Yes, it's somewhat of a surprise for me: there's information on facebook that is of interest to them? Does this mean that terrorists are such idiots that they give clues as to their plans in their status updates? What is it about facebook that makes all people act stupid? I guess I'm not as surprised as if the FBI announced it had been active on hotornot.com, but TFA also mentions they monitor twitter? Yeah, that's surprising to me, since it implies at least a few criminals are so stupid, they tweet their crimes before they do them (which, when I state it outright like that, I'm more surprised that I was surprised...)
Alternatively, I'm surprised that the government is -admitting- they facebook on the job and saying it's part of their job. I didn't expect them to be that clever. I wonder if I can get away with that on my job. "Hey Boss. No, I'm not procrastinating, I'm checking up on, er, colleagues to make sure they're not going to scoop us..."
I think we benefit as a society when we have some common sense of history
Then why don't U.S. schools teach the history of neighboring countries? A Michigan resident is more likely to learn about Texas than Ontario, even though Ontario is much closer.
Topic for another thread, but possibly because 1. They live in the US, and vote in the US, affecting Texas 2. Their education is funded by the US 3. They do learn about Canada if their school board and/or teacher aren't terrible at their jobs and 4. Canada is boring (kidding, sorry, couldn't resist).
Who decides what literature gets onto the required reading list?
This too is a topic for another thread. Anyway, I don't know, but I do know there are people more interested in literature and education than I am that have bothered to come up with standards and suggestions for centuries now, you might take it up with them.
I certainly think a list of literature students are required is better than no list and saying "We teach them how to use google and the NY times bestseller list and they'll read it on their own."
I do think that education could use refocusing now that we live in a world where you cell phone instantly provides you with any answer you want, but throwing out -all- memorization would be overdoing it. You need a framework of knowledge before you start googling specific answers, and I think we benefit as a society when we have some common sense of history, science, literature, etc. I think many of us here can probably agree that if more Americans knew how often and how badly theocracies have failed, how bloody the crusades were, and how pointlessly violent religion and politics mixed in Europe, that our country might be better off today, and we'd have fewer people calling for mixing politics and religion.
I thought of that too. Maybe XKCD has shamed calculator makers into actually trying. I'm imagining it now.
"Lets see, time to check the webcomics......
I... I didn't become an engineer for this! Where did the dream of making the worlds best calculator die?!? I thought I was going to change the world of handheld calculators, but then I tried skipping coffee and spending more time with the family... before I knew it we were asking ourselves 'Why fix what's not really that broken and that students have to buy anyway' rather than 'What new features can we cram into it?' I knew I had hit some type of bottom when I actually told schools they should just recycle their old calculators rather than buying new.
That changes today. By God, I'm putting color on this motherfucker... FOR AMERICA!!!"
Search your car for the tracking unit. Remove it and try and be creative by placing it on a taxi or other highly mobile vehicle. I do wonder how long it would take the spooks to figure out they were accumulating data on the wrong car.
Bonus round: find out how fast they charge you with trespassing and violating privacy, because it's only okay when THEY do it.
hey, what's this big red blinking thing on the underside of my laptop?
Yeah, I had a GPS unit on the underside of my desktop. Would have never found it except that the FBI agent in charge of monitoring it sent me a polite e-mail explaining he was getting really bored and could I please take my computer with me to a LAN party or on vacation.
He's not a Seal, but he's logged about 5,000 hours on Halo II in his mom's basement, and since he's 28 years old now, he could actually buy a firearm. So you shadow-government federal toadies better watch out, man.
And modern warfare taught him that if he is ever injured, he just needs to crouch behind something for about 3 seconds to heal up.
Note the complete statistical fail: the iPhone 4 has *two* glass screens - that means that all the fucktards that used to just scuff the hell out of the metal back are now dropping and breaking their back glass.
Almost half of all users never use special characters (e.g. ! ? & #) in their passwords, a simple technique that makes it more difficult for criminals to guess passwords. > Examples of weak passwords: Pingeico4 due7Johh Eexee9ot Soobanah6 Ja3sahte
Do many criminals actually try to brute force guess passwords these days anyway? I was under the impression that they had gotten smarter than that. If my facebook password has only alphanumeric numbers in it, I realize that someone would have to guess fewer times before they're likely to guess it and spam my friends with ads for free ipads. That would still require, what, thousands of guesses more than facebook would allow before it locks out my account? If, on the other hand, a keylogger catches my password, it could be 400 characters long, containing all the punctuation marks you like, and it would offer no more security than if my password had been "password."
That said, I realize you lose nothing by having a strong password, so might as well.
Also seems like he's making a fuss over nothing when it comes to 41% sharing passwords. Sharing passwords with strangers online is one thing. Sharing a password with your wife, assuming you trust her, not that big of a deal.
You're bored by the relatively fast advance of computer intelligence? Humans have for the first time in recorded history lost their title of "Best at Shogi" to computers (and orangutangs have presumably been bumped down to 3rd). That may not have any real-world significance, but in the grand scheme of things, it wasn't too long ago that computers couldn't beat us at math.
You're on a forum with a focus on computers, and you say that's boring? Jesus, what WOULD interest you? If it ran linux using a beowulf cluster? Simpsons quotes?
Well fine, I for one welcome our new shogi-playing computer overlords.
10,000 other spikey-haired-hermaphrodites-on-the-rails-rpgs
Spikey haired hermaphrodites that you have to rescue from being run over by trains (presumably tied up there by moustache-twirling hermaphrodites)? Man, I have GOT to play that game.
That's not really ironic, seeing as those taxpayers voted the idiots onto the school board. It seems pretty appropriate to me. If I hire an employee who does something stupid on behalf of the company, I have to suffer for it. Taxpayers have to suffer for their bad hires, too.
Most of those taxpayers don't want that responsibility and see no benefit to the "hires." Furthermore, how would -any- voter have known that the school board would appoint staff that were so draconian that they'd start spying on kids? That's not exactly information that's tattooed on canidates' heads.
With stories where something bad happens to someone, it seems like there's always a large group of slashdotters who try to rationalize it, saying something along the lines of "Well, the victims did something stupid, so they deserved it." Is it just that we like kicking people who are down, or is it more along the lines of "... and I'm not stupid, so I'm comforted by fooling myself into thinking similar bad things can never happen to me,"?
Also natural selection, with Darwin having sat on the theory for a while, and only publishing after corresponding with Wallace and realizing that Wallace was on his way to beating Darwin to the punch.
The two aren't mutually exclusive. Look at sharks: terrifying and impressive. And that's not all, frickin Lasers on frickin sharks: terrifying, impressive, and funny, all at the same time.
That said, I don't really see terrifying. I assume anything I can say out loud in public can be heard by someone. If I were often in the position of having to go to basketball games to discuss things so that the government bugs can't overhear me this might be terrifying to me, but I'm not so it's not. And it's not the tech itself, its what people might do with it that would make me uncomfortable anyway. Someone -could- put videocameras everywhere which would have high enough resolution to be able to lip-read what you're saying, but that hasn't seemed to happen most places yet.
A little general to free wifi and not too specific to this particular use of spectrum, but I have a question.
If those asses at the RIAA, MPAA, and the shadowy organization of government officials seeking to control everything have their way and a 3 strikes law is passed, what's the likelyhood of such legislation affecting things like free wifi? Seems like if this type of thing proliferates and it gets to a point where a significant amount of users just use free wifi, the MAFIAA isn't going to give up and ignore it. I'm assuming these free wifi spots will probably limit P2P file sharing?
Slashdot Mirror
Shoot, I just spent my last 0.999... mod points.
Yes, it's somewhat of a surprise for me: there's information on facebook that is of interest to them? Does this mean that terrorists are such idiots that they give clues as to their plans in their status updates? What is it about facebook that makes all people act stupid? I guess I'm not as surprised as if the FBI announced it had been active on hotornot.com, but TFA also mentions they monitor twitter? Yeah, that's surprising to me, since it implies at least a few criminals are so stupid, they tweet their crimes before they do them (which, when I state it outright like that, I'm more surprised that I was surprised...)
Alternatively, I'm surprised that the government is -admitting- they facebook on the job and saying it's part of their job. I didn't expect them to be that clever. I wonder if I can get away with that on my job. "Hey Boss. No, I'm not procrastinating, I'm checking up on, er, colleagues to make sure they're not going to scoop us..."
I think we benefit as a society when we have some common sense of history
Then why don't U.S. schools teach the history of neighboring countries? A Michigan resident is more likely to learn about Texas than Ontario, even though Ontario is much closer.
Topic for another thread, but possibly because 1. They live in the US, and vote in the US, affecting Texas 2. Their education is funded by the US 3. They do learn about Canada if their school board and/or teacher aren't terrible at their jobs and 4. Canada is boring (kidding, sorry, couldn't resist).
Who decides what literature gets onto the required reading list?
This too is a topic for another thread. Anyway, I don't know, but I do know there are people more interested in literature and education than I am that have bothered to come up with standards and suggestions for centuries now, you might take it up with them.
I certainly think a list of literature students are required is better than no list and saying "We teach them how to use google and the NY times bestseller list and they'll read it on their own."
I do think that education could use refocusing now that we live in a world where you cell phone instantly provides you with any answer you want, but throwing out -all- memorization would be overdoing it. You need a framework of knowledge before you start googling specific answers, and I think we benefit as a society when we have some common sense of history, science, literature, etc. I think many of us here can probably agree that if more Americans knew how often and how badly theocracies have failed, how bloody the crusades were, and how pointlessly violent religion and politics mixed in Europe, that our country might be better off today, and we'd have fewer people calling for mixing politics and religion.
I thought of that too. Maybe XKCD has shamed calculator makers into actually trying. I'm imagining it now.
"Lets see, time to check the webcomics... ...
I... I didn't become an engineer for this! Where did the dream of making the worlds best calculator die?!? I thought I was going to change the world of handheld calculators, but then I tried skipping coffee and spending more time with the family... before I knew it we were asking ourselves 'Why fix what's not really that broken and that students have to buy anyway' rather than 'What new features can we cram into it?' I knew I had hit some type of bottom when I actually told schools they should just recycle their old calculators rather than buying new.
That changes today. By God, I'm putting color on this motherfucker... FOR AMERICA!!!"
Search your car for the tracking unit. Remove it and try and be creative by placing it on a taxi or other highly mobile vehicle. I do wonder how long it would take the spooks to figure out they were accumulating data on the wrong car.
Bonus round: find out how fast they charge you with trespassing and violating privacy, because it's only okay when THEY do it.
All religious extremism has this same type of stupidity.
May his noodly appendage smite you from the earth!
hey, what's this big red blinking thing on the underside of my laptop?
Yeah, I had a GPS unit on the underside of my desktop. Would have never found it except that the FBI agent in charge of monitoring it sent me a polite e-mail explaining he was getting really bored and could I please take my computer with me to a LAN party or on vacation.
He's not a Seal, but he's logged about 5,000 hours on Halo II in his mom's basement, and since he's 28 years old now, he could actually buy a firearm. So you shadow-government federal toadies better watch out, man.
And modern warfare taught him that if he is ever injured, he just needs to crouch behind something for about 3 seconds to heal up.
What the fuck do iPhone owners do with their phones? Crack open coconuts with them?
There's an app for that, yes.
Note the complete statistical fail: the iPhone 4 has *two* glass screens - that means that all the fucktards that used to just scuff the hell out of the metal back are now dropping and breaking their back glass.
How is that a "statistical" fail?
"We got the cadence checking thing to work on login!"
"That's Good!"
"But now we've locked out one half of all our joint-account holders."
"That's bad."
But the guy who sold it to us gave us free coupons for frozen yogurt!
That's good!
The frozen yogurt is loaded with potassium benzoate!
(blank stare)
That's bad.
Can I go now?
Almost half of all users never use special characters (e.g. ! ? & #) in their passwords, a simple technique that makes it more difficult for criminals to guess passwords.
> Examples of weak passwords: Pingeico4 due7Johh Eexee9ot Soobanah6 Ja3sahte
Do many criminals actually try to brute force guess passwords these days anyway? I was under the impression that they had gotten smarter than that. If my facebook password has only alphanumeric numbers in it, I realize that someone would have to guess fewer times before they're likely to guess it and spam my friends with ads for free ipads. That would still require, what, thousands of guesses more than facebook would allow before it locks out my account? If, on the other hand, a keylogger catches my password, it could be 400 characters long, containing all the punctuation marks you like, and it would offer no more security than if my password had been "password."
That said, I realize you lose nothing by having a strong password, so might as well.
Where is the (-1 "it's a trap!") mod when you need it
In a discussion board far, far away.
I think my wife might be a bit annoyed if I locked her out of the money she earned half of.
Exactly. I'm in far more danger if I don't share my password than if I do.
Also seems like he's making a fuss over nothing when it comes to 41% sharing passwords. Sharing passwords with strangers online is one thing. Sharing a password with your wife, assuming you trust her, not that big of a deal.
god's supposed omnipotence makes free will an impossibility.
But if he was truly omnipotent, he could make it NOT impossible... whoa... just blew my own mind...
You're bored by the relatively fast advance of computer intelligence? Humans have for the first time in recorded history lost their title of "Best at Shogi" to computers (and orangutangs have presumably been bumped down to 3rd). That may not have any real-world significance, but in the grand scheme of things, it wasn't too long ago that computers couldn't beat us at math.
You're on a forum with a focus on computers, and you say that's boring? Jesus, what WOULD interest you? If it ran linux using a beowulf cluster? Simpsons quotes?
Well fine, I for one welcome our new shogi-playing computer overlords.
10,000 other spikey-haired-hermaphrodites-on-the-rails-rpgs
Spikey haired hermaphrodites that you have to rescue from being run over by trains (presumably tied up there by moustache-twirling hermaphrodites)? Man, I have GOT to play that game.
That's not really ironic, seeing as those taxpayers voted the idiots onto the school board. It seems pretty appropriate to me. If I hire an employee who does something stupid on behalf of the company, I have to suffer for it. Taxpayers have to suffer for their bad hires, too.
Most of those taxpayers don't want that responsibility and see no benefit to the "hires." Furthermore, how would -any- voter have known that the school board would appoint staff that were so draconian that they'd start spying on kids? That's not exactly information that's tattooed on canidates' heads.
With stories where something bad happens to someone, it seems like there's always a large group of slashdotters who try to rationalize it, saying something along the lines of "Well, the victims did something stupid, so they deserved it." Is it just that we like kicking people who are down, or is it more along the lines of "... and I'm not stupid, so I'm comforted by fooling myself into thinking similar bad things can never happen to me,"?
No, the ironic part is that as part of the settlement, the lawyer will get most of the footage obtained from the school's spying.
Also natural selection, with Darwin having sat on the theory for a while, and only publishing after corresponding with Wallace and realizing that Wallace was on his way to beating Darwin to the punch.
Maybe here "explained" means "proven a hypothesis on." Untested hypotheses aren't worth much.
The two aren't mutually exclusive. Look at sharks: terrifying and impressive. And that's not all, frickin Lasers on frickin sharks: terrifying, impressive, and funny, all at the same time.
That said, I don't really see terrifying. I assume anything I can say out loud in public can be heard by someone. If I were often in the position of having to go to basketball games to discuss things so that the government bugs can't overhear me this might be terrifying to me, but I'm not so it's not. And it's not the tech itself, its what people might do with it that would make me uncomfortable anyway. Someone -could- put videocameras everywhere which would have high enough resolution to be able to lip-read what you're saying, but that hasn't seemed to happen most places yet.
A little general to free wifi and not too specific to this particular use of spectrum, but I have a question.
If those asses at the RIAA, MPAA, and the shadowy organization of government officials seeking to control everything have their way and a 3 strikes law is passed, what's the likelyhood of such legislation affecting things like free wifi? Seems like if this type of thing proliferates and it gets to a point where a significant amount of users just use free wifi, the MAFIAA isn't going to give up and ignore it. I'm assuming these free wifi spots will probably limit P2P file sharing?