With any toll road, you are adding additional funds to the states particular highway funds which are going where? Secondly, you are discriminating access to public services/resources based upon financial status.
I strongly approve of this. Let it be only the ultra rich, the economically necessary vehicles, cabs, and busses be in Manhattan. Let's put the funds toward public transit in the area.
Why is it that I can take a train for 70 miles in 50 minutes in Switzerland, but a 40 mile train ride from New Jersey to New York takes 90 minutes?
Hell, I am living car free in New Jersey now, it's not hard to do around Manhattan. I am sure walking the streets would be only more pleasant with fewer cars.
I doubt that pushing their users to pirated stations is all that will happen. I called my senators and my representative today because Pandora went silent. This is the first (and hopefully not the last) time that I contacted the politicians representing me in the government. If Pandora just put an ad instead posting a plea on their front page and turning off the music, I may not have called.
I was writing code in lisp to remove duplicates from an unordered list.
How do you do it? Well, here is one reasonable way.
Sort the items in the list. Duplicate items will be adjacent, so scan through the list and add items when they aren't equal to the last item.
Since it was lisp, I naturally started writing a recursive quicksort.
My code looked something like.
quicksort (list)
if list has size less than 2, return list
Pick pivot from list
L = filter items in list < pivot
G = filter items in list > pivot
return quicksort(L) + pivot + quicksort(R)
However, my quicksort had a bug in it.
Look closely.
It didn't append copies of pivot to the returned sorted list. Thus, it removed them. Since every item eventually ends up as the pivot, all duplicates are removed. It's the only bug that has ever ended up saving me time.
Why doesn't apple leverage some bittorrent like technology? They have hundreds of thousands of people running their software with the content they need to distribute. It seems like such an obvious solution to problems like these. Maybe they could even incentivize leaving "upload mode" on by giving users a free song for every N (N = 100, 500?) their machine distributes.
See Matt Cutts (high up engineer at Google) post about yahoo changing their mail interface to AJAX and hence losing lots of pageviews. Essentially, page views is just a dated metric since there is no reliable way to count AJAX requests, which are substitutes for pageviews.
Here is a list of 10 problems used in the google code jam india. This was found with with google query google code jam 250 (250 stands for the point value of the easy problem).
You can practice on similiar problems in the same environment in the topcoder testing arena. Register for topcoder here. Referrer rrenaud.
It's not like these problems are designed so that you are solving things that Google needs solved. Trust me, you won't be able to put a dent in any sizable problem in an hour. Instead, the problems are designed to be fun and interesting, and to select coders for great problem solving ability.
If you want to practice for the Google Code Jam, you can do ordinary topcoder single round matches. Topcoder runs the contest and uses the same technology to host the Google Code Jam as their ordinary matches. You can register for topcoder here. Referrer rrenaud;). The next two topcoder matches are next Saturday at noon EST, and Thursday, August 24th at 11 am EST.
First, let me say that I am a big fan of computing. I run a student linux user group, I am a computer science major, and computers will be an integral part of livelihood when I am working as a software engineer after I graduate in a few months. Still, I think computers are a big crutch. Consider finding the sum of the first 100 positive integers. It's extremely easy for me to grab a linux machine and type
rob:~$ python Python 2.3.4 (#2, Dec 3 2004, 13:53:17) [GCC 3.3.5 (Debian 1:3.3.5-2)] on linux2 Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information. >>> sum(range(101)) 5050
And if knowing the sum of the first 100 naturals was all that I ever needed, the computer would be extremely useful. On the other hand, if I had no computer, I would probably be forced to think of something clever, like Gauss, and actually learn something. The insight I derived from the thinking is much more valuable than the answer itself. I think the problem with computers is that they are a crutch as much as they are a tool.
I'd personally much rather hire someone who got in A in calculus without using a calculator rather than one who did it with a TI-89.
So what do you use to bind Python and C/C++? I tried using the Python/C API and that was damn painful. Python is my favorite language, and I can code well enough in C++ to make it to the ICPC world finals, but I honestly struggled through making some very simple binding between C and Python. It's much nastier than programming in vanilla C. It seems to combine the worst parts of both C and Python.
I think if you normalized the salary for cost of living, it would be much less attractive. And then consider that they spend 60 hours a week at work rather than 40. Then add the fact that they are probably the top of their classes at school.
Sure, 60k sounds like a lot. But then when you consider all the factors, it's really not so much.
He won the final match, so he got the $10k. It was just like an ordinary Topcoder Single Round Match (problems were written by TopCoder employees, not Google Employees). You can read more about TopCoder here.
I competed in the tournament and qualified (was about 160 out of 2500, first 500 made the cut) in the qualifications, but then lost in the first online round (280 out of 450 in round 1, needed to be 250).
The competitions on TopCoder are fun in general. If you want to hone your algorithm skills, I recommend you compete. And you can even put your referer as rrenaud when you sign up;).
The developers are designing for each other and they are so feature rich--geeks love features--and you get more prestige by adding features.
Could he be anymore wrong on this? I am totally the opposite. Give me minimal over bloated anyday. What am I running now? fluxbox, irssi, pine, gaim, firefox. I guess gaim and firefox are rather large programs, but firefox itself is a leaner mozilla... and gaim at least isn't distractingly bloated, where the interface gets in the way of wanting to just send some IMs.
At least for their previous competions, the C++ compiler they use is g++. The contest applet runs happily on my Linux box. Topcoder isn't influenced that much by Microsoft, or else they surely wouldn't offer Java.
But nontheless, I'd like to have the opportunity to use different langauges (Python!). But I can see why they would want to support only 4 langauges, rather than 50, like they would have to if everyone could use their pet langauge.
It's sponsored by Microsoft. Therefore, you get to take money any from Microsoft. How bad can that be?
The cool thing about topcoder is they have real time competitions over the internet a few times a month. And then they will have a summary of how the round went along with solutions at the next day.
It's not like you can only do one, both are worthwhile IMO.
suck at topcoder. hopefully I'll break out of division two (requires a 1200 rating, gained ~70 points last match) tomorrow. But even the highest point question in division 2 requires some mathematical or algorithmic insight to solve. Sure, the easiest in div 2 are trivial, and the medium in div two is usually just a few nested loops, but the division 1 problems are much harder. To call the highest rated people just a bunch of code monkeys is a huge understatement. They are quite intelligent people.
I also do problems from the UVA ACM problemset, which are typically more difficult. However, they aren't realtime, so they don't get give you any competitve rush like topcoder.
Is anyone having trouble connecting to multiplayer games with the linux client? The game works fine in single player, but whenever I try to connect a multiplayer game, I always recieve a "connection failed" message.
Slashdot Mirror
I strongly approve of this. Let it be only the ultra rich, the economically necessary vehicles, cabs, and busses be in Manhattan. Let's put the funds toward public transit in the area.
Why is it that I can take a train for 70 miles in 50 minutes in Switzerland, but a 40 mile train ride from New Jersey to New York takes 90 minutes?
Hell, I am living car free in New Jersey now, it's not hard to do around Manhattan. I am sure walking the streets would be only more pleasant with fewer cars.
I doubt that pushing their users to pirated stations is all that will happen. I called my senators and my representative today because Pandora went silent. This is the first (and hopefully not the last) time that I contacted the politicians representing me in the government. If Pandora just put an ad instead posting a plea on their front page and turning off the music, I may not have called.
This probably does what you want.
n er|dooyoo|pricegrabber|pricewatch|resellerratings| ebay|shopbot|comparestoreprices|ciao|unbeatable|sh opping|epinions|nextag|buy|bestwebbuys)
http://www.givemebackmygoogle.com/
It just negates a whole lot of affliate sites.
This is part of the query it feeds to Google.
-inurl:(kelkoo|bizrate|pixmania|dealtime|pricerun
I agree, your solution is faster and easier to code if you have a hash table builtin.
I was writing code in lisp to remove duplicates from an unordered list.
How do you do it? Well, here is one reasonable way.
Sort the items in the list.
Duplicate items will be adjacent, so scan through the list and add items when they aren't equal to the last item.
Since it was lisp, I naturally started writing a recursive quicksort.
My code looked something like.
quicksort (list)
if list has size less than 2, return list
Pick pivot from list
L = filter items in list < pivot
G = filter items in list > pivot
return quicksort(L) + pivot + quicksort(R)
However, my quicksort had a bug in it.
Look closely.
It didn't append copies of pivot to the returned sorted list. Thus, it removed them. Since every item eventually ends up as the pivot, all duplicates are removed. It's the only bug that has ever ended up saving me time.
There is always Silicon Alley.
(Coming from a New York City Tech Geek who'd probably be happier in San Francicso if it weren't for his girlfriend and family).
Why doesn't apple leverage some bittorrent like technology? They have hundreds of thousands of people running their software with the content they need to distribute. It seems like such an obvious solution to problems like these. Maybe they could even incentivize leaving "upload mode" on by giving users a free song for every N (N = 100, 500?) their machine distributes.
See Matt Cutts (high up engineer at Google) post about yahoo changing their mail interface to AJAX and hence losing lots of pageviews. Essentially, page views is just a dated metric since there is no reliable way to count AJAX requests, which are substitutes for pageviews.
Here is a list of 10 problems used in the google code jam india. This was found with with google query google code jam 250 (250 stands for the point value of the easy problem).
You can practice on similiar problems in the same environment in the topcoder testing arena. Register for topcoder here. Referrer rrenaud.
It's not like these problems are designed so that you are solving things that Google needs solved. Trust me, you won't be able to put a dent in any sizable problem in an hour. Instead, the problems are designed to be fun and interesting, and to select coders for great problem solving ability.
If you want to practice for the Google Code Jam, you can do ordinary topcoder single round matches. Topcoder runs the contest and uses the same technology to host the Google Code Jam as their ordinary matches. You can register for topcoder here. Referrer rrenaud ;). The next two topcoder matches are next Saturday at noon EST, and Thursday, August 24th at 11 am EST.
What's wrong with xpdf? I am sure it loads a heck of a lot faster.
That is what Gauss did. I don't know if I'd call it a trick, but it certainly does require some insight.
First, let me say that I am a big fan of computing. I run a student linux user group, I am a computer science major, and computers will be an integral part of livelihood when I am working as a software engineer after I graduate in a few months. Still, I think computers are a big crutch. Consider finding the sum of the first 100 positive integers. It's extremely easy for me to grab a linux machine and type
rob:~$ python
Python 2.3.4 (#2, Dec 3 2004, 13:53:17)
[GCC 3.3.5 (Debian 1:3.3.5-2)] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> sum(range(101))
5050
And if knowing the sum of the first 100 naturals was all that I ever needed, the computer would be extremely useful. On the other hand, if I had no computer, I would probably be forced to think of something clever, like Gauss, and actually learn something. The insight I derived from the thinking is much more valuable than the answer itself. I think the problem with computers is that they are a crutch as much as they are a tool.
I'd personally much rather hire someone who got in A in calculus without using a calculator rather than one who did it with a TI-89.
So what do you use to bind Python and C/C++? I tried using the Python/C API and that was damn painful. Python is my favorite language, and I can code well enough in C++ to make it to the ICPC world finals, but I honestly struggled through making some very simple binding between C and Python. It's much nastier than programming in vanilla C. It seems to combine the worst parts of both C and Python.
I think if you normalized the salary for cost of living, it would be much less attractive. And then consider that they spend 60 hours a week at work rather than 40. Then add the fact that they are probably the top of their classes at school.
Sure, 60k sounds like a lot. But then when you consider all the factors, it's really not so much.
He won the final match, so he got the $10k. It was just like an ordinary Topcoder Single Round Match (problems were written by TopCoder employees, not Google Employees). You can read more about TopCoder here.
I competed in the tournament and qualified (was about 160 out of 2500, first 500 made the cut) in the qualifications, but then lost in the first online round (280 out of 450 in round 1, needed to be 250).
The competitions on TopCoder are fun in general. If you want to hone your algorithm skills, I recommend you compete. And you can even put your referer as rrenaud when you sign up;).
"Why do I get the feeling I wouldn't want to debug this guys code??"
;)
Beacuse it's written in lisp.
-1 flamebait
I think we should all link to it with the text miserable failure.
At least for their previous competions, the C++ compiler they use is g++. The contest applet runs happily on my Linux box. Topcoder isn't influenced that much by Microsoft, or else they surely wouldn't offer Java.
But nontheless, I'd like to have the opportunity to use different langauges (Python!). But I can see why they would want to support only 4 langauges, rather than 50, like they would have to if everyone could use their pet langauge.
It's sponsored by Microsoft. Therefore, you get to take money any from Microsoft. How bad can that be?
The cool thing about topcoder is they have real time competitions over the internet a few times a month. And then they will have a summary of how the round went along with solutions at the next day.
It's not like you can only do one, both are worthwhile IMO.
The first link Previewing would have been nice.. oh well.
I also do problems from the UVA ACM problemset, which are typically more difficult. However, they aren't realtime, so they don't get give you any competitve rush like topcoder.
Is anyone having trouble connecting to multiplayer games with the linux client? The game works fine in single player, but whenever I try to connect a multiplayer game, I always recieve a "connection failed" message.