Red Hat 'Geek World' Contest 80
Zyber writes "Red Hat is sending 6 geeks to the beach
where they will live in a luxury beachhouse. The contest involves locating the Gnome footprint throughout their website. While on vacation you will have to maintain a geekworld website as well as being "videotaped, photographed and documented for the world to see". Hmmm. Female geeks? "
Don't we wish.
What a PR stunt (Score:1)
Considering the size of RedHat's site, including any page that its search engine may turn up, it's humongous.
Too bad Altavista isn't quite practical in this situation since the location changes every day. These contests need a search engine that updates as quickly as possible!
Other uses of paralellism. (Score:1)
Sounds nice, but (Score:1)
Robots, yes or no? (Score:1)
The web log records will show the referer page and if there is none or if it's not the actual page of the day, they'll know you cheated.
Besides, you still have to find it the first time. .gif & .jpg then grep for the name to find the magic page.
Someone's idea of using wget sounds good but you probably do have to visually check every
Hacker Barbie? Not likely (Score:1)
sounds like work to me (Score:1)
I like the idea of writing my code while sitting on the beach with crystal blue ocean infront of me and frozen drinks with little unbrellas in them being brought to me by exotic waitresses in skimpy outfits.... I think it would help me focus
but ya know... thats just me
Robots, yes or no? (Score:1)
Then: find -name '*gnome*.gif'
if not check images then grep for the file name of the image in the
Even if I've seen nothing against that in the rules, I would more or less see this as cheating...
Slashdot Effect. (Score:1)
;-)
Phoenix
Cheating? I dont think so... (Score:1)
What's the goal anyway? Multiply the
sounds like work to me (Score:1)
Robots, yes or no? (Score:1)
/El Niño
Wohoo! (Score:1)
God Bless Redhat!!
i'll be a gAWKed at geekgirl if i get a T1 :) (Score:1)
But frankly, I have to concur w/ a lot of the geek guys-- what's with this beach thing?? I'm surprised that RedHat (or any such techie-oriented company) would offer a dream vacation as a week at the beach. Although some might appreciate the prize, there are a lot of us out there who have no desire to go out (esp. redheads like me) and burn themselves to a crisp.
If I'm there to geek out, I'd rather have a T1 line, free reign of the most current hardware and software, and access to all the O'Reilly's I can get my hands.
--Anneke
Is age an issue? (Score:1)
In a nutshell, you must be 18 to win.
- Sam
Beaches rock! (Score:1)
Beaches are way cooler than cities, especially if they are surrounded by rolling hills with lush green pastures and crumbling cliffs.
My idea of a relaxing day is a moderately sunny day on the beach with some cool friends and some weed & chilled wine.
When it gets dark or cool then head back to a nice cottage an hack the night away with vodka and more weed.
Hmmm.... Chillin' Cornish style.
!RH 6.0 ships April 26 (Score:1)
--Kit
T1 or a T3 to the beachhouse? (Score:1)
--Kit
(who happens to be sitting in Wilmington)
T1 to the beachhouse (Score:1)
--Kit
(who happens to be sitting in Wilmington)
RH 6.0 ships April 26! (Score:1)
This means 6.0 ships April 26. You'll see.
Robots, yes or no? (Score:1)
According to the rules it's the image is a link so that actually narrows down the search space a lot. You can run a regex for all images with links, then request the page that is on the other end of the link. If it's got a form then it's a possibility.
Regardless it's pretty much a trivial problem to walk the site looking for the image. A more intersting problem might be seeing who could write the shortest perl script to do it. I bet it could be done in less than 5 lines.
Pity... (Score:1)
How do I get to North Carolina?
Red Hat is footing the bill for all travel for the 6 winners. If you're from Richmond, VA or Istanbul, Turkey - we're flying you in to Raleigh, NC on May 21 or 22 (or before if you're able to attend the Linux Expo '99).
I suspect that you're being in Belgium isn't much of a problem. They got to burn the VC money somehow.
Sounds Like Real World -- Real Geek? (Score:1)
Watch geeks consume 3 day old pizza and Jolt while looking over their perl scripts. Marvel as they compete in the Who Can Arrange All the PCI Cards in Alphabetical Order. Cry tears of joy as they build the latest Linux kernel. Experience catharsis as they format their hard drives and install FreeBSD.
Anyway. Might be amusing.
Like they need to have a beach outside the house (Score:1)
Like they need to have a beach outside the house (Score:1)
Personally, the commercial food preparations aren't anywhere near what you can do on your own but with a fast connection and high performance devo system, there wouldn't be enough wait time to cook 8^)
Wow - now I can live out my fantasies (Score:1)
The Spot [thespot.com] or, more likely, it's parody, The Squat [thesquat.com].
Chuck
Robots, yes or no? (Score:1)
However, there is nothing to stop them from changing the name of the image, or the link that it points to each day. In fact, I'd be surprised if they didn't.
Remember, you have to click on the footprint to follow the link to register. If that URL doesn't change, all you have to do is go to that URL every day and submit your info. This would be all too easy to script with LWP.
I read the rules, but didn't read the FAQ, so I may be missing some info., but that's my take on it.
Yeah, it seems like cheating to me, too.
She-geeks, yes they exist... (Score:1)
Yet, still we need more girls like that, maybe we should "co-opt their media"(tm)
Hmm, maybe we could get mattel to lauch "Hacker Barbie" and "Coder Ken"
Ah, venture capital is a fine thing (Score:1)
1: Increase the recognition of the RedHat brand
2: Decrease the work load on the support team
This is a publicity stunt that is definately supposed to increase their brand recognition, which will also appeal almost entirely to wannabees, who are, paridoxically, a lower support liability than the semi-experienced user, who is more likely than the wannabe to have a real problem.
Anybody who's worked in upper level technical support knows exactly what i mean about users who know just enough to get themselves into trouble.
Experienced users are right out. RedHat doesn't gain much of anything by pandering to people who just get their CD's from cheapbytes, or download ISO images over their DSL connections for nothing.
This is why the RedHat installer actually hinders the use of nonstandard installation hacks by lacking most
Increasingly, RedHat's policies leave experienced users out in the cold. This is why many people don't like them much anymore. Me, I'm using SuSE right now.
Hey! Wait... (Score:1)
MTV - Real World, featuring Tux (Score:1)
What geek wants to take time out of their day to pose for photographs and run Baywatch style on the beach??
Red Hat lost it. Are they trying to make geekdom glamorous and comparable to a permanent Spring Break?? What's the gimmick?
Robots, yes or no? (Score:1)
If you really wanted to get serious about writing a spider, you would have to grab each image as its called from each page and compare it (pixelwise, using an image library like ImageMagick) against a "known-good" copy of the footprint...
given the amount of processor time spidering and pixelwise-comparing the images will consume, it sounds to me like it is ALMOST less-intensive to actually play
This is my opinion and my opinion only. Incidentally, IANAL.
Weasel girl (Score:1)
Is there surf? In May? (Score:1)
Signed,
A longtime Wilmington resident
Hey! Wait... (Score:1)
Pity... (Score:1)
Anyhow, I'm probably going to visit the States the first time in June anyway, and that's going to be paid by my employer. So I guess I don't even need to join the competition. But I don't think I'll be getting to see much of the beach then
Pity... (Score:1)
Like they need to have a beach outside the house (Score:1)
What's with this anti-beach stuff? (Score:1)
I suppose it's because most geeks I know don't look so good in a bathing suit. I could be wrong tho...
"Hmmm. Female geeks?" Don't we wish. (Score:1)
trinity: all guys think that.
shame on you rob
Female Geeks? Chacun a sont gout. (Score:1)
the statistics just as they are...
Not that more female geeks would be a bad thing
of course - diversity rarely is.
Entering too, damn Michigan weather. blah (Score:1)
Is age an issue? (Score:1)
Geek World SUCKS (Score:1)
Redhat feautring Slashdot (off topic) (Score:1)
She-geeks, yes they exist... (Score:1)
Hey! I resemble that remark!
Seriously, they're out there. Some of them even look good in a bikini. :)
Not so sunny? (Score:1)
Pity... (Score:1)
Robots, yes or no? (Score:1)
information already. Anybody see anything
that says I can't target a robot at the
site to save my oh so valuable page-viewing time?
8}
"Real women use linux" (Score:1)
I don't think my dream vacation would be a beach house... it's so useless. This sounds more like a promotional thing than something seriously for geeks.
Redhat feautring Slashdot (off topic) (Score:1)
Sites, or sights? (Score:1)
I'm not sure if this is or isn't a typo. Do geeks enjoy looking at non-geek females? I've heard that beaches have quite a few of those.
you're being watched! (Score:1)
I'd also dislike being watched though
Was never a fan of the Real World (they all seemed so fake sometimes) and well...if you have to manage a website, it'll get pretty dull fast I'd imagine, with guys or girls
"Hey, let's add some javascript to spice it up!"
"Cool!"
KitKat
Tell Me this wouldn't be nice..... (Score:1)
Taking a slow long drag of a nice sized bone
as you look out over the ocean and enjoy
making a web page for the geek nation.....
geek girls (Score:1)
Honestly,
- k-ren
Actually.... (Score:1)
T1 or a T3 to the beachhouse? (Score:1)
-russ
Mirror it and grep (Score:1)
-russ
Girl geeks? At least one... (Score:1)
one female has won the Geekworld contest
and will be hitting the beach...
Is age an issue? (Score:1)
no you didn't
2. Entry Requirements: By entering the contest, you agree to these rules. The contest is open to individuals who are at least 18 years of age. Persons less than 18 years of age are not eligible to win.
Robots, yes or no? (Score:1)
I'm going to do it the real way... and win... and I'll take my bikini... and your bots can snap images of me on the beach sipping my pina coladas... there better be a T3 there
Ah, venture capital is a fine thing (Score:2)
big companies throw at you? "Well, we're holding
off the integrated desktop thing but hey you
should see this killer beach house we bought!
We're going to give it away in a contest!"
Just kidding -- I like Red Hat. Using it right
now, in fact.
I have a better idea (Score:2)
geek girls (Score:2)
I'm a geekchick who uses RedHat and could use a couple of days holiday. I'd put up with being leered at by a webs-worth of geekboyz for a couple of days if it meant a free vacation.
- deb
Re: (Score:2)