As far as memorization tricks are concerned, I find that straight memorization of the characters is foolish. It is much easier to remember a phrase and what you did to it. Here's a good example:
first: take a phrase, say: "I love Meg" This is one that I can fondly remember.
second: mispell things: "ey lav Meg"
third: truncate, abbreviate and shorten: "eylavm"
fourth: mess with the caps and characters: "eyLaVM"
There, you have a rather strong password, and all you need to remember is that you love Meg (which I do, I stopped using the password because I had to tell her what I'd done...;).
Any way, it is a pretty simple hash, and you can use phrases as long as you like, anywhere from 2 words on up. All it needs to be is something you can remember.
For those stupid numbers (social security, bank accounts, etc), I have a little business card in my wallet which I write them on. Now, the first nine characters of every number is formatted to look like an ssn, and then when I have shorter numbers to remember, I tack them onto the end, so they don't really follow any format a person could recongnize. I can pick out which numbers are what, but that's because I know where I wrote them.
I hope that helps, but I also know that I have a pretty impressive long term memory, so what seems simple to me...
Ok, so we have Tesla and Edison being compared to Torvalds and Gates, but what about good ol' Steinmetz? He must be along the lines of Ken Thompson in this comparison. It seems no one here can remember the guy who made Tesla's AC power possible.
He actually did make a lighting machine in 1921. Apparently, he could aim it, and admittedly, I'm no electrical engineer, but from what I've read, I think it can take about the same levels of electricity that are being spoken about here. It was designed to emulate natural lighting.
Just some food for thought, I didn't see anything on lod.org about Steinmetz' device, and I'm wondering if anyone knows any more about the specifics, and how well it would hold up on these kinds of scales?
I can think of many better things to search for than "turned her to stone" (pr0n, sex, nude...you get the idea...;).
Anyway, I find that I never find what I'm looking for with AltaVista. For all the hits that turn up, greater than 90% of the hits are totally worthless (although I haven't used it recently, because of this experience).
Google usually turns up with what I am looking for with the first hit. *shrugs*
Then again my absolute favorite search engine is freshmeat.net...:)
Yummy, new propaganda. Beautiful as always. The server seemed rather fast today, something wrong guys?
Anyways, has anyone else found it impossible to choose between any of the tiles? I know I found the need to hack together a random background utility for wmaker...
OK, and what is MSNBC again? I'm not saying he manipulates headlines, but to claim it's not like a newspaper... is like claiming Microsoft doesn't have a monopoly.
hmm, you say that like they haven't claimed that....
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll go read a good book.
Yep, you hit it on the head. Cancel your Cable, because you are wasting money. Go read books or surf. There just isn't enough "Good Stuff" to justify the money, the over exposure to the advertising, the crap, etc. Cable TV just isn't a reliable medium for gathering information. I don't think it ever was.
So I am cynical about it. Then again, that comes from the fact that I feel way more enriched mentally once I stopped using the television drug.
Ok, first, I would like to say that I am a really experienced user/admin, and I admit Linux isn't perfect (my system is the most stable, but that is because I have a screwy CD-ROM drive), but in my humble experience, Linux handles all adverse situations better than NT. Period.
First, X hasn't crashed on my computer once.
Second, I have never seen X be picky about monitors (I've set it up on plenty of equipment). All you have to do is tweek the resolution, vert refresh and horizontal sync. The color depth is more or less up to your video card's capabilities. I've seen some rather impressive tools for dealing with the even more advanced settings in X (the SuSE tool, SaX, is incredibly good for doing all this tweeking).
Now, that does sound a bit complex, but when I set up X, I was a relative newbie to the world of refresh rates and screen resolutions. I got X running with the desired settings within minutes of setting out to get it running. That was over a year ago. I'm very sure that SaX has been improved greatly in that year.
Have you ever studied what happened, and what all those civil rights battles were about?
Well, let's start off with Black Rights movement, because that is one that everyone is familiar with (don't get me wrong here, I think this movement was great, and I fully believe in Civil Disobedience and activism; I also believe that we do need to get these encryption/free speech/freedom of privacy issues resolved).
Rosa Parks was arrested over a seat on a city bus.
The sit-ins in the lunch bars and restaurants were over being able to eat at this or that restaurant. There are many more examples like this in other movements. Ghandi's first actions for civil rights were down in South Africa. He burned little sheets of paper, and was beaten for it. This is what civil disobedience is about. We want to diseminate text files freely accross the net, and we want to protect our personal data, incriminating or no. I also want to be able to have people know that I am indeed sending email as me. I want to know that the email I have just recieved is from my Girlfriend, or Casey, or anyone else that would send me mail.
The first step to all of this is getting rid of the export laws. There are bigger issues at hand, but what needs to be fought are all the littles steps along the way. The first step is to oust the export restrictions. You see, the laws always are complex. What the people want to do is invariably simple but restricted.
Gavin, I'll give you the point that there are no/perfect/ Operating Systems and that security has to be based on everything running. I would like to point something out to you though:
Modern Computers are/Complex/, therefore, to get the most out of them, you are going to be dealing with something complex
You go and wait for the perfect operating system. Tell me about it when it gets written. I'm going to work with what is out there now.
Then explain to em exactly why the Crypto API is used...why not just lock the door...???
Two words: Lock Picks.
well, not really, but you get the idea, if "they" can get to the computer under that kind of security, then "they" must also want it enough to break through the crypto. Very possible, but incredibly difficult with current crypto schemes and large keysizes.
It really is just another hoop for any intruders to jump through (and oftentimes much more time consuming than any of the others if they can't find your key or predict it from the random number generator algorithm). That's all. If those measures are being taken already, not too difficult to add one more...
4. Was brought up on Command line, and thinks that _all_ GUIs are bloated and mostly unusable, and doesn't like X programming because it is so damn complex and slow.
Besides, the vast majority of things are better done on the command line (the notable exception being graphics applications). Oh well, I guess I'm just a heretic of sorts (even though I'm only 17 and I'm one of the newer generation of Unix nutcases...).
Alas, I can't truthfully answer "Never - Microsof will explode on 1/1/00 or sooner" as much as I'd like to see that happen.
I have yet to have good experiences with their software; I'm sorry, after the www.windows2000test.com ordeal, I see nothing that says this release will be any better than anything they've released before.
[sarcasm] two things.. you are an anonymous coward, so we cannot trace your identity, and even if what you claim is true, you are only one person, not a representation of the majority.
Yeah. Really. I haven't had a haircut in 3 years (no seriously, I haven't.. I'm getting one this friday, although, I can't remember how painful they are, it has been so long...)
I am reading a lot of comments about microsoft being 64-bit clueless. I am not sure that's exactly true. Don't they have a neglected version of NT for alpha processors. Isn't alpha 64 bit?
Yeah, alpha chips are 64bit, but NT isn't. It runs in "32bit emulation mode." Meaning that NT doesn't take full advantage of the architecture, and it also probably means that there are some serious flaws in M$'s code that keep them from easily porting to 64bit. Expect M$ to get left in the dust by Linux on the IA-64.
Think about this for a second. Linux has already more than proven itself capable of compiling on 64 bit architectures, aka alpha and UltraSPARC.
WinNT on the otherhand, can't. It has some major problems, or otherwise, NT/alpha wouldn't run in 32bit emulation mode on the alphas. M$ will most likely have to rewrite massive portions of windows to get a version that takes full advantage of the IA-64 architecture. So while I never plan on buying one, Linux is going to school windows in performance on the IA-64, what should be MickeySoft's home turf. Even though Linux already out performs M$, it will be even more of an advantage for Linux.
Just another victory for Linux. Besides, one of Linux' current strengths is extreme portablity.. Why leave Intel in the dust now? The more hardware supported, the larger the potential install base, and some people are going to buy the Merced chips. Personally, I have been eagerly waiting for this to happen...
That's right, I have a small UPS too (down in Olympia), it buzzed at me when the lights flickered, but my cablemodem didn't even have to reset (it can't be on the UPS). It is strange that my bedroom and your basement are better equipped than them...
(In fact, I was running an IRC server during the end of the storm, and role playing with people across the country, the GM lives in Seattle proper, and all that happened was my power flickered twice. The game went smoothly for the entire 3 hours... heh).
Try looking at man iso_8859_1 (for US and most of western Europe I do believe), all those characters should be usable. There are also control characters allowed, say for instance ^F is legal, as well as a bunch more, I'm pretty sure that only three out of the control characters (^M, ^? & ^H) aren't usable (but don't quote me on that)... which would make the score much much closer to 200+ possible characters.. ouch. d.net would be strained to guess one of these passwords.
Slashdot Mirror
first: take a phrase, say:
"I love Meg"
This is one that I can fondly remember.
second: mispell things:
"ey lav Meg"
third: truncate, abbreviate and shorten: "eylavm"
fourth: mess with the caps and characters: "eyLaVM"
There, you have a rather strong password, and all you need to remember is that you love Meg (which I do, I stopped using the password because I had to tell her what I'd done... ;).
Any way, it is a pretty simple hash, and you can use phrases as long as you like, anywhere from 2 words on up. All it needs to be is something you can remember.
For those stupid numbers (social security, bank accounts, etc), I have a little business card in my wallet which I write them on. Now, the first nine characters of every number is formatted to look like an ssn, and then when I have shorter numbers to remember, I tack them onto the end, so they don't really follow any format a person could recongnize. I can pick out which numbers are what, but that's because I know where I wrote them.
I hope that helps, but I also know that I have a pretty impressive long term memory, so what seems simple to me...
Jeff
He actually did make a lighting machine in 1921. Apparently, he could aim it, and admittedly, I'm no electrical engineer, but from what I've read, I think it can take about the same levels of electricity that are being spoken about here. It was designed to emulate natural lighting.
Just some food for thought, I didn't see anything on lod.org about Steinmetz' device, and I'm wondering if anyone knows any more about the specifics, and how well it would hold up on these kinds of scales?
Jeff
Anyway, I find that I never find what I'm looking for with AltaVista. For all the hits that turn up, greater than 90% of the hits are totally worthless (although I haven't used it recently, because of this experience).
Google usually turns up with what I am looking for with the first hit. *shrugs*
Then again my absolute favorite search engine is freshmeat.net... :)
Jeff
Oh well. They do kick-ass (I now have a collection of 16 that pop up at random whenever I start X. It's great...)
Anyways, has anyone else found it impossible to choose between any of the tiles? I know I found the need to hack together a random background utility for wmaker...
Jeff
hmm, you say that like they haven't claimed that....
Jeff
Yep, you hit it on the head. Cancel your Cable, because you are wasting money. Go read books or surf. There just isn't enough "Good Stuff" to justify the money, the over exposure to the advertising, the crap, etc. Cable TV just isn't a reliable medium for gathering information. I don't think it ever was.
So I am cynical about it. Then again, that comes from the fact that I feel way more enriched mentally once I stopped using the television drug.
Jeff
First, X hasn't crashed on my computer once.
Second, I have never seen X be picky about monitors (I've set it up on plenty of equipment). All you have to do is tweek the resolution, vert refresh and horizontal sync. The color depth is more or less up to your video card's capabilities. I've seen some rather impressive tools for dealing with the even more advanced settings in X (the SuSE tool, SaX, is incredibly good for doing all this tweeking).
Now, that does sound a bit complex, but when I set up X, I was a relative newbie to the world of refresh rates and screen resolutions. I got X running with the desired settings within minutes of setting out to get it running. That was over a year ago. I'm very sure that SaX has been improved greatly in that year.
Jeff
Think of all the PORN you could download!
Sorry... I just thought it needed to be said ;)
Hemos seemed to have forgotten to mention it when he posted...
Jeff
Well, let's start off with Black Rights movement, because that is one that everyone is familiar with (don't get me wrong here, I think this movement was great, and I fully believe in Civil Disobedience and activism; I also believe that we do need to get these encryption/free speech/freedom of privacy issues resolved).
Rosa Parks was arrested over a seat on a city bus.
The sit-ins in the lunch bars and restaurants were over being able to eat at this or that restaurant.
There are many more examples like this in other movements. Ghandi's first actions for civil rights were down in South Africa. He burned little sheets of paper, and was beaten for it. This is what civil disobedience is about. We want to diseminate text files freely accross the net, and we want to protect our personal data, incriminating or no. I also want to be able to have people know that I am indeed sending email as me. I want to know that the email I have just recieved is from my Girlfriend, or Casey, or anyone else that would send me mail.
The first step to all of this is getting rid of the export laws. There are bigger issues at hand, but what needs to be fought are all the littles steps along the way. The first step is to oust the export restrictions. You see, the laws always are complex. What the people want to do is invariably simple but restricted.
Jeff
Try I've seen some evidence for yon president having a cocain addiction. Not really looked upon with much love in the current eyes of society.
Jeff
Modern Computers are /Complex/, therefore, to get the most out of them, you are going to be dealing with something complex
You go and wait for the perfect operating system. Tell me about it when it gets written. I'm going to work with what is out there now.
-Jeff
Two words: Lock Picks.
well, not really, but you get the idea, if "they" can get to the computer under that kind of security, then "they" must also want it enough to break through the crypto. Very possible, but incredibly difficult with current crypto schemes and large keysizes.
It really is just another hoop for any intruders to jump through (and oftentimes much more time consuming than any of the others if they can't find your key or predict it from the random number generator algorithm). That's all. If those measures are being taken already, not too difficult to add one more...
Jeff
Actually, Could we beowulf those things?
;)
A huge array of them would just look cool fomr the sounds of it...
/* as with the previous poster, I am joking, thank you*/
There's one more camp in there.
4. Was brought up on Command line, and thinks that _all_ GUIs are bloated and mostly unusable, and doesn't like X programming because it is so damn complex and slow.
Besides, the vast majority of things are better done on the command line (the notable exception being graphics applications). Oh well, I guess I'm just a heretic of sorts (even though I'm only 17 and I'm one of the newer generation of Unix nutcases...).
Alas, I can't truthfully answer "Never - Microsof will explode on 1/1/00 or sooner" as much as I'd like to see that happen.
I have yet to have good experiences with their software; I'm sorry, after the www.windows2000test.com ordeal, I see nothing that says this release will be any better than anything they've released before.
I have donned my asbestos suit. Flame on.
[sarcasm]
two things.. you are an anonymous coward, so we cannot trace your identity, and even if what you claim is true, you are only one person, not a representation of the majority.
So, HA!
>What haircut?
Yeah. Really. I haven't had a haircut in 3 years (no seriously, I haven't.. I'm getting one this friday, although, I can't remember how painful they are, it has been so long...)
I've got a bunch of toaster ovens. Should we beowulf those together? (think of how many Gigabites of pizzarolls we could make.. ;)
that's exactly true. Don't they have a neglected version of NT for alpha processors.
Isn't alpha 64 bit?
Yeah, alpha chips are 64bit, but NT isn't. It runs in "32bit emulation mode." Meaning that NT doesn't take full advantage of the architecture, and it also probably means that there are some serious flaws in M$'s code that keep them from easily porting to 64bit. Expect M$ to get left in the dust by Linux on the IA-64.
Taco is on the menu for the female slashdotters only....
Think about this for a second. Linux has already more than proven itself capable of compiling on 64 bit architectures, aka alpha and UltraSPARC.
WinNT on the otherhand, can't. It has some major problems, or otherwise, NT/alpha wouldn't run in 32bit emulation mode on the alphas. M$ will most likely have to rewrite massive portions of windows to get a version that takes full advantage of the IA-64 architecture. So while I never plan on buying one, Linux is going to school windows in performance on the IA-64, what should be MickeySoft's home turf. Even though Linux already out performs M$, it will be even more of an advantage for Linux.
Just another victory for Linux. Besides, one of Linux' current strengths is extreme portablity.. Why leave Intel in the dust now? The more hardware supported, the larger the potential install base, and some people are going to buy the Merced chips. Personally, I have been eagerly waiting for this to happen...
Jeff
Don't feel at a disadvantage.. just because some one is in college doesn't necessarily mean they can code better than you.
If you think you are at a disadvantage, well then, you are, if only because you think you are.
Personnally, I'm going to give it my damndest. I don't know what language I'm going to use yet though.
That's right, I have a small UPS too (down in Olympia), it buzzed at me when the lights flickered, but my cablemodem didn't even have to reset (it can't be on the UPS). It is strange that my bedroom and your basement are better equipped than them...
(In fact, I was running an IRC server during the end of the storm, and role playing with people across the country, the GM lives in Seattle proper, and all that happened was my power flickered twice. The game went smoothly for the entire 3 hours... heh).
Guess what, there are even more than that.
Try looking at man iso_8859_1 (for US and most of western Europe I do believe), all those characters should be usable. There are also control characters allowed, say for instance ^F is legal, as well as a bunch more, I'm pretty sure that only three out of the control characters (^M, ^? & ^H) aren't usable (but don't quote me on that)... which would make the score much much closer to 200+ possible characters.. ouch. d.net would be strained to guess one of these passwords.