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Case #1: 1
Case #2: 2
Case #3: 1
Case #4: 0
Case #5: 1

I solved it in PHP, but I tested with the data from the page pasted into a file on my computer. In less than a half an hour you can figure it out , program and test it, but I hadn’t a good setup for reading the file and when I runned the file downloaded from facebook, it gave me an extra 21 line when the number of test cases was mentioned as 20. So, because I tested few days before a problem from last year which had a separation between the number of test cases and the data, I hastly modified the program to remove a line after the number of cases.

In short, I had a the correct result without the first line and numbered whith 1 in minus. Here is my solution:

<?php
function fromTxtToArray($filename){
    $fh = fopen($filename, "rb");
    $data = fread($fh, filesize($filename));
    fclose($fh);

    $array = explode("\n",$data);
    $rows = $array[0];
    unset($array[0]);
    echo $rows; // I realised afterwards that $rows != count($data);
    return array('rows' => $rows, 'data' => $array);
}

function Alphabet($input){
    $target = Array();
    $cazul = str_split($input);
    $map = array_count_values($cazul); //the builtin function does all the job
    //print_r($map); each letter whith the number of occurences
    $target['H'] = isset($map['H'])?$map['H']:0;
    $target['A'] = isset($map['A'])?$map['A']:0;    
    $target['C'] = isset($map['C'])?(floor($map['C']/2) ):0; //there are 2 C in the word
    $target['K'] = isset($map['K'])?$map['K']:0;
    $target['E'] = isset($map['E'])?$map['E']:0;
    $target['R'] = isset($map['R'])?$map['R']:0;
    $target['U'] = isset($map['U'])?$map['U']:0;
    $target['P'] = isset($map['P'])?$map['P']:0;    
    $low = min($target);

    return $low;    
}

$data = fromTxtToArray('alphabet_soup.txt');

$i = 1;
$output = '';

foreach ($data['data'] as $k => $v){
    $output .= 'Case #' . $i . ': ' . Alphabet(trim($v))."\r\n";
    $i++;
    if($i > $data['rows']) break; //the stupid condition which I omitted
}
$fp = fopen('output_soup.txt', 'w');
fwrite($fp, $output);
fclose($fp);
echo $output;

The problems are quite original and except of this they are not trivial to solve. There are a lot of very good programmers and I didn’t have high hopes to get to the finals. But I’m sory that I’ve solved two problems and I failed for such a stupid mistake.

UPDATE :The other problem I solved it wrong, although it worked on the test dataset.

#rm /dev/urandom
#mknod -m 644 /dev/urandom c 1 9

Works like a charm.
Because it seems to me that I used a similar fix for other problem some time ago I wrote it to remember it.

The above article contains more hypotheses than proven facts, but when you talk about the Universe as a whole, there is a lot of uncertainty. The main ideas are around the Big Bang Theory.
Among other things I picked the following ideas as a base for my reasoning:

1. The Universe is expanding – this is the main idea discovered by Hubble that Universe is not static but the distance between the galaxies is increasing. And this was confirmed by other observations from 1920 when it was discovered first. So I’ll take this hypothesis as the base.

2. From 1 resulted The universe has a start therefore an age and even an order of size is aproximated. This is viewed like a very rapid expansion from a very small point which gave the name Big Bang.
Here comes the first objection (viewed in a Discovery science documentary) -> Maybe is oscilating between a minimum and a maximum size (is pulsating).

3. This year Nobel price was given for the discovery that the expanding of the Universe is accelerating. This revives the geometric models of the General Theory of Relativity

4. There are presented three geometrical models of the Universe based on the balance between the aformentioned expansion and the gravity: sphere, curbed but open(as a saddle) and flat.
The sphere model was also imagined by Einstein which saw the Universe as a 4 dimensions sphere (the 4th dimension being the time).

Here comes my first personal idea: I think there is no straight line in the real universe. The infinite straight line which stands at the base of euclidian geometry has no representation in nature.

A lot of the math we use it’s based on this flat earth logic. We use this absolute concepts of line, plane, parallelism but they cannot exist in nature. Stars are round, planets are round and they move on curved trajectories, galaxies are spiraled, at small scale nothing seems to be described as infinitly straight.
So I think the flat model can be disregarded.

As for the math, there is non-euclidean geometry which challenges the postulates of Euclid, but it’s a sort of declination of the first  in a somehow hypothetical space.
I think there is a real need for a new math. Something unified that better integrates the applicable knowledge earned until modern days and eases the work with complex concepts and understanding of large structures.

A way to do this will be to shift focus from the paradigm of reducing everything to a few basic absolute/abstract concepts (some of them arguable like the concept of infinite) and to search for some complex tools (custom symbols) to better illustrate real world objects and interactions.

My hypothesis is that Universe has a start and an end, therefore the time has a start and an end, but the Universe has no age. The start and the end are much likely the same. I think the shape of the Universe is close to a seashell (spiral) and this form contains the time.

I’ll try to elaborate in later writings in a more specific manner ideas and work variants, and maybe someone will engage in a constructive discution.

Here you can see the demo for the hover bug in IE (IE9 inclusive) . The bug is not showing when I remove the test image which the menu overlays.
I tried some tweaks at the margin and padding, z-index and zoom with no result. If this is a known bug or you know other fix than that the one posted below please let me know.

My solution

The solution I found was to put a background to the hover state of the nested menu (#menu ul ul:hover) . I used an 1 by 1 transparent gif (the old days spacer) as a background.
Here is the fixed version using a background with transparent gif. It solves the problem in IE9 and down to IE7.
The bug and the solution seems to remain valid even for the IE10 as I can test it in the preview.

And, if you know some place that rewards this kind of descoveries for IE please point me to it.

Trebuie introduse datele si formulele lor in simulatorul X-plane dar este bun si orice motor de joc cum ar fi Unreal Engine.
E posibil sa mai apara si alte taskuri punctuale in care poti fi de folos.Pentru ca eu am insistat pe ideea implicarii comunitatii voi populariza si voi sustine cu ce pot aceste demersuri.

If you have some experience in the flight simulator programming area you are welcomed to help ARCA team in the Google Lunar Xprize challenge. The forum thread in romanian here https://www.arcaspace.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=14&start=0#p107

Experience with the X-plane flight simulator is most wanted for customisation with their formulas and data, but also experience with 3D game engine like Unreal Engine is good.

On the bugzilla it was argued that is not a bug and the implementation is according to the standards http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/intro/sgmltut.html#h-3.2.4 .
The problem is that most web developers are probably not aware of this standard and this could lead to some unexpected results.

In the current version of Firefox (3.6.14) a “–” will close the comment and all that is after will be rendered normally.
In other browsers this will not happen and in the future version Firefox 4 also this will not be a problem, but the standard remains valid.
In Firefox 4 the double hyphen is still interpreted but the comment is closed at the next “>”.

A good practice is to not use html comments for user input expecting that will not show in browser.
If you do need to do that, be aware that functions as php’s htmlentities does not convert double hyphens.
Apparently WordPress knows about this so I can’t show you an example.

The article presents a methodology to choose an open-source framework for a web project.

Based on the specific requirements of the project some indicators are calculated to choose the framework and there are also the results of the implementation in a specific project. This article is focused on PHP frameworks but the method is not restricted by the language.

The choice may be different depending on the project (I choosed Zend framework) and some evaluations can’t be made in an objective manner, but this is a good example on how to construct a decision when you choose an open-source framework.

Matplotlib is a library that allows easy drawing for series of numerical data in two or three dimensions.
Go to the official page and install it with just a few clicks. Be careful about the python version, there are a lot of differences between them (that is a minus for python).

For exemplification I have extended a previous program that generates pythagorean numbers. Here is the new program that plots points in 3D having as coordinates the pythgorean numbres:

#!/bin/env python

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from mpl_toolkits.mplot3d import Axes3D

#the function to generate the pythgorean numbers(yield is a kind of return)
def pythagora(max):    
    a = 1
    while(a <= max):
        b = a+1
        while (b <= max):
            yield (b ** 2  - a ** 2) , (2 * a * b) , (a ** 2 + b ** 2)
            b += 1
        a += 1

fig = plt.figure()

ax = Axes3D(fig)
#in some versions may be: ax = fig.add_subplot(111, projection='3d')

#the arrays to hold the coordinates
x = []
y = []
z = []

#here is the iterator in action
for li in pythagora(15):    
    x.append(li[0])
    y.append(li[1])
    z.append(li[2])       

#the optional s and c are for dimension and color of the dots
ax.scatter( x , y, z, s=5, c='#00688B' )

#this is another type of graphic with lines:
#ax.plot( x , y,  z, c='c')

plt.show()

And here is the result:

You can rotate the graphic with the mouse. You can save it. You can magnify it, also it’s a bit tricky to point where you want in 3D (it’s easier in 2D).
I mentioned in the code the aditional “plot” method which draws lines from one point to the next in the array, but there are also charts and other types of displays and options.

UPDATE: Currently matplotlib does not work in python 3 and requires also the Numpy library to be installed. Try with the python 2.7 and corresponding numpy and matplotlib library.

Unei călătoare

Baricadezi o ușă-ntreagă,
Te-mpingi să intri în metrou,
O lume-ți zice că ești vacă,
Tot tu pe mine mă faci bou?!

Asa cum zice si Robin aici, drepturile de autor imi apartin. Copiati numai cu acordul scris sau daca sunteti Metrorex si o scrieti deasupra usii vagonului de metrou.

Cu aceasta ocazie am schimbat tema. Am fost uimit sa descopar o tema populara si bine facuta, de un designer roman.

Mai important, schimb si modul de organizare si despre ce anume scriu.

Pentru ca nu am avut determinarea sa tin doua bloguri, voi face un hibrid:

- Un blog profesional cu diverse tutoriale, recomandari si alte lucruri in special legate de partea tehnica sau teoretica. Postarile vor fi in engleza, desi cred ca mai am de lucru la engleza pe care o folosesc. Acesta vreau sa il pun pe primul loc.

- Un blog de pareri personale, impresii si alte lucruri subiective, cu postari in romana. Voi incerca sa il delimitez cat mai clar de primul.

Ca si intreg blogul ramane un teren de incercare pentru stilul de scris, pentru idei de optimizare SEO, poate si de monetizare, pentru incercarea unor plugin-uri si pentru incercarea unor idei in general. Asa ca accept si astept observatiile si criticile constructive.