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Comment Current Records (Score 5, Informative) 307

by Mr. Sketch (#42381429) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Typing Advice For a Guinness World Record Attempt?

According to Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Words_per_minute

The fastest typing speed ever, 216 words in one minute, was achieved by Stella Pajunas in 1946 on an IBM electric.[6][7][8][9] As of 2005, writer Barbara Blackburn was the fastest English language typist in the world, according to The Guinness Book of World Records. Using the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard, she has maintained 150 wpm for 50 minutes, and 170 wpm for shorter periods. She has been clocked at a peak speed of 212 wpm.

One of the most notable online records considered genuine is 256 wpm (a record caught on video) on TypeRacer by American Sean Wrona, the inaugural Ultimate Typing Championship winner, which is considered the highest legitimate score ever set on the site.

Comment Enterprise Java Version (Score 5, Funny) 438

by Mr. Sketch (#42155691) Attached to: How Does a Single Line of BASIC Make an Intricate Maze?
package enterprise;

import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.OutputStream;
import java.io.OutputStreamWriter;
import java.io.Writer;
import java.util.Collections;
import java.util.Map.Entry;
import java.util.Random;
import java.util.SortedMap;
import java.util.TreeMap;

public class Maze {
    private final WallFactory<Double> wallFactory;
    private final EntropyGenerator entropyGenerator;

    public Maze( WallFactory<Double> wallFactory, EntropyGenerator entropyGenerator ) {
        this.wallFactory = wallFactory;
        this.entropyGenerator = entropyGenerator;
    }

    public void visit( MazeVisitor visitor ) throws MazeException {
        while( true ) {
            MazeWall wall = wallFactory.createMazeWall( entropyGenerator.getNewEntropyValue() );
            wall.visit( visitor );
        }
    }

    public interface MazeWall {
        /**
         * @param visitor
         * @throws IOException
         */
        void visit( MazeVisitor visitor ) throws MazeException;
    }

    public static class LeftDiagonalWall implements MazeWall {
        @Override
        public void visit( MazeVisitor visitor ) throws MazeException {
            visitor.visit( this );
        }
    }

    public static class RightDiagonalWall implements MazeWall {
        @Override
        public void visit( MazeVisitor visitor ) throws MazeException {
            visitor.visit( this );
        }
    }

    public interface MazeVisitor {
        void visit( LeftDiagonalWall leftDiagonalWall ) throws MazeException;

        void visit( RightDiagonalWall rightDiagonalWall ) throws MazeException;
    }

    public interface WallFactory<T> {
        /**
         * @param value
         * @return the MazeWall
         * @throws MazeException
         */
        MazeWall createMazeWall( T value ) throws MazeException;
    }

    public static class StrategyWallFactory<T> implements WallFactory<T> {
        private WallRepartitionStrategy<T> wallRepartitionStrategy;

        public StrategyWallFactory( WallRepartitionStrategy<T> wallRepartitionStrategy ) {
            this.wallRepartitionStrategy = wallRepartitionStrategy;
        }

        @Override
        public MazeWall createMazeWall( T value ) throws MazeException {
            Class<? extends MazeWall> wallClassForValue = wallRepartitionStrategy.getWallClassForValue( value );
            try {
                return wallClassForValue.newInstance();
            } catch( InstantiationException | IllegalAccessException e ) {
                throw new MazeException( "Cannot create MazeWall instance", e );
            }
        }
    }

    public interface WallRepartitionStrategy<T> {
        /**
         * @param value
         * @return the wall class for value
         * @throws MazeException
         */
        Class<? extends MazeWall> getWallClassForValue( T value ) throws MazeException;
    }

    public static class ProbabilityThresholdWallRepartitionStrategy implements WallRepartitionStrategy<Double> {
        private SortedMap<Double, Class<? extends MazeWall>> thresholds = new TreeMap<Double, Class<? extends MazeWall>>( Collections.reverseOrder() );

        public void declareWallThreshold( Double probability, Class<? extends MazeWall> wallClass ) throws MazeException {
            if( probability < 0 || probability > 1 ) {
                throw new MazeException( "Invalid probability " + probability );
            }
            thresholds.put( probability, wallClass );
        }

        @Override
        public Class<? extends MazeWall> getWallClassForValue( Double value ) throws MazeException {
            for( Entry<Double, Class<? extends MazeWall>> entry : thresholds.entrySet() ) {
                if( entry.getKey() < value ) {
                    return entry.getValue();
                }
            }
            throw new MazeException( "No MazeWall class found for probabitity threshold " + value );
        }
    }

    public static class MazePrintVisitor implements MazeVisitor {
        private static final String LEFT_WALL_REPRESENTATION = "&#9585;";
        private static final String RIGHT_WALL_REPRESENTATION = "&#9586;";

        private final Writer writer;
        private final int lineWidth;
        private int count;

        public MazePrintVisitor( Writer writer, int lineWidth ) {
            this.writer = writer;
            this.lineWidth = lineWidth;
        }

        @Override
        public void visit( LeftDiagonalWall leftDiagonalWall ) throws MazeException {
            print( LEFT_WALL_REPRESENTATION );
        }

        @Override
        public void visit( RightDiagonalWall rightDiagonalWall ) throws MazeException {
            print( RIGHT_WALL_REPRESENTATION );
        }

        private void print( String str ) throws MazeException {
            try {
                if( count >= lineWidth ) {
                    count = 0;
                    writer.write( System.lineSeparator() );
                }
                writer.write( str );
                count += str.codePointCount( 0, str.length() );
            } catch( IOException e ) {
                throw new MazeException( "Error printing maze", e );
            }
        }
    }

    public interface EntropyGenerator {
        double getNewEntropyValue();
    }

    public static class JavaRandomEntropyGenerator implements EntropyGenerator {
        private Random random = new Random();

        @Override
        public double getNewEntropyValue() {
            return random.nextDouble();
        }
    }

    public static class MazeException extends Exception {
        public MazeException( String message ) {
            super( message );
        }

        public MazeException( String message, Throwable cause ) {
            super( message, cause );
        }
    }

    public static void main( String[] args ) throws Exception {
        ProbabilityThresholdWallRepartitionStrategy repartitionStrategy = new ProbabilityThresholdWallRepartitionStrategy();
        repartitionStrategy.declareWallThreshold( 0.0, LeftDiagonalWall.class );
        repartitionStrategy.declareWallThreshold( 0.5, RightDiagonalWall.class );
        WallFactory<Double> wallFactory = new StrategyWallFactory<Double>( repartitionStrategy );

        EntropyGenerator entropyGenerator = new JavaRandomEntropyGenerator();

        Maze maze = new Maze( wallFactory, entropyGenerator );

        MazePrintVisitor printVisitor = new MazePrintVisitor( new OutputStreamWriter( System.out ), 40 );
        maze.visit( printVisitor );
    }

}

Comment Real Skepticism (Score 1) 1142

by Mr. Sketch (#41694793) Attached to: Ask Richard Dawkins About Evolution, Religion, and Science Education

Being skeptical is part of being a scientist and questioning new discoveries, since that is how you can sort out wrong claims from not-wrong claims. However, at some point, a discovery is no longer questioned and is accepted as 'true'. No one now seems to question that earth orbits the sun, or that the shape of the earth resembles a sphere due to overwhelming evidence, but when those claims were originally announced, they were greeted with much skepticism. Being skeptical of these claims now would make one look very silly.

Many people who do not accept evolution simply think they are being 'skeptical' of the claim, which is an admirable scientific trait. However, at this point, evolution is accepted as happening due to overwhelming evidence, so they simply look silly.

This leads up to my question of how do we tell someone that there is no reason to be so skeptical of evolution anymore since it's regarded as 'true' and they should just learn more about it instead of dismissing it immediately, while still professing that people should be skeptical of new claims and discoveries?
The Courts

EFF To Ask Judge To Rule That Universal Abused the DMCA 139

Posted by Soulskill from the lesson-in-responsibility dept.
xSander writes "The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) will urge a federal judge in San Jose, CA to rule that Universal abused the DMCA to take down a video of a toddler dancing to a Prince song. The case in question, whose oral argument will be Tuesday, October 16, is Stephanie Lenz vs. Universal, a case that began back in 2007. Lenz shared a video on YouTube of her son dancing to 'Let's Go Crazy' on a stereo in the background. After Universal took the video down, Lenz filed a suit with help of the EFF to hold Universal accountable for taking down her fair use. The court had already decided that content owners must consider fair use before sending copyright takedown notices."
Data Storage

Are SSDs Finally Worth the Money? 405

Posted by samzenpus from the best-value dept.
Lucas123 writes "The price of 2.5-in solid state drives have dropped by 3X in three years, making many of the most popular models less than $1 per gigabyte or about 74 cents per gig. Hybrid drives, which include a small amount of NAND flash cache alongside spinning disk, in contrast have reached near price parity with hard drives that hover around the .23 cents per gig. While HDDs cannot compare to SSDs in terms of IOPS generated when used in a storage array or server, it's debatable whether they offer performance increases in a laptop significant enough that justify paying three times as much compared with a high-end a hard drive or a hybrid drive. For example, an Intel 520 Series SSD has a max sequential read speed of 456MB/sec compared to a WD Black's 122MB/sec. The SSD boots up in 9 seconds compared to the HDD's 21 seconds and the hybrid drive's 12-second time. So the question becomes, should you pay three times as much for an SSD for twice the performance, or almost the same speeds when compared to a hybrid drive?"
Space

Launch Escape System To Be Tested For Apollo-Like Capsule In the Baltic Sea 42

Posted by timothy from the launch-scrub-til-søndag dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The Danish amateur rocket group Copenhagen Suborbitals are readying to test their Launch Escape System for the Tycho Deep Space capsule in the Baltic Sea east of the island Bornholm Sunday 12th August. Live coverage can be found at rocketfriends.org, livestream.com, Wired's Rocket Shop and raketvenner.dk. Live transmissions are expected from 8 am localtime (UTC+2). Live transmissions, audio commentary as well as VHF audio are expected to be available. The Tycho Deep Space is the intended capsule for a later planned suborbital shoot to the edge of Space led by Peter Madsen and Christian von Bengtson."

Comment Why so much to run a tld? (Score 1) 94

by Mr. Sketch (#40828471) Attached to: ICANN Backflips Again

Why does it cost hundreds of thousands to run a tld? Is most of that just labor/marketing costs? I would assume it would just be a matter of setting up a few replicating bind servers and a basic api for buying/adding domains that could be distributed to domain brokers (GoDaddy, Moniker, etc).

Maybe there is more involved that I think there should be?

I'm just curious where hundreds of thousands go to launch and run a tld.

Comment Re:Unit of time (Score 3, Informative) 85

by Mr. Sketch (#40517349) Attached to: Keeping Your Cloud Costs Under Control

It's wall-clock time. Even if your virtual instance is in the 'running' state but idle and doing nothing, you're still getting billed for it.

You're billed from when you do 'start-instance' to when you do 'terminate-instance'.

Regarding the partial hours, they are based on wall-clock hours as well. If you start your instance at 1:58 and stop it at 2:01, you will be billed for two hours: One hour for the 1:00-1:59 hour, and one hour for the 2:00-2:59 hour. I have a cron job that runs at :55 and checks for any instances I've started up, but I'm not using anymore and shuts them down (there is no point in shutting them down before then since I might end up needing them at some point during that hour).
Privacy

Have Your Fingerprints Read From 6 Meters Away 122

Posted by timothy from the give-'em-the-finger-prints dept.
First time accepted submitter Burdell writes "A new startup has technology to read fingerprints from up to 6 meters away. IDair currently sells to the military, but they are beta testing it with a chain of 24-hour fitness centers that want to restrict sharing of access cards. IDair also wants to sell this to retail stores and credit card companies as a replacement for physical cards. Lee Tien from the EFF notes that the security of such fingerprint databases is a privacy concern." Since the last time this technology was mentioned more than a year ago, it seems that the claimed range for reading has tripled, and the fingerprint reader business has been spun off from the company at which development started.
Privacy

Congress Considering CISPA Amendments 85

Posted by samzenpus from the ACTA-by-any-other-name dept.
First time accepted submitter casac8 writes "As Friday's House vote on CISPA nears, it appears Congress members are getting nervous. Literally millions of people around the world have signed petitions voicing their opposition, and it appears Congress has heard their concerns, as House members are considering a number of amendments aimed at limiting the negative impacts the legislation would have on Internet privacy. For instance, one amendment likely to pass would tighten the bill's language to ensure its provisions are only applied in the pursuit of legit crimes and other rare instances, rather than whenever the NSA wants to target Joe Web-user. And another would increase possible liability on the parts of companies who hand personal information over to the government."
Biotech

Commercial, USB-Powered DNA Sequencer Coming This Year 95

Posted by Soulskill from the we've-come-a-long-way-from-the-human-genome-project dept.
Zothecula writes "Oxford Nanopore has been developing a disruptive nanopore-based technology for sequencing DNA, RNA, proteins, and other long-chain molecules since its birth in 2005. The company has just announced that within the next 6-9 months it will bring to market a fast, portable, and disposable protein sequencer that will democratize sequencing by eliminating large capital costs associated with equipment required to enter the field."
Education

School Sends Child's Lunch Home After Determining it Unhealthy 554

Posted by samzenpus from the no-lunch-for-you dept.
halfEvilTech writes "A North Carolina mom is irate after her four-year-old daughter returned home late last month with an uneaten lunch the mother had packed for the girl earlier that day. But she wasn't mad because the daughter decided to go on a hunger strike. Instead, the reason the daughter didn't eat her lunch is because someone at the school determined the lunch wasn't healthy enough and sent it back home. What was wrong with the lunch? That's still a head-scratcher because it didn't contain anything egregious: a turkey and cheese sandwich, banana, potato chips, and apple juice. But for the inspector on hand that day, it didn't meet the healthy requirements."

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