Contest: Are YOU the Ultimate LabVIEW G-eek 2006?

[Philip_Courtois]

So you think you know a lot about LabVIEW and its history? Well, now is your time to prove it!

Compete for eight weeks against the rest of the LabVIEW community to determine who will be the Ultimate LabVIEW G-eek 2006. Each week you will be challenged with a new set of LabVIEW trivia questions. For correct answers you collect a number of points. The person who collects the most points during the eight weeks will be the Ultimate LabVIEW G-eek 2006.

Visit the LabVIEW Zone to answer the first questions now! 

Message Edited by Philip C. on 05-30-2006 02:27 AM

[tst]

I have a problem with this - some questions are not fair. Some people have no idea when undo was introduced and some people don't have 8 or don't care that it is localized for Japanese or that you can now use tag X in the HTML help because they have no need for it. This means that getting a reasonable number of points depends more on your ability to search for the answers to obscure questions and less on your knowledge of LV.

While I have no problem with the searching part (I'm sure I can find the answers easily), I do have a problem with the concept - I like being tested for my knowledge of something, not for my ability to search for answers. Searching for answers is something that is also legitimate (like in the coding challenges where you are not expected to know all the theories about prime number generation beforehand), but it does not test your knowledge of LV.

In this case, BTW, I would like to seperate the two examples I gave - the question about undo is a legitimate question becauses it deals in an area all users need and is only problematic because newer users would have no need to know the answer. The answers to questions about localization and the HTML help will only be know to a relatively small number of people without searching.

[shoneill]

I just answered the first set, off the top of my head and I shudder to think how many I got wrong......

Shane

[Conseils]

Geek

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Look up Geek in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

A geek (pronunciation /gi:k/ ) is a person who is fascinated, perhaps obsessively, by obscure or very specific areas of knowledge and imagination. Geek may not always have the same meaning as the term nerd (see nerd for a discussion of the disputed relation between the terms).

I sort of assumed, hoped it was for fun......
Now putting those little messages into those binary clusters here (call for obfuscated code) that was tweaky and possibly even geeky, perhaps that will appear in the next set of questions.

[Ray.R]

Actually, I like this thread.  It is interesting for another reason.

I pictured tst as someone who would actually like this type of contest.  But I am wrong.  It just goes to show how little we know someone else by dealing only through a forum.  I thought you were unbeatable at any trivia..

I'll check out the questions, participate and probably do very bad, which is good.  I wouldn't want to be categorized as a G-eek.. 😉

Best of luck to whoever is the best G-eek... 

😄

===== Edit =====

OK...  I should have read the questions first, because I have to agree with tst that the questions are a "bit" biased towards LV8. 

Message Edited by JoeLabView on 05-30-2006 08:57 AM

[tst]

I don't have a problem with the contest since I do like trivia a lot, as you imagined.

The problem is that these are obscure and unimportant (read "boring") pieces of knowledge which would probably require some (very light) digging. Since I refuse to guess (I hate making uneducated guesses) and I don't see searching for these answers as a challenge, I don't want to participate unless I know there will be either interesting questions or questions which will be interesting to research. I'm hoping Philip will reply and promise that the next rounds will be more interesting.

[johnsold]

Maybe NI should put a time limit on it. If you only had 1 minute from log-in to score submitted or lock-out, there would be very little opportunity to look things up.

Second Point: Is there a penalty for wrong answers? Is it better to guess or to leave a question unanswered?

Let's keep it fun.

Lynn

[Philip_Courtois]

Hi tst,

I definitely understand your point of this type of information not being "useful" in your daily life as a LabVIEW programmer.

However, as explained on the LabVIEW Zone, the intension of this contest is to find the person who has the most LabVIEW trivia knowledge. The meaning of “trivia” that we are referring to does stretch all the way from “basic, elementary knowledge” to “more obscure and arcane bits of knowledge”.

The questions will cover LabVIEW functionality, features, history – and then all the information that doesn’t fit anywhere else. Some answers can be found on the Web, some answers can be found by testing them in LabVIEW (you can download LabVIEW 8 here), and then there are the answers that you just have to guess – unless you’re the ultimate LabVIEW geek!

For challenges that better test your LabVIEW skills, please refer to coding challenge on the LabVIEW Zone or the one on the LAVA Forums.

May the Ultimate LabVIEW G-eek win!

[tst]

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@Philip C. wrote:
...the intension of this contest is to find the person who has the most LabVIEW trivia knowledge. ... Some answers can be found on the Web, some answers can be found by testing them in LabVIEW

---

As I said - in general, I have no problem with trivia. I could probably live on a diet of obscure and unimportant information, and I'm usually pretty good at remembering it. It's just that I wouldn't expect anyone to know beforehand all the localized languages (although I do actually have a guess on that one). If you're expecting us to search for the answers, however, that's another matter.

Although in that case, as I said, this tests more your ability to search for this knowledge and less your knowledge of LV trivia. Then again, you could say that knowing where to search for it is also part of using LV. Oh well...

BTW, I already used up my 30 days of LV8, so I will have to search for any 8 related question online (most likely in the online help).

[crelf]

I've got to agree with Philip C. and johnsold - like all trivia competitions, it's just a bit of fun, and there's nothing wrong with that.  As Philip C. said, if you're after something that really tests your LabVIEW knowledge (I think, in this case, knowledge is very different to trivia) then check out a coding challenge.