ibmthrowaway271

You could always use a calculator but the whole 'show your own working' catch meant you had to do it all manually. Not any more!

You could often cheat (for equation rearrangement questions) if you knew the answer by simply working backwards towards the question, this is often easier than going from problem to solution but still provides all of the steps along the way.

I remember one maths teacher hinting at this trick, especially to understand the derivation of the quadratic formula:-

    ax^2 + bx + c = 0

    x = ( -b +/- sqrt( b^2 - 4ac ) ) / 2a

As pointed out below, they aren't equivalent.

Compare the output of both when run against "foo bar WIBBLE"

Different behaviour.

capitalize downcases the rest of the each sub-string, the original code did not.

Ah, yes, good point.

For example, for YouTube alone, users upload over 400 hours of video every minute, which at one gigabyte per hour requires more than one petabyte (1M GB) of new storage every day or about 100x the Library of Congress

Hmm, something up with the sums in the middle of that.

400 hours of video every minute is much more than one gigabyte per hour. It's way more than one terabyte per hour.

Working backwards:-

1 PB/day =~ 42 TB/hour =~ 728 GB/minute

Another anecdata, but on the other side of the coin:

Virgin cable available right now, BT have put off upgrading my cabinet to FTTC for over 4 years now.

Still, I'm getting ~8Mbps/1MBps so it's hardly a reason to complain.

That is one of the better lines to ever be written in a legal letter.

Along with: http://www.lettersofnote.com/2013/08/arkell-v-pressdram.html

He's the 6th Brit in space, the 5th man.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn28666-first-official-...

" Despite what you may have heard, Peake is actually the sixth Brit in space. The first was chemist Helen Sharman, who flew to the Russian Mir space station in 1991 as part of Project Juno, a jointly funded mission between a private consortium and Russia. She was followed by the British-born astronauts Michael Foale, Piers Sellers and Nicholas Patrick, who all took US citizenship and flew on NASA missions, and Richard Garriott, a video game developer who went to the ISS as a space tourist. "

In my books its a minus that you can not rewrite history. What happens if you accidentially add code where you dont own the copyright? Or an API Secret?

Someone will write the necessary scripts (e.g. fossil-rebase) to go into the DB and rewrite history.

It's a common topic posted by people looking for a big boost of karma.

1. Find the most popular topics (by points) in HN 2. Manually filter out 'event' topics (e.g. product releases, time specific news items, etc) that won't work when reposted 3. Wait until a topic hasn't been raised for a while and post a unique URL (either a related URL that hasn't been posted as a topic but maybe appeared in the discussion, or an existing URL that is made unique) 4. Hope for big boost of karma

Which is why we often see many of the same old subjects being brought up again and again. Not necessarily a bad thing, but I'm sure that some are being posted by people trying to get their karma scores up.

Reminds me, where's that list of pg's essays...

Sound could be an option.

A TV license is required to watch broadcast television, so the number of channels they could be watching is finite. Even a muffled signal detected from a vibrating window (via laser microphone) could be compared to what is currently being broadcast by each of the channels (give or take a short processing delay) and any match found.

Nowadays it's mostly database enforcement. You obviously don't have to care about addresses that do have TV licenses so you just go looking for people with various TV subscriptions (Sky, Virgin Media) that don't have a TV license. It used to be done by the retailers submitting addresses of people who bought/rented TV equipment (TV, VCR, etc), any that didn't get (or already have) a TV license would get a visit shortly afterwards. Also people who watch programmes 'live' on-line (IP -> address conversion thanks to the DSL providers).

Is there a tool to output the DH params being used when attempting a TLS connection (not dumping them from a packet capture)?

I know I can, but I'm hoping for something simpler than having to parse the TLS messages from:-

  openssl s_client -connect host:port -msg

Do not look into razor with remaining eye?

Exactly, it's why I held out on posting my single counter anecdotal story.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1KD7DdnRb8 is the classic though.

TfL do this via Oyster card data but they have to plan for the bulk of people, not to create the fastest possible journey. There are usually much quicker ways to get in/out/through many tube stations but the signposted routes are the ones that can cope with the busiest periods.

A useful map to look at is the one with simple walks:-

http://now-here-this.timeout.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/...

It highlights just how simple it is to walk journeys that would naively involve one or two changes; St Pauls to Barbican for example, or Covent Garden to Tottenham Court Road.

[EDIT] Ah, found one of the links:-

http://www.lifehacker.co.uk/2014/05/29/10-best-london-tube-h...

" For example, changing from the Jubilee to Piccadilly line at Green Park, you’re better off going back up the escalators to the ticket lobby, then back down, rather than following the circuitous tunnel round.

...

At the bigger stations, some Underground lines are normally busier than others at rush-hour, so not following the signs can also pay dividends. A great example is Victoria station, where trying to get onto the Victoria line can take up to 15 minutes at 5pm. Instead, head down to the District Line, then follow signs to the Victoria line once you’re down the escalators. You’ll beat the rush, and as a bonus, come onto the platforms at the quieter end. "

I was paying £1200/month for one child for 3 days/week (5 days/week was £1800/month). Glad that's over with now!

(UK here but...)

33 hours a week over 4 days (the max IBM will allow you to do in 4 days). Two shorter days from home with an early start and early finish so I can collect my daughter from school. Longer days on the days my wife isn't working (she also works part-time). Prior to starting school daughter was at nursery and my hours were 9-5 for 3 days (so I could do nursery drop-off and collection) and one longer day.

Occasionally I work more than 33 hours a week but that's by my own choice. It's not expected of me.

Been part-time for more than 4 years now. I'm happy with my job, I've actively avoided career progression (as that would jeopardise the part-time arrangement) and my boss(es) are more than happy with this and with my output. They (and IBM in general) have been very supportive of it all.

Alternating days between home/office takes a bit of getting used to (and organisation) but I'm into the routine now.

Wouldn't trade that one day a week off for anything (even getting back the pay cut I took to get it), especially as it is "daddy day" during the school holidays (and before she started school). Now it's guilt-free time to do chores or whatever else I want.

We could both work longer hours, get a nanny, push for promotions and bigger jobs and pay off the mortgage in 5 years rather than 15 but I wouldn't get to spend any good quality time with my daughter so there's no point doing that. They're only young once.

A way to give feedback to the poster on inconsequential details such as language/spelling/typos/grammar/etc that isn't displayed to anyone else would be useful.

"7 reasons why you don't understand click bait articles"

Vote cancellation is weird.

I wonder if posts that have no genuine reason to be downvoted (like yours) get more votes if they add a comment to the effect "Not sure why this comment got a downvote" since multiple people will try and correct the erroneous downvote with no idea whether anyone else already has.

Edit: Ha! Thanks for the downvote.

I'm part of a team within IBM that's been using Agile (Scrum) for the last 6 years.

Originally it was just quite close to Waterfall dressed up as Agile but "they" (senior management) are finally getting their heads around it.

Also, what kind of corporate firewall lets you have access to Github but not tech blogs?

IBM's (although it doesn't block all tech blogs, and who's to know why they've decided to block yours.)

Works for planning applications in the UK too.

Building company wants to build a 12 storey block of apartments somewhere, but the locals will object to pretty much anything.

Initial planning application goes in for 42 storey block. Locals up in arms demanding it be reduced. Big protest campaign launched. Delays and then a revised planning application for 28 storeys. Outrage (but less vociferous). More delays and eventually a revised planning application for 12 storeys. Little complaint, planning application successful.

QI is riddled with inaccuracies:-

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/01/18/stephen_frytard/

What I understood here, is that they were redundant systems, but running the same software, with the same bug present, so both went down.

a.k.a. "flailover"

But this kind of thing does exist throughout IBM.

I work on a product that's pulled in >$2bn in revenue over the last 20 years. All with an average of 25 developers working on it. It's still going strong.