Sure, we want to defend ourselves against malicious attacks. But does that mean going out and destroying the the attacker? Only in a war!
So if the RIAA feels it has to 'defend' itself against something like KAZAA (which is NOT attacking RIAA directly, just it's mass-manufactured, over-hyped, over-priced monopolist property), then RIAA can come into our machines and wipe out KAZAA.
And I don't like where that is going....
Folks, the current state of the Internet and the Web reminds me of the Wild West. Good people and outlaws all over the place. Things got better when the sheriff came to town. Maybe what we need is a sheriff; one that will honor the privacy and uphold the security of each honorable individual; but with the right to gun down the outlaws (or send them to the judge).
So the I think the power to neutralize processes on other peoples machines should be entrusted to those individuals that are in a position of authority; using people that we can actually trust. The RIAA and other corporations are NOT the answer. Is the government? That remains to be seen.
It may come to that. Let's just hope we don't end up with a 'Big Brother' Internet.
As a Unix System's Admin instructor, I found it very disheartening to walk to the back of my classroom during lecture, only to see most of my students running a browser.
So this term, I did something about it. With one command from the instructor's machine, I disable the browsers so that I can lecture. I turn them back on during breaks (our classes are anywhere from 2 to 4 to 8 hours long). I tell the students why, and they accept it. As far as I am concerned, when the student sits in my class, he is MINE. They can check their e-mail and porn sites on their own time.
I also tell them that if they can figure out how I do it, they can run the browser all they want. So far, only one student has found out how. Sad, really, because the fix is not that hard to figure out. And most of the students have root privileges. I guess I am not teaching any hacker candidates...
Although the browser is off, ftp and telnet still run just fine. But even though my students know about these services, they just don't know how to use them.
You sound like you have been around the block, more than once. If you are getting on in life (say, mid-fifties or older) you may find that it is more and more difficult to keep up with all the changes in technology nowadays. And learning a new skill is getting harder and harder also.
Neverfear, it is just Mother Nature kicking in.
The solution? Move up to (technical) management. There really *IS* a need for technically competent managers to guide the young hotshots. Your experience counts, even if you don't understand the latest and the greatest (have your hotshots explain it to you in their own words).
Yeah, management can be a drag, stuck in the middle between the upper-level and the people who actually get things done; and good technical people don't necessarily equate to good managers; but it is worth looking into. Even if you wanted just to be a techie-nerd for the rest of your life.
Of course, you could always become an instructor (assuming you have some communications skills) and pass your experiences and techniques on to the next generation.
OK, if you want a faster OS, there are several things that you (or Apple, or Sun, or Microsoft) can do.
First, the easy way out. Get a faster CPU. That tends to be the current trend.
Second, optimize. That big, honkin' GUI you have running is written is a highly inefficient language like C++ or Java or C#. Profile the OS, find the parts that can be replaced with lower language (but more efficient) code, and do it. Make it better; avoid improving by just throwing more features at it. Sure, doing this is hard; but this is the OS, not a damned application!
Look at an OS like QNX. Small, fast, efficient; but has zero percent penetration in the market. But it fits on a floppy! Amazing!
Of course, this is all moot because the OS people will just continue to do creeping featuritis, and slow things down even further. So will just leave it to the CPU manufacturers to build us faster (and hotter, and more power hungery) chips to keep up with our desires.
College/University is tough. Especially when holding down another job. You will have to find the discipline within yourself to finish this time; through thick and thin, and not abandon ship when times get rough.
Those who make it are rewarded. Those who don't get lower paying jobs. Then, of course, there are the lucky ones. Hard work always pays off.
Ever get addicted to looking for little green men? Try Seti@Home. Once you are hooked, you will want to process a workunit as fast as you can!
Or, if you want to aid humanity another way, try Folding@Home, where they 'fold' proteins. There are a couple of zillion ways to fold a protein, and figuring them out sooner than later will definately aid people.
There have been several times of the course of my nine years of technical instruction where I have come into a site, prepared to teach a high-level course to several of the company's employees, only to find out that these employees were brand new hires, and did not know the correct way to hold a mouse.
So who's fault is that? Mine? No... perhaps the idiot who scheduled the class should have foreseen the expertise level of the target audience and scheduled something they could actually understand. Or perhaps the scheduling idiot KNEW the expertise of the target audience, and decided that "they can skip the preliminary stuff; besides, this training costs us lots of money!".
Bastard!
Now, when faced with that situation, I go much slower than usual, not introducing the subtle nuances that more advanced students eat up; why? Because 1) I am spending time teaching them the basics which should have been done in the first place, and 2) those subtle nuances would only fall on fallow minds. The students aren't ready for those juicy tidbits yet; they just want to survive and get going!
To make it all the more interesting, occasionally there is ONE (yes, only ONE) student in the class that should really be there. They are the ones that really need the advanced stuff. But they are so bored out of their minds because I have to go slow for the newbies. They usually end up playing digital grab-ass on some unsuspecting student, until I catch wind of it and yank their ethernet cable. And of course, in the end, I am the bad guy, not teaching to the guy who needs it what needed to be learned.
You just can't win sometimes.
By the way, I totally agree that a great technical instructor is just a geek with good social and outstanding communications skills. With a lot of patience stirred in.
Over most of the past decade, I have seen a LOT of instructors come and go. Some are great instructors, but not technically proficient. (We let them teach things like MicroSoft Word). Then there are those that could write driver code with just the 'cat' command, all before breakfast. But they could not pass this info on to a student if their lives depended on it.
Everyone can teach a little. Everyone can be a bit technically proficient. To find someone who can do both well, then you have a gem there, folks! Seek these people out, and learn from them. It doesn't hurt to ask who is teaching a class; perhaps it is someone you learned from before and liked (or hated, so you can avoid them). Get involved. Training isn't a one-week vacation.
Think of it like this: Current medical diagnosis is like proprietary software; Little 'chunks' of high-priced, specialized knowledge scattered across the globe. This 'Coupler' approach is more like open-source, where people put their efforts together for the good of society.
I agree completely with the above comment. There
is more to a CS degree then just the technical
part. If the technical part is all you want, you
can just study and take the exams. Or, pay a
few bucks and attend a 2-year technical school.
But a CS degree rounds you out. You get history,
English, Math and other stuff that will help you
in life when your programming skills start to
erode.
A CS degree represents to an employer the fact
that you ENDURED and SURVIVED; not that you just
have technical knowledge. This means a lot to
them; and if you EVER want to move up to a
management position, someone with a BS degree
will definately be promoted, or kept if there
is a downturn. The techie guy will be on the
street.
And yes, the trouble to get a CS degree is a
pain-- I had to study Higher Math and Advanced
Physics because the CS department came under
the Physics department. But, it was worth it.
Yes, Gnome is on the Solaris media.
Version 1.2. The download is version 1.4.
Also remember, this is a *BETA*. If people want
to use it for production, don't gripe if
the bells and whistles blow up in your face.
The OFFICIAL release of GNOME for Solaris
will be in mid-2000, if people would bother
to read the accompanying docs. By that time
GNOME should at version 2.0 and life will
not be as miserable.
I have about 50 different things I keep passwords on. So I keep them on my PalmPilot.
I just add each account as a contact in my phone list, and mark the contact as private. Each contact has a separate memo attached which holds the account name and password (and other relevant info). All of the password contacts live under a list name (coincidently) 'Passwords'.
So, all I have to remember is the PalmPilot Security password to get to gain access to all of the other passwords. The trouble with this scheme is that sometimes I forget to turn Security password back on.....
Usually, after having a meal of mashed potatoes and barley, I take a nap. Unfortunately, by the time I wake up, the one-hour brain enhancement effect has worn off....
The only reason we lost this spacecraft was because we have to work on two different systems; one *WORLDWIDE* system, and one archaic system.
Only two countries, at last look, don't use metrics as their primary measurement system. And guess what?? We are ONE OF THEM!!
Which makes US look pretty damn STUPID!
Why don't we go metric? It is so EASY to figure out-- everything is a multiple of 10.
Hmmm... 5,280 feet in a mile; 3 feet in a yard; 12 inches in a foot-- Yeah, it's burned in our engrams NOW, but do you remember the pain in studying this?
Metrics, on the other hand, is just ONE LESS conversion in the physical plane. Upcoming engineers and scientists won't have to devote so much neuron power to conversions-- they *might* use that reserve to find some outstanding discovery, like being able to CALCULATE A STABLE ORBIT AROUND A PLANETARY NEIGHBOR!
Why don't we go metric? Because of cost? What will it cost to change all of those speed limit signs to metric (or post two measurements)? Or change the speedometers/odometers? SO WHAT!! Spread the change out over 10 years or so. Start educating the babies to do metric, and let us old farts who know English measurements die of attrition.
Are Americans too lazy or stupid to learn a worldwide standard? Heck, we learned the net in amazing time.
There should be some sort of government committee that has the power to grant exceptions to going entirely metric. Example-- 100 yard football fields do not translate easily to metric.
OK, in closing we ought to GET WITH IT and move to METRIC; the sooner the better.
Just because people exceed 35 doesn't mean they are dead. When I was in my 20's and 30's, I was a shit-hot assembly-language level systems programmer. Now I am just a few months short of 50 (oh gawd) and I make my living by being a corporate programming instructor. There are a LOT of people out there that want to learn, and I don't mind sharing my past experiences with them (for a fee, of course!).
Somehow, I feel that that is what the elders of the tribe need to do-- pass on the lessons of the past (and reasons why things were done that way at the time) so that the new people can learn from those lessons and improve from them.
What, do we have to register *EVERYONE* nowadays? Why not register authors, and columnists, and poets? Is there no freedom anymore?
Get the programmers together and REVIEW THEIR CODE on a weekly basis. You will know who is the best programmer. And you will know who is 'certifiable'.
Slashdot Mirror
You hit the nail right on the head.
Sure, we want to defend ourselves against malicious attacks. But does that mean going out and destroying the the attacker? Only in a war!
So if the RIAA feels it has to 'defend' itself against something like KAZAA (which is NOT attacking RIAA directly, just it's mass-manufactured, over-hyped, over-priced monopolist property), then RIAA can come into our machines and wipe out KAZAA.
And I don't like where that is going....
Folks, the current state of the Internet and the Web reminds me of the Wild West. Good people and outlaws all over the place. Things got better when the sheriff came to town. Maybe what we need is a sheriff; one that will honor the privacy and uphold the security of each honorable individual; but with the right to gun down the outlaws (or send them to the judge).
So the I think the power to neutralize processes on other peoples machines should be entrusted to those individuals that are in a position of authority; using people that we can actually trust. The RIAA and other corporations are NOT the answer. Is the government? That remains to be seen.
It may come to that. Let's just hope we don't end up with a 'Big Brother' Internet.
As a Unix System's Admin instructor, I found it very disheartening to walk to the back of my classroom during lecture, only to see most of my students running a browser.
So this term, I did something about it. With one command from the instructor's machine, I disable the browsers so that I can lecture. I turn them back on during breaks (our classes are anywhere from 2 to 4 to 8 hours long). I tell the students why, and they accept it. As far as I am concerned, when the student sits in my class, he is MINE. They can check their e-mail and porn sites on their own time.
I also tell them that if they can figure out how I do it, they can run the browser all they want. So far, only one student has found out how. Sad, really, because the fix is not that hard to figure out. And most of the students have root privileges. I guess I am not teaching any hacker candidates...
Although the browser is off, ftp and telnet still run just fine. But even though my students know about these services, they just don't know how to use them.
Such is life.
You sound like you have been around the block, more than once. If you are getting on in life (say, mid-fifties or older) you may find that it is more and more difficult to keep up with all the changes in technology nowadays. And learning a new skill is getting harder and harder also.
Neverfear, it is just Mother Nature kicking in.
The solution? Move up to (technical) management. There really *IS* a need for technically competent managers to guide the young hotshots. Your experience counts, even if you don't understand the latest and the greatest (have your hotshots explain it to you in their own words).
Yeah, management can be a drag, stuck in the middle between the upper-level and the people who actually get things done; and good technical people don't necessarily equate to good managers; but it is worth looking into. Even if you wanted just to be a techie-nerd for the rest of your life.
Of course, you could always become an instructor (assuming you have some communications skills) and pass your experiences and techniques on to the next generation.
Just some thoughts...
(From a fifty-ish longtime technical instructor)
pico is for wimp-outs.
Real Unix Systems Administrators use vi.
At least half of any 'fixes' posted on
comp.sys.blah newsgroups are crap anyway.
You get good when you can recognize those
posts as crap.
OK, if you want a faster OS, there are several
things that you (or Apple, or Sun, or Microsoft)
can do.
First, the easy way out. Get a faster CPU. That
tends to be the current trend.
Second, optimize. That big, honkin' GUI you have
running is written is a highly inefficient
language like C++ or Java or C#. Profile the
OS, find the parts that can be replaced with
lower language (but more efficient) code, and
do it. Make it better; avoid improving by
just throwing more features at it. Sure, doing
this is hard; but this is the OS, not a damned
application!
Look at an OS like QNX. Small, fast, efficient;
but has zero percent penetration in the market.
But it fits on a floppy! Amazing!
Of course, this is all moot because the OS
people will just continue to do creeping
featuritis, and slow things down even further.
So will just leave it to the CPU manufacturers
to build us faster (and hotter, and more power
hungery) chips to keep up with our desires.
Oh, well.
College/University is tough. Especially when
holding down another job. You will have to
find the discipline within yourself to finish
this time; through thick and thin, and not
abandon ship when times get rough.
Those who make it are rewarded. Those who don't
get lower paying jobs. Then, of course, there
are the lucky ones. Hard work always pays
off.
Ever get addicted to looking for little green
men? Try Seti@Home. Once you are hooked,
you will want to process a workunit as fast
as you can!
Or, if you want to aid humanity another way,
try Folding@Home, where they 'fold' proteins.
There are a couple of zillion ways to fold a
protein, and figuring them out sooner than
later will definately aid people.
Faster CPU's can only help the cause.
OK, this is a bit of a rant.
There have been several times of the course
of my nine years of technical instruction where
I have come into a site, prepared to teach
a high-level course to several of the company's
employees, only to find out that these
employees were brand new hires, and did not
know the correct way to hold a mouse.
So who's fault is that? Mine? No... perhaps
the idiot who scheduled the class should have
foreseen the expertise level of the target
audience and scheduled something they could
actually understand. Or perhaps the scheduling
idiot KNEW the expertise of the target
audience, and decided that "they can skip the
preliminary stuff; besides, this training costs
us lots of money!".
Bastard!
Now, when faced with that situation, I go much
slower than usual, not introducing the subtle
nuances that more advanced students eat up; why?
Because 1) I am spending time teaching them
the basics which should have been done in the
first place, and 2) those subtle nuances would
only fall on fallow minds. The students aren't
ready for those juicy tidbits yet; they just
want to survive and get going!
To make it all the more interesting, occasionally
there is ONE (yes, only ONE) student in the class
that should really be there. They are the ones
that really need the advanced stuff. But they
are so bored out of their minds because I have
to go slow for the newbies. They usually end
up playing digital grab-ass on some unsuspecting
student, until I catch wind of it and yank their
ethernet cable. And of course, in the end, I
am the bad guy, not teaching to the guy who
needs it what needed to be learned.
You just can't win sometimes.
By the way, I totally agree that a great
technical instructor is just a geek with good
social and outstanding communications skills.
With a lot of patience stirred in.
Over most of the past decade, I have seen a
LOT of instructors come and go. Some are
great instructors, but not technically proficient.
(We let them teach things like MicroSoft Word).
Then there are those that could write driver
code with just the 'cat' command, all before
breakfast. But they could not pass this info
on to a student if their lives depended on it.
Everyone can teach a little. Everyone can be
a bit technically proficient. To find someone
who can do both well, then you have a gem there,
folks! Seek these people out, and learn from
them. It doesn't hurt to ask who is teaching
a class; perhaps it is someone you learned
from before and liked (or hated, so you can
avoid them). Get involved. Training isn't
a one-week vacation.
... take a bus!
Think of it like this: Current medical diagnosis
is like proprietary software; Little 'chunks' of
high-priced, specialized knowledge scattered
across the globe. This 'Coupler' approach is
more like open-source, where people put their
efforts together for the good of society.
If so, which one do you want? Think about it.
Is this really a surprise?
I agree completely with the above comment. There
is more to a CS degree then just the technical
part. If the technical part is all you want, you
can just study and take the exams. Or, pay a
few bucks and attend a 2-year technical school.
But a CS degree rounds you out. You get history,
English, Math and other stuff that will help you
in life when your programming skills start to
erode.
A CS degree represents to an employer the fact
that you ENDURED and SURVIVED; not that you just
have technical knowledge. This means a lot to
them; and if you EVER want to move up to a
management position, someone with a BS degree
will definately be promoted, or kept if there
is a downturn. The techie guy will be on the
street.
And yes, the trouble to get a CS degree is a
pain-- I had to study Higher Math and Advanced
Physics because the CS department came under
the Physics department. But, it was worth it.
um... err.... Ya got me there! Yep, mid 2002. I best set my watch now....
Yes, Gnome is on the Solaris media. Version 1.2. The download is version 1.4. Also remember, this is a *BETA*. If people want to use it for production, don't gripe if the bells and whistles blow up in your face. The OFFICIAL release of GNOME for Solaris will be in mid-2000, if people would bother to read the accompanying docs. By that time GNOME should at version 2.0 and life will not be as miserable.
'nuff said...
Big Brother is alive and well and spreading
his imfluence Down Under.
Let's just encrypt everything!
I have about 50 different things I keep
passwords on. So I keep them on my PalmPilot.
I just add each account as a contact in
my phone list, and mark the contact as private.
Each contact has a separate memo attached which
holds the account name and password (and other relevant info).
All of the password contacts live under a list name (coincidently)
'Passwords'.
So, all I have to remember is the PalmPilot Security password
to get to gain access to all
of the other passwords. The trouble with this
scheme is that sometimes I forget to turn
Security password back on.....
Usually, after having a meal of mashed potatoes
and barley, I take a nap. Unfortunately, by the
time I wake up, the one-hour brain enhancement
effect has worn off....
However, the dreams are rather vivid....
The only reason we lost this spacecraft was
because we have to work on two different systems;
one *WORLDWIDE* system, and one archaic system.
Only two countries, at last look, don't use
metrics as their primary measurement system.
And guess what?? We are ONE OF THEM!!
Which makes US look pretty damn STUPID!
Why don't we go metric? It is so EASY to
figure out-- everything is a multiple of 10.
Hmmm... 5,280 feet in a mile; 3 feet in a yard;
12 inches in a foot-- Yeah, it's burned in
our engrams NOW, but do you remember the pain
in studying this?
Metrics, on the other hand, is just ONE LESS
conversion in the physical plane. Upcoming
engineers and scientists won't have to devote
so much neuron power to conversions-- they *might*
use that reserve to find some outstanding
discovery, like being able to CALCULATE A STABLE
ORBIT AROUND A PLANETARY NEIGHBOR!
Why don't we go metric? Because of cost? What
will it cost to change all of those speed limit
signs to metric (or post two measurements)? Or
change the speedometers/odometers? SO WHAT!!
Spread the change out over 10 years or so. Start
educating the babies to do metric, and let us
old farts who know English measurements die of
attrition.
Are Americans too lazy or stupid to learn a
worldwide standard? Heck, we learned the
net in amazing time.
There should be some sort of government committee
that has the power to grant exceptions to
going entirely metric. Example-- 100 yard
football fields do not translate easily to
metric.
OK, in closing we ought to GET WITH IT and
move to METRIC; the sooner the better.
Arrrghhhh!!!!!
Just because people exceed 35 doesn't mean they are dead. When I was in my 20's and 30's, I was a shit-hot assembly-language level systems programmer. Now I am just a few months short of 50 (oh gawd) and I make my living by being a corporate programming instructor. There are a LOT of people out there that want to learn, and I don't mind sharing my past experiences with them (for a fee, of course!).
Somehow, I feel that that is what the elders of the tribe need to do-- pass on the lessons of the past (and reasons why things were done that way at the time) so that the new people can learn from those lessons and improve from them.
What, do we have to register *EVERYONE* nowadays?
Why not register authors, and columnists, and
poets? Is there no freedom anymore?
Get the programmers together and REVIEW THEIR
CODE on a weekly basis. You will know who is
the best programmer. And you will know who is
'certifiable'.