You wonder how much real life testing these things get away from a lab if the screens scratch within seconds and no-one has noticed. I would at least of hoped they would have got testers out and using them in the real world.
The article doesn't seem to take into account one other important thing. Mozilla is constantly evolving and having new features added. IE has been the same for a while now. It seems sensible that a lot of the more obvious flaws and buffer overflows in IE have already been exploited and patched. As a slightly older product this makes it seem more secure.
I personally think that the two most important things you could possibly have are a good back supporting chair and good lighting. After doing many coding projects at Uni I found I had quite a sore back from the crappy chair I was using. Also a low watt bulb increased my eye strain. Personally I think a supportive chair will be a much better purchase than anything else. These are apparantly very good, although I have never tried one for extended periods of time.
I graduated University last Summer. I did Computer Science and never heard anything about competitive programming. Is it a biggish thing in the states?
The article mentions writing template code before the competition begins. How much code do these competitions generally let you rock up with? Could you turn up with huge preprogrammed libraries ready to deal with any situation? I know the questions would probably be rather obscure, but surely you get an unfair advantage by coming with preprepared code. Surely only allowing competitors standard libraries is the easiest way to make things fair.
That's good until you come across "equal opportunity" bureaucracy. If it's a smallish firm then fine, you can employ someone you know who gets the job done. In a larger firm you have to open the job formally, keep it open, give everyone an equal hearing to the position. No matter whether you know someone in charge or not, you'll be stuck behind red tape.
Progress is always forwards. Why sit with a Pentium I and 8mb of RAM for eternity because you can do your spreadsheets and use Word on it? If the technology exists, use it.
I MEEN OMG!!! DOES U LOSE ALL THOOSE QI PTS 4 EMALING LIKE THIS!?!?!?!?!?!
Seriously, If you are going to use e-mail like a retard then it probably does make you stupid. For some reason people seem to think that because it's an e-mail grammar, punctuation and spelling can go out of the window. It's just like text messaging short hand. I try where possible to write e-mails, text messages and instant messages with reasonable grammar, spelling and punctuation. It takes a little more time, but you soon learn to type faster and more accurately because of it.
There was a case in Britain not long ago where a student wrote an entire essay for their GCSE's (exams for 16yr olds) in txt message short hand. I believe that the sudden proliferation of new means of communication (txt messages, e-mails and IMs) mean that children learn txt short hand before learning grammar or typing skills. This means that they end up with some ugly short hand with no spelling required (since anything in the ballpark will let the reader know roughly what you're trying to say) and no grammar skills. Since most of them will be using txts and IMs before actually studying them in class it's no wonder that the fail to learn the correct way of doing things.
After six hours' exposure to the mixture, the mice were given fresh air. Their metabolic rate and core body temperature returned to normal, and tests showed they had suffered no ill effects.
Actually, there's nothing wrong with it. My guess is that the version omitting the z is the English version and the one with the z is the American, as in Britain we tend to use the s rather than the z in words similar to this, ie desensitise, moralise, formalise.
That's pretty much what I say. But then you have the problem that they identify the term ISP ONLY with the ISP they personally use. They don't realise that there are more than one ISP, and then you're nearly back to square one. Also many of them don't even own computers, much less have the internet at home.
It's true, I teach primarily for Microsoft Office. The module that we run that people have more trouble with than anything else is the internet, simply because of the amount of acronyms/jargon that is used. One question asks them to find out some information about three different ISPs. Invariably on their first attempt they come up with Google, Yahoo and AOL. It takes some of the older students weeks to learn the difference between ISP and search engine.
It's a shame that the people who are probably more likely to mis-type a URL and not notice/tell the difference are probably beginner users of the internet. These people are also perhaps more likely to fall for scams such as downloading trojans etc. I work as an IT trainer teaching older people how to use computers, and many of them are unable to tell the difference between typing something into a search engine, and typing something into an address box. They are definately the people that don't know that mis-typing a URL actually makes much of a difference, and I have seen many of them attempt to install malware, just because the install box has popped up, and they have no idea what to do with it.
I think id writes the actual 3d engines in C, and the other game code in C++ on top of that. I'm sure I saw some source code somewhere that suggested that. I find programming OOP in Java and C++ pretty similar, although Java has definitely to take the edge for me, as it is totally OOP. I prefer C++, but in a given environment I find myself using C++ without the OOP elements. In my eyes C++ is good for writing C code without all of the variable definition restrictions that C places (e.g. at the start of code blocks). In a totally OOP environment I think Java is generally easier
Surely you get a lot of hits from people seeing your webpage address advertised here on Slashdot with every post you make. This means that you're going to get a larger amount of "geeky" people who use all manner of weird and wonderful browsers. It's a slightly biased list of stats. I think the stats posted elsewhere in this discussion are from larger sites with a less biased user base.
The problem with such a small amount of "code" to go on, it is possible that many people will find different ways to explain it. For example the explanation in the article that it is an acronym for the words in a line of a poem. Another person may decide that it is a reference to Greek literature. However it is very possible that many little coincidences can be found to match and fit with the code, so we will probably never know the TRUE intention of the message.
Linux has no trouble with bundled software because there basically is none forced upon you. Linux itself is just the kernel, any distros that ship anything else will usually give you a few CDs with several hundred popular apps. I can't think of any distro that has just one media player or one browser that you can't install the distro without. Plus, any single distro doesn't have the market share that would constitute a monopoly even if they did force this on you.
Michael Jackson owns the publishing rights to the Beatles' music, not the actual recordings. So EMI owns the samples, whereas Jackson controls the rights of the song for people covering it
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You wonder how much real life testing these things get away from a lab if the screens scratch within seconds and no-one has noticed. I would at least of hoped they would have got testers out and using them in the real world.
The article doesn't seem to take into account one other important thing. Mozilla is constantly evolving and having new features added. IE has been the same for a while now. It seems sensible that a lot of the more obvious flaws and buffer overflows in IE have already been exploited and patched. As a slightly older product this makes it seem more secure.
I personally think that the two most important things you could possibly have are a good back supporting chair and good lighting. After doing many coding projects at Uni I found I had quite a sore back from the crappy chair I was using. Also a low watt bulb increased my eye strain. Personally I think a supportive chair will be a much better purchase than anything else. These are apparantly very good, although I have never tried one for extended periods of time.
It's like the people who put a sticky label on their cash cards with their pin number on it so it doesn't matter if they forget the number.
You'd like this one...
I graduated University last Summer. I did Computer Science and never heard anything about competitive programming. Is it a biggish thing in the states?
Cool, thanks for the replies and info. Know of any competitions in England by any chance? :)
Did you get preparation time before the questions were unveiled to write some preemptive code?
The article mentions writing template code before the competition begins. How much code do these competitions generally let you rock up with? Could you turn up with huge preprogrammed libraries ready to deal with any situation? I know the questions would probably be rather obscure, but surely you get an unfair advantage by coming with preprepared code. Surely only allowing competitors standard libraries is the easiest way to make things fair.
You missed two points out... 5. ??? 6. Profit!
That's good until you come across "equal opportunity" bureaucracy. If it's a smallish firm then fine, you can employ someone you know who gets the job done. In a larger firm you have to open the job formally, keep it open, give everyone an equal hearing to the position. No matter whether you know someone in charge or not, you'll be stuck behind red tape.
Progress is always forwards. Why sit with a Pentium I and 8mb of RAM for eternity because you can do your spreadsheets and use Word on it? If the technology exists, use it.
I MEEN OMG!!! DOES U LOSE ALL THOOSE QI PTS 4 EMALING LIKE THIS!?!?!?!?!?! Seriously, If you are going to use e-mail like a retard then it probably does make you stupid. For some reason people seem to think that because it's an e-mail grammar, punctuation and spelling can go out of the window. It's just like text messaging short hand. I try where possible to write e-mails, text messages and instant messages with reasonable grammar, spelling and punctuation. It takes a little more time, but you soon learn to type faster and more accurately because of it. There was a case in Britain not long ago where a student wrote an entire essay for their GCSE's (exams for 16yr olds) in txt message short hand. I believe that the sudden proliferation of new means of communication (txt messages, e-mails and IMs) mean that children learn txt short hand before learning grammar or typing skills. This means that they end up with some ugly short hand with no spelling required (since anything in the ballpark will let the reader know roughly what you're trying to say) and no grammar skills. Since most of them will be using txts and IMs before actually studying them in class it's no wonder that the fail to learn the correct way of doing things.
Yes, until they were cut up to be tested on....
Actually, there's nothing wrong with it. My guess is that the version omitting the z is the English version and the one with the z is the American, as in Britain we tend to use the s rather than the z in words similar to this, ie desensitise, moralise, formalise.
Is it an official fork of the Asimov book?
That's pretty much what I say. But then you have the problem that they identify the term ISP ONLY with the ISP they personally use. They don't realise that there are more than one ISP, and then you're nearly back to square one. Also many of them don't even own computers, much less have the internet at home.
It's true, I teach primarily for Microsoft Office. The module that we run that people have more trouble with than anything else is the internet, simply because of the amount of acronyms/jargon that is used. One question asks them to find out some information about three different ISPs. Invariably on their first attempt they come up with Google, Yahoo and AOL. It takes some of the older students weeks to learn the difference between ISP and search engine.
It's a shame that the people who are probably more likely to mis-type a URL and not notice/tell the difference are probably beginner users of the internet. These people are also perhaps more likely to fall for scams such as downloading trojans etc. I work as an IT trainer teaching older people how to use computers, and many of them are unable to tell the difference between typing something into a search engine, and typing something into an address box. They are definately the people that don't know that mis-typing a URL actually makes much of a difference, and I have seen many of them attempt to install malware, just because the install box has popped up, and they have no idea what to do with it.
I think id writes the actual 3d engines in C, and the other game code in C++ on top of that. I'm sure I saw some source code somewhere that suggested that. I find programming OOP in Java and C++ pretty similar, although Java has definitely to take the edge for me, as it is totally OOP. I prefer C++, but in a given environment I find myself using C++ without the OOP elements. In my eyes C++ is good for writing C code without all of the variable definition restrictions that C places (e.g. at the start of code blocks). In a totally OOP environment I think Java is generally easier
Surely you get a lot of hits from people seeing your webpage address advertised here on Slashdot with every post you make. This means that you're going to get a larger amount of "geeky" people who use all manner of weird and wonderful browsers. It's a slightly biased list of stats. I think the stats posted elsewhere in this discussion are from larger sites with a less biased user base.
The problem with such a small amount of "code" to go on, it is possible that many people will find different ways to explain it. For example the explanation in the article that it is an acronym for the words in a line of a poem. Another person may decide that it is a reference to Greek literature. However it is very possible that many little coincidences can be found to match and fit with the code, so we will probably never know the TRUE intention of the message.
Linux has no trouble with bundled software because there basically is none forced upon you. Linux itself is just the kernel, any distros that ship anything else will usually give you a few CDs with several hundred popular apps. I can't think of any distro that has just one media player or one browser that you can't install the distro without. Plus, any single distro doesn't have the market share that would constitute a monopoly even if they did force this on you.
Thank you, that's exactly what I meant :)
Michael Jackson owns the publishing rights to the Beatles' music, not the actual recordings. So EMI owns the samples, whereas Jackson controls the rights of the song for people covering it