Confusing Algorithm

Newsgroups	comp.lang.python
Date	2013-04-22 05:39 -0700
Message-ID	<09f7da52-b0d6-4167-957f-d207faf33d07@googlegroups.com> (permalink)
Subject	Confusing Algorithm
From	RBotha <r@ymond.co.za>

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I'm facing the following problem:

"""
In a city of towerblocks, Spiderman can 
“cover” all the towers by connecting the 
first tower with a spider-thread to the top 
of a later tower and then to a next tower 
and then to yet another tower until he 
reaches the end of the city. Threads are 
straight lines and cannot intersect towers. 
Your task is to write a program that finds 
the minimal number of threads to cover all 
the towers. The list of towers is given as a 
list of single digits indicating their height.

-Example:
List of towers: 1 5 3 7 2 5 2
Output: 4
"""

I'm not sure how a 'towerblock' could be defined. How square does a shape have to be to qualify as a towerblock? Any help on solving this problem?

Thank you.

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Confusing Algorithm RBotha <r@ymond.co.za> - 2013-04-22 05:39 -0700
  Re: Confusing Algorithm Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2013-04-22 22:56 +1000
  Re: Confusing Algorithm Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2013-04-23 01:02 +1000
  Re: Confusing Algorithm Oscar Benjamin <oscar.j.benjamin@gmail.com> - 2013-04-22 15:57 +0100
    Re: Confusing Algorithm Christian Gollwitzer <auriocus@gmx.de> - 2013-04-22 22:33 +0200
      Re: Confusing Algorithm Ian Kelly <ian.g.kelly@gmail.com> - 2013-04-22 16:36 -0600
  Re: Confusing Algorithm DJC <djc@news.invalid> - 2013-04-22 22:38 +0100
  Re: Confusing Algorithm Tim Roberts <timr@probo.com> - 2013-04-23 23:18 -0700

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