Re:Meandering story not going anywhere
on
Lost Ends
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· Score: 1
I gave up on Flashforward when someone talked about the DHS existing in 1991; the department didn't exist until after 9/11. If you can't simple history like that right then what else are you going to screw up?
It didn't exist in 1991 as far as you know. DHS has existed ever since George Washington himself authorized the formation of a secret governmental black-ops division. It was accidentally exposed during the 9/11 "attacks", and quickly re-spun to prevent embarrassing George W. Bush, who was even worse at keeping his mouth shut than Joe Biden is.
But yeah, FlashForward-the-TV-show never hung together. I gave up after half a dozen episodes. It's a pity, because FlashForward-the-book was actually pretty good. Too bad the title was about the only part of the book that made it into the show.
If the article is correct, it does sound pretty confidential to me. The student welcome package contains a swab and two (presumably identical) barcodes. The students who volunteer swab themselves in the privacy of their own rooms and return the swab. The only indication of who it came from is the bar code. Assuming that the welcome packets aren't individually tracked, there should be no way to tell which samples come from which students. The results are pretty anonymous, too, though it would be possible to track which IP address looked up which barcode. (So use a library computer, not your own.)
On the whole it sounds like privacy has been pretty well thought-out. If the welcome packets are anonymous (that is, grab one off the pile rather than getting one addressed specifically to me) I'd be willing to do it for some research project. Just "so we can give you tips on diet and lifestyle" sounds pretty weak. I know how my diet and lifestyle affect my health, and I don't want to be nagged about it. If that's the justification I'd probably pass.
Not only that, but it's not supported by Apple as of Snow Leopard. The Snow Leopard installer explicitly disallows use on a case-sensitive filesystem.
Whud you talkin' 'bout, Willis? The first thing I did when I got my new MacBook was to wipe the drive, reformat to case-sensitive, and reinstall Snow Leopard. It works fine, except for a few poorly-behaved third-party apps. Like Steam, unfortunately...
You think the greenies are (rightfully) pissed now? Tell them you're going to set off high-yield explosives in the ocean. Their heads would "pop".
... Thus solving two problems! This is sounding better all the time!
Re:Decline & Fall, "Back in my day ..."
on
Hacking Vim 7.2
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· Score: 1
Seems like just yesterday that X in the statement "'[X] Can Do Everything' but configuring it to do so is sometimes daunting." would have been Emacs. Further evidence of the decline of civilization... what's next- "'a GUI Can Do Everything' but configuring it to do so is sometimes daunting?"
Already got it. And in this case, the X really is X.
Ah yes. Cricket. A lovely excuse to sit at a pub and drink beer on a summer afternoon. But really, that can be done just as well without the guys in funny clothes running around in the field next-door.
Agreed. Good for parents, bad for government. BTW, I had a similar rule with my kids. I got tired of them picking restaurants based on the toy du jour. Sad thing is, though, that they still chose McDonalds more often than not. Even my mutant changeling child, who prefers raw vegetables to junk food, asks for McD's half the time when fast food is an option.
I don't bother with content filters. Too many false positives, and too easy to get around. I figure the kids (12yo and 17yo) can handle seeing goatse.cx by accident, and if they actually go looking it's its own punishment. I do have their browsers set up to go through a squid proxy, and I periodically review the logs. I have it set up so that they have to ask me to allow them access; a cron job shuts it down again at bedtime.
That's it, really. The threat of their mom finding porno sites in the logs is pretty effective.
Yeah, they could trivially get around the proxy just by changing their settings. I'm really kind of disappointed that neither one has figured it out yet. I'd actually like them to try; they'd at least be learning something about computers.
Yes, cosmic rays and alpha particles can and do cause bits to flip. You might be able to argue that for a single isolated case. But for them to flip the right bit at the right time in multiple vechicles? Ain't gonna happen.
On the other hand, I've been in a car which experienced a sudden acceleration problem. In this case it was a '70s era Ford. We were sitting at a stop sign and the car lurched forward. The driver swore she was pressing the brake. Naturally, when this happened she pressed the brake harder, and the car lurched forward even faster! In fact, there was a direct correlation between pressing the "brake" and the car accelerating. Hmmm... Surely the driver, who'd had her license for a good 30 years or so, couldn't have made such a basic mistake. Mysteriously, when I was driving the car home (because she was pretty shaken by the incident) the problem had cleared itself up. I guess it had to be cosmic rays after all! Who knew they could physically pull a throttle linkage?
FWIW, '70s era Ford beats '90s era Toyota in crash testing.
Thanks... that made me feel old.. i remember high school and the filters - i also remember setting up my own proxies so i could log into some muds
Dear lord. I remember Winsock-Trumpet, Gopher, and PINE. Porn wasn't much of an issue as the internet was nearly entirely text. And YOU feel old...
Bah. Kids. When I was in high school, our one computer lab loaded the machines from cassette tape. The front office rented time on a mainframe and accessed it via an actual impact-printing teletype machine. And the only way to get porn was to draw boobies on pictures in the yearbook.
On an unrelated note, I would like to add that although the layout is similar, a computer keyboard is not a typewriter. There is no need to manually insert carriage returns while typing.
Nor, I might add, is there any need to manually insert <tt> tags...
That's all global warming is, really -- It's the global freezer running its defrost cycle. No worries, we'll be back to normal in no time after that pesky accumulation of ice is gone from the coils.
You see, they can't say Christmas because of militant Atheists, and they can't say Fall because of Australia and New Zealand. So they fall back to Holiday, which is the Tuesday before Black Friday
Wow. That's got to be one of the greatest super-villain headlines of all time. It has a secret conspiracy and borderline mad science, with just a hint of human sacrifice. If only it ended with "... Which I'll Use To Rule The World!" and it'd have everything.
This Twitter stuff is getting out of control. First it starts as 140 character messages, now they're hosting entire websites with it.
Yes, but each HTTP request or response has to be no more than 140 characters. That means that the HTTP response pretty much consists of 139 characters of header and a single character of content. It takes a looooonnnnggg time to download...
I would also recommend Dreamhost. I haven't had to contact tech support much, but when I have they've been really knowledgeable and helpful. My site is small and my needs are modest, so a cheap shared hosting account has been very good for me. Your mileage may vary, void where prohibited, take as directed, do not taunt Happy Fun Ball.
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It didn't exist in 1991 as far as you know. DHS has existed ever since George Washington himself authorized the formation of a secret governmental black-ops division. It was accidentally exposed during the 9/11 "attacks", and quickly re-spun to prevent embarrassing George W. Bush, who was even worse at keeping his mouth shut than Joe Biden is.
But yeah, FlashForward-the-TV-show never hung together. I gave up after half a dozen episodes. It's a pity, because FlashForward-the-book was actually pretty good. Too bad the title was about the only part of the book that made it into the show.
To-may-to, to-mah-to.
If the article is correct, it does sound pretty confidential to me. The student welcome package contains a swab and two (presumably identical) barcodes. The students who volunteer swab themselves in the privacy of their own rooms and return the swab. The only indication of who it came from is the bar code. Assuming that the welcome packets aren't individually tracked, there should be no way to tell which samples come from which students. The results are pretty anonymous, too, though it would be possible to track which IP address looked up which barcode. (So use a library computer, not your own.)
On the whole it sounds like privacy has been pretty well thought-out. If the welcome packets are anonymous (that is, grab one off the pile rather than getting one addressed specifically to me) I'd be willing to do it for some research project. Just "so we can give you tips on diet and lifestyle" sounds pretty weak. I know how my diet and lifestyle affect my health, and I don't want to be nagged about it. If that's the justification I'd probably pass.
Whud you talkin' 'bout, Willis? The first thing I did when I got my new MacBook was to wipe the drive, reformat to case-sensitive, and reinstall Snow Leopard. It works fine, except for a few poorly-behaved third-party apps. Like Steam, unfortunately...
... Thus solving two problems! This is sounding better all the time!
Already got it. And in this case, the X really is X.
Sounds more like a problem with your friends.
Ah yes. Cricket. A lovely excuse to sit at a pub and drink beer on a summer afternoon. But really, that can be done just as well without the guys in funny clothes running around in the field next-door.
Agreed. Good for parents, bad for government. BTW, I had a similar rule with my kids. I got tired of them picking restaurants based on the toy du jour. Sad thing is, though, that they still chose McDonalds more often than not. Even my mutant changeling child, who prefers raw vegetables to junk food, asks for McD's half the time when fast food is an option.
On the contrary, it was very precise. Inaccurate as hell, but very precise!
They should have just stuck a GPS receiver and a cell phone on it...
No Street View == FAIL.
Bah. Pikers! Look at those photos, you can clearly see the floor in some of them! No tech hoarder worthy of the title still has a visible floor.
I don't bother with content filters. Too many false positives, and too easy to get around. I figure the kids (12yo and 17yo) can handle seeing goatse.cx by accident, and if they actually go looking it's its own punishment. I do have their browsers set up to go through a squid proxy, and I periodically review the logs. I have it set up so that they have to ask me to allow them access; a cron job shuts it down again at bedtime.
That's it, really. The threat of their mom finding porno sites in the logs is pretty effective.
Yeah, they could trivially get around the proxy just by changing their settings. I'm really kind of disappointed that neither one has figured it out yet. I'd actually like them to try; they'd at least be learning something about computers.
Yes, cosmic rays and alpha particles can and do cause bits to flip. You might be able to argue that for a single isolated case. But for them to flip the right bit at the right time in multiple vechicles? Ain't gonna happen.
On the other hand, I've been in a car which experienced a sudden acceleration problem. In this case it was a '70s era Ford. We were sitting at a stop sign and the car lurched forward. The driver swore she was pressing the brake. Naturally, when this happened she pressed the brake harder, and the car lurched forward even faster! In fact, there was a direct correlation between pressing the "brake" and the car accelerating. Hmmm... Surely the driver, who'd had her license for a good 30 years or so, couldn't have made such a basic mistake. Mysteriously, when I was driving the car home (because she was pretty shaken by the incident) the problem had cleared itself up. I guess it had to be cosmic rays after all! Who knew they could physically pull a throttle linkage?
FWIW, '70s era Ford beats '90s era Toyota in crash testing.
Bah. Kids. When I was in high school, our one computer lab loaded the machines from cassette tape. The front office rented time on a mainframe and accessed it via an actual impact-printing teletype machine. And the only way to get porn was to draw boobies on pictures in the yearbook.
Now get off my lawn!
Please. Jeeves is such a trite name for a butler. Only those vulgar nouveau riche would have a butler named Jeeves.
But.. But... That won't be Heirloom Quality!
Have you checked the prices of games lately? Won't be long until millionaires are the only people who can afford to game...
"I say, Chauncy, don't roll your solid gold d12 there! You'll scratch my Sultan Table and Wooster will be hours buffing it out."
Nor, I might add, is there any need to manually insert <tt> tags...
That's all global warming is, really -- It's the global freezer running its defrost cycle. No worries, we'll be back to normal in no time after that pesky accumulation of ice is gone from the coils.
Where's that tin foil? I need a new hat.
I think you mean "African-American Friday".
Wow. That's got to be one of the greatest super-villain headlines of all time. It has a secret conspiracy and borderline mad science, with just a hint of human sacrifice. If only it ended with "... Which I'll Use To Rule The World!" and it'd have everything.
Yes, but each HTTP request or response has to be no more than 140 characters. That means that the HTTP response pretty much consists of 139 characters of header and a single character of content. It takes a looooonnnnggg time to download...
I would also recommend Dreamhost. I haven't had to contact tech support much, but when I have they've been really knowledgeable and helpful. My site is small and my needs are modest, so a cheap shared hosting account has been very good for me. Your mileage may vary, void where prohibited, take as directed, do not taunt Happy Fun Ball.
That's a mighty small value of "permanent".