If you're crazy like me and constantly refresh the page to see if your favourite talk will make it to the next round, here is a simple Python script to do it for you:
https://gist.github.com/4502077
Implementing a Letterpress cheater in Python took me around 10 minutes. Computers are very fast nowadays: https://gist.github.com/3968275
There is no need for a whole game engine if you want nothing more than to know the best possible word to play each turn. It will be enough to win with 99% of people. If you want to win a Letterpress AI tournament, you would of course need to look at alpha-beta and other algorithms.
Dont't know whether it's good or bad but these questions closely resemble the ones I've been asked during my final exam (Faculty of Mathemathics, Informatics and Mechanics at University of Warsaw).
Of course there were a few nontrivial questions too, like the one abou fixed point theorems.
"We're still wondering why Google would reject Carrier IQ from its flagship devices but allow phones with the software to pass the various Android compatibility tests required to license its apps like Gmail, Google Maps, and Android Market."
I've worked on a very similar project for WolneLektury.pl, but were fortunately allowed to use Python instead of Java.
XSLT and XPath proved to be tremendously useful, cutting development time at least in half. Thanks to the wonderful lxml library I could easily extend XSLT with any functionality I wanted. Of course I've kept the single best future of this domain language intact - its declarative nature.
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This anti-competitive strategy is also escalating the cost of patents way beyond what they’re really worth. The winning $4.5 billion for Nortel’s patent portfolio was nearly five times larger than the pre-auction estimate of $1 billion. Fortunately, the law frowns on the accumulation of dubious patents for anti-competitive means — which means these deals are likely to draw regulatory scrutiny, and this patent bubble will pop.
"""
I agree that the patent system is broken as is, but there needs to be a mechanism protecting the intellectual property that allows companies to share their innovations with the world without fear of them being stolen (copying is cheap).
Patents are not used for crushing other companies. They are used for getting a fair recompensation for the IP you have created. That usually means licensing fees. Apple has acquired several licenses for their use in iOS (well-known example: h264) and, guess what, they are not whining about it.
Acquiring "bogus" patents in order to defend from legitimate ones you infringe upon is plainly evil as it twists the whole patent system (and is one of the reasons why our current patent system is broken). Incidentally, that's what Google planned to do. That doesn't automatically mean they are now an evil corporation, but it's not fair to describe the whole scheme as righteous. It's just business.
This time Microsoft was on your side, as they've banded with several other companies in order to buy Novell (and Nortel) patents cheaply, making sure that patent trolls won't acquire the patents and minimalising their effect on the industry (assuming that the new patents would then be only used for "defense", as there is no reason to think otherwise).
The plan would have worked, if not for Google which made the price of patents skyrocket.