At some point a few years ago, I got interested in permutation algorithms and implemented a few that were in Knuth as well as gathered some that were floating around the internet. I never did anything with them, until I saw Aldo Cortesi's excellent sorting visualizations which reminded me of a figure from Knuth, and inspired me to create some visualizations of my own using Aldo's code.

Since I made the bracket randomizer (please go read that if you haven't, or this won't make any sense to you) I've been wondering about its performance.

I've updated my NCAA bracket randomizer for the 2010 field; check it out here. As of now, there are no improvements, but those may come in the next few days; feel free to suggest ideas.

Python does not have multi-line lambdas because Guido dislikes them aesthetically. However, with just a bit of introspection, code like this is possible:

Malcolm Gladwell's recent article, ostensibly about how Davids can beat Goliaths, featured great praise for the full-court press as a method for less-skilled teams to beat more-skilled ones. He writes: