I don't think the impact that stackexchange has had on the programming community is even well understood or appreciated yet. Still for many of us it is already hard to imagine a world without something like stackoverflow.com. It is a tool that we rely upon every day, not unlike Google. Thank you Jeff.
That is exactly the way almost every non-tech/nerd I know uses Facebook. Setting up a website is too much work. And I can understand that for them having to remember several logins and unconnected accounts (one for photo sharing, another for email, yet others for IM, blog etc.) is a lot less attractive than one site that lets them do all of the above (albeit with much less control and privacy, neither of these cause them to lose any sleep).
As for me, since most of my non-tech friends are on facebook anyway I have to keep my presence there to keep in touch. I have to admit, facebook is a pretty effective way of keeping in touch. I know I can call/email or meet in person - which I do for my inner circle of close friends. But the fact of the matter is a lot of my friends live abroad and international calls are expensive. Also, we seldom feel the need to make a call or send an email unless there is something specific we want to talk about (but that could be just me). OTOH, placing a small comment on Facebook seems a lot more effortless. The other party can also not feel compelled to answer. And there are a lot of friends I have on facebook who I don't want to lose contact with but don't want to have a day to day relationship with either (i.e. saying hi or meeting up once in a while - but not hanging out every weekend or constantly IM-ing every day).
Another thing is, apart from facebook chat, all interactions on facebook are semi-live at best. I can post a comment and the reply does not have to instant. This is good, especially if the other party lives in a very different time zone.
I am also on G+, but unfortunately most of my non-tech friends find it rather confusing, empty or just ignore it altogether. Which is a shame because liked it from the start.
Bangladesh became independent in 1971 not 1972. And it was not formerly part of India, but was part of Pakistan. Makes me wonder what else is wrong in that chart.
It's not just independence, but international recognition. Croatia for example became independent in 1991, but got recognition from the UN, US, UK, Germany and Russia in 1992.
Bangladesh got recognition from the UK and several European countries in 1971 AFAIK. By December of 1971, even the armed conflict was over.
Actually, being off by one year isn't such a big deal. Most maps from the first half of 1971 would not show Bangladesh. But it lists Bangladesh as being previously of India before 1971. That is just wrong since it was part of Pakistan from 1947 to 1971.
Its a nice Dynamic programming problem. The beauty of DP is that simply memorizing one application of it does not guarantee you a solution to an entirely different problem that might have a similar Dynamic Programming solution. Look over the TopCoder SRM archives if you don't believe me.
So even though you are retiring this one, coming up with something similar that tests for basically the same things shouldn't be impossible.
I recently interviewed at Google and got an offer. I live in Bangladesh and I am pretty sure no one involved in the interview process ever heard the name of my university or cared what my CGPA was. So, the part about coming from an elite school does not make a lot of sense to me.
The interviews were intense but all the interviewers were very friendly. I got stuck at several problems but was given a lot of hints. And even when I completely missed an answer, the interviewer was nice enough to point it out without sounding rude or arrogant - or making me feel like an idiot. I must say this was unexpected since I did make quite a few mistakes.
The way I see it, knowing about the right tool to use is important and useful in our day to day work. But the guys at Google often have to create the tools themselves (or better versions of them) for the scale at which they work. Also, I got the feeling they want their engineers to be aware about what actually goes on inside the framework/tool/database etc. instead of just using it like a black box.
I was recently asked "Why did you learn <language X>, especially when there was no scope for its use in your career at the time?". I found out it was an almost impossible to understand concept for the asker.
Most people are so obsessed with counting the pictures, they cannot imagine someone doing something else.
Can't help feeling a little sad. The same feeling when the Concorde was retired.
Its not sad that these awesome machines are being phased out. Machines/designs become old and obsolete all the time. But in this case, there is simply nothing better to replace it. It is as if this was as far as mankind could go and have to turn back.
Here's to hoping that some day there will something more ingenious that will be a worthy successor.
This one was obsolete well before its first flight. Astronauts could be delivered to LEO with expendables for less money. Satellites and supplies to the ISS could be delivered without risking human lives and, again, for less money. By using expendables you would end-up building modular spacecraft, iterating designs and improving them on every launch. By using less money you get to build more expendables.
The shuttle is a beautiful machine, but it's even less practical than the Concorde. And many, many orders of magnitude more expensive.
Sadly, a Saturn/Apollo stack would be more ingenious and a worthy successor.
That said, the SRBs, the tank and the engines could be put to good use. I guess the tank could be adapted to LOX/Jet-1 and engines and payload could be fitted on it.
