To stay on-topic, such a contest would be more interesting if they chose a higher-level language. In C#, it's very easy to hide CPU-intensive operations in a single line of code. This is because one can have a property that goes and does something like a 10-second database query.
Yes, but it would do the same 10-second query regardless of the OS. Now, can you find a way to make the query take longer on one OS than another? That's the goal. Not just degrading performance, but making it OS specific.
The article assumes that VOIP software is going to be sending/receiving VOIP and nothing else. Imagine a trojan that looks for and infects VOIP software, then uses it to phone home and send any confidential info to the server using the VOIP ports. All your user names, passwords, credit card info. Next, it sends home a list of all files. The server checks for certain obvious possibilities (e.g., customer.db, address.db, etc.) and replies with instructions to have them sent as well. Identity theft, wholesale and automated.
Walking, now, is great. You set your own pace, you can stop if you need without feeling guilty (Hey, you're not taking a break, you're checking out that shop window.) and it's not a distraction if you need to think. I write novels every November, as part of the annual novel-writing contest. (Winner 2004/2005, where winning consists of writing 50,000 words in 30 days.) Whenever I'm not sure what to do next, I go for a walk. It gives me some exercise, and helps me think. More than once I've come back with enough ideas to fill my daily writing quota.
I spent years doing tech support, and would like to do it again, but too much has been outsourced. At my call-center, we used headsets. Most techs considered them a leash; I called it an umbilicle. When I was on a call, if I didn't need to be using my computer (Like when I was talking somebody through something I could do in my sleeep.) I'd often get up and pace back and forth, stretching my legs while helping the caller. I also tried to make sure I always had a seat near a pillar so that during the more frustrating calls I could walk over and bang my head against it without putting the caller on hold. There were times it felt so good!
Not lead, iron. In order to fuse iron to anything higher, you have to add energy, rather than getting energy from it. Once a star starts creating iron in its core, it takes only about 24 hours to burn as much as it's going to. Then, as it contracts, the iron heats up until it suddenly breaks down into helium, taking back all the energy it's given out. That causes a catastrophic collapse, followed by the explosion known as a supernova. Among other things, this generates enough energy to fuse iron into higher elements, so that all elements above iron (including lead) to be the product of a supernova.
Before you go any further with the Bates Method, or suggest it to anybody else, you really need to see what Martin Gardner said about it in Fads and Fallicies in the Name of Science. It isn't pretty. In essence, the Bates Method relies on "accomadation," the ability of the eye to change its focus depending on what you're looking at, while denying its existance. About the best you can say about it is that it lets people brag that they don't need glasses, while walking around in a fuzzy world because they won't admit their vision isn't really clear.
...or really want it to get stolen. When I bought my laptop, the salesdroid told me it didn't come with a case, so I bought one as well. (He was wrong; big surprise.) The one I bought doesn't look at all like a laptop case, it looks like the sort of satchel you might use to carry papers and a few books. The one I found in the box with the laptop was very obviously a laptop case. I ended up giving it to a friend who needed one.
No it doesn't. California's law is stricter that this new act, and complying with DATA won't protect a company from being proscecuted for not complying with the CA act. Federal law only overrides state when the federal act is stricter.
As an example, let's take minimum wage laws. If Congress raises the federal minimum wage, everybody has to pay at least that much, even in states where the state minimum is lower. However, if you live in a state where the local minimum is already higher, nothing happens because you still have to pay the (higher) state minimum.
I know more than a few teachers who are angered by the unfunded mandate "no child left behind"
That's only one of the two problems with that idea. The other, and bigger is that "No child left behind." ends up as "No child gets ahead." Teachers spend so much time dragging along the slowest learners, the ones who really need to be left behind because the need that extra time, that they can't give the best and the brightest the attention they need and deserve. Thus, trying to bring the slowest up to standard means the best have to be held back.
Come up with a small project. If nothing else, a program that does something you want or need done, even if nobody else wants it. Write it, debug it, get it working and add as many or few features as you need. Don't worry if anybody else will ever use it because that's not what it's for. You'd be surprised how much you can learn, just trying to get it right.
Next, put the code aside; use the program, but don't look at the code for about six months or so, while doing other things. Then, come back, look it over and see if you can improve it. You'll have forgotten how you did things, so this will be similar to maintaining sobody else's code. By the time you're done, it will be better written, easier to understand and probably working better, and you'll have learned quite a bit more.
Re:One thing they didn't mention...
on
Hacker Boot Camp
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· Score: 1
Marines go to boot camp, everyone else goes to Basic
Not when I was in Uncle Sam's Navy it wasn't. It was Boot Camp, pure and simple. The USMC boot camp is the hardest physically, the USN's the hardest mentally. Maybe that's why the other branches just have Basic Training instead of Boot Camp.
I'm also not counting the pre-installed copies of WXP that are cheaper than normal market value (unless you want to pirate, but that's illegal.)
Why would I be putting WinXP on a new computer when I don't use it now? I'd either transfer my current HD, or set up a new one with Linux. YMMV, of course, and probably does.
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Yes, but it would do the same 10-second query regardless of the OS. Now, can you find a way to make the query take longer on one OS than another? That's the goal. Not just degrading performance, but making it OS specific.
It's what Real Programmers write, like Mel. If you've never heard of him, follow the link, read and be humbled by his genius.
The article assumes that VOIP software is going to be sending/receiving VOIP and nothing else. Imagine a trojan that looks for and infects VOIP software, then uses it to phone home and send any confidential info to the server using the VOIP ports. All your user names, passwords, credit card info. Next, it sends home a list of all files. The server checks for certain obvious possibilities (e.g., customer.db, address.db, etc.) and replies with instructions to have them sent as well. Identity theft, wholesale and automated.
...and one of the women said, "Ponies."
Walking, now, is great. You set your own pace, you can stop if you need without feeling guilty (Hey, you're not taking a break, you're checking out that shop window.) and it's not a distraction if you need to think. I write novels every November, as part of the annual novel-writing contest. (Winner 2004/2005, where winning consists of writing 50,000 words in 30 days.) Whenever I'm not sure what to do next, I go for a walk. It gives me some exercise, and helps me think. More than once I've come back with enough ideas to fill my daily writing quota.
I spent years doing tech support, and would like to do it again, but too much has been outsourced. At my call-center, we used headsets. Most techs considered them a leash; I called it an umbilicle. When I was on a call, if I didn't need to be using my computer (Like when I was talking somebody through something I could do in my sleeep.) I'd often get up and pace back and forth, stretching my legs while helping the caller. I also tried to make sure I always had a seat near a pillar so that during the more frustrating calls I could walk over and bang my head against it without putting the caller on hold. There were times it felt so good!
So write a coumtry song about your achy-breaky wrists, make a bundle and retire to raise ponies. OMG! PONIES!!!!
Not lead, iron. In order to fuse iron to anything higher, you have to add energy, rather than getting energy from it. Once a star starts creating iron in its core, it takes only about 24 hours to burn as much as it's going to. Then, as it contracts, the iron heats up until it suddenly breaks down into helium, taking back all the energy it's given out. That causes a catastrophic collapse, followed by the explosion known as a supernova. Among other things, this generates enough energy to fuse iron into higher elements, so that all elements above iron (including lead) to be the product of a supernova.
If so, you must know Fred Patten, at least by reputation. Have you been in touch with him since his stroke?
Before you go any further with the Bates Method, or suggest it to anybody else, you really need to see what Martin Gardner said about it in Fads and Fallicies in the Name of Science. It isn't pretty. In essence, the Bates Method relies on "accomadation," the ability of the eye to change its focus depending on what you're looking at, while denying its existance. About the best you can say about it is that it lets people brag that they don't need glasses, while walking around in a fuzzy world because they won't admit their vision isn't really clear.
...or really want it to get stolen. When I bought my laptop, the salesdroid told me it didn't come with a case, so I bought one as well. (He was wrong; big surprise.) The one I bought doesn't look at all like a laptop case, it looks like the sort of satchel you might use to carry papers and a few books. The one I found in the box with the laptop was very obviously a laptop case. I ended up giving it to a friend who needed one.
No it doesn't. California's law is stricter that this new act, and complying with DATA won't protect a company from being proscecuted for not complying with the CA act. Federal law only overrides state when the federal act is stricter.
As an example, let's take minimum wage laws. If Congress raises the federal minimum wage, everybody has to pay at least that much, even in states where the state minimum is lower. However, if you live in a state where the local minimum is already higher, nothing happens because you still have to pay the (higher) state minimum.
And if there isn't a skype-specific virus yet, there will be. Sooner or later, somebody will write and release one. Probably sooner.
And, for those women who've never outgrown the teeny-bopper stage, PONIES!
That's only one of the two problems with that idea. The other, and bigger is that "No child left behind." ends up as "No child gets ahead." Teachers spend so much time dragging along the slowest learners, the ones who really need to be left behind because the need that extra time, that they can't give the best and the brightest the attention they need and deserve. Thus, trying to bring the slowest up to standard means the best have to be held back.
Next, put the code aside; use the program, but don't look at the code for about six months or so, while doing other things. Then, come back, look it over and see if you can improve it. You'll have forgotten how you did things, so this will be similar to maintaining sobody else's code. By the time you're done, it will be better written, easier to understand and probably working better, and you'll have learned quite a bit more.
Not when I was in Uncle Sam's Navy it wasn't. It was Boot Camp, pure and simple. The USMC boot camp is the hardest physically, the USN's the hardest mentally. Maybe that's why the other branches just have Basic Training instead of Boot Camp.
Ponies. Lots and lots of ponies. Preferrably pink. If I can't say, "OMG! Ponies!" it doesn't matter what else the screenshot shows, it's lost me.
So it did. The last reigning monarch of the kingdom also wrote a song in prison after being deposed that's still considered a "standard."
Very true. However, only one was an independant kingdom.
Of course there's no Barbie Linux. Didn't you know, Hacker Barbie says, "Compiling kernals is hard."
No. We should tell everybody they have mod points, but if they don't really have them, they get an April Fools page when they try to use them.
No, but most people don't want to have to carry their passport around every day on the offchance they might need it for ID.
There's a full set of instructions for getting rid of Clippy here at annoyances.org.
Why would I be putting WinXP on a new computer when I don't use it now? I'd either transfer my current HD, or set up a new one with Linux. YMMV, of course, and probably does.