Not the Traveling Salesman Problem

[kpreid]

The problem of arranging a set of unbreakable text blocks in columns in an arbitrary order such that the columns are of approximately equal height is equivalent to the NP-complete “multiprocessor scheduling” problem, and the “LPT algorithm” described in the linked article performed excellently for my instance of the problem (4 columns, 6 blocks), which is actually my packing list for traveling to California tomorrow.

(I have a program which generates my packing list for me, based on type, duration, season, and transportation. It encodes all the accumulated knowledge about what to pack and where to pack it; after a trip I review my changes written on the printed list and incorporate them into the program.)