You're making me violate my do-not-reply-to-anonymous-cowards policy here, shame on you.
Anyway, come on - it's an ambitious 1B NOK IT project which isn't only rendered unavailable due to "high" traffic, but also contains unforgivable flaws (like exposing "Kenneth") -- THAT, my friend, is a fucking joke, regardless of how profitable it is.
I normally wouldn't care about this, but since the Norwegian government (i.e. the people, myself included) paid 1 billion NOK for this solution, I expect it to WORK. Mind you, this is not the first time we've had problems with Altinn, this has been a recurring drama the past few years. As the article states; every year they claim to be prepared, and every year they are unable to deliver.
We're not *that* many people in Norway (recently hit the 5 million mark), and certainly not that many adults checking their tax returns online. Guesstimate: 1 million? And how many checks it simultaneously? Let's be generous and say half.
So how the hell can a 175 million USD project not be able to deal with 500k visitors? It's a fucking joke.
And, to be fair, OS4.1 and beyond is pretty good and is only available for new PPC hardware (like the Sam440, as well as the upcoming Sam460 and X1000). It comes with lots of GNU tools, gcc, a decent browser that actually works, good internet connectivity, and so on.
I've heard the author of the site is a handsome, athletic, sex machine.
Re:I had an interview with Google a few weeks ago
on
Want To Work At Google?
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Woah! You had to answer those questions on the phone whilst he was talking to you?
Yup, on the phone. I have 22+ years of programming on my back, and I applied for a position named "system developer". If I knew they were looking for some search engine optimizing guru, I wouldn't even bother contacting them in the first place.
BTW - the second question there was a bit meaningless - how can you 'sort a 100MB file'? Do they want the file in byte order (..)
Ah, yes. Sorry, I thought that was obvious.
IIRC, the correct answers (according to Google) were:
1st question: Start on the 14th floor. If it breaks, start with the second marble on the 1st floor and increase until it breaks. If it doesn't, go to the 14+13th floor, then 14+13+12th, etc. That gives you a maximum of 14 attempts.
2nd question: Split the file into 2M segments on disk, sort them (for example with quicksort) then use mergesort to get everything back together.
3rd question: Sort everything in RAM using bit vectors.
If you disagree with the answers, contact Google.:-)
The answer I see for the first question is a good ol' binary search. Throw from the 50th, if it doesn't break, throw from the 75th and so on. The other two you hit the nail in the head.
So let's say you drop the first marble from the 50th floor and it breaks. Then you drop the second marble from the 25th floor and it breaks too.
Then what?
I had an interview with Google a few weeks ago
on
Want To Work At Google?
·
· Score: 5, Informative
A bit OT, but could be helpful to others applying for a job at Google:
I had an interview with Google a few weeks ago. I didn't really know what I was getting into, as I applied just for fun.
After the initial emails and phone calls, I was contacted by a local Google employee (developer) for a detailed phone interview. He wanted to ask me "some technical questions" I was told.
Great, shouldn't be a problem? I got ready for C/C++/UNIX specific questions.
He called and we did some minor chit-chat before beginning the interview. But, to my surprise, here's what he asked:
The first question: "Imagine you have two marbles and a 100-story building. You are told that the marbles will break if they are dropped from a certain floor. Figure out a way, as effectivly as possible, how high you can drop the marbles before they break. Remember, it could be the 1st floor, it could be the 99th."
Second question: "Let's say you have a computer with 2M RAM. This computer has a hard drive (with lots of free space) and a 100M file which you should sort. Let me know how you, as effectivly as possible, sort the file."
Third question: "We take the computer from the previous question and replace the hard drive with a network adapter. You have no local storage but the RAM. You will receive one million eight-digit phone numbers through a TCP stream which you shall sort in RAM. You are now allowed to send any data before all the numbers have been sorted. How would you solve this?"
Needless to say, the interview didn't go very well and ended with him saying "Well.. I've heard enough. Buh-bye."
Get one of those cheat cartridges with parallel ports (Game Shark, Action Replay, etc). They come cheap, $3-$10 on ebay at the moment. Reflash the EPROM and you're ready to inject your own code, or simply watch some demos.
1. Buy Sealand on credit, you can get a loan anywhere these days. 2. Apply for your own TLD. 3. Open up for a new domain rush, demand ridicilous prices for certain domains 4. Release the loan using the income from domain sales. 5. You own Sealand, you are king.
Just when I thought the Wii couldn't get any more attractive, they come up with this. This cute, affordable console just gets more attractive for every day that goes by. Just check out the preview videos of some of its titles.
..And ofcourse, the reason to choose Wii over PS3. I mean, hey - who wouldn't?:)
Seriously though, all we need now is a free (or affordable) devkit and we've got ourselves a wi(i)nner.
I can't wait. I'm getting one the minute it hits the shelves.
I agree. I don't want to live an unnaturally long life, but I _would_ like to see the future...
So the day it's possible to cryogenically freeze people, I'm in.
Imagine being frozen for 50 years, then brought back so you could see the world for 1 year, then frozen for another 50, and so on until your natural death. You could witness the world thousands of years from now.
...so that makes up for the other two guys that went from Mac to Linux. We're back to normal, don't panic.
Anyway, I bought my Mac MIni about 18 months ago. A 1.25GHz G4, upgraded it to 1G RAM and added a 160G external hdd. It has crashed 4 times since I bought it (yes I keep count of it). Three times caused by X11, and one time because I accidentally unplugged a mounted USB device during R/W.
I love how the Mac just *works*. Real-life examples: - I took my 20.1" Benq monitor from my PC and plugged it into my Mac, and when I switched on the monitor my Mini had already configured the monitor with the best resolution and refresh rate. No Start->Settings->Desktop, no drivers, no XF86Config. - I used to play the piano, so I bought a M-Audio Keystation 49e, a USB-based MIDI keyboard. Plugged it in, and it worked. No drivers, just crank up GarageBand and start jamming. - I bought a USB joystick so I could play N64 games using an emulator. Plugged it in, wham, instant gameplay. No calibration, no depmod, no lsusb. The joystick was even "Designed for Windows XP". - Even my W800i phone was plug and play. Slam it in the USB port and copy MP3's or download the latest photos.
Maybe I've been lucky, I don't know. I certainly hope I don't sound as a whiny Mac fanboy, though. I love Linux, I used it constantly from 1996 to 2005 (I even worked as a Linux admin from 1997 to 2001). Hell, I'm not anti-Mickeysoft-boy either, as my day job is developing stuff in C#.Net on Microsoft Windows.
I just love how my Mac took all the fuzz away so I can focus on doing what I want to do.
A fortnight is a unit of time equal to two weeks: that is 14 days, or literally 14 nights. The term is common in British English, Hiberno-English and Australian English, but rarely used in American English. It derives from the Old English feowertiene niht, meaning "fourteen nights".
Keep in mind that the games were on cartridges with ROMs that could hold up to 24 kilobytes (IIRC). The 128 bytes of RAM was only for temporary data storage, like lives left, current score, level, player position, etc.
Recent research shows your keyboard is more dirty than a toilet seat
(2006-01-18 09:20) Do you have some dirt between the keys on your keyboard? Spending a few bucks on a new keyboard might be a good idea. The latest issue of Pc för Alla shows that a keyboard can be a major source for contamination.
By Fredrik Agren
A keyboard holds about 33.000 bacteria per square centimeter - 265 times more than a toilet seat.
The computer magazine PC För Alla has examined what exactly is hiding on a keyboard. The task was assigned to Pegasus Lab, which discovered that every square centimeter contained 3.100 fungees.
Not surprisingly, Enter and Space Bar are the most filthy, as they are the keys we use more frequently.
There are many ways to keep your keyboard clean, but those afraid of catching the flu can follow a simple advice from Smittskyddinstitutets Kerstin Mannerquist:
- Wash your hands when you're done with the computer, she says to PC För Alla.
###
Anyway, remember the findings of Mythbusters? In the episode Chinese Invasion Alarm episode, while busting the 5 second rule myth, they discovered that the toilet seat is one of the cleanest spots in your house.
I mean, hey - look at me, I'm at work right now, reading and posting on slashdot. I even spent a few minutes reloading the front page so I could go for first post.
But *Ahem* Seriously though, I love my job and only surf in between tasks. (-: (siht sdaer ssob ym esac ni tsuJ)
Now, I'm not sure that this is something your local DJ Sixpack would use, but I'm pretty sure you could turn this into a toy for children:
Imagine a record with holes you can fill with plastic pins - spin the record, and hear what you just made! It would exercise the children's sense of rythm and logic. Hell, make it a standalone unit while you're at it, and make cardridges that hold the samples. Drums, guitars, voices, bird sounds, car sounds, etc.
As for the license, it depends on what you want in return. Good karma or money? Or both?
Slashdot Mirror
You're making me violate my do-not-reply-to-anonymous-cowards policy here, shame on you.
Anyway, come on - it's an ambitious 1B NOK IT project which isn't only rendered unavailable due to "high" traffic, but also contains unforgivable flaws (like exposing "Kenneth") -- THAT, my friend, is a fucking joke, regardless of how profitable it is.
I normally wouldn't care about this, but since the Norwegian government (i.e. the people, myself included) paid 1 billion NOK for this solution, I expect it to WORK. Mind you, this is not the first time we've had problems with Altinn, this has been a recurring drama the past few years. As the article states; every year they claim to be prepared, and every year they are unable to deliver.
We're not *that* many people in Norway (recently hit the 5 million mark), and certainly not that many adults checking their tax returns online. Guesstimate: 1 million? And how many checks it simultaneously? Let's be generous and say half.
So how the hell can a 175 million USD project not be able to deal with 500k visitors? It's a fucking joke.
Because some of us just can't let go.
And, to be fair, OS4.1 and beyond is pretty good and is only available for new PPC hardware (like the Sam440, as well as the upcoming Sam460 and X1000). It comes with lots of GNU tools, gcc, a decent browser that actually works, good internet connectivity, and so on.
Four. Where's the last guy?
I've heard the author of the site is a handsome, athletic, sex machine.
Woah! You had to answer those questions on the phone whilst he was talking to you?
:-)
Yup, on the phone. I have 22+ years of programming on my back, and I applied for a position named "system developer". If I knew they were looking for some search engine optimizing guru, I wouldn't even bother contacting them in the first place.
BTW - the second question there was a bit meaningless - how can you 'sort a 100MB file'? Do they want the file in byte order (..)
Ah, yes. Sorry, I thought that was obvious.
IIRC, the correct answers (according to Google) were:
1st question: Start on the 14th floor. If it breaks, start with the second marble on the 1st floor and increase until it breaks. If it doesn't, go to the 14+13th floor, then 14+13+12th, etc. That gives you a maximum of 14 attempts.
2nd question: Split the file into 2M segments on disk, sort them (for example with quicksort) then use mergesort to get everything back together.
3rd question: Sort everything in RAM using bit vectors.
If you disagree with the answers, contact Google.
The answer I see for the first question is a good ol' binary search. Throw from the 50th, if it doesn't break, throw from the 75th and so on. The other two you hit the nail in the head.
So let's say you drop the first marble from the 50th floor and it breaks. Then you drop the second marble from the 25th floor and it breaks too.
Then what?
A bit OT, but could be helpful to others applying for a job at Google:
I had an interview with Google a few weeks ago. I didn't really know what I was getting into, as I applied just for fun.
After the initial emails and phone calls, I was contacted by a local Google employee (developer) for a detailed phone interview. He wanted to ask me "some technical questions" I was told.
Great, shouldn't be a problem? I got ready for C/C++/UNIX specific questions.
He called and we did some minor chit-chat before beginning the interview. But, to my surprise, here's what he asked:
The first question:
"Imagine you have two marbles and a 100-story building. You are told that the marbles will break if they are dropped from a certain floor. Figure out a way, as effectivly as possible, how high you can drop the marbles before they break. Remember, it could be the 1st floor, it could be the 99th."
Second question:
"Let's say you have a computer with 2M RAM. This computer has a hard drive (with lots of free space) and a 100M file which you should sort. Let me know how you, as effectivly as possible, sort the file."
Third question:
"We take the computer from the previous question and replace the hard drive with a network adapter. You have no local storage but the RAM. You will receive one million eight-digit phone numbers through a TCP stream which you shall sort in RAM. You are now allowed to send any data before all the numbers have been sorted. How would you solve this?"
Needless to say, the interview didn't go very well and ended with him saying "Well.. I've heard enough. Buh-bye."
Get one of those cheat cartridges with parallel ports (Game Shark, Action Replay, etc). They come cheap, $3-$10 on ebay at the moment. Reflash the EPROM and you're ready to inject your own code, or simply watch some demos.
1. Buy Sealand on credit, you can get a loan anywhere these days.
2. Apply for your own TLD.
3. Open up for a new domain rush, demand ridicilous prices for certain domains
4. Release the loan using the income from domain sales.
5. You own Sealand, you are king.
Two words: Bloody. Brilliant.
..And ofcourse, the reason to choose Wii over PS3. I mean, hey - who wouldn't? :)
Just when I thought the Wii couldn't get any more attractive, they come up with this. This cute, affordable console just gets more attractive for every day that goes by. Just check out the preview videos of some of its titles.
Seriously though, all we need now is a free (or affordable) devkit and we've got ourselves a wi(i)nner.
I can't wait. I'm getting one the minute it hits the shelves.
I agree. I don't want to live an unnaturally long life, but I _would_ like to see the future...
So the day it's possible to cryogenically freeze people, I'm in.
Imagine being frozen for 50 years, then brought back so you could see the world for 1 year, then frozen for another 50, and so on until your natural death. You could witness the world thousands of years from now.
THAT would be great.
Hey, I couldn't agree more ;-) [hence the sig]
There's a video on break.com where you can see the liquid armor in action - it's pretty amazing:
clicky
...so that makes up for the other two guys that went from Mac to Linux. We're back to normal, don't panic.
Anyway, I bought my Mac MIni about 18 months ago. A 1.25GHz G4, upgraded it to 1G RAM and added a 160G external hdd. It has crashed 4 times since I bought it (yes I keep count of it). Three times caused by X11, and one time because I accidentally unplugged a mounted USB device during R/W.
I love how the Mac just *works*. Real-life examples:
- I took my 20.1" Benq monitor from my PC and plugged it into my Mac, and when I switched on the monitor my Mini had already configured the monitor with the best resolution and refresh rate. No Start->Settings->Desktop, no drivers, no XF86Config.
- I used to play the piano, so I bought a M-Audio Keystation 49e, a USB-based MIDI keyboard. Plugged it in, and it worked. No drivers, just crank up GarageBand and start jamming.
- I bought a USB joystick so I could play N64 games using an emulator. Plugged it in, wham, instant gameplay. No calibration, no depmod, no lsusb. The joystick was even "Designed for Windows XP".
- Even my W800i phone was plug and play. Slam it in the USB port and copy MP3's or download the latest photos.
Maybe I've been lucky, I don't know. I certainly hope I don't sound as a whiny Mac fanboy, though. I love Linux, I used it constantly from 1996 to 2005 (I even worked as a Linux admin from 1997 to 2001). Hell, I'm not anti-Mickeysoft-boy either, as my day job is developing stuff in C#.Net on Microsoft Windows.
I just love how my Mac took all the fuzz away so I can focus on doing what I want to do.
I bet it's faster to google than posting (and waiting for an answer) here, but anwyay:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortnight:
A fortnight is a unit of time equal to two weeks: that is 14 days, or literally 14 nights. The term is common in British English, Hiberno-English and Australian English, but rarely used in American English. It derives from the Old English feowertiene niht, meaning "fourteen nights".
Keep in mind that the games were on cartridges with ROMs that could hold up to 24 kilobytes (IIRC). The 128 bytes of RAM was only for temporary data storage, like lives left, current score, level, player position, etc.
Quick'n'dirty translation:
###
Recent research shows your keyboard is more dirty than a toilet seat
(2006-01-18 09:20) Do you have some dirt between the keys on your keyboard? Spending a few bucks on a new keyboard might be a good idea. The latest issue of Pc för Alla shows that a keyboard can be a major source for contamination.
By Fredrik Agren
A keyboard holds about 33.000 bacteria per square centimeter - 265 times more than a toilet seat.
The computer magazine PC För Alla has examined what exactly is hiding on a keyboard. The task was assigned to Pegasus Lab, which discovered that every square centimeter contained 3.100 fungees.
Not surprisingly, Enter and Space Bar are the most filthy, as they are the keys we use more frequently.
There are many ways to keep your keyboard clean, but those afraid of catching the flu can follow a simple advice from Smittskyddinstitutets Kerstin Mannerquist:
- Wash your hands when you're done with the computer, she says to PC För Alla.
###
Anyway, remember the findings of Mythbusters?
In the episode Chinese Invasion Alarm episode, while busting the 5 second rule myth, they discovered that the toilet seat is one of the cleanest spots in your house.
No idea. Maybe it's a "better safe than sorry" approach, who knows. The least they could do is add a "Click here to continue at your own risk" link.
:-/
My bank says they don't support Safari either, but when I set it to identify as, say, Windows MSIE 6.0, it works like a charm. Same goes for gap.com.
I guess this is what happens when you spoon feed developers with only one technology.
Programmers? Hardware hackers? Gamers? Gadget geeks?
0 3/qid=1134394525/sr=8-8/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i8_xgl/202- 6834711-0899839
..or maybe even "Open Source Game Programming: Qt Games for KDE, PDA's and Windows":6 4/qid=1134395013/sr=2-3/ref=sr_2_11_3/202-6834711- 0899839
/ 0429213&tid=222&tid=6&tid=3
If your friends are into 3D programming or game development, I recommend some books about OpenGL.
I know I want this one, "OpenGL Game Programming":
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/07615333
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/15845040
If your friends are into hardware hacking, I recommend "Apple I Replica Creation":
http://books.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/03
I own this book myself and it's pretty cool, it covers almost all the DIY basics for building an 8-bit computer. How cool is that?
And ofcourse, for the gadget freaks you have ThinkGeek and Nerdorama..
> Talking of which: is there a PC->Amiga 500 cross compiler?
You can find a nice step-by-step tutorial here.
I mean, hey - look at me, I'm at work right now, reading and posting on slashdot.
I even spent a few minutes reloading the front page so I could go for first post.
But *Ahem* Seriously though, I love my job and only surf in between tasks.
(-: (siht sdaer ssob ym esac ni tsuJ)
> his goal for creating software was to 'Commit Digital Piracy'
>(...) written it in 1999
My first thought was "so what".
I said a lot of things 6 years ago that I disagree with today.
What, aren't we allowed to state our opinions anymore without having the fear of being haunted by the past?
This is bloody awesome!
Now, I'm not sure that this is something your local DJ Sixpack would use, but I'm pretty sure you could turn this into a toy for children:
Imagine a record with holes you can fill with plastic pins - spin the record, and hear what you just made! It would exercise the children's sense of rythm and logic. Hell, make it a standalone unit while you're at it, and make cardridges that hold the samples. Drums, guitars, voices, bird sounds, car sounds, etc.
As for the license, it depends on what you want in return. Good karma or money? Or both?
It seems like the author has switched km/h and mi/h around:
32 km/h = 19.88 mi/h
40 km/h = 24.85 mi/h