At this point, I would do nothing. If they aren't hacked within a week after you posting this article then the security vulnerabilities don't really matter.
Maybe this was the strategy of OP? In that case, brilliant!
Particularly I find the question 9 very confusing:
"Write a subtraction story for 8; Draw a picture!"
What the hell is a "subtraction story"? How should a 6-year old child know that? And the correct answer for 8 apparently was subtraction (4=7-3), so how comes 8 was not a subtraction story already???
It matches the timezone of most of Europe during winter and half of Africa all the time. Right now the Czech Republic (along with most of Europe) is currently GMT+2 (UK and Ireland are GMT+1 for another two days, then we revert to GMT).
The timestamp studied in the article was from February, so no summer time in effect this time.
The authors of TrueCrypt have decided to remain anonymous. However, the timezone (GMT+1) of a TrueCrypt developer machine identified in the article matches the timezone of Czech Republic, mentioned in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TrueCrypt: "The TrueCrypt trademark was registered in the Czech Republic under name of "David Tesarik"". Does not conclude anything, but it is a bit reassuring to know it might be developed a bit away from NSA and other large 3-letter organizations.
If it would certainly drop, then it would be already zero today. The reason why the estimate is currently 0.00002% is because it is not known at which side the real value is. Actually, a defining criteria of a proper estimate is that it is located in the middle of the probability distribution, meaning that the actual value might lie on either side, with equal probability.
Note that the original article uses "likely" instead of "certainly".
According to TFA, he "calculated the average number of WTF commit comments per repository". So why not per line of code or whatever? C++ projects tend to be rather large (because it is harder to write large projects in other languages), so surely by this metric C++ would win (aka lose) here.
If there is one thing I have learned about statistics it is that you can prove about anything you want... unless you want and are actually able to find the correct normalizations.
How much one can work productively very much depends on all kind of conditions, most importantly the person itself and his/her age. The useful hours seem to start to decrease with age (although the total productivity may go up with more experience). For myself, I personally start feel myself tired after 6 hours of intense work; I remember from my twenties it was more like 10 or 12 back then. The problem is, when you keep working in that condition, you create extra work for yourself or other people as your sub-standard work needs to be undone and redone later.
If you really want to keep working after 8 hours then a way is full test-driven development. First write tests to test for anything that needs to be done, then write the code to pass the tests. Writing tests is much easier than doing the actual work, so there is a chance you won't screw up at this step. Then work as long or as sleepy to have the code pass the tests, and feel happy you have earned some more free money for the shareholders.
It's hard to believe anyone would confuse the NSA spy agency with NASA, the space agency
There's only a single letter of difference between the two acronyms; they can easily be confused with each other by anyone unfamiliar with either of the two agencies.
Add to that the fact that the the hacker was Brazilian and probably didn't speak English as his first language, I would see this as being extremely plausible.
Mod the parent up! In the first place, why should somebody in Brazil care at all if some TLA is the same as some FLA or not?
Extra credit for the article to put 'microseconds' in quotes! And then explain what it means. Whoa, so we can introduce entire generations in science who have not mastered difficult concepts like 'zero' before (http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1997-02-27/).
...you can't put up a new statement, without committing a crime.
... and you can't avoid putting it up, without commiting another crime (communicating the event). In my book this reads you are already guilty in advance and go straight to jail. Playing a smart-ass does not work with bullies!
If you don't have any slightest idea who to vote for, then you probably also don't know that voting is not compulsory or that the officials have no right to check your ballot before boxing. Better to tick just some box in order to not take any chances!
The more I think of it, these people are actually rather smart. In a bad situation forced upon them they try to get it over as quickly and safely as possible and move on with their lives. Scanning the ballot beyond the first tick box would be a clear waste of time.
The title is misleading again as hell. It appears they talk about the C code included in the Python compiler/interpreter project, and it is to be compared against other open source software projects, not against other languages. All that it shows is the Python project developers are eager to fix problems what this particular verification software founds. If they have fixed all those bugs, then they will have exactly zero known defects. Good for them, but most probably there will remain unknown defects, and it is hard to measure their amount.
In short, a meaningless article and a misleading title. The correct headline would have been "Python core developers are fixing bugs with help of a tool".
When I was driving in Thailand, the most memorable moment was when I went uphill with our small rental car and on a blind curve found two trucks coming down side-by-side, one truck apparently attempting to overtake the other, downhill, in a blind curve. Fortunately, I had fast enough reaction, was driving fast enough and the shoulder was wide enough, so I was able to get there and let them pass.
In some places the driving looked much more like a video game than real life - twisty road going up and down, filled with vehicles in a random and changing number of lanes, made up from bikes, scooters, motorbikes, tricycle motorbikes, plus normal cars, buses and trucks as well.
Just got back from a Sweden trip. On the regular major highways they have separated the opposing lanes physically by wire fences, so it seems it would be indeed difficult to have a fatal incident there. I saw hundreds of kilometers of those fences. For passing slower traffic they are using instead the 2+1 lane model, having relatively short 2-lane stretches where one can safely pass.
No idea why they are not building such highways in my own country. It seems they are fixated to building only fully divided highways (2+2 or more lanes) with bridges and tunnels and everything, which takes enormous amounts of money and thus takes forever to complete. Soon the EU support will be over and we are left with some tens of kilometers of super-highways and hundreds of kilometers of ancient overcrowded highways where dangerous overtakes are the new sports for the people.
I think communism has worked pretty well in places like Copenhagen's Christiania, at least for some time. It probably requires a certain kind of mental attitude which is hard to maintain in today's world. And it seems it is also hard to balance things instead of XOR-ing which is so much easier.
If you think the USSR experiment had anyhing to with communism you are mistaken. Read Orwell's Animal Farm first.
Come on, this is no news! This has been common knowledge for decades and it is in Wikipedia as well (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evolution_of_Cooperation).
--
A good summary is an excellent excuse to avoid reading the article. The same with a bad one.
I would rather much like the opposite filter: I would let the website know that I'm not interested in stuff like sports news or royal births, and the website would then not include such things in its content or ads. Currently I am forced to search for interesting things among a lot of totally boring stuff.
No 6 was easy as well. There are two arrows tailgating each other, one just has to identify the tailing one and observe if it has a circle to its left.
The test looked quite easy for me as well, scored 9/9 without really needing to do spatial folding in my head. Spatial folding would have been hard, but this test could be done without it, only using relative positioning of a couple of characteristic markers.
I guess their scores now got skewed by being slashdotted.
Slashdot Mirror
ISPs claim that [...] they are working with their users to improve quality.
One question: how can the users know about a blocked sexual education site in order to request unblocking it?
At this point, I would do nothing. If they aren't hacked within a week after you posting this article then the security vulnerabilities don't really matter.
Maybe this was the strategy of OP? In that case, brilliant!
Particularly I find the question 9 very confusing:
"Write a subtraction story for 8; Draw a picture!"
What the hell is a "subtraction story"? How should a 6-year old child know that? And the correct answer for 8 apparently was subtraction (4=7-3), so how comes 8 was not a subtraction story already???
It matches the timezone of most of Europe during winter and half of Africa all the time. Right now the Czech Republic (along with most of Europe) is currently GMT+2 (UK and Ireland are GMT+1 for another two days, then we revert to GMT).
The timestamp studied in the article was from February, so no summer time in effect this time.
The authors of TrueCrypt have decided to remain anonymous. However, the timezone (GMT+1) of a TrueCrypt developer machine identified in the article matches the timezone of Czech Republic, mentioned in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TrueCrypt: "The TrueCrypt trademark was registered in the Czech Republic under name of "David Tesarik"". Does not conclude anything, but it is a bit reassuring to know it might be developed a bit away from NSA and other large 3-letter organizations.
chance of an impact will certainly drop
If it would certainly drop, then it would be already zero today. The reason why the estimate is currently 0.00002% is because it is not known at which side the real value is. Actually, a defining criteria of a proper estimate is that it is located in the middle of the probability distribution, meaning that the actual value might lie on either side, with equal probability.
Note that the original article uses "likely" instead of "certainly".
According to TFA, he "calculated the average number of WTF commit comments per repository". So why not per line of code or whatever? C++ projects tend to be rather large (because it is harder to write large projects in other languages), so surely by this metric C++ would win (aka lose) here.
If there is one thing I have learned about statistics it is that you can prove about anything you want ... unless you want and are actually able to find the correct normalizations.
How much one can work productively very much depends on all kind of conditions, most importantly the person itself and his/her age. The useful hours seem to start to decrease with age (although the total productivity may go up with more experience). For myself, I personally start feel myself tired after 6 hours of intense work; I remember from my twenties it was more like 10 or 12 back then. The problem is, when you keep working in that condition, you create extra work for yourself or other people as your sub-standard work needs to be undone and redone later.
If you really want to keep working after 8 hours then a way is full test-driven development. First write tests to test for anything that needs to be done, then write the code to pass the tests. Writing tests is much easier than doing the actual work, so there is a chance you won't screw up at this step. Then work as long or as sleepy to have the code pass the tests, and feel happy you have earned some more free money for the shareholders.
CEOs are absolutely rewarded for success, because his performance can't be seen as anything other than a success by Microsoft.
There, fixed that for you!
It's hard to believe anyone would confuse the NSA spy agency with NASA, the space agency
There's only a single letter of difference between the two acronyms; they can easily be confused with each other by anyone unfamiliar with either of the two agencies.
Add to that the fact that the the hacker was Brazilian and probably didn't speak English as his first language, I would see this as being extremely plausible.
Mod the parent up! In the first place, why should somebody in Brazil care at all if some TLA is the same as some FLA or not?
Obligatory xkcd (from three days ago!!!): http://what-if.xkcd.com/62/
Extra credit for the article to put 'microseconds' in quotes! And then explain what it means. Whoa, so we can introduce entire generations in science who have not mastered difficult concepts like 'zero' before (http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1997-02-27/).
...you can't put up a new statement, without committing a crime.
... and you can't avoid putting it up, without commiting another crime (communicating the event). In my book this reads you are already guilty in advance and go straight to jail. Playing a smart-ass does not work with bullies!
If you don't have any slightest idea who to vote for, then you probably also don't know that voting is not compulsory or that the officials have no right to check your ballot before boxing. Better to tick just some box in order to not take any chances!
The more I think of it, these people are actually rather smart. In a bad situation forced upon them they try to get it over as quickly and safely as possible and move on with their lives. Scanning the ballot beyond the first tick box would be a clear waste of time.
The title is misleading again as hell. It appears they talk about the C code included in the Python compiler/interpreter project, and it is to be compared against other open source software projects, not against other languages. All that it shows is the Python project developers are eager to fix problems what this particular verification software founds. If they have fixed all those bugs, then they will have exactly zero known defects. Good for them, but most probably there will remain unknown defects, and it is hard to measure their amount.
In short, a meaningless article and a misleading title. The correct headline would have been "Python core developers are fixing bugs with help of a tool".
In the future: dear helpdesk, how can I disable these wobbling friends on the bottom of the screen who distract me from watching the show?
Yes, 2+2 is quite big around here. There are some 5+5 and similar sections, but these are inside the city, not really highways.
When I was driving in Thailand, the most memorable moment was when I went uphill with our small rental car and on a blind curve found two trucks coming down side-by-side, one truck apparently attempting to overtake the other, downhill, in a blind curve. Fortunately, I had fast enough reaction, was driving fast enough and the shoulder was wide enough, so I was able to get there and let them pass.
In some places the driving looked much more like a video game than real life - twisty road going up and down, filled with vehicles in a random and changing number of lanes, made up from bikes, scooters, motorbikes, tricycle motorbikes, plus normal cars, buses and trucks as well.
Just got back from a Sweden trip. On the regular major highways they have separated the opposing lanes physically by wire fences, so it seems it would be indeed difficult to have a fatal incident there. I saw hundreds of kilometers of those fences. For passing slower traffic they are using instead the 2+1 lane model, having relatively short 2-lane stretches where one can safely pass.
No idea why they are not building such highways in my own country. It seems they are fixated to building only fully divided highways (2+2 or more lanes) with bridges and tunnels and everything, which takes enormous amounts of money and thus takes forever to complete. Soon the EU support will be over and we are left with some tens of kilometers of super-highways and hundreds of kilometers of ancient overcrowded highways where dangerous overtakes are the new sports for the people.
I think communism has worked pretty well in places like Copenhagen's Christiania, at least for some time. It probably requires a certain kind of mental attitude which is hard to maintain in today's world. And it seems it is also hard to balance things instead of XOR-ing which is so much easier.
If you think the USSR experiment had anyhing to with communism you are mistaken. Read Orwell's Animal Farm first.
--
A former USSR citizen, not proud of it.
Come on, this is no news! This has been common knowledge for decades and it is in Wikipedia as well (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evolution_of_Cooperation).
--
A good summary is an excellent excuse to avoid reading the article. The same with a bad one.
I would rather much like the opposite filter: I would let the website know that I'm not interested in stuff like sports news or royal births, and the website would then not include such things in its content or ads. Currently I am forced to search for interesting things among a lot of totally boring stuff.
Yes, I know this will never happen. Too bad.
No 6 was easy as well. There are two arrows tailgating each other, one just has to identify the tailing one and observe if it has a circle to its left.
All the problems have an easy shortcut. Make choice, click submit. Score go up? Hit back, next question. Stay the same? Next choice.
Oh, so now we have discovered why the average score is so low!
The test looked quite easy for me as well, scored 9/9 without really needing to do spatial folding in my head. Spatial folding would have been hard, but this test could be done without it, only using relative positioning of a couple of characteristic markers. I guess their scores now got skewed by being slashdotted.