ChromeOS Laptop-Smashing Ad Equation Solved 164
An anonymous reader writes "Google's latest marketing video for Chrome OS is interesting to watch for the laptop-smashing amateurs or the slow motion fans, but the real fun may be at 2:24 in the video where a X=G/(CHROM-3) equation is displayed on a chalkboard. Only 20 hours later, it has already been cracked by Jamendo founder Sylvain Zimmer and his team. They posted details on how they did it and won a Cr-48 netbook, which may not even be delivered because they are not in the US."
cracked? (Score:3, Insightful)
I think you mean solved... and, well, it's not exactly a challenge to anyone who's had highschool calc, unless I'm missing something.
Re:cracked? (Score:4, Informative)
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True. Really the biggest point was noticing that 900.91 == goo.gl. The rest follows trivially.
Re:cracked? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why did solving this come with an award?
Because publicity. There's no point in requiring a significant contributions to the sciences for a giveaway.
Though I was hoping for something a bit more interesting when I clicked the link, I don't see the point in criticising Google for lack of originality here. It may be a familiar setup by this point, but it's still a cool thing to do. It's just a small bonus, it's not like we're entitled to have everything they do be completely awesome.
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Actually quite basic math there too. Why did solving this come with an award? I can point to several thousand problems in various books on my shelves that are orders of magnitude more difficult than that entire problem, all of which are commonly assigned as nothing more than homework problems. Hell, I just did it in Wolfram Alpha in 5 mins. The only really tricky part was the URL bit but EVERYONE does that these days so it's assumption #1. Old puzzle methodology is old. Come on Google, be original.
...says the one who didn't win...
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...says the one who didn't win...
I didn't watch the advert, so I think I won. Unfortunately, I only won round 1. I lost in round 2 by clicking on the slashvert.
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Re:cracked? (Score:5, Insightful)
Did you think to go do the effort to solve the problem before realising what the consequences of doing so may be? The fact that someone bothered to go to the effort when seeing it on the ad is "worth" just as much, if not more than the actual ability to solve it.
It shows that they're a person who is willing/eager to work on problems "just because" (they have an active mind) rather than being forced to by an employer or similar.
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Re:cracked? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:cracked? (Score:4, Funny)
Could you run that by me again?
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Well, that explains your comprehension problems - you just had to tell us upfront you were a math major! Now we know not to expect any understanding of pop culture, social interaction, or fun; nor should we attempt to explain it...
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Why did solving this come with an award?
To generate PR, obviously. Why else do you think we're even talking about it? It probably amounts to some pretty dirt-cheap advertising.
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I'm assuming it is some sort of ARM CPU, yes?
Nope, Atom. If it had an ARM CPU I'd be tempted to get one and put a real OS on it. As it is, it's uninteresting hardware running an uninteresting OS. And yet, in spite of that, we're all talking about it.
And some people still claim that Google isn't an advertising company...
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It's my understanding that this netbook is a proof of concept and developer device, not intended for wide release or resale. Presumably they just went with something they could get supplied quickly and cheaply.
I'd be surprised if there aren't ARM models in the line-up when these things are actually on the shelves.
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This is what I get for making a factual and relevant comment.
No, it's what you get for thinking somebody's sexuality is (1) relevant to the conversation and (2) can be guessed based on what kind of portable computing device they like.
Or maybe it's for implying that /b/tards are gay. Not sure which.
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Heh, inorite? Silly GP.
At 11, I still considered girls "icky"... Tough to know your sexual orientation at that age. So to call them "gay", well... At best, they might have an unhealthy interest in yaoi.
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While troll is not the correct mod in my opinion (for direct insults I would rather do flamebait), you phrased it wrong. If you wanted to be able to talk about gays AND /b/ AND get modded up, here's how I would have done it using GP as the subject:
Oh man, sometimes to get what you want that's what it takes. I know some amount of people in /b/ that would go gay to get into a company like Google, and we can be anonymous about it so nobody would associate your name with willing to give a handjob for it. The
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Actually, that's not entirely accurate, "please" is generally excluded.
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And most other people are missing something as well.
No, apparently something else is missing since the "solution" was to convert the digits to letters and go to the matching goo.gl url.
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Re:cracked? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Not all of it is high school calc. IIRC the integral of 4sin(x)/x has to be solved with Taylor series, and I only got those in the second semester of university calculus
My integration is a bit rusty, but I suspect it can be integrated by an appropriate substitution chosen to allow simplification using standard trig identities. OTOH, the Taylor series approach is probably easier.
At least here in the UK, BTW, Taylor series are part of the "further maths A level" syllabus, which is essentially equivalent to t
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which is essentially equivalent to the last year of high school for students taking the most advanced maths courses possible.
I don't know about UK schools, but at the school I went to such people would have numbered in the single digits.
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In the few UK schools that offer it, the number of Further Maths A-level students is indeed usually in the low single digits. It works out as quite a good class size, actually.
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I did this stuff my 3rd year in high school (not my last) in the united states. We called it "math seminar" and there were four of us total in the class, two 3 year students, and two four years.
The class size was useful for ensuring everyone was following a long, but worked poorly for maintaining focus. I would have traded it easily for a group of around eight or ten.
My fourth year in high school I simply stopped taking math. It would have been a class of two, which seemed awfully silly. I learned a gre
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Or selection bias... Unless the all-girls school in question was the only option, GP went there by choice for a specific purpose, and likely had to meet certain academic requirements to do so. That a school full of students who are strong academic achievers who take enough interest in their education to attend a special high school at demonstrable social cost (teens tend to like being around the opposite sex, tend to place high value on time spent thusly, and tend to place negative connotations on those who
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err... Or you can just google for the answer...
The first result is Wolfram alpha.
Where, if you put in the integral, you can pick out the answer: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=integral+of+(4+sin+x)%2Fx [wolframalpha.com]
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Hey, no cheating! Using Google to solve a Google puzzle. Shame on you!
Seriously, it is amazing how much time we (old) folks forget how much is on internet.
* I just looked up how long I can store stuff in the freezer on-line
* how to get rid of bugs (and which friggin' bug is this? hell, you've got bugs that walk & eat paper?)
Those are just things that I looked up lately. Most people even don't know that most manuals are online - I'm trowing out manuals each time I receive them after retrieving the digita
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the integral of 4sin(x)/x has to be solved with Taylor series, and I only got those in the second semester of university calculus
Fortunately (as is mentioned in the blog post), (working) knowledge of college level calculus is not actually required. [wolframalpha.com] You can pretty much plug and chug with wolfram alpha - it's got Mathematica baked into it.
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Highschool calc? I've yet to encounter a problem outside of the classroom that needed Calculus to solve.
It's sad that people can't figure out square footage though.
Want a fun question? Give people a cubic meter of concrete and ask them how much area that would cover. I've asked 4 people and have gotten 4 complete different approaches to it.
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RTFA
Re:cracked? (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
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It's old and worn down, I would've expected better.
IOW: you didn't win, so you deride the contest rather than congratulate the winner.
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Despite the many who will criticize and berate you for stating the obvious, I was thinking the exact same thing as I was reading the article. It seems like even an aspiring geek would have figured this one out in a matter of minutes. Sure, it's harder than your average "skill-testing question", but hardly something to brag about. I mean, a lot of us decode (or create) far more intricate cyphers every day. Realistically, Google wanted it to be solved quickly, as it is a very inexpensive publicity stunt.
http://goo.gl/speedanddestroy (Score:2)
Now it says:
Chrome
You deserve a Chrome notebook.
Thank you for your interest. The form you are trying to access has either expired or reached its maximum registration limit.
solution (Score:1)
I solved it too! (Score:5, Funny)
From: alf@nbc.com
I found your cat. It was delicious.
Re:alicethesurfer (Score:2)
Yeah, is that another easter egg?
I really wanna know who's behind that email address!
Missing Missy (Score:3, Funny)
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25 (Score:1)
25 computers were harmed !!!
Think of the computers !
Year of Linux desktop (Score:1)
Let's have more of this in ads (Score:3)
Surely other "high-tech" companies shouLd hide puzzles in their AdS--let us Have some Daily fun Out There--it's a clever and inexpensive way tO get tech-savvy people to pay Really close attention to ads, and Garner free publicity.
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Re:Riddle (Score:2)
However, there is one Riddle who shall not be named.
Free Replacements as-needed? (Score:1)
So what the promo is saying is that if I break or lose my ChomeOS laptop, Google will automatically replace it for me?
That sounds like a sweet deal.
I dunno (Score:2)
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Actually you didn't solve it. You forgot to convert to ASCII, for which 42 = * . So the real answer is *, which as we all know is a wildcard for "everything". So maybe you did solve it. Creepy...
Contest Incentives (Score:2)
This reminds me how free-trade lobbyists claim that the US is losing jobs because we are "not educated enough" as allegedly demonstrated by our programmers not winning international contests.
However, they fail to mention that the prizes are worth far more under third-world salaries. Thus, a third-world programmer has a much bigger incentive. A laptop may be equivalent to 2-days' wa
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I tend to think we are undereducated, why else would they be selling 300$ netbooks with dinky storage, laughable ram and a gimped keyboard to us?
cause were stupid, that's why
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Anonymous Coward (Score:1)
The 'cloud' is dumb. The only point is to take away your ownership of anything so it makes it cheaper for a company to sell you something. They don't have to produce any cd's or dvd's or packaging, they just send you your copy which ofcourse you can't make into a hardcopy that you can save somewhere.
How will anything ever be saved from here on out? No one owns anything they just have a license to use bits....40 years from now what if I want to listen to one of my iTunes songs? Won't be possible...and it's p
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The 'cloud' is dumb. The only point is to take away your ownership of anything so it makes it cheaper for a company to sell you something. They don't have to produce any cd's or dvd's or packaging, they just send you your copy which ofcourse you can't make into a hardcopy that you can save somewhere.
How will anything ever be saved from here on out? No one owns anything they just have a license to use bits....40 years from now what if I want to listen to one of my iTunes songs? Won't be possible...and it's pretty likely that it won't exist anywhere because it only existed with digital copies with super drm....
I don't know which iTunes songs you're buying but all of the ones I'm purchasing don't have DRM.
Perhaps you should look into that.
Stunned... No, I'm not. I lied. (Score:2)
Re:Stunned... No, I'm not. I lied. (Score:4, Funny)
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How long, exactly, did it take Google to re-invent the X-terminal?
An X terminal requires a central X server to run your apps on. AIUI, on a chrome OS device, the apps are downloaded and run locally (as they are essentially javascript on web pages). It's a pretty fundamental difference.
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It's closer to NeWS than X11. It runs code for defining the UI locally, rather than on the server, and only does the back-end processing on the server (not sure if it still does, but the Google spreadsheet used to evaluate formulae on the client too, meaning that everything was treated as a double because that's the only type of number JavaScript understands).
If this is "winning" I want my million dollars too (Score:1)
I faintly remember from school that "winning" means actually getting ownership and physical access to it, so according to Google's thin print he can't and didn't "win" anything, and probably won't in the future ("would you perhaps a like free Google account instead?").
I don't really get why he'd actually want that netbook in the first place, I am betting its EULA says "you are allowed to use it only within the USA border and only if you have an American passport".
Wolfram|Alpha (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's what the whole thing looks like in Wolfram Alpha all at once: (9*10^4+3^4+10)/100/((2^8-10+4*6!+17^4+11!/5+integ(3x^5,x,1,9))(2*23^6-((2^28+4)/10-(22^4+3*70-sqrt(81))))(3*17^4-(sqrt(256)+31*30^2))(17*8!+93^2-10)(12*(11^2-6)/(5*pi)integ(4sin(x)/x,x,0,inf))-3) - Wolfram|Alpha [wolframalpha.com]
The 200 character limit in the input box is annoying, and it seems that you can't get around it by creating a URL manually. Managed to get it from 220 characters to under 200 by using valid shortened stuff like "integ" instead of "integral", and removing * and () where possible.
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Click "Go on computing"
You get the question
http://www3.wolframalpha.com/Calculate/MSP/MSP110419dbee2916i2669300001475f9963d9ebb46?MSPStoreType=image/gif&s=38&w=468&h=156 [wolframalpha.com]
and result:
http://www3.wolframalpha.com/Calculate/MSP/MSP110919dbee2916i26693000026ffbg47b13125if?MSPStoreType=image/gif&s=38&w=403&h=37 [wolframalpha.com]
Which is bloody impressive.
90091/191605......
Which we know from the story maps to
goo.gl/spe....
cheating wont work (Score:1)
he didn't win anything (Score:1)
Another ad begging to be made fun of (Score:3)
Like the ancestry.com ads that beg for a joke version where a person finds that their ancestor was not the town doctor, but perhaps a war criminal or slave trader, this Chrome ad is begging for a version where Google's offices are burned down or raided by the authorities.
"Unfortunately this Chrome laptop stores everything on the web, so you're absolutely fucked and there is nothing you can do."
Also it's chilling how they consider eveything between the computer's OS and Google to be "extra baggage."
Physical danger (Score:2)
Wait, isn't 48Cr a radioactive isotope?
why did they not do the most important step? (Score:2)
Will the bloody thing survive a thorough blending?
Well, he clearly won't get the laptop. (Score:2)
It says in black in white that they only send laptops to people in the United States. If he's not in the US, they won't send one to him.
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Try watching the video.
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I've read that summary three times now and I still cannot figure out what the fuck it is talking about. Except it's probably some kind of advertising for something called a Jamendo, whatever the hell that is.
Truly a new low for Slashdot "journalism".
"I demand to be spoon-fed."
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...and for those of us not living in the US? (Score:2)
Good job on finding one of the Easter Eggs, but there are still two left!
So what? For the vast majority of the world not living in the US we apparently can't win anything. In terms of a marketing campaign it is a really great way to alienate the majority of your customers.
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Considering the Cr-48 is just a device Google is giving out for free to get user feedback, I don't think the structural integrity of the machine matters much. Google may sell them later on as developer machines but I hope nobody buys one to test whether it survives the kitchen sink falling on it.
Re:Structual integrity (Score:5, Insightful)
First look at the CR-48:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/213168/google_cr48_first_look_at_the_first_chrome_os_laptop.html?tk=rel_news [pcworld.com]
That's the problem with the cloud. Any problems on your end, at google, or anywhere in between, or if you forget to pay your cellular bill, you're not getting that proposal out to clients, you're not getting your tax returns in on time, you're not getting your paper in on time, etc.
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Any problems on your end, at google, or anywhere in between, or if you forget to pay your cellular bill, you're not getting that proposal out to clients, you're not getting your tax returns in on time, you're not getting your paper in on time, etc.
I agree that the Google Apps definitely all need 100% working "offline mode" to make the CR-48 useful for the few periods when you don't have internet (and if you spend more than a small amount of time offline then cOS is definitely not for you). I don't have a device but I'd assume when you lose connection, Google Docs reacts about the same way as it does on any other OS/browser. The textbox remains editable and you can keep typing into it (unless the textbox suddenly becomes read-only or something crazy
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SSH, you might be telling the emperor he has no clothes!
How hard is it to let the computer work using the offline copy of the actual software, and then simply realtime-save documents online (unless the Advanced Mode Opt Out is chosen)?
Does no one see the problem with "let's charge by the megabyte" merged with "we'll burn your cap pushing software internal data"?
Is it time for us to get out the Total Recall movie where some tycoon charges for air?
(Joke) I'm really starting to think the Year of the Linux Desk
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If you're not connected to the Internet on this laptop, you're dead in the water
I also noticed that without an Internet connection, I can't seem to view any web pages!
Someone really needs to fix this flaw in the internet program.
Requiring internet access to use the internet is just plain stupid! Now excuse me while I go write up an article about it for PC world... /sarcasm
Seriously, when one of the first and primary requirements of this machine is an always on internet connection, why is it a downside or news worthy when they discover that fact is true?
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Well, it seems the point is that "always-on" isn't as reliable as you might think it is. In this case the author of the commentary expected to have continuous service, and ended up not having it.
I do agree that a netbook really isn't suited for travelling businessmen in general. However, when you consider being ultra-light, long battery life, and fully automatic backups and data sharing they would be the most to benefit if it actually worked.
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Well, it seems the point is that "always-on" isn't as reliable as you might think it is. In this case the author of the commentary expected to have continuous service, and ended up not having it.
Now that would be a valid complaint. As most of us here know, always-on isn't 'always', and ChromeOS needs to be able to handle outages. There appears to be plenty of room for improvement still in that area, and I imagine that is exactly the type of thing Google would want to hear about as part of the current testing process.
Now I don't know what this reviewer told Google directly, but in his review to the public he clearly is stating a different problem, namely that requiring internet access is a downsid
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Where's the -1 misinformed rating. People see "cloud" and they think OMG! Internet connection required! When in fact it's more of a background synchronization process.
So what you're saying is that in this case synchronization can occur without a connection.
Re:Structual integrity (Score:4, Insightful)
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You're describing how the "cloud" should work. Unfortunately for Google, a lot of the core apps for cOS don't have an offline mode.
It's been a while since I worked with Google Apps (because I think the file management UI is shit), but when I tried it all the apps I tried were perfectly able to work offline once I had downloaded Google Gears. I assume Chrome OS comes with Gears preinstalled...
Re:Structual integrity (Score:5, Interesting)
There is no google gears anymore. It's all in HTML5 now.
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Sure the internet is reliable in your basement and there's loads of open wifi's in the student block next door.
My DSL is pretty reliable too; no basements or students round here though so Wifi is in short supply. You could notice it too if you went further than the local Starbucks; not everywhere has internet connection in fact some of the best places to visit you don't get any internet connection for days.
Personally I thought the first GoogleOS netbook was going to be a Wavebox for just this reason.
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That's the point; by a 'wavebox' I mean a machine that runs the wave locally so 90% (asstat) of the traffic doesn't even touch Google's servers. Google would be used mainly as the trusted third party to startup a wave.
That way when you lose access to the Google account it actually can be a few days before it gets to be a problem.
Though, that was probably the bit I wasn't thinking through. Expecting Google set up a communication link that they can't monitor ... what was I thinking, I'm not usually that