time it was when I made this post? 🤔
And how do you tell the time in your language?
Fins després!
tiledlayout(4,1);
% Plot "L" (y = 1/(x+1), for x > -1)
x = linspace(-0.9, 2, 100); % Avoid x = -1 (undefined)
y =1 ./ (x+1) ;
nexttile;
plot(x, y, 'r', 'LineWidth', 2);
xlim([-10,10])
% Plot "O" (x^2 + y^2 = 9)
theta = linspace(0, 2*pi, 100);
x = 3 * cos(theta);
y = 3 * sin(theta);
nexttile;
plot(x, y, 'r', 'LineWidth', 2);
axis equal;
% Plot "V" (y = -2|x|)
x = linspace(-1, 1, 100);
y = 2 * abs(x);
nexttile;
plot(x, y, 'r', 'LineWidth', 2);
axis equal;
% Plot "E" (x = -3 |sin(y)|)
y = linspace(-pi, pi, 100);
x = -3 * abs(sin(y));
nexttile;
plot(x, y, 'r', 'LineWidth', 2);
axis equal;
I've been trying this problem a lot of time and i don't understand why my solution doesnt't work.
In 4 tests i get the error Assertion failed but when i run the code myself i get the diag and antidiag correctly.
function [diag_elements, antidg_elements] = your_fcn_name(x)
[m, n] = size(x);
% Inicializar los vectores de la diagonal y la anti-diagonal
diag_elements = zeros(1, min(m, n));
antidg_elements = zeros(1, min(m, n));
% Extraer los elementos de la diagonal
for i = 1:min(m, n)
diag_elements(i) = x(i, i);
end
% Extraer los elementos de la anti-diagonal
for i = 1:min(m, n)
antidg_elements(i) = x(m-i+1, i);
end
end
For Valentine's day this year I tried to do something a little more than just the usual 'Here's some MATLAB code that draws a picture of a heart' and focus on how to share MATLAB code. TL;DR, here's my advice
- Put the code on GitHub. (Allows people to access and collaborate on your code)
- Set up 'Open in MATLAB Online' in your GitHub repo (Allows people to easily run it)
I used code by @Zhaoxu Liu / slandarer and others to demonstrate. I think that those two steps are the most impactful in that they get you from zero to one but If I were to offer some more advice for research code it would be
3. Connect the GitHub repo to File Exchange (Allows MATLAB users to easily find it in-product).
4. Get a Digitial Object Identifier (DOI) using something like Zenodo. (Allows people to more easily cite your code)
There is still a lot more you can do of course but if everyone did this for any MATLAB code relating to a research paper, we'd be in a better place I think.
Here's the article: On love and research software: Sharing code with your Valentine » The MATLAB Blog - MATLAB & Simulink
What do you think?
I got thoroughly nerd-sniped by this xkcd, leading me to wonder if you can use MATLAB to figure out the dice roll for any given (rational) probability. Well, obviously you can. The question is how. Answer: lots of permutation calculations and convolutions.
In the original xkcd, the situation described by the player has a probability of 2/9. Looking up the plot, row 2 column 9, shows that you need 16 or greater on (from the legend) 1d4+3d6, just as claimed.
If you missed the bit about convolutions, this is a super-neat trick
[v,c] = dicedist([4 6 6 6]);
bar(v,c)
% Probability distribution of dice given by d
function [vals,counts] = dicedist(d)
% d is a vector of number of sides
n = numel(d); % number of dice
% Use convolution to count the number of ways to get each roll value
counts = 1;
for k = 1:n
counts = conv(counts,ones(1,d(k)));
end
% Possible values range from n to sum(d)
maxtot = sum(d);
vals = n:maxtot;
end
My following code works running Matlab 2024b for all test cases. However, 3 of 7 tests fail (#1, #4, & #5) the QWERTY Shift Encoder problem. Any ideas what I am missing?
Thanks in advance.
keyboardMap1 = {'qwertyuiop[;'; 'asdfghjkl;'; 'zxcvbnm,'};
keyboardMap2 = {'QWERTYUIOP{'; 'ASDFGHJKL:'; 'ZXCVBNM<'};
if length(s) == 0
se = s;
end
for i = 1:length(s)
if double(s(i)) >= 65 && s(i) <= 90
row = 1;
col = 1;
while ~strcmp(s(i), keyboardMap2{row}(col))
if col < length(keyboardMap2{row})
col = col + 1;
else
row = row + 1;
col = 1;
end
end
se(i) = keyboardMap2{row}(col + 1);
elseif double(s(i)) >= 97 && s(i) <= 122
row = 1;
col = 1;
while ~strcmp(s(i), keyboardMap1{row}(col))
if col < length(keyboardMap1{row})
col = col + 1;
else
row = row + 1;
col = 1;
end
end
se(i) = keyboardMap1{row}(col + 1);
else
se(i) = s(i);
end
% if ~(s(i) = 65 && s(i) <= 90) && ~(s(i) >= 97 && s(i) <= 122)
% se(i) = s(i);
% end
end
What better way to add a little holiday magic than the L-shaped membrane atop your evergreen? My colleagues output the shape and then added some thickness and an interior cylinder in Blender. Then, the shape was exported to STL and 3D printed (in several pieces). Then glued, sanded, primed, sanded again and painted. If you like, the STL file is attached. Thank you to https://blogs.mathworks.com/community/2013/06/20/paul-prints-the-l-shaped-membrane/ and a tip of the hat to MATLAB Ornament. Happy Holidays!
Paul Prints the L-Shaped Membrane
As promised, Paul Kassebaum is back this week with an in-depth discussion of how to get from a mathematical object in MATLAB to a solid object you can hold in your hand. Paul is a maker in the truest sense of the word. If there are a hundred weird and unexpected obstacles between him and the thing he wants to
The Queen’s MATLAB
Good news for those of you who speak (and spell) the Queen's English instead of the US dialect. We are working night and day to make MATLAB use equally satisfying for the entire world's English speaking population!ContentsExpectations for Upcoming ReleasesNamesOur Current ListHelp Us Out!Expectations for Upcoming ReleasesYou can expect, in upcoming releases, to create a colorbar or a colourbar.
Christmas season is underway at my house:
(Sorry - the ornament is not available at the MathWorks Merch Shop -- I made it with a 3-D printer.)
I know we have all been in that all-too-common situation of needing to inefficiently identify prime numbers using only a regular expression... and now Matt Parker from Standup Maths helpfully released a YouTube video entitled "How on Earth does ^.?$|^(..+?)\1+$ produce primes?" in which he explains a simple regular expression (aka Halloween incantation) which matches composite numbers:
Here is my first attempt using MATLAB and Matt Parker's example values:
fnh = @(n) isempty(regexp(repelem('*',n),'^.?$|^(..+?)\1+$','emptymatch'));
fnh(13)
fnh(15)
fnh(101)
fnh(1000)
Feel free to try/modify the incantation yourself. Happy Halloween!
In case you haven't come across it yet, @Gareth created a Jokes toolbox to get MATLAB to tell you a joke.
Jokes in MATLAB
Get MATLAB to tell you a joke.
I was browsing the MathWorks website and decided to check the Cody leaderboard. To my surprise, William has now solved 5,000 problems. At the moment, there are 5,227 problems on Cody, so William has solved over 95%. The next competitor is over 500 problems behind. His score is also clearly the highest, approaching 60,000.
Imagine that the earth is a perfect sphere with a radius of 6371000 meters and there is a rope tightly wrapped around the equator. With one line of MATLAB code determine how much the rope will be lifted above the surface if you cut it and insert a 1 meter segment of rope into it (and then expand the whole rope back into a circle again, of course).
function ans = your_fcn_name(n)
n;
j=sum(1:n);
a=zeros(1,j);
for i=1:n
a(1,((sum(1:(i-1))+1)):(sum(1:(i-1))+i))=i.*ones(1,i);
end
disp
I am trying to earn my Intro to MATLAB badge in Cody, but I cannot click the Roll the Dice! problem. It simply is not letting me click it, therefore I cannot earn my badge. Does anyone know who I should contact or what to do?
Twitch built an entire business around letting you watch over someone's shoulder while they play video games. I feel like we should be able to make at least a few videos where we get to watch over someone's shoulder while they solve Cody problems. I would pay good money for a front-row seat to watch some of my favorite solvers at work. Like, I want to know, did Alfonso Nieto-Castonon just sit down and bang out some of those answers, or did he have to think about it for a while? What was he thinking about while he solved it? What resources was he drawing on? There's nothing like watching a master craftsman at work.
I can imagine a whole category of Cody videos called "How I Solved It". I tried making one of these myself a while back, but as far as I could tell, nobody else made one.
Here's the direct link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoSmO1XklAQ
I hereby challenge you to make a "How I Solved It" video and post it here. If you make one, I'll make another one.
Let’s Code! Make a Cody Video
Ever seen a
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