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Perl, CGI Scripts, & Forms in General
Zeviz
Nuke and Pave
Member # 24
 written Tuesday, October 30 2007 17:19 Profile Homepage #3
quote:
Originally written by Lt. Sullust:

If I remember correctly the error code was 500 something. They just recently set me up on the network, so perhaps they forgot to give me all the permissions I needed. Thanks.
If I am not mistaken, the file permissions on the script have to be executable by whatever group includes apache user. ("chmod +x filename" should do the trick.)

--------------------
Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword,
For it too has the power to kill.
However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword,
Can also have the power to heal.
Posts: 2649 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
Moving Images in General
Zeviz
Nuke and Pave
Member # 24
 written Monday, October 29 2007 20:00 Profile Homepage #41
quote:
Originally written by Knobgoblinking:

*Whistles nonchalantly*

What? He did not even bother consulting Her Divinity!
Noobking, please stop acting like a noob, unless you want the name "Noobking" to become attached to you as permanently as the name "Iffy" is attached to IFM. Considering that you were even more obnoxious when you first arrived here (and aren't that much better now, to be honest), you aren't really in a position to act superior in this way.

--------------------
Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword,
For it too has the power to kill.
However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword,
Can also have the power to heal.
Posts: 2649 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
can't replenish essence in Tech Support
Zeviz
Nuke and Pave
Member # 24
 written Monday, October 29 2007 14:10 Profile Homepage #1
Just to double-check, are you aware that making a creation takes away your essence for as long as the creation exists? (If you make a Fyora, you will not get that essence back by any means until that Fyora is destoryed.)

--------------------
Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword,
For it too has the power to kill.
However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword,
Can also have the power to heal.
Posts: 2649 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
Moving Images in General
Zeviz
Nuke and Pave
Member # 24
 written Monday, October 29 2007 13:46 Profile Homepage #31
quote:
Originally written by Jumpin' Salmon:

quote:
Originally written by Zeviz:

So why is it ok to be a jerk towards IFM, and not ok to be a jerk towards Zeviz?
I would prefer to see everyone being jerked around, but that wouldn't get much accomplished.

My assumption is that you have done some basic research prior to asking a question on SSMB.
...
In that case, it was obvious from the context that I had done zero research, because I wasn't even sure what features can be expected from a free host. If I had done my own research, I wouldn't need to ask a question here, because there are plenty of online forums full of user feedback.

As for IFM's fear of Google, he probably has overprotective parents who prefer to err on the side of caution. Just like in the other thread here, LakiRa's brother might be not allowed, rather than unwilling, to get his own email account.

Even if Google link is an appropriate response, saying "this is your answer, and here is how you could find it yourself" creates a much more friendly community than saying "go use Google, noob".

--------------------
Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword,
For it too has the power to kill.
However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword,
Can also have the power to heal.
Posts: 2649 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
Moving Images in General
Zeviz
Nuke and Pave
Member # 24
 written Monday, October 29 2007 13:18 Profile Homepage #29
Why don't we delete these boards and replace them with a link to Google? That would have the extra benefit of reducing Jeff's webhosting expense.

It sounds rather hypocritical when people tell IFM to never answer with "use Google", and then proceed to give that answer to his first question. Why is Aran's arcane question about Linux any more applicable to Spidweb than IFM's basic question about animated gifs?

For that matter, when I asked about webhosting, nobody felt the compulsion to tell me to use Google. And if I asked for an animated gif maker recommendation, I suspect I'd get serious advice, rather than lectures about youth of today being too lazy to use Google. So why is it ok to be a jerk towards IFM, and not ok to be a jerk towards Zeviz?

--------------------
Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword,
For it too has the power to kill.
However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword,
Can also have the power to heal.
Posts: 2649 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
problem in General
Zeviz
Nuke and Pave
Member # 24
 written Monday, October 29 2007 12:23 Profile Homepage #17
quote:
Originally written by Drew:

quote:
Originally written by Xian:

I find the idea of two people sharing the same identity as unnatural and disturbing as I would two minds sharing the same body.
Are you saying The Creator back in the day was unnatural? :)
When they anounced that they were two people, one of them started a separate account. Even before then "The Creator" account was mainly used by a single person, because only one of them was active online. (If I am not mistaken, Creator's biography at Liceum has this information, and more details on which of the brothers did which part of the combined work.)

--------------------
Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword,
For it too has the power to kill.
However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword,
Can also have the power to heal.
Posts: 2649 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
Thoughts on Custom Titles. in General
Zeviz
Nuke and Pave
Member # 24
 written Friday, October 26 2007 17:22 Profile Homepage #36
quote:
Originally written by Iffy:

I mean besides "Canned".
And I'm still wondering why Canned followed after my unbanning, while Nija (I know you don't like to be called that, but I no of nothing else to call you) did not.
If you don't even understand why you have Canned title, your chances of losing it are pretty low.

--------------------
Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword,
For it too has the power to kill.
However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword,
Can also have the power to heal.
Posts: 2649 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
a question in General
Zeviz
Nuke and Pave
Member # 24
 written Thursday, October 25 2007 16:03 Profile Homepage #42
quote:
Originally written by LakiRa@:

And which member numbers are concidered an oldbies and which newbies?Edit-I mean in global, from which to which number is oldbie and from which to which number is newbie.
Everybody has a different answer, but all of them come down to "Anybody much older than me is an oldbie. Anybody newer than me is a newbie." For example:
"... becouse for me being #10374 everyone with lower number than #9000 is oldbie but I noticed that it's not so for rest of you "oldbies"."

A poll we've had at some point confirmed this result: The top "oldbie" was recognised as such by 96% of the people. The next got 92%. Next 86%. Next 84%. And so on. All the way down to new people with less than 10% of votes and a noob with 0%.

quote:
Is there a middle bettwen newbies an oldbies or you just over night become from newbie an oldbie?
There have been huge posts written on "generations" of oldbiehood, but I think my formula above defines it quite nicely.

quote:
And does post count contributes to stop being newbie sooner?
No. An exessively high postcount is much more likely to lead to being considered a permanent noob.

[ Thursday, October 25, 2007 16:04: Message edited by: Zeviz ]

--------------------
Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword,
For it too has the power to kill.
However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword,
Can also have the power to heal.
Posts: 2649 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
Thoughts on Custom Titles. in General
Zeviz
Nuke and Pave
Member # 24
 written Thursday, October 25 2007 15:53 Profile Homepage #12
quote:
Originally written by Pale Masters Inc:

...
The oddity I've noticed is, why is it that some members who have very small post count have custom titles? Like Zorro (Havent checked his count recently so forgive me if I'm wrong) has about 200 posts yet has the title "Lack of Vision".
...
Quality > Quantity

--------------------
Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword,
For it too has the power to kill.
However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword,
Can also have the power to heal.
Posts: 2649 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
Consider This Catharsis in General
Zeviz
Nuke and Pave
Member # 24
 written Thursday, October 25 2007 15:47 Profile Homepage #37
You can check correctness of my algorithm by modifying it to return the actual palindrome, rather than just a number:

1. Save a copy of original matrix that you are overwriting.

2. When you are looking for a max, keep track of coordinates of the point where max value was found:
if ($matrix[$k][$j-1] > $max) {
..$max = $matrix[$k][$j-1];
..$max_x[$i][$j] = $k;
..$max_y[$i][$j] = $j-1;
}
(Use similar block of code for the $matrix[$i+1][$k] comparisons.)

3. When going through the matrix of results looking for largest value, keep track of its coordinates.

4. After largest value is determined, look up its coordinates in @max_x and @max_y, to find the coordinates of the previous point. Then look up the previous point, etc.

5. Finally, go through your list of points, reporting x-coordinates of the ones that are non-zero in the original matrix. (If I am not mistaken, the y-coordinates correspond to coordinates of matching letters from the first part of the string. However, I am at work now, so I don't have time to think this through.)

PS When you implement this, it might be easier to check correctness of answer with a shorter string.

--------------------
Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword,
For it too has the power to kill.
However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword,
Can also have the power to heal.
Posts: 2649 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
How did you guys begin? in General
Zeviz
Nuke and Pave
Member # 24
 written Wednesday, October 24 2007 21:23 Profile Homepage #32
As I always say in these threads, I had a boring internship in the summer of 2001, so I've found these boards.

The talk of Nephils v. Sliths reminded me that there is an online archive that Aran hasn't assimilated. :)

My oldest archived posts can be seen here: http://web.archive.org/web/20020215211627/www.ironycentral.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=000046
and here:
http://web.archive.org/web/20020214200842/www.ironycentral.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=11&t=000035
And perhaps in a couple other threads, but most of them seem to be purged from archives by now. :(

Apparently I am getting more verbose in my old age. :)

--------------------
Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword,
For it too has the power to kill.
However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword,
Can also have the power to heal.
Posts: 2649 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
A Few Questions in General
Zeviz
Nuke and Pave
Member # 24
 written Wednesday, October 24 2007 21:12 Profile Homepage #11
quote:
Originally written by Taliesin:

...
I had heard that starting with C/C++ can often lead to devilishly complicated coding unnecessarily, so I think I'll look into Java a bit. Thanks for the advice. :cool:
If it helps you feel better about Java, Berkeley CS department has switched most instruction from C to Java. The only classes still taught in C are the ones dealing directly with hardware, such as machine architecture.

At this point, writing in C is kind of like writing directly in machine language: sure it's more efficient, but it's completely unnecessary for most applications.

--------------------
Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword,
For it too has the power to kill.
However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword,
Can also have the power to heal.
Posts: 2649 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
a question in General
Zeviz
Nuke and Pave
Member # 24
 written Wednesday, October 24 2007 20:57 Profile Homepage #37
quote:
Originally written by The Ratt:

...
One rule that I personally would like clarification on is arctic. I have never heard of anyone by that name, making me think his is similar to an invisible newb.
...
In case you are still confused, the list of "rules" is full of inside jokes. Arctic's eating habits are one of them. His original display name was Arctic Wolf. So when somebody asked what happened to people who registered and never posted, somebody else replied that Arctic Wolf must have been hungry, and we know what wolves might eat when they get too hungry.

--------------------
Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword,
For it too has the power to kill.
However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword,
Can also have the power to heal.
Posts: 2649 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
Consider This Catharsis in General
Zeviz
Nuke and Pave
Member # 24
 written Wednesday, October 24 2007 20:46 Profile Homepage #25
Aran, congratulations with finding a polynomial time algorithm.

While trying to understand your solution, I found one that works in O(N^3):

When filling out your matrix, put 2, instead of 1 on all non-diagonals, to represent pairs.

Now go through each column from right to left, and let the value of each point be the sum of its original value and highest value along the edges of rectangle to the right and top of it.

In pseudo-code:

Let value(i,j) =
1 if i=j
2 if letter(i) = letter(j) (and i>j)
0 otherwise

for i = (N-1) to 1
..for j = 2 to i
....let best(i,j) = value(i,j) + MAX of best(i+1,l) for l = 1 to (j-1) and best(k, j-1) for k = (i+1) to N

result = MAX of best(i,j) for i = 1 to N, j = (i-1) to i

Here is an example:
String = abca

Matrix of values:
a.b.c.a
1.0.0.2
-.1.0.0
-.-.1.0
-.-.-.1

Matrix of bests:
a.b.c.a
1.0.0.2
-.3.2.0
-.-.3.0
-.-.-.1

result: 3 (either aba, or aca)

The reason I look at two diagonals to find result is for a case like aab (where the central pair has no single letters in the middle):
a.a.b
1.2.0
-.1.0
-.-.1

--------------------
Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword,
For it too has the power to kill.
However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword,
Can also have the power to heal.
Posts: 2649 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
Consider This Catharsis in General
Zeviz
Nuke and Pave
Member # 24
 written Wednesday, October 24 2007 12:03 Profile Homepage #19
quote:
Originally written by Student of Trinity:

...
But this is part of my question. Are non-deterministic Turing machines of any real interest, or were they just a notion people passed through on the way to realizing that verification was what they really wanted to discuss?
As far as I know, they are to quantum computing what regular Turing Machines are to regular computing, but I might be wrong on that.

(As an amusing side-note, there are people already writing graduate dissertations about solving problems on quantum computers, despite the fact that such computers themselves are still over a decade away, by the most optimistic estimates.)

--------------------
Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword,
For it too has the power to kill.
However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword,
Can also have the power to heal.
Posts: 2649 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
Consider This Catharsis in General
Zeviz
Nuke and Pave
Member # 24
 written Wednesday, October 24 2007 10:17 Profile Homepage #13
Drew, "NP" is a class of problems that are assumed to have No Polynomial-time solutions. NP-Complete problems are the hardest problems in that group. The "complete" part of description means that if you can solve one of these problems in polynomial time, you can solve all of them, and by extention all of NP problems.

"Polynomial time" means that for a problem of size X, it will take X, or X^2, or X^3, or some other fixed power of X steps to solve the problem. For example:

- Checking if a list of size X contains letter 'a' takes at most X steps.

- An obvious algorithm for finding biggest number in a list of size X takes X^2 steps. (For each number in the list, go through the whole list looking for a bigger number.)

Aran, that labirinth solution was a simple Breadth-First Search of a graph. I don't think you can reduce this problem to a BFS.

The solutions proposed so far have exponential worst-case running time (when run on a string of same letters), but polynomial average-case running time. This sounds very familiar, but I don't remember the details. I need to re-read my algorithms textbook.

--------------------
Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword,
For it too has the power to kill.
However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword,
Can also have the power to heal.
Posts: 2649 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
Consider This Catharsis in General
Zeviz
Nuke and Pave
Member # 24
 written Tuesday, October 23 2007 16:52 Profile Homepage #6
EDIT: Never mind.

[ Tuesday, October 23, 2007 16:54: Message edited by: Zeviz ]

--------------------
Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword,
For it too has the power to kill.
However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword,
Can also have the power to heal.
Posts: 2649 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
A Few Questions in General
Zeviz
Nuke and Pave
Member # 24
 written Tuesday, October 23 2007 16:37 Profile Homepage #7
quote:
Originally written by Fractal:

...
And yes, I know HTML and such aren't programming languages, but it's still basically programming.
That depends on how you define "programming language". If I remember correctly, the language has to be able to implement an infinite-state Turing machine (be Turing-complete). Which obviously rules out all markup languages, but might leave enough room for things like javascript. (Assuming javascript allows recursive function.) This definition basically means that to be considered a "programming language" your language needs a mechanism for recursion or loops.

--------------------
Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword,
For it too has the power to kill.
However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword,
Can also have the power to heal.
Posts: 2649 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
Consider This Catharsis in General
Zeviz
Nuke and Pave
Member # 24
 written Tuesday, October 23 2007 16:16 Profile Homepage #4
Why do I have a feeling that this problem is NP-complete? :)

I haven't done any NP-completeness proofs in several years, so I'll think about it after work, but it is looking similar to some other innocent-looking problems that turn out to have only exponential solutions. (The obvious algorithm for this one is to look at all substrings that are skipping a single letter, then run recursively until you get down to strings of length 1, which gives you a O(n!) running time.)

--------------------
Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword,
For it too has the power to kill.
However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword,
Can also have the power to heal.
Posts: 2649 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
What did you do today? in General
Zeviz
Nuke and Pave
Member # 24
 written Monday, October 22 2007 11:39 Profile Homepage #34
quote:
Originally written by Grain of Salt:

What did you do today?
Nothing unusual. :P

--------------------
Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword,
For it too has the power to kill.
However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword,
Can also have the power to heal.
Posts: 2649 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
The noob language in General
Zeviz
Nuke and Pave
Member # 24
 written Monday, October 22 2007 11:36 Profile Homepage #25
Where does this unhealthy obsession with trolls come from? They were annoying. They are gone. Whenever they attempt to return, they get removed faster than spambots. End of story.

When people say "don't feed the trolls" it means not only ignoring their posts, but also not bringing up their name in every conversation. "Look! Here comes a new [most recent troll]" might have been amusing the first couple times it has been used, but by now repeating it just makes people look like losers incapable of coming up with original jokes.

--------------------
Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword,
For it too has the power to kill.
However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword,
Can also have the power to heal.
Posts: 2649 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
a question in General
Zeviz
Nuke and Pave
Member # 24
 written Monday, October 22 2007 11:29 Profile Homepage #15
quote:
Originally written by LakiRa@:

...
And what does Google,Wikipenda has to do with this forum?What are fluffy turtles?
See Ephesos' post above mine.
quote:
And what is mehanical pencil?
Nicothodes' gimmick. (She likes to talk about stubbing people with mechanical pencils.)
quote:
Aren't this rules a little odd?
Not that odd, considering that half of the participants treated the thread that compiled these "rules" as a joke thread. However, remember that every joke has a grain of truth in it. In this case, it should be obvious which rules should be taken seriously, and what the serious meaning behing some of the more amusingly-worded rules is.

--------------------
Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword,
For it too has the power to kill.
However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword,
Can also have the power to heal.
Posts: 2649 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
The Political Compass (Armed and Dangerous) in General
Zeviz
Nuke and Pave
Member # 24
 written Monday, October 22 2007 11:22 Profile Homepage #108
I like graphs of random statistical data. :) Aran, are your tool and data sets publically available?

--------------------
Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword,
For it too has the power to kill.
However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword,
Can also have the power to heal.
Posts: 2649 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
Book or Movie? in General
Zeviz
Nuke and Pave
Member # 24
 written Monday, October 22 2007 11:19 Profile Homepage #61
quote:
Originally written by Student of Trinity:

...
Nevertheless I believe something of the effect I describe really exists, even if it doesn't go so far as to make a quality gap for everyone. Once something is good enough, it starts to affect the standards by which it is judged, and tilt the field in its own favor, automatically. Heck, I think it works for coffee...
This is an effect in psychology, but I don't remember its name. (Where is Thuryl with his Wiki links when you need them. :) ) This effect can apply not only to objects, but also to people. (In fact, I heard about it first in that context.) For example, behaviors that are amuzing quirks when done by some well-liked members here are very annoying when done by random newbies. (These behaviors were originally annoying when done by currently well-liked people too, but as the members moved from the "annoying" to "good" category, their behaviors and gimmicks have moved from "annoying" to "amuzing".)

[ Monday, October 22, 2007 11:20: Message edited by: Zeviz ]

--------------------
Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword,
For it too has the power to kill.
However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword,
Can also have the power to heal.
Posts: 2649 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
Problem with casting magic that hits multiple targets in Avernum 1! in General
Zeviz
Nuke and Pave
Member # 24
 written Monday, October 22 2007 11:07 Profile Homepage #3
You can just press a key to trigger the spell early. The key is Spacebar, if I remember correctly. Or it could be Enter.

--------------------
Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword,
For it too has the power to kill.
However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword,
Can also have the power to heal.
Posts: 2649 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00

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