BrowserUk:

We're only picking three points for each triangle, and the point order doesn't matter, so the number of calls to chk_triangle_inequality during the exhaustive check for your dataset is n!/((n-3)!*3!). For your dataset, it's 680 calls, and 2024 for Dirk80's dataset. If it were trillions of checks, I'd've pressed ^C long before it ended. ;^D

Currently the check is pointless busywork, but since TSP problem is interesting to me, and printing interesting clues might spur ideas, so I threw it in for fun. I frequently litter my programs with print statements showing intermediate steps, or call functions whose results may be interesting. I delete it when it proves valueless to me, and then clean it up when I'm through. But I can't always predict beforehand which functions I'll find to be junk.

For example, when I was playing with your Bloom filter example, I put various print statements in my program, and noticed that one of the values was approaching an "interesting" value, allowing me to figure out the distributions.

Update: As AM said, wrong formula! Fixed.

...roboticus

When your only tool is a hammer, all problems look like your thumb.