[Tutor] Sum of Scores

[Tiger12506]

Hmmm... interesting tie to another post...

>>> x = timeit.Timer('random.random()','import random')
>>> x.timeit(3000000)
1.0161026052194018
>>> y = timeit.Timer('random()','from random import random')
>>> y.timeit(4600000)
1.0004307810070827

Dictionary lookups do take HUGE amounts of time. Interesting.

Anyway... I've got it down to
Your numbers with a little more precision gave me
3.4e5987 yrs.

and mine

3.0e5987 yrs.

That's a hell of a lot of years! Remember that everyone! If you want your 
code to run forever and to eternity, copy variables to the local namespace 
first; you get a lot more accomplished (well... whatever)    ;-)

Anyway, the frivolity aside, I can get it to repeat every ten seconds. ;-)
Set the computer clock. (okay, maybe i'm just in a silly mood. But 
seriously,
that's why the docs say that it is NOT meant for cryptography - not that 
that matters
to the OP, snicker; What have I been drinking????)

> Well, I was trying to emphasize that it was, for pretty much all intents 
> and purposes, infinite.

Nope-nope-nope you're wrong :-)~

The daring cracker enters the room, his heart quickening as the door hinge 
creaks with the sound of the smallest ever mouse. His dark clothing masks 
him from the lit room visible through the window on the adjacent wall. A 
woman, working late, sits in a comfortable office chair, her face glowing 
from the reflection of her computer screen. A cup of Java (pun intended) 
indicates to anyone watching that she is overworked, and under-paid.

Each step he takes brings him closer to his target. The big boss gave him a 
pay cut so that this new PC could sit on his boss's desk. The cracker's 
jealously seems to almost permeate the room. Vengeance shouts out louder 
than the compressor of the air conditioner in the north window. The cracker 
intinctively looks up to see if his emotions betrayed his presence. But the 
woman in the other room continues her scrolling through endless lines of 
buggy, hard to read, unmaintainable, bloated, and otherwise ridiculously 
foolish code that could have been so easily fixed if the same 'big boss' had 
ordered the project in Python.

Soon, a floppy disk is pulled out of a black jacket pocket. No one has ever 
run the program on the floppy before. Taking the disk, the cracker inserts 
it into the drive, starts the machine, swears under his breath when he reads 
"Non-System disk or disk error. Replace and strike any."

Striking the 'any' key, he quickly shoves the floppy disk back in. He wants 
this over with. Again, he looks to see if he has been detected; still he is 
safe. Opening the folder containing the floppy drive, he groans silently as 
the annoying Windows Firewall flashes an update notice. "See..." he thinks 
to himself, "Micro$oft *can* actually restrict viruses from entering their 
OS." He fights with the window, impatiently waiting for countless libraries 
to load and free, until the UI responds and he can send it a WM_CLOSE 
message.

Smirking evily, the cracker double-clicks the executable 
'pink_fuzzy_bunny.exe' and resists the urge to laugh maniacally as he 
watches the computer clock freeze and not move. Ingenious--his plan--All it 
takes to freeze time is to contantly set it to the same second in history. 
Time. Forever frozen. He frowns as he realizes that in so doing, he provides 
the only effective means for keeping those pesky Windows notices out of his 
boss's hair. "No matter" --he thinks, "He will have worse troubles in due 
time." Again he suppresses a maniacal laugh.

. . .

Monday morning brings a bright and cheerful man into an office, his office. 
The door creaks a little as he opens it, and the air conditioner buzzing in 
the north wall window is refreshing to him after the heat from outside. The 
man waves cheerfully at a woman through the glass in the adjacent wall, whom 
looks up only for an instant to scowl. The man, who recently bought his new 
PC, smiles proudly as he turns it on. His new python program which he keeps 
on the desktop is his early attempt at a cricket game simulation. He 
lovingly double-clicks the icon, and runs the program several times. Each 
successive time his grin grows smaller and smaller until his face is more 
than troubled. Why is his program producing the same output every time? A 
scream is heard in the office "NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!"
The boss runs from the building, never to notice the clock in the 
bottom-right hand corner which still shows the caption '10:33 PM'.

Somewhere, someplace a cracker lies in bed, a silly grin on his face. His 
objective, he knows, has been accomplished.

> Because the possibility of my computer even existing after that long is 
> effectively zero, I consider the pattern to never repeat :)

Ahhh...
Your computer ~ sitting on a pedestal in the middle of nowhere in AD 
3.0e5988, the last shrine to the ancient past-- A technological marvel to 
the ape like creatures whom are all that remain of the once all powerful 
race of human beings.

Our ape, named Jogg, looks at the bright computer screen, jumps back in fear 
as the ancient Windows Beep function is called and the foreign noise hits 
him. What is this? There is a message there.

...
...
  File "<stdin>", line 2, in find
  File "<stdin>", line 2, in find
  File "<stdin>", line 2, in find
RuntimeError: maximum recursion depth exceeded
>>>

Damn. I guess we will never know.

(okay... maybe nobody spiked my Mt. Dew, but maybe because it's after 3:00 
am)
JS