I read this recently from HBR and this resonated well with me

When you ask for feedback, the person who you ask for feedback thinks about how you you have done in the past. This makes them evaluate you based on
past performance leaving them little room…

Problem: https://atcoder.jp/contests/abc141/tasks/abc141_d

This is straight from the editorial at
https://codeforces.com/blog/entry/69809

Let me share few examples to be clear

If value is 9 then we can get 9 as 8 + 1 or 16 - 4 - 2 - 1
For the first case 8 + 1 the number of powers required is 2..
For the second case 16–4–2–1 the number of powers required is 4…

Simple brute force always works

Simple brute force solution always works. But today let us use some inclusion exclusion…

https://codeforces.com/problemset/problem/535/B

Consider simple case first.

Consider if the number was “4”

We cannot find any number less than 4. So index of given lucky number is 1