Click on picture to get a close-up.
Books clear out – please claim!
Posted by Simon on October 11, 2011
https://nickerson.org.uk/blog/2011/books-clear-out-please-claim/
Java puzzle 2: Extra long Unicode literals
Another simple Java puzzle. Does the following code compile? If so, what does it do when you run it?
public class Unicode {
public static void main(String[] args) {
System.out.println("\uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu0055");
}
}
Answer:
Show ▼
Posted by Simon on May 8, 2010
https://nickerson.org.uk/blog/2010/java-puzzle-2-extra-long-unicode-literals/
Java puzzle 1: fun with Loggers
I’ve been a fan of Java Puzzlers by Joshua Bloch and Neal Gafter since a colleague lent me a copy about a year ago. Every now and again, I come across weird things in Java that I think would make a good puzzle.
In the spirit of Java Puzzlers, consider the following piece of code. It takes a single command line argument, which is an integer. What is the expected output for inputs of 100000 and 1000000 (i.e. 10^5 and 10^6)?
import java.util.logging.Handler;
import java.util.logging.Level;
import java.util.logging.LogRecord;
import java.util.logging.Logger;
public class Test {
public static void main(String[] args) {
addHandler();
int numObjects = Integer.parseInt(args[0]);
for (int i = 0; i < numObjects; i++) {
new Object();
}
Logger logger = Logger.getLogger("test");
logger.log(Level.INFO, "Hello world");
}
private static void addHandler() {
Logger logger = Logger.getLogger("test");
logger.addHandler(new Handler() {
@Override
public void publish(LogRecord record) {
throw new RuntimeException("Goodbye cruel world");
}
@Override
public void flush() {
}
@Override
public void close() throws SecurityException {
}
});
}
}
Answer:
Show ▼
Posted by Simon on April 8, 2010
https://nickerson.org.uk/blog/2010/java-puzzle-1-fun-with-loggers/
Why Windows 7 wasn’t accepting any passwords on our new laptop
We bought a new Samsung NP-X120 laptop the other day, which I’ve christened Sirius (previous laptops were called Hagrid and Lupin).
Sirius
I spent a couple of hours on Easter Monday installing software (Eclipse, emacs, iTunes, the usual stuff) and running Windows Easy Transfer to copy stuff from XP to Windows 7.
“Hi, could you tell me what you set my password to on the new laptop”.
“I set it to ‘monkey'”. (Note that I didn’t actually set it to monkey. I’m not going to tell you her password. Sheesh!)
“It doesn’t work. It’s not letting me in.”
“Did you type it all in lower case?”
“Yes”
“Is caps lock on?”
“No. Can you tell me your password?”
I’ve been conditioned not to tell people my password, but this is my wife after all. Even so, I felt a bit funny telling someone a password over the phone.
“Well, I’d rather not, I’m in a train full of people. I’ll text it to you.”
I hung up, sent her my password (something memorable like ‘kH6mnP98s1&*’) as a text message. This was a 15 minute exercise because texting anything other than complete sentences with real English words is a bit of a headache on my phone.
A bit later, I got another phone call.
“It’s still not working.”
Hmmm… curious. When I got home, sure enough, neither account’s password was being accepted by Windows. While I could believe that I would be unfortunate enough to mis-type one password, mistyping two is looked like carelessness. Also, how was I going to log in to reset the password? The administrator password didn’t work either.
To cut a long, frustrating story short, after running a recovery (and losing most of my installations from Monday) it turns out that the Num Lock key was turned on. There appears to be no visual indication of this in Windows (as there is for example with the Caps Lock key) and there’s no LED for it on the keyboard. So a password of “monkey” was being entered as “06n2ey”, but because the text is hidden behind asterisks, I couldn’t see this. Because this was Windows 7 Home Premium, you get given a list of user names, rather than being given the opportunity to type the user’s name in (which also might have alerted me). One clue that I should have picked up on earlier was that the shift key appeared not to work; but since this was a new laptop, I thought it might just be a faulty keyboard. Ah well…
According to some forum posts, Windows 7 remembers the state of the Num Lock key from the last time you ran. So presumably I had turned it on by accident, and I’ll know to check for this next time.
Posted by Simon on April 8, 2010
https://nickerson.org.uk/blog/2010/why-windows-7-wasnt-accepting-any-passwords-on-our-new-laptop/
“Operation currently prohibited by disk” considered harmful
Our DVD player will frequently show a little banner on the TV screen when you press a button. The banner reads:
Operation currently prohibited by disk
Prohibited. By a disk.
What business is it for a DVD to say that I can’t fast forward through their idiotic and patronising piracy warnings and disclaimers?
The worst offender I’ve seen for a while is Disney (with the DVD for the otherwise excellent film Up) who are very keen for me to watch trailers for about a dozen other films before they are prepared to show me the main menu.
This is a classic example of Lawrence Lessig’s idea of code as law, but it seems to me that preventing navigation just because you want to preach about piracy is treating your paying customers with total contempt. Just stop it please.
Posted by Simon on April 8, 2010
https://nickerson.org.uk/blog/2010/operation-currently-prohibited-by-disk-considered-harmful/
Podcast: “Shot of JAQ”
In a prior life on Usenet, I knew a chap called Stuart Langridge, who went by the nick “Aquarius”. Aq had interesting and forthright opinions on pretty much any subject you cared to mention, and could put them forward eloquently and persuasively.
To my delight, I’ve discovered that Aq and a compadre (Jono Bacon) now do a regular podcast called Shot of JAQ. The idea is that the two of them have a conversation about issues about software and the open source community, the idea being that the conversation continues with the community on their website. Recent podcasts have been on Google’s decision to move out of China, e-book readers, alternatives to Skype, and Simon Cowell and the UK Christmas Number One.
Each podcast is about 10 minutes long, so is perfect for dipping into. Highly recommended.
Posted by Simon on January 30, 2010
https://nickerson.org.uk/blog/2010/podcast-shot-of-jaq/