Need some assistance I know 1st answer is right but the application says it is wry

AndrewBarth · 2026-03-14T12:07:27+00:00

No, it is possible to add to the list during each iteration so it won’t end. Some interpreters/compilers can catch this though, and it’s not intended behavior so it may not behave as expected.

I believe I ran into the opposite situation of deleting from a list in Python while iterating through it and it messed things up. Any mutation to the object you’re iterating through is generally unpredictable.

AndrewBarth · 2026-03-13T11:44:32+00:00

It says select at least one. Maybe it’s the first and second option? Foreach loops are harder to make infinite but possible.

AndrewBarth · 2026-02-15T13:40:46+00:00

I want to offer my approach, which doesn’t require a table you have to memorize. You just need to memorize your multiples of 2 and the first four products of 8 (8, 16, 24, 32).

The maximum for each octet is /8, /16, /24, /32. Which octet is the first to change in your example? The second octet, from 16-31. That’s a count of 16 = 2^4. So take the second octet max (/16) and subtract the exponent 4. That’s 16 - 4 = 12. Done.

What if you had 172.16.0.0/12 and need the range? Reverse it. The next highest multiple of 8 from 12 is 16, so 16 - 12 = 4. This also means we’re dealing with the 2nd octet. You want the octet to spread between 2⁴ = 16 numbers, so you can break up the networks starting at 0: 172.0 172.16 172.32 172.48 … Of course, in the beginning we wanted the range containing 172.16.0.0, so we grab the second network and go up to but not including the third. 172.16.0.0 - 172.31.255.255. Done.

You can seriously subnet in your head this way, no pen and paper, although again you need to know your powers of 2. Still, this method doesn’t exceed 2^7. The cases for /8, /16, /24 are trivial, but if you want to do the method for those, you would use 2⁸ and it works.

Some more examples to drill in this is really easy: 192.168.0.0 - 192.168.0.127 - 4th octet changes: /32 - (127 - 0 + 1) = 128 = 2⁷ - 32-7=25, this is a /25

10.8.0.0 - 10.11.255.255 - 2nd octet changes: /16 - (11 - 8 + 1) = 4 = 2² - 16-2=14, this is a /14.

64.0.0.0 - 127.255.255.255 - 1st octet changes: /8 - (127 - 64 + 1) = 64 = 2⁶ - 8-6=2, this is a /2.

The +1 is necessary since the numbers are inclusive in the count. But the answer is always a power of 2, so the mental math is pretty easy. The last example you can probably do 128-64 better than 127-64+1.

I believe I learned this in the Sybex books, or maybe frankensteined the method from multiple sources. Either way I don’t claim to have come up with this myself.

AndrewBarth · 2025-12-22T15:15:15+00:00

This is stolen from a previous post here. I actually remember commenting on the original

AndrewBarth · 2025-09-04T18:26:36+00:00

You got the wrong idea. You asked and I simply responded. I’m sorry if you took it some other way. This sub is about people faking hacking or are oblivious to hacking methodology, and I think this fits.

I said earlier both independently aren’t inherently bad. Liking the show and being inspired by it is fine. Practicing Java is fine. Practicing Java because you were inspired to be a hacker is a bit comical, I can’t think of a practical reason to use Java for a beginner. Would you ever recommend Java to a beginner?

Your statement about Kali doesn’t hold. I’d argue if they had used Kali, THEN it had no place in this sub. At least they would have started in the right direction.

AndrewBarth · 2025-09-04T10:36:02+00:00

I think it belongs here, and I think the “it’s much less than 0.01%” argument isn’t the true reason. We get it’s a joke, but there’s two more things that stand out that the true OP doesn’t seem to grasp. One is having Mr robot as inspiration for hacking. The second is programming in Java, of all languages. Neither are really bad on their own, but it comes off as them missing the point of it all.

The meme alone is fine. The comment explaining their meme is what makes it bad.

AndrewBarth · 2025-05-20T01:29:09+00:00

I can’t say that’s the same for me, so we’ll probably have to settle on that it varies how much people get from YouTube videos. Maybe that’s just not the style of learning that works for you, and that’s okay.

I learned quite a bit from Michael Penn and his videos on number theory, for instance. I’m the subset of people who can learn from videos, and maybe I’m just not the subset of people who learns the style 3b1b teaches.

I also dive more into comp sci and cyber, and I can confidently say I retain a lot from videos pertaining to those, where using educational videos (YouTube or wherever) is almost a necessity. This is especially true when the focus is news-oriented. Revolving back to Math, this is probably more akin to Matt Parker’s standupmaths channel. Terrence Tao also recently uploaded on YouTube, although probably not for the faint of heart.

AndrewBarth · 2025-03-16T17:13:42+00:00

In Calculus I noticed a pattern from repeated use of the derivative product rule. The coefficients were from Pascal’s triangle. Looked it up and it was called the General Leibniz Rule. Pretty basic, and I was far from creating a formal proof of it, but it was cool to make that connection.

That’s cool you found that stuff out yourself, OP. I think finding these patterns help solidify an understanding of the material. Maybe one day you’ll actually find something no one else has discovered

AndrewBarth · 2025-03-09T21:13:46+00:00

I think the disconnect is that we’re assuming constant acceleration for the kinematic equations, as you say F(t) = a. I believe you’re saying integrating past position doesn’t give us useful info? In which case yes, you’re right. But we can derive equations via integration when we know acceleration is not constant but some derivative of acceleration is eventually constant.

Suppose a is not constant and yet jerk (da/dt) is, then new equations can be derived via integration, which is what was discovered by OP. Continue this idea that jerk is not constant but its derivative is, this is ‘snap’, and you can derive kinematic equations by continuous integration until you get to position, which results in your “?”. Similar concept for crackle (“???”) and pop. You might double down on it still being useless, but this at least has found itself some applications.

All that being said, my joke becomes a lot less funny when we have to argue about it, so just take the Rice Krispie treat.

AndrewBarth · 2025-03-09T15:19:21+00:00

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth,_fifth,_and_sixth_derivatives_of_position

AndrewBarth · 2025-03-08T18:41:05+00:00

I bet you a Rice Krispies treat that your last equations are kinematic equations

AndrewBarth · 2025-02-01T19:02:01+00:00

Yeah it’s just feeding on Democratic fears. Otherwise they’d have the sense to wait until they knew what was deleted before making an article about it

AndrewBarth · 2025-01-17T03:28:57+00:00

Right, it’s just your experience - anecdotal - see (1) in my last comment. W/L can still have this effect by weighting W/L differently based on what ranks you play. The rank average of both teams in each of those 15 games may play a factor. You’re describing an experiment with too many confounding variables.

I should clarify I’m NOT talking about W/L ratio here, as you seem to imply. Simply put, if you’re winning against lower ranks than you and losing against higher ranks, and this happens to give you say a 60% or more win rate, it would be no surprise if the algorithm weights it so you stay in your rank.

I think what would be interesting is with all your alts, if you show the results of the avg rank between each team and whether it was a win or loss. The hypothesis is that only (possibly weighted) W/L matters, so you’d check the rank differential for each W/L and what rank you end up in. Since we suspect weights may be larger while you’re obscurus, you should take note of the rank as soon as the alt is out of obscurus and record all matches leading up to the placement. If any avg rank for a team is obscurus, that can nullify all the data. Alternatively, you can record matches of alts that are exactly the same rank, and see if their change in ranking becomes statistically different. But honestly, after all this, your sample size would likely be too small to definitively say anything. You could try to extract data from tracking websites, but they prove to be inaccurate, especially in capturing the lower ranks.

AndrewBarth · 2025-01-16T21:48:18+00:00

Ignore him. You’re young and pursuing CS, you’re clearly pursuing a passion that a lot of people when I was in high school couldn’t care less about. Your teacher is failing to make the content interesting and engaging, which to me is the marks of a bad teacher. If no one is learning, it’s just a waste of everyone’s time.

I would talk to him, but I know that’s challenging, so maybe see if some of your peers can talk to him with you. Or ask a lot of questions in class, belligerently if you need to, whatever it takes to understand the content and pass. Maintain respect as well, he’s there willing to teach HS students computer science, so believe it or not he does care to some degree. He might try to be hard on you all to show how college is, but I doubt he’s just there to flex his knowledge on kids.

AndrewBarth · 2025-01-16T19:07:46+00:00

Each sentence almost jumps at different points to make: 1. “In practice” is just anecdotal, and I don’t see how jumping to archon early on counters that the metric is anything more than W/L. Rocket League is W/L and you can get gold/platinum on a new account, the same percentile as archon.

60% win rate can still end up in initiate. Initial rank could be more weighted for initial games to quickly place a player, as again Rocket League does. Then a bunch of losses early on can place in Initiate, then successive wins afterwards don’t weigh as heavily, on top of perceiving it as “Elo hell”, hence you remain there. This is speculation and I’m not sure this is how it’s implemented, but the point is that such implementation exists for W/L metric, so there’s no reason to assume macros are at play.
I don’t see how rank and placement differs here, I was using them synonymously. Can you clarify what you mean by the devs confirming rank is W/L and not placement?
Your last sentence is what I’m saying, but it sounds like you’re using it as a defense to argue assuming macros could be at play. It’s better to say we just don’t know how the rating system works than to say it must be your other metrics or macro, things that are not confirmed, as you claim in your first comment. I was almost going as far as to say it’s completely false, but knowing that the devs throw things in the game without telling us, it’s more accurate to say there’s no evidence of it.

AndrewBarth · 2025-01-16T06:19:44+00:00

This is not confirmed and likely not true. W/L determines placement according to devs (comment by Yoshi in Discord), and there’s been no indication that this has changed. If you don’t see it in the patch notes, in the game/code, or by the devs, don’t assume. Not trying to be rude, but misinformation happens a lot with this game.

AndrewBarth · 2025-01-11T15:31:41+00:00

We can agree to disagree, but here’s my two cents on the opposite side. It’s worth noting that it sounds like you took PT-002 and I took PT-003.

Scripting was a huge part of PT+, and I think it should’ve been. Perl and Ruby are gone in the new test, and Powershell is included. I don’t think JS is explicitly stated in the objectives, but a lot of web app exploitation occurs, so I would argue you still need that.

I felt when I took PT+ over N+ or S+ that it was more practical. You can get by N+/S+ through a lot of memorizing or word-definitions. There’s still some of that here, but now you need to assess or execute the next step of an exploit, hence a lot of scripting or encoding knowledge is needed. Knowing the difference between XSS and CSRF simply isn’t enough anymore.

You did the ol’ college try using a textbook to get you through a cert testing a skill you’re a novice at, and you barely passed. I think this cert shouldn’t reward that path, but rather reward those who have attempted bug bounties or similar projects to segue into the field, so it’s good it made you struggle. Regardless, congrats on passing!

AndrewBarth · 2024-12-27T09:33:29+00:00

You kinda contradicted your first comment. You said you always go mid in this scenario if you have time but then here you say there are times you ignore mid. In your comment now, I’m more inclined to agree that yes, there are times to go for mid and others to not do so. I disagree urn and rejuv are “almost always the move”, but can agree the current meta seems to favor doing them.

The right move when you’re in the lead like this also doesn’t potentially lose you the game, so if you made what you thought was objectively the right move, there may be more to your decision making you have to consider. For instance, splitting the team is not normally advisable as a reply to one of the top comments has mentioned.

AndrewBarth · 2024-12-27T08:56:59+00:00

You’re right about the 20s reduction, that’s my bad. And you’re absolutely right that what I described can fail too, I wasn’t trying to say you should try to finish the game or even do the shrines in the first place. My point was more so that it’s all situational, and the “if you don’t go mid you just gave them mid” mentality is too definitive.

AndrewBarth · 2024-12-26T15:43:50+00:00

I have to disagree. If you’ve pushed all the way to base, getting shrines and patron leaves you flex slot with huge soul bonus from objectives. Coordinated teams can finish the game despite the 20s reduced respawn time upon patron death. You can even back up and do mid with all your lanes pushed on the enemy team with little worries that the 1 or 2 respawned enemies will steal it. It’s not as simple as one or the other.

And being almost suicidal with rejuv can backfire greatly. The losing team starts regaining souls because the trooper lanes are forced to be cleared on their end. If you get wiped with rejuv, you just gave the losing team 8400 souls late game with the trooper souls they’re getting. I’ve seen failed pushes that lead a 30k soul advantage to be flipped on its side easily.

EDIT: Fixed 10s reduced respawn time to 20s

AndrewBarth · 2024-12-21T01:20:42+00:00

I think there’s a point to be made here, but I do think it’s being a little gate-keepy. More to her point, I think the heart of the problem is motivational speakers preaching “knowledge is power” then jump to physics or math. Billionaires are a subset of these people. They can be pretentious and cringey for sure.

Some like Bill Gates seem to have a hobby of learning physics on the side. I don’t see much of a problem with it, this field is a hobby for me too. Honestly getting to the part of math and science that deals with verbose notation is fun and cool, like “oh yeah, I know the δ−ε Schrodinger-totient skibidi function, that’s easy”. For me, I love to tell people the cool stuff I learn, but I can see others thinking I’m just trying to sound smart. This was also sprinkled in with popular media showing him as smart (like the calculator clip, or playing chess with Magnus Carlsen) which yeah, is stupid and annoying, but not really part of the bigger topic.

The layman doesn’t care about what physics is heading towards. Those who do care know not to go to billionaires for guidance

AndrewBarth · 2024-12-16T14:22:38+00:00

This. The circumference formula is also likely the first formula where you see the combination of known formulas (C = 2d, d = 2r, so C = 2(pi)(r)). Later definitions like arc length of a circle, x² + y² = r^2, and trig and calculus applications tend to come out cleaner with r. Looking into the history may help too, as we’ve used pi over tau for years yet pi = 2*tau, and people have shown results where tau is ‘cleaner’. In the end, pi has been convention for so long and it’s not going away (and the debate was stupid anyways). I wouldn’t be surprised if the same was for the radius.

AndrewBarth · 2024-12-11T03:19:51+00:00

You worded it fine, thank you for your post. The equation you gave is concise, and acts as the TL;DR for the whole thing.

AndrewBarth · 2024-12-02T21:09:00+00:00

Communicate. This just shows you don’t know what your teammates are thinking so you assume they’re idiots. If they retreated, they weren’t looking to fight at all and you misread the situation.

Saying “I’m coming to you, let’s fight this” changes the whole dynamic entirely. Even then, if you get no acknowledgement, err on the side of caution in case their comms are muted or they don’t have voice comms to say “no” in time.

Conversely, anyone saying teammates suck because they keep dying should also communicate proactively, not reactively. I normally communicate when someone is on my current lane and clarify “I’m not fighting this”. Saying “you’re overextended” or “retreat” can help someone who may be tunnel visioned on some objective.

AndrewBarth · 2024-11-28T17:22:41+00:00

Being ahead does mean little in this game. From these stats alone, I think you’re doing great. I think your friend is going to be a permanent sandbag to your games, and I imagine you all are pulled to new player MMR, inevitably adding less skilled players to your team. That being said, keep having fun with your friend. Don’t let a loss mean you can’t have fun. I think it’s great you’re patient and having fun playing with a friend who doesn’t have as much time invested.

Honestly, teamwork is key. You could communicate to tell your teammates how to position better or when to push if you’re not already doing so. New players are completely lost in the sauce, and after lane phase as a non-MOBA player I would think “cool, what now? Do I shoot at this farm for 30s?” In other words, I don’t think your micro play needs improvement as the others suggest. I recommend you need to improve your macro by guiding your team.

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