[Wellington-pm] Prizes! (was Re: Reminder: meeting tonight)

[michael at diaspora.gen.nz]

Srdjan writes:
>How about deciding the order by a lucky draw? A module Presenter::Random?

Well, given that there's only ever two presenters (barring when the
fearful dictator runs the lightning talks), a binary decision of such
a sort is usually decided by either: 1. a token of some monetary value,
or 2. a sophisticated cryptographically strong choice protocol, such as
rock paper scissors.

I'd go for the latter, myself.

First person to:

    * code up a rock paper scissors game
    * playable over the web or on the presentation PC
    * for two (or more) people, all physically colocated with each
      other, using the same PC
    * in Perl
    * for the purpose of deciding speaking order

wins either:

    * one (1) chocolate fish (the "normal person" prize), or
    * a commitment to talk on a topic of my choice at the July 2006
      meeting (the "Grant" prize :)

Solutions must be demonstrated at the June 2006 meeting of
wellington.pm.org.  In the event of more than one solution being
presented, I'll award prizes as I see fit, based principally on the
humor value of the solution.

(Note: the principal problem an implementor will face is trying to keep
the participants from knowing each others solution.  Limiting to only
two participants is permissible.  I'd suggest something like a key based
submission protocol; ie, hit a key, submit via Javascript or similar
(Ajax, maybe?) each participant does this, then the final answer is
displayed.)

If you do code up a solution, it'd probably make a good presentation.
*And* it'd make Grant happy.

    -- michael.