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When I encounter pseudo-science, it is usually from the computer programming community perverting the mathematical discourse of computing science or the religious fraternity attempting to keep their logical absurdities propped up. I started reading about some of the amusing wonders of Homeopathy a few years ago and I recently came across this gem — a pure demonstration of utter stupidity and ignorance that will leave you flabbergasted. I don’t think this person is consciously lying, do you? Enjoy
P.S. It is Stephen Hawking (no ’s’)

I am constantly checking the version of scala-library.jar and scala-compiler.jar when I am using Scala to verify that I am using the correct version. Here is a lookup table with the MD5 hash for myself and anyone else who does the same:

2.7.0-final
79e45028a358f0deab9e569d3ba4ab70  lib/scala-library.jar
70c0fbd0f1f9b69e6073475ac815fed0  lib/scala-compiler.jar

2.7.0-RC3
9172d38ec2429f195f7c0d33f79f637b  lib/scala-library.jar
1531ca6819bc6cb9a22ff468255ed3a5  lib/scala-compiler.jar

2.7.0-RC2
8620b95f78e48f1ff1e84ebff4b3519e  lib/scala-library.jar
b4c7815aa711e7d810b8a1098f2952ca  lib/scala-compiler.jar

2.7.0-RC1
9284692b287677dc4d6535b0b58beac7  lib/scala-library.jar
52fdbf4c6848e8df235092c7c0d85de0  lib/scala-compiler.jar

2.6.1-final
b0b1f651acc03864d5c9aea8e2e8d37f  share/scala/lib/scala-library.jar
c546daad2358da9d00793ee6fa5a727e  share/scala/lib/scala-compiler.jar

2.6.0-final
ee5bc8b07c853eaff7ff5570a9a8e402  share/scala/lib/scala-library.jar
6486d3fd03d6223eca8230589372926a  share/scala/lib/scala-compiler.jar

2.5.1-final
958b1029fa5c016bb4d8cce61969dce5  share/scala/lib/scala-library.jar
7b078714f2bfda25b2c55adc0ce9ec47  share/scala/lib/scala-compiler.jar

2.5.0-final
a55fdd200521aaec309319c780d0acc3  share/scala/lib/scala-library.jar
d58909b8433137ce452cabe91c56b334  share/scala/lib/scala-compiler.jar

• I will never again be put in a position where a client requirement cannot be met in effort proportional to its complexity, as a result of the incompetence and outright malpractice of a fellow self-proclaimed computer programmer.
• I will never again be put in a position where I must tell a client that their requirement is overdue as a result of the consequences implied by the incompetence of a fellow self-proclaimed programmer.
• I will never again be put in a position where I must hack at software in most unsavoury ways (i.e. likely defective; unable to decompose perpetually) in order to achieve a client requirement satisfactorily — this flows from exclusive competence and thus, the elimination of incompetence.

F.F.S., The bar is not that high!

NEVER. EVER. AGAIN.

I noticed once before that this site was taken off Google’s search results immediately after posting a number in hexadecimal format that was apparently a copyrighted work and therefore, a violation of some other country’s law — something about DMCA. I immediately retracted this post and the web site returned to Google search results.

So I ask, what have I done now? Why can’t I google up my own rantings? Anyone got any hints?

Raf — a colleague — gave me the following problem:

Given a String (x) containing only characters a-z, write a function (f) that returns a base 10 integer, which converts the String as if it were a base 26 numeral. Function f is bijective.

Here are some example runs:

x      | f(x)
empty  | 0
a      | 1
b      | 2
z      | 26
aa     | 27
az     | 52
ba     | 53
bz     | 78
aaa    | 703
aaz    | 728
aza    | 1353

Using your preferred programming language, implement function f.

My solution is in a comment on this page. What is yours?