I wanted to get one of those professional car door jimmy kits (the ones with a jimmy for just about every model of vehicle!) that tow truck supply vendors sell "just in case I get locked out of my car", but they had these outrageous demands that I "prove" that I was a legit tow outfit or garage.
The locksmith supply was much the same way when I tried to buy a lockpick set, "just in case I get locked-out of my house".
You can bet I'll be getting this software. I must've forgotten my password because I can't login to my secure wireless network, and I unfortunately don't have physical access to my WAP in order to reset it the cheap and easy way, with a pen tip.
I know you're just providing information as to what this feature does, but I think you may be missing the (subtle, humorous) point the person you responded to and others are making: the feature is so irrelevant and useless to the average computer user that it's arguably a waste of time to bother implementing it.
I'm just thinking of all the people out there who haven't bought $3500+ monitors capable of color calibration. Great, so you have ColorSynch on your computer. That means that everything you see on your sub-$500 monitor or consumer-grade inkjet printer is incorrect by the same margin. And color WILL be off, even if those devices have a profile, simply because their design and manufacture tolerances are sloppy and not adjustable enough. You can't accurately calibrate a monitor with "auto-setup" and basic color-temperature choices. You can't accurately calibrate a printer by only aligning its printheads.
Sure, some applications might benefit from being calibrated to synch with each other, for example, a vector graphics program, a photo manipulation program, and a publication layout program. But what percentage of computer users are doing such advanced levels of prepress?
That said, I've noticed a trend with a subset of Mac users and Photoshop users. They'll deride a competing OS or application for not having some exotic professional feature. When you ask them when they last used it, they typically can't answer, but will point out that "It's there if I need it". Then, if one feels like delivering a little kick to the gut when the Pretentious User is down, one can further observe that tools do not an artisan make, and that a sufficiently talented and resourceful artist can make a masterpiece even with crude implements.
Even GIMP. I don't know how true that really is, I can't say I've ever pushed GIMP to its limits or into anything it can't do well that Photoshop could do. But the point is, most people don't even know what those limitations are or how it would gimp them to use GIMP or Linux instead. Just saying.
What do you mean by unmaintainable? How can it be unmaintainable, yet still be in use to this day?
You can use something that's unmaintainable. All "maintenance" is, in this context, is applying the necessary fixes to keep the OS reasonably current and secure. Every product, sooner or later, reaches a point where it's "not economically feasible" to continue making proper repairs-- you just wind-up spending too much money and time doing so.
Maintainability of --anything-- begins with good documentation and an engineering framework that allows for repairs of whatever is broken or functionality upgrades without breaking other things. Since well-documented APIs that say what they do and do what they say are still something I'd assume are lacking in Windows 7 based on complaints of software and drivers not working correctly on it, it would seem that this fundamental flaw in building a foundation for the OS is indeed still present.
...than behave as if it's a self-licking ice cream cone. IT exists for the productivity of the other employees. All too often, IT folks lose sight of that and start feeling that they can call the shots and that the end users' needs aren't as important as IT objectives and IT vision.
The information presented is a bit one-sided because it comes from the criminal investigation of Mr. Childs, but it's half of the story. The half of the story that arrogant geeks on/. don't want to hear because they all assume that Mr. Childs is just a misunderstood genius who was just doing his job and was persecuted for it. Projecting, much?
Much of what's in the affidavit is conjecture, opinion, and hearsay, but if the core of the matter is that SF County policy was indeed that security was charged with keeping a database of passwords, and Childs thought he was above that policy, he was probably wrong, regardless of all the other crap that they're trying to pin on him.
I know I'll probably get modded-down for saying this, but whenever I have mod points, I specifically seek out those, "I don't care about karma," and, "I know I'll probably get modded down..." posts and mod them down, especially if they're crap because they're trolling or just lack meaningful commentary. If I consider them to be good, I'll usually just pass them over. I prefer to mod-up folks who speak their minds and say positive things about Linux, rather than those who are shamelessly pandering to what they perceive to be the prevailing opinion.
The question for you, dear readers, is to decide how to mod me, since I attempted to cover all the bases here:
Interesting (shameless pandering or manipulation)
Troll (shameless antagonism)
Insightful
Funny
The best choice is probably not to mod me at all, since you're probably wrong no matter what you choose!
I keep hoping that the next big exploit to hit Adobe's crapware will be the one that either causes the company to come to its senses, or even causes almost everyone to abandon it.
It's almost like Adobe is on a quest to make the most horrible software ever conceived:
Slow load times, check!
Crapware speedlauncher to slow down Windows systems on startup, check!
Build it around exploitable Sun Java, check!
Updater that seems to only be good for pestering end user at inopportune times, check!
Platform neutral, so its bug exploits can compromise security on Linux & Mac in addition to Windows, check!
These things are just not acceptable from what is a simple helper utility. Adobe is doing it wrong.
...I don't see me putting a diesel engine in my motorbike anytime soon...
Hayes Diversified has been developing a diesel enduro (http://www.hdtusa.com/vehicle-m1030-m2.php) for military applications, it seems like a pretty neat bike, if they start selling them to civilians, I'd really have to have a look at that.
Also, there are some Royal Enfield diesel bikes. They have the vintage British Twin styling that RE licensed so very, very long ago (I guess it's a timeless design, especially in India), and the charming purr of a diesel engine. I must say I'm tempted by those too, but they're a bit hard to come by in the States.
I'd point out that, while you're really on-target, the two-stroke diesels are still filthy enough that they don't pass vehicle emissions in jurisdictions with air quality standards in place. They just produce far too much smoke under load, even when they're in perfect condition, and thus fail the emissions opacity test.
Eh, the power-to-weight ratio is good on a two-stroke, because they often can just skip the whole oil-sump design element altogether (total loss lubrication). You can't do that in a four-stroke without wrecking the cylinder walls on the non-induction strokes.
If you take a two-stroke with an oil circulation system, say a Detroit Diesel Series 71 or Series 92 engine, you just wind-up with an exceptionally dirty (from a pollution standpoint) engine that gets mediocre fuel mileage and has an odd power curve, all else being roughly equal in the application you're using the engine in.
The ONLY advantage most two-stroke engine have are the way they have fewer moving parts to adjust or break, since they use ports (passive fenestra in the cylinder walls which the elongated piston blocks) instead of valves (the diesels usually have intake ports and exhaust valves), which makes them slightly more reliable and inexpensive to produce. Some applications also thrive on the power curve you get from the two-strokes, mostly all-or-none type of things where the engine is either idling or at full-throttle (from chain saws to locomotive generators). They typically start to fall flat in applications that require massive low-end torque.
The fact is, they were a slightly modified gasoline engine design. That's the problem. Sure, you can beef-up the crank, change the pistons slightly, and cast from a different alloy, but it's still a bad design for a diesel engine. Diesels have different design considerations, and aside from the 4-cycle basic layout that diesels and gasoline engines have in common, they really need to be designed from scratch.
As a result, it was rather unreliable and underpowered. I found it amusing you could have a car in the NADA Older Used Cars book that had a book value of $400, with a $500 deduction for having that godawful engine in it.
The 6.2/6.5 GM diesel engines weren't really that much better. They're more powerful and a somewhat better design, but they still miss the mark on reliability and were prone to overheating because they just weren't designed to have enough oil volume, adequate oil or block cooling systems, and the other little things that keep diesels reliable (like good fuel filters and fuel-water separators) were absent from the implementation. I was not impressed by the 6.2l engine in a Chevy truck I had a number of years ago. It simply didn't have the diesel reliability and other traits I expect. I have a good bit of experience owning, operating, maintaining, and making minor repairs to a whole lot of diesel engines (I owned & operated an excavating & trucking business), those older Chevy engines are really the only diesel engine I actively avoid and consider dealbreakers. It's just not worth the brain damage when you can get a real diesel engine that gets the job done and is reliable like a good diesel is.
Freezing doesn't "explode cell walls". When water crystallizes inside a cell, it is what ruptures the cell. That's the major component of frostbite. Controlling the way the water crystallizes can keep it from resulting in cell damage. Current cryonic techniques seem to be getting better at that. Usually this entails replacing an animal's blood with a synthetic blood or adding chemicals to allow cooling without crystallization. Animals chilled to near freezing and with no measurable vital signs (including no brain activity) have been successfully revived without apparently losing memories using those blood replacement type of techniques.
So you're right, "simple freezing" doesn't work, but it's not what cryonics are about. The guy in the Tuff Shed near Nederland, CO in all likelihood was not frozen correctly and is little more than a frozen corpse that would be a putrid mess when thawed. The time a properly chilled organism can be kept would depend on the quality of the chilling, the degree of cell damage, and the upper limit would be determined by how effectively the decay is retarded. If not enough cells are functional to rebuild the body and clean-up the mess of damaged cells, that's game over. It could be a matter of weeks, it could be a matter of years. It's not likely to be retarded enough to last a meaningful length of time, however. I'd see the technology as more useful for situations where buying a little time would be invaluable, but these dreams of cryonic immortality still are just that-- dreams.
Even today, we insist on depriving some people of certain civil rights because they make another tyrannical minority that has the ability to sway the majority "uncomfortable".
Civil rights should --never-- be put up for a vote. The religious-sponsored bigotry against gay couples having the civil right and accompanying responsibilities of marriage needs to come to an end. Just as interracial marriages (which have also been illegal in the past) didn't harm anyone or society at large, IN NO WAY does recognizing legal gay marriage hurt a straight, religious couple. Maybe their religious sensibilities might be offended. Too fucking bad.
I'm ashamed that in my country right now, we are continuing to put civil rights up to a vote in this manner, and voting said rights down at every opportunity.
To sum it up, the kid started talking trash to a perfect stranger, challenging him to a face-to-face (debate) confrontation. The stranger didn't escalate it by making threats, he simply twisted the kid's threatening bravado on its head and insinuating that he may be "soft", thus taking the wind out of his tough-guy sails. It also could be taken as a lesson in internet safety. If the kid was serious about this "I'll take you, face-to-face (in a debate or otherwise)" nonsense, that's really getting into dangerous territory.
If that's all the farther it got, let's call the waaaambulance. The adult made no threats, the kid was making (by all accounts) what could be considered threatening comments. He couldn't take nearly as much as he dished-out, and he deserves whatever shame he got in his attempt to call-out someone.
In case you all can't tell, I am NOT a fan of this double standard that minors should be able to take all the swings they want at adults with all the strength they can muster, and anytime an adult slaps back, it's suddenly some form of grievous assault.
I also wonder if the forum on which all this transpired had rules against minors posting. Many do. It would definitely add an entertaining new element to the story if the idiot mother does sue, and it comes out her sonny boy lied on the profile. That would be all kinds of fraud and computer trespass as we all learned from the Lori Drew case, that kid could wind up in prison!
I think you've hit the nail on the head in terms of specialization. A lot of the fumbling is a sign of underdeveloped agility, strength, and motor coordination, the absentmindedness is a sign of a focus on one thing that's so intense that everything else just dims and is easily forgotten. There's a really fine line between the idiot savant types of autism and some of the people most recognized for being super geniuses.
Eh, it depends. Sometimes intelligence or knowledge works like money, in that they contribute to that goal known as "success". It's a challenge to have friends that are far outside of one's socioeconomic status. These things can be life-defining whether you like it or not. It can be rather awkward if there's a substantial disparity between would-be friends' status, wealth, intelligence, or other measures of success.
I don't know what my IQ is. My parents do because they took me in to take the tests when I was pretty young, but I don't ask them because I'm not sure I care to know. I don't want to be defined in such a manner because I don't see it doing me much good. What am I going to do, list my IQ on a resume? I'm really sure that would land me an interview for my dream job. Tell a prospective date that I'm a Mensa member? Yeah, sure, and look like a fucking tool in the process. I haven't yet heard a sales pitch for flaunting a high IQ score or joining Mensa that makes it seem like a good idea. At best, taking a test might tell me something I already have a pretty good inkling about, at worst I'd probably just ignore it and rationalize it away.
And regardless of the outcome, I probably wouldn't change. I'm a slacker. I have a poor work & study ethic, I always have and don't feel like changing. I usually exercise my intellect and devise smart solutions because it saves me from having to actually work. I mean, look at me now, I'm at work, hardly working and posting on/., doesn't that just say it all?
As I note just above, while technically "data" is actually plural in Latin, English uses it as a mass noun. Therefore, it is no longer singular or plural, it just is. It makes the most sense that way since it's a vague term.
It's not English that's fun, it's English borrowing foreign words that English speakers don't understand the rules for declension for that are fun. "Datus/Data/Datum" is the perfect passive participle of the Latin verb "dare", which means "to give". It's basically an adjective used as a substantive (i.e., a non-noun being used as a noun thanks to the power of implication) in this case.
As used in English, "Datum" (the neuter nominative singular) would most literally mean "(implied, but unspecified thing) having been given". "Data" would be the neuter nominative plural meaning "(implied, but unspecified things) having been given". So unless someone is transmitting only one unspecified thing, "data" is most appropriate in its level of mass noun vagueness.
It doesn't appear to be unintentional that ldd executes "arbitrary" code. It's perfectly intentional. This program is designed to figure out what's needed to run a program (and missing), because you're ostensibly having problems running it. Launching the loader that the application claims to need, if it specifies a special one, would be necessary and intentional. After all, how can you troubleshoot missing dependencies if you're not using the environment the application needs?
It might be nice, though, if ldd prompted the user if the application asked for a non-standard loader.
Things this "vulnerability" doesn't do: escalate privileges. It can't do anything the user can't do. It also can't give a remote, unknown user any level of access to a machine. It really does nothing at all except possibly give an end-user the means to potentially "steal" escalated privileges from a sysadmin through dishonest tactics. It can therefore be assumed that the user does have physical access to the machine in question, has some level of privileges, and is someone who should probably be fired or expelled because they're abusing company/school/government property.
Some industrial wireless bridges that are a bit behind the times and therefore dropping in price might be worth looking into, some were rather sophisticated, especially the ones built behind flatpanel antennae. I have one laying around that has a PCMCIA slot in it for the wireless card, when I tested it for functionality, it seemed pretty robust though I don't know all the specs on it. Even if they don't have things like USB or flash storage connectors built onto the boards, sometimes there are headers for a hacker to solder additional functionality on! Oh, and they're generally rather low power consumption, being designed to be powered-over-ethernet.
There have been several revisions of the WRT54G/GS/GL. The older versions with plenty of memory to run a basic server out of the router can still be found. Perhaps it's a testament to just how bad CompUSA's pricing model was, but I found a bunch of WRT54GSv3s with the most memory any version had been equipped with just about a year before they closed their doors. They were expensive for a new, revised WRT54GS, but an excellent deal for the older version. I cleared the store out of their stale routers, using a couple, giving a couple away to friends and family, and making a tidy profit on the rest. They had up to 32MB of storage and 32MB of memory. Not too bad. Though some of the REALLY old, pre-Cisco ones apparently had unused headers for USB.
Slashdot Mirror
Finally...someone who understands!
I wanted to get one of those professional car door jimmy kits (the ones with a jimmy for just about every model of vehicle!) that tow truck supply vendors sell "just in case I get locked out of my car", but they had these outrageous demands that I "prove" that I was a legit tow outfit or garage.
The locksmith supply was much the same way when I tried to buy a lockpick set, "just in case I get locked-out of my house".
You can bet I'll be getting this software. I must've forgotten my password because I can't login to my secure wireless network, and I unfortunately don't have physical access to my WAP in order to reset it the cheap and easy way, with a pen tip.
I know you're just providing information as to what this feature does, but I think you may be missing the (subtle, humorous) point the person you responded to and others are making: the feature is so irrelevant and useless to the average computer user that it's arguably a waste of time to bother implementing it.
I'm just thinking of all the people out there who haven't bought $3500+ monitors capable of color calibration. Great, so you have ColorSynch on your computer. That means that everything you see on your sub-$500 monitor or consumer-grade inkjet printer is incorrect by the same margin. And color WILL be off, even if those devices have a profile, simply because their design and manufacture tolerances are sloppy and not adjustable enough. You can't accurately calibrate a monitor with "auto-setup" and basic color-temperature choices. You can't accurately calibrate a printer by only aligning its printheads.
Sure, some applications might benefit from being calibrated to synch with each other, for example, a vector graphics program, a photo manipulation program, and a publication layout program. But what percentage of computer users are doing such advanced levels of prepress?
That said, I've noticed a trend with a subset of Mac users and Photoshop users. They'll deride a competing OS or application for not having some exotic professional feature. When you ask them when they last used it, they typically can't answer, but will point out that "It's there if I need it". Then, if one feels like delivering a little kick to the gut when the Pretentious User is down, one can further observe that tools do not an artisan make, and that a sufficiently talented and resourceful artist can make a masterpiece even with crude implements.
Even GIMP. I don't know how true that really is, I can't say I've ever pushed GIMP to its limits or into anything it can't do well that Photoshop could do. But the point is, most people don't even know what those limitations are or how it would gimp them to use GIMP or Linux instead. Just saying.
What do you mean by unmaintainable? How can it be unmaintainable, yet still be in use to this day?
You can use something that's unmaintainable. All "maintenance" is, in this context, is applying the necessary fixes to keep the OS reasonably current and secure. Every product, sooner or later, reaches a point where it's "not economically feasible" to continue making proper repairs-- you just wind-up spending too much money and time doing so.
Maintainability of --anything-- begins with good documentation and an engineering framework that allows for repairs of whatever is broken or functionality upgrades without breaking other things. Since well-documented APIs that say what they do and do what they say are still something I'd assume are lacking in Windows 7 based on complaints of software and drivers not working correctly on it, it would seem that this fundamental flaw in building a foundation for the OS is indeed still present.
...than behave as if it's a self-licking ice cream cone. IT exists for the productivity of the other employees. All too often, IT folks lose sight of that and start feeling that they can call the shots and that the end users' needs aren't as important as IT objectives and IT vision.
The information presented is a bit one-sided because it comes from the criminal investigation of Mr. Childs, but it's half of the story. The half of the story that arrogant geeks on /. don't want to hear because they all assume that Mr. Childs is just a misunderstood genius who was just doing his job and was persecuted for it. Projecting, much?
Much of what's in the affidavit is conjecture, opinion, and hearsay, but if the core of the matter is that SF County policy was indeed that security was charged with keeping a database of passwords, and Childs thought he was above that policy, he was probably wrong, regardless of all the other crap that they're trying to pin on him.
I know I'll probably get modded-down for saying this, but whenever I have mod points, I specifically seek out those, "I don't care about karma," and, "I know I'll probably get modded down..." posts and mod them down, especially if they're crap because they're trolling or just lack meaningful commentary. If I consider them to be good, I'll usually just pass them over. I prefer to mod-up folks who speak their minds and say positive things about Linux, rather than those who are shamelessly pandering to what they perceive to be the prevailing opinion.
The question for you, dear readers, is to decide how to mod me, since I attempted to cover all the bases here:
The best choice is probably not to mod me at all, since you're probably wrong no matter what you choose!
I keep hoping that the next big exploit to hit Adobe's crapware will be the one that either causes the company to come to its senses, or even causes almost everyone to abandon it.
It's almost like Adobe is on a quest to make the most horrible software ever conceived:
These things are just not acceptable from what is a simple helper utility. Adobe is doing it wrong.
...I don't see me putting a diesel engine in my motorbike anytime soon...
Hayes Diversified has been developing a diesel enduro (http://www.hdtusa.com/vehicle-m1030-m2.php) for military applications, it seems like a pretty neat bike, if they start selling them to civilians, I'd really have to have a look at that.
Also, there are some Royal Enfield diesel bikes. They have the vintage British Twin styling that RE licensed so very, very long ago (I guess it's a timeless design, especially in India), and the charming purr of a diesel engine. I must say I'm tempted by those too, but they're a bit hard to come by in the States.
I'd point out that, while you're really on-target, the two-stroke diesels are still filthy enough that they don't pass vehicle emissions in jurisdictions with air quality standards in place. They just produce far too much smoke under load, even when they're in perfect condition, and thus fail the emissions opacity test.
Eh, the power-to-weight ratio is good on a two-stroke, because they often can just skip the whole oil-sump design element altogether (total loss lubrication). You can't do that in a four-stroke without wrecking the cylinder walls on the non-induction strokes.
If you take a two-stroke with an oil circulation system, say a Detroit Diesel Series 71 or Series 92 engine, you just wind-up with an exceptionally dirty (from a pollution standpoint) engine that gets mediocre fuel mileage and has an odd power curve, all else being roughly equal in the application you're using the engine in.
The ONLY advantage most two-stroke engine have are the way they have fewer moving parts to adjust or break, since they use ports (passive fenestra in the cylinder walls which the elongated piston blocks) instead of valves (the diesels usually have intake ports and exhaust valves), which makes them slightly more reliable and inexpensive to produce. Some applications also thrive on the power curve you get from the two-strokes, mostly all-or-none type of things where the engine is either idling or at full-throttle (from chain saws to locomotive generators). They typically start to fall flat in applications that require massive low-end torque.
The fact is, they were a slightly modified gasoline engine design. That's the problem. Sure, you can beef-up the crank, change the pistons slightly, and cast from a different alloy, but it's still a bad design for a diesel engine. Diesels have different design considerations, and aside from the 4-cycle basic layout that diesels and gasoline engines have in common, they really need to be designed from scratch.
As a result, it was rather unreliable and underpowered. I found it amusing you could have a car in the NADA Older Used Cars book that had a book value of $400, with a $500 deduction for having that godawful engine in it.
The 6.2/6.5 GM diesel engines weren't really that much better. They're more powerful and a somewhat better design, but they still miss the mark on reliability and were prone to overheating because they just weren't designed to have enough oil volume, adequate oil or block cooling systems, and the other little things that keep diesels reliable (like good fuel filters and fuel-water separators) were absent from the implementation. I was not impressed by the 6.2l engine in a Chevy truck I had a number of years ago. It simply didn't have the diesel reliability and other traits I expect. I have a good bit of experience owning, operating, maintaining, and making minor repairs to a whole lot of diesel engines (I owned & operated an excavating & trucking business), those older Chevy engines are really the only diesel engine I actively avoid and consider dealbreakers. It's just not worth the brain damage when you can get a real diesel engine that gets the job done and is reliable like a good diesel is.
...did Windows 7 rape and murder a young girl in 1990? It's a simple question, why won't Microsoft deny that Windows 7 did this?
Freezing doesn't "explode cell walls". When water crystallizes inside a cell, it is what ruptures the cell. That's the major component of frostbite. Controlling the way the water crystallizes can keep it from resulting in cell damage. Current cryonic techniques seem to be getting better at that. Usually this entails replacing an animal's blood with a synthetic blood or adding chemicals to allow cooling without crystallization. Animals chilled to near freezing and with no measurable vital signs (including no brain activity) have been successfully revived without apparently losing memories using those blood replacement type of techniques.
So you're right, "simple freezing" doesn't work, but it's not what cryonics are about. The guy in the Tuff Shed near Nederland, CO in all likelihood was not frozen correctly and is little more than a frozen corpse that would be a putrid mess when thawed. The time a properly chilled organism can be kept would depend on the quality of the chilling, the degree of cell damage, and the upper limit would be determined by how effectively the decay is retarded. If not enough cells are functional to rebuild the body and clean-up the mess of damaged cells, that's game over. It could be a matter of weeks, it could be a matter of years. It's not likely to be retarded enough to last a meaningful length of time, however. I'd see the technology as more useful for situations where buying a little time would be invaluable, but these dreams of cryonic immortality still are just that-- dreams.
Even today, we insist on depriving some people of certain civil rights because they make another tyrannical minority that has the ability to sway the majority "uncomfortable".
Civil rights should --never-- be put up for a vote. The religious-sponsored bigotry against gay couples having the civil right and accompanying responsibilities of marriage needs to come to an end. Just as interracial marriages (which have also been illegal in the past) didn't harm anyone or society at large, IN NO WAY does recognizing legal gay marriage hurt a straight, religious couple. Maybe their religious sensibilities might be offended. Too fucking bad.
I'm ashamed that in my country right now, we are continuing to put civil rights up to a vote in this manner, and voting said rights down at every opportunity.
Did you RTFA?
To sum it up, the kid started talking trash to a perfect stranger, challenging him to a face-to-face (debate) confrontation. The stranger didn't escalate it by making threats, he simply twisted the kid's threatening bravado on its head and insinuating that he may be "soft", thus taking the wind out of his tough-guy sails. It also could be taken as a lesson in internet safety. If the kid was serious about this "I'll take you, face-to-face (in a debate or otherwise)" nonsense, that's really getting into dangerous territory.
If that's all the farther it got, let's call the waaaambulance. The adult made no threats, the kid was making (by all accounts) what could be considered threatening comments. He couldn't take nearly as much as he dished-out, and he deserves whatever shame he got in his attempt to call-out someone.
In case you all can't tell, I am NOT a fan of this double standard that minors should be able to take all the swings they want at adults with all the strength they can muster, and anytime an adult slaps back, it's suddenly some form of grievous assault.
I also wonder if the forum on which all this transpired had rules against minors posting. Many do. It would definitely add an entertaining new element to the story if the idiot mother does sue, and it comes out her sonny boy lied on the profile. That would be all kinds of fraud and computer trespass as we all learned from the Lori Drew case, that kid could wind up in prison!
I think you've hit the nail on the head in terms of specialization. A lot of the fumbling is a sign of underdeveloped agility, strength, and motor coordination, the absentmindedness is a sign of a focus on one thing that's so intense that everything else just dims and is easily forgotten. There's a really fine line between the idiot savant types of autism and some of the people most recognized for being super geniuses.
Eh, it depends. Sometimes intelligence or knowledge works like money, in that they contribute to that goal known as "success". It's a challenge to have friends that are far outside of one's socioeconomic status. These things can be life-defining whether you like it or not. It can be rather awkward if there's a substantial disparity between would-be friends' status, wealth, intelligence, or other measures of success.
I don't know what my IQ is. My parents do because they took me in to take the tests when I was pretty young, but I don't ask them because I'm not sure I care to know. I don't want to be defined in such a manner because I don't see it doing me much good. What am I going to do, list my IQ on a resume? I'm really sure that would land me an interview for my dream job. Tell a prospective date that I'm a Mensa member? Yeah, sure, and look like a fucking tool in the process. I haven't yet heard a sales pitch for flaunting a high IQ score or joining Mensa that makes it seem like a good idea. At best, taking a test might tell me something I already have a pretty good inkling about, at worst I'd probably just ignore it and rationalize it away.
And regardless of the outcome, I probably wouldn't change. I'm a slacker. I have a poor work & study ethic, I always have and don't feel like changing. I usually exercise my intellect and devise smart solutions because it saves me from having to actually work. I mean, look at me now, I'm at work, hardly working and posting on /., doesn't that just say it all?
Only if you don't prefer to go commando. ;)
Sure, in April of 2010...
As I note just above, while technically "data" is actually plural in Latin, English uses it as a mass noun. Therefore, it is no longer singular or plural, it just is. It makes the most sense that way since it's a vague term.
Lusisti satis...
It's not English that's fun, it's English borrowing foreign words that English speakers don't understand the rules for declension for that are fun. "Datus/Data/Datum" is the perfect passive participle of the Latin verb "dare", which means "to give". It's basically an adjective used as a substantive (i.e., a non-noun being used as a noun thanks to the power of implication) in this case.
As used in English, "Datum" (the neuter nominative singular) would most literally mean "(implied, but unspecified thing) having been given". "Data" would be the neuter nominative plural meaning "(implied, but unspecified things) having been given". So unless someone is transmitting only one unspecified thing, "data" is most appropriate in its level of mass noun vagueness.
It doesn't appear to be unintentional that ldd executes "arbitrary" code. It's perfectly intentional. This program is designed to figure out what's needed to run a program (and missing), because you're ostensibly having problems running it. Launching the loader that the application claims to need, if it specifies a special one, would be necessary and intentional. After all, how can you troubleshoot missing dependencies if you're not using the environment the application needs?
It might be nice, though, if ldd prompted the user if the application asked for a non-standard loader.
Things this "vulnerability" doesn't do: escalate privileges. It can't do anything the user can't do. It also can't give a remote, unknown user any level of access to a machine. It really does nothing at all except possibly give an end-user the means to potentially "steal" escalated privileges from a sysadmin through dishonest tactics. It can therefore be assumed that the user does have physical access to the machine in question, has some level of privileges, and is someone who should probably be fired or expelled because they're abusing company/school/government property.
Some industrial wireless bridges that are a bit behind the times and therefore dropping in price might be worth looking into, some were rather sophisticated, especially the ones built behind flatpanel antennae. I have one laying around that has a PCMCIA slot in it for the wireless card, when I tested it for functionality, it seemed pretty robust though I don't know all the specs on it. Even if they don't have things like USB or flash storage connectors built onto the boards, sometimes there are headers for a hacker to solder additional functionality on! Oh, and they're generally rather low power consumption, being designed to be powered-over-ethernet.
There have been several revisions of the WRT54G/GS/GL. The older versions with plenty of memory to run a basic server out of the router can still be found. Perhaps it's a testament to just how bad CompUSA's pricing model was, but I found a bunch of WRT54GSv3s with the most memory any version had been equipped with just about a year before they closed their doors. They were expensive for a new, revised WRT54GS, but an excellent deal for the older version. I cleared the store out of their stale routers, using a couple, giving a couple away to friends and family, and making a tidy profit on the rest. They had up to 32MB of storage and 32MB of memory. Not too bad. Though some of the REALLY old, pre-Cisco ones apparently had unused headers for USB.