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China Dominates In NSA-Backed Coding Contest
The Narrative Fallacy writes "With about 4,200 people participating in a US National Security Agency-supported international competition on everything from writing algorithms to designing components, 20 of the 70 finalists were from China, 10 from Russia, and 2 from the US. China's showing in the finals was helped by its large number of entrants, 894. India followed at 705, but none of its programmers was a finalist. Russia had 380 participants; the United States, 234; Poland, 214; Egypt, 145; and Ukraine, 128. Participants in the TopCoder Open was open to anyone, from student to professional; the contest proceeded through rounds of elimination that finished this month in Las Vegas. Rob Hughes, president and COO of TopCoder, says the strong finish by programmers from China, Russia, Eastern Europe and elsewhere is indicative of the importance those countries put on mathematics and science education. 'We do the same thing with athletics here that they do with mathematics and science there.'"
Apparently I was born on the wrong continent.
Maybe programmers in China, Russia, and Eastern Europe have more time on their hands, less money, and would derive more benefit from participating in the contest (prestige and recognition for instance). I'm sure there are a great many US coders who would do very well in this contest, but are too busy.
Which reminds me -- how is the USA doing in the World Cup?
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Our good programmers are gainfully employed.
Who knew that teaching kids that 1+1 can equal 3 as long as they feel good about themselves would turn out bad for us...
It's time for nerds to rise up yet again. Throughout modern history in the US, celebration of the nerd has resulted in unprecedented economic prosperity and global economic domination.
From the idolization of Einstein, Feynman, and other physicists, arose the economic superpower that dominated much of the world in the 1950s and 60s.
In the 80s, we were captivated by the message of Revenge of the Nerds, and on the shoulders of this movie we came to dominate the new era of Information.
Ladies, gentlemen: Now is the time. Now is the time to rise up from our comfy chairs, to rise up from our futons, to rise up from the depths of our basements! We must rise up as one united voice of nerd-dom, and speak to the mouthbreathers who have ground us beneath their bootheels since time immemorial. We must tell them:
ENOUGH! Take your stupid sports and shove them. Take your stupid pop music TV shows and shove them. Take your idolization of stupidity and sacrifice it on the altar of curiosity, the altar of edification, and the altar of neckbeards and cheetos!
WE MUST DEFEAT THE...
What's that mom? Yeah... OK... I'll be up for dinner as soon as I finish this level. Did you get some Mountain Dew?
Sorry, gotta go AFK.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Outline one method to gain access to NSA networks and provide code implementing the method. Bonus points for commented code.
Begin.
Hah, I recall phoning Hewlett Packard's tech support line some years ago... After tediously explaining my problem to the indian bloke on the other end, he said "I'm sorry, I do not know very much about computers"
Apparently, HP's buzzword for outsourcing is 'innovation'.
This post was made in complete sincere seriousity; as such any attempts to derive humour are doomed to instant failure.
Oh, sure, like drunken sports fans and tubby couch coaches aren't going to be important in the digital age. Those other countries just don't know what they're doing. Just wait, in a post-apocalyptic world we Americans will be ready to drink and fight with the best of them!
You are using English. Please learn the difference between loose and lose; they're, there, and their; your and you're.
... steroids and "performance enhancing" supplements. So by that line of logic, mathematics education outside of America = Lots of meth and piracetium?
Caffeine and artificial cheese flavoring.
I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
I think it is like the Superbowl, but instead of playing a sport they kick around a little ball and occasionally fall to the ground and roll around pretending they were shot.