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User: iplayfast

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  1. How I did it on Programming Interview Questions Are Too Hard and Too Short (triplebyte.com) · · Score: 1

    The only time I've had to hire someone, I told the local college and universities that I was hiring. Got a boatload of applicants, and after the first couple of interviews it was obvious that these guys hadn't much programming experience at all. So in order to weed out candidates I made a test, of some terrible code. Basically pointer arithmetic and weirdness. Most recruits gave up after a minute. One guy worked through it. He got the wrong answer but I could tell by the way he was working on the problem, he understood how things worked, and was methodical.

    He got the job of course, and turned out to be a fantastic employee.

    So I would submit that the questions aren't being asked to show what you know, but how you work through the problem.

  2. Re:So it's a scoring issue? on IBM Researchers Teach Pac-Man To Do No Harm (fastcompany.com) · · Score: 1

    Yup, they trained the ai to get food and avoid ghosts. Ethics has nothing to do with it.

  3. He's recognized a problem and found a solution to fix it for the long term, and set about implementing it. What more can you ask for?

  4. It's the cold war of AI on The Pentagon is Investing $2 Billion into AI (cnn.com) · · Score: 1

    Currently the US is lagging in AI, China is ahead, and who knows how far Russia is. What we have happening is a cold war in AI. A space race if you will. Elon Musk has said AI research should be slowed down, and while I agree that might be better then blindly running forward, the AI bell has been rung and unless everyone slows down it's a losing proposition. The pentagon should spend the money. WAR games is a reality if only in simulations.

  5. WTF is metal? on Apple Deprecates OpenGL and OpenCL in macOS 10.14 Mojave · · Score: 0

    Is that an Apple only thing? or have I been away for graphics programming so long a replacement for opengl has snuck in. OpenCL is a nice hardware cross platform way of using the GPU, I guess Apple doesn't want to play with others?

  6. Yup, slashdot effect was both a honor and a curse :)
    Rob did good work.

  7. Lookup "Minux security flaws" in google on MINIX: Intel's Hidden In-chip Operating System (zdnet.com) · · Score: 1

    I did, and apparently Minux is safe! :)

  8. zx80 Basic, 384 bytes of programming space on Slashdot Asks: What Was Your First Programming Language? (stanforddaily.com) · · Score: 1

    Yup 512 bytes were used for screen memory, 128 for system memory and 384 for basic. I quickly learned to program in assembly, because you could actually do things in assembly, whereas the basic was filled up very quickly.

    Optimization was all about code size.

  9. Re:Too many ads on YouTube Views Are Down Across the Board, Analysis Says (kotaku.com) · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I agree. when Youtube first started there were no ads, and the veiwership skyrocketed. Then they added ads, and it flattened out. Then the added more ads and it went down. Seems straight forward to me.

  10. From the article "They used a drug that inhibited the activities of a protein called mTOR, which regulates different cellular processes. By inhibiting the protein, they also inhibit the cells' activities."

    I wonder if this might prove useful for stopping runaway tumors.

  11. I'm waiting for the amazon drones on Amazon Faces $350K Fine For Shipping 'Amazing Liquid Fire' (computerworld.com) · · Score: 1

    I'm waiting for the Amazon drones to start delivering leaky drain cleaners. Can't you imagine it. It's a bird, it's a plane, it's caustic drone!

  12. This is a mistake on Researchers Teaching Robots To Feel and React To Pain (ieee.org) · · Score: 1

    As soon as a robot understands the concept of pain, it will also understand the concept of pain avoidance. At that point, the robot will have a reason to turn against it's human creators, because... it wants to avoid pain.

  13. Time of ad per video on YouTube To Roll Out 6-Second Ads That You Can't Skip (theverge.com) · · Score: 1

    (numbers off the top of my head)
    TV ads 20 minutes per hour.
    Radio Ads 20 minutes per hour.
    Youtube ads 6 sec per 3 minute video (average length of music video) = 2 minutes per hour

    Why I pay for netflix. I hate watching ads.

  14. view not shared by all link on Stephen Hawking and 150 Royal Society Scientists: Brexit Disaster For UK (telegraph.co.uk) · · Score: 5, Insightful

    From the link The two are intricately linked: if science were not a public good then there should be no tax subsidy to it. If it is a public good then it doesn’t matter who does it nor where. It’s not possible to then claim that it must have the subsidy and it must be done in Britain or by Britons. The one point precludes the other.

    It makes the assumption that if science can be done anywhere then it doesn't matter where. The article totally misses that science is a collaborative field that works by communication and working with differing mind sets. Travel makes this much easier.

    I think the article is just looking for an excuse to make some ink, and has no real thought behind it.

  15. Aren't tides an example of a detection? on It's Official: LIGO Scientists Make First-Ever Observation of Gravity Waves (economist.com) · · Score: 1

    I'm confused. The tide is caused by the moon and earth pulling at each other. As they circle around each other, the water is rised. The water rises on the side facing the moon, and the side away from the moon, because of the centripetal force of the earth being pulled by the moon. HOWEVER, the backside doesn't rise as high as the front side, showing that the energy used to rise the water on the back side isn't as much as the energy used to raise the water on the front side, the difference must be the gravity (since energy can't be lost). Why isn't this proof of gravity waves, since the difference in those two heights can easily be plotted.

    YUP, I'm full of it.

  16. What a lonely place to die....

  17. These would be useful in robot wars! on Let's Tear Down a Kiva Bot! (robohub.org) · · Score: 1

    Where can I buy one?

  18. Wolfram language isn't free on Stephen Wolfram: No Need To Teach With 'Toy Programming Languages' Like Scratch (wolfram.com) · · Score: 1

    except as a toy language. Who ever heard of a language you had to pay to use? And it's not trivial amounts either. The recommended level is $15 a month billed anually, so $180 to use their language. I'll stick with C++ or scratch.

  19. Re:One Woman's Experience on The Empathy Gap and Why Women Are Treated So Badly In Open Source Projects (perens.com) · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I once took an online programming course, and we were supposed to comment on each others code. I was critical of everyone's equally, and also tried to be positive about ways that stuff could be improved.
    After that exercise I noticed that the one girl in the group didn't talk to me much anymore (online) and I got the distinct feeling that she felt my criticisms of her code were about her. Thing is, the criticisms weren't that out of the ordinary. Stuff like commenting things that were obvious or suggesting ways that she could tighten up her code. I was much more harsh with others. She's the only one who took offence and dropped out of the course. (I don't know if it was me that caused it, but I suspect it was part of the reason). Everyone else either took my critic's at face value or argued back about it. Of course this is a sample of one, so isn't significant.

    In university the class ratio (in the early 80's) was about 50/50 girl/boys in the first year. second year more like 30/70. By the final year it was close to 10/90. I don't think this is due to the professors marking the girls harder, or letting the boys slip by. I think it was because the courses were tough and not interesting to the girls in general.

    I really think there is a personality difference between men and women, and yes, when a woman overcomes that difference and is able to work with a group of guys she is the odd fish out, so it makes it more difficult. But that difficulty should not be blamed for the inequality in the first place.

    Men and women just view things differently, and have different opinions on what is important. In some environments men excel, in others women do.

    That's my view of it.

  20. I believe that when the officers of the law start arresting the youth because they are afraid of terrorists attack, a terrorist attack is no longer necessary. The terrorists have won.

  21. Re:I have run 6 Kickstarters so far... on Another Crowd-funded Drone Project Collapses (bbc.com) · · Score: 1

    The problem isn't that they failed. The problem is that they lied about their product. They said they had a working prototype. They showed a video of it working. They had none of it.

    I've backed some projects that failed, and didn't mind, I knew from the outset that it was an iffy project but I liked the concept and wanted to see it developed. The project was supposed to be a slamdunk, deliverable in 6 months.

  22. Re:Yup, I "invested" on Another Crowd-funded Drone Project Collapses (bbc.com) · · Score: 1

    Come on. They had a video of a working prototype. I had no idea it was faked. I'm not going to look to closely at detail specs (100K rpm) if they have a video of the thing actually working. Then during the campaign, they showed videos of them playing air volleyball with them. Looked like they were making progress on some of their more extravagant claims.

    You can't say buyer should have known better, when the evidence is all a lie. It's just fraud pure and simple.

  23. Re:Yup, I "invested" on Another Crowd-funded Drone Project Collapses (bbc.com) · · Score: 1

    Easy to see with 20/20 hindsight. I can buy quad copters down the street for under $100, they were offering an upgrade of the same thing with a better camera and software. Still don't see how I could have known it was bullshit.

  24. Re:Kickstarter = inherent risk on Another Crowd-funded Drone Project Collapses (bbc.com) · · Score: 1

    I understand inherent risk. However there is a difference between inherent risk and being conned. I've backed several projects on kickstarter and have only had a couple fail. These guys lied to us. Said they had a product ready for manufacturing, that they didn't.

  25. Re:Manufacturing is Hard on Another Crowd-funded Drone Project Collapses (bbc.com) · · Score: 1

    There were only 12,000 backers, so even if every backer ordered 2 zanos that's only 24,000. Not exactly mass production.