Colossus, Alan Turing and the geniuses who helped design it, have been key to the development of subsequent fantastic advances in computer technology and marvels that have forever changed the face of the world, such as AOL CDs, Angry Birds and Facebook.
If I forget to type the S, I like having the crutch.
It's a bit like automatic collision avoidance braking systems that are starting to appear on cars these days: you might say it's a huge crutch for people who are too lazy to drive properly and maintain distances, but you know what? it's a good idea I'd like to have it nonetheless, in case my concentration lapses.
So what? It was still fun, as in "this Youtube video contains more data than meets the eyes. Let's find out what it is."
As a ham radio enthusiast, I get the same pleasure decoding the bits of morse code that can be heard in movies from time to time: usually it's pretend morse code, but once in a while you hear a bit of a real transmission that's been overlaid onto the soundtrack by the sound engineer who didn't have a clue that what he used actually meant something totally unrelated to the movie.
In fact, I heard a CQ call followed by a callsign in a scifi B-movie from the 90s once, and sent a QSL card to the owner of the callsign in question. He answered me saying I was one of only 5 people to have done so over the years. How fun is that?
So yes, the code is known, there's nothing special about it, but she had fun digging out unexpected information, and I had fun reading about it. Stop being so jaded.
- Morning farts tell me it's time to get up - The company's secretary's overpowering patchouli perfume tells me it's past 10 am (and that she's late to work again) - Greasy odors from the fish and chips next door tell me it's almost noon - Beer burps from my bro tell me it's past 4pm - Burnt smells from my wife's cooking tell me it's almost 8 pm (and that I'm not all that hungry) - The faint smell of vaseline tells me it's time for bed (and that missus is horny)
I think people labor under the delusion that 'health' is some sort of idyllic state of bodily perfection, rather than the state where most of the potentially catastrophic pathogens, precancerous cells, and who knows what else are being held in enough of a stalemate that something else will probably kill you first.
Well that's pretty much what life itself is: it's a process that tries to fight entropy for as long as possible, but always gets overwhelmed in the end no matter what.
I've read somewhere that people (and animals, and plants) get cancer all the time in the form of cells that have mutated or divided erroneously, but their body always manages to get rid of the misfit cells. But over time, the faulty cells get faulty in nastier ways, or become more numerous, and manage to overwhelm the immune system.
Look at it another way: evolution gave human beings their big brain, which allows them to invent stuff to live longer. If humans of the future live to a ripe old age because they've invented a cure for cancer, prosthetics for failing organs, and drugs for many ailments that afflict aging, undaided humans, well *that*'s evolution!
We're the first species that has evolved enough to escape, or rather accelerate evolution itself. Just like dairy cows and race horses, we're becoming designer beings. Only instead of designing other animals, we're designing ourselves. That's a lot more exciting than submitting to the blind laws of nature, that work very very slowly by elimination, don't you think?
Google scares me. It's getting more and more pervasive - and invasive.
A while ago, I installed Waze on my Android device as an alternative navigation app to avoid using Google Maps, because I don't want Google to know where I'm going (or where I am, or how fast I drive, or anything at all about me.)
I'm at a point where, whenever I install a new app or use a new PC application, I check whether Google owns the company that makes it, or whether it made it, or whether for one reason or another, Google has a vested interest in it. I used to do that with Microsoft, now Google has joined them in my list of evil-companies-to-avoid-at-all-cost. Only with Google, it's getting really, really tough because they're f*ing everywhere...
I have no trouble believing the human eye does not do well in zero gravity. Case in point, I have a bookstand that holds a book upside down, to read lying down in bed. If I read for an hour in that position, my vision becomes all blurred, something that doesn't happen when I read with my head upright or tilted backward at a slight angle.
I'm pretty sure proper vision depends on gravity pulling the eyeball the direction the eyeball is used to to maintain its shape, i.e. down.
Government bureaucrats don't concoct regulations anymore. At least no regulations that doesn't serve their interests. In case you haven't noticed, it's pretty much we-the-people against them nowadays.
Wouldn't it be funny if the NSA came forward and claimed the prize money many times until the company went under? Because surely they have backdoors all over the place to walk right through these guys' security measures.
If all Americans started acting just a little Snowden-like, there would be another revolution in this country. That on the other hand is just some guy renowned in a very narrow, very specialized field, sulking.
It's better than nothing though - as the American public's response to the absolute outrage that is this whole affair has only been a big, fat, shameful nothing.
The point is, I've used that poem and that method for so many years, and it's such a simple system, that it might be the one thing I'll remember first if I have amnesia.
But you're right, at the end of the day, you have to choose between a single point of failure in your head or outside your head. I think the odds of compromising your passwords because your trusted relative, friend, attorney... wasn't so trustworthy or careful is far greater than having amnesia.
keep passwords inside the head rather than on a file - encrypted or otherwise. But if you can't do that, keep it on a piece of paper, and if you're worried about others seeing your paper, well, lock it up somewhere safe
Let's see: in a safe with a combination lock perhaps?
It's very easy to create unique passwords that are hard to guess, and completely trivial to remember. My method is this:
- I have a 4 "stems" that are the first letters of 4 lines of poetry I remember from school. one stem is used for "very personal" things (ssh private key passwords for instance), another for login on "trusted" machines (my servers), and a third to use on various websites I trust moderately, and a fourth is a "junk" stem to use on shite websites (hotmail and the likes).
- To each stems, I append 2 digits (always the same)
- I prefix each stem with the first 3 letters of my username, and I append the 3 first letters of the machine's name, or website name I'm logging onto, after the digits.
- Finally, I append the number of letters in the machine name or website name (sans www. or.com).
The passwords that I create that way are reasonably secure, usually unique, and all I have to remember is a poem, my username for a particular machine/website (those I can store somewhere in plain text just in case) and the method to derive the corresponding password.
I have kajillions of passwords, and zero trouble remembering them. How hard can it be? I've never felt the need for a password storage solution of any kind.
The blockchain will soon grow disproportionally large. Right now it's probably managable, but you know what? I'm not downloading tens of gigabytes of blockchain just for the plessure of reading lols on decentralized blogs.
In this case, it's just a matter of making a phone call. As in "Hello, Alaskan Way Viaduct project officials? This is STP. The DOT says you bore a hole in the ground in 2002. We're just calling to make sure you guys removed the pipe."
One quick phone call. Just like that...
I'm not saying each and every danger can be predicted in a project like that, but in this case, the hazard was known and could have been fully assessed.
Also, while all potential problems can't be avoided, at $1.44Bn, they should at least try their best to minimize them.
Chris Dixon, project director for contractor group Seattle Tunnel Partners, said the builders presumed there would be no pipe in the way, because casings are customarily removed after use.
When I dig in hole in my backyard, I may presume there's nothing in the ground. That's because if I hit a snag, my cost will be the price of the shovel.
But for a $1.44B hole in the ground, I'd want to make damn sure every inch I dig through presents abolutely no risk whatsoever. And since that's taxpayer's money, if I was Seattle resident, I'd sure as hell want to know who the fuck "presumed" stuff on my money...
Slashdot Mirror
Colossus, Alan Turing and the geniuses who helped design it, have been key to the development of subsequent fantastic advances in computer technology and marvels that have forever changed the face of the world, such as AOL CDs, Angry Birds and Facebook.
If I forget to type the S, I like having the crutch.
It's a bit like automatic collision avoidance braking systems that are starting to appear on cars these days: you might say it's a huge crutch for people who are too lazy to drive properly and maintain distances, but you know what? it's a good idea I'd like to have it nonetheless, in case my concentration lapses.
when I see people refer to it as 'morris code', I feel the need to remind them that that's a secret language, known only by cats.
Or is it morse dancers?
So what? It was still fun, as in "this Youtube video contains more data than meets the eyes. Let's find out what it is."
As a ham radio enthusiast, I get the same pleasure decoding the bits of morse code that can be heard in movies from time to time: usually it's pretend morse code, but once in a while you hear a bit of a real transmission that's been overlaid onto the soundtrack by the sound engineer who didn't have a clue that what he used actually meant something totally unrelated to the movie.
In fact, I heard a CQ call followed by a callsign in a scifi B-movie from the 90s once, and sent a QSL card to the owner of the callsign in question. He answered me saying I was one of only 5 people to have done so over the years. How fun is that?
So yes, the code is known, there's nothing special about it, but she had fun digging out unexpected information, and I had fun reading about it. Stop being so jaded.
How come I only see technical women smarter than me on the Internet?
Because you never get out of your parent's basement?
You're just middle-aged. It's normal...
I already have scents that tell me the time:
- Morning farts tell me it's time to get up
- The company's secretary's overpowering patchouli perfume tells me it's past 10 am (and that she's late to work again)
- Greasy odors from the fish and chips next door tell me it's almost noon
- Beer burps from my bro tell me it's past 4pm
- Burnt smells from my wife's cooking tell me it's almost 8 pm (and that I'm not all that hungry)
- The faint smell of vaseline tells me it's time for bed (and that missus is horny)
I think people labor under the delusion that 'health' is some sort of idyllic state of bodily perfection, rather than the state where most of the potentially catastrophic pathogens, precancerous cells, and who knows what else are being held in enough of a stalemate that something else will probably kill you first.
Well that's pretty much what life itself is: it's a process that tries to fight entropy for as long as possible, but always gets overwhelmed in the end no matter what.
I've read somewhere that people (and animals, and plants) get cancer all the time in the form of cells that have mutated or divided erroneously, but their body always manages to get rid of the misfit cells. But over time, the faulty cells get faulty in nastier ways, or become more numerous, and manage to overwhelm the immune system.
Look at it another way: evolution gave human beings their big brain, which allows them to invent stuff to live longer. If humans of the future live to a ripe old age because they've invented a cure for cancer, prosthetics for failing organs, and drugs for many ailments that afflict aging, undaided humans, well *that*'s evolution!
We're the first species that has evolved enough to escape, or rather accelerate evolution itself. Just like dairy cows and race horses, we're becoming designer beings. Only instead of designing other animals, we're designing ourselves. That's a lot more exciting than submitting to the blind laws of nature, that work very very slowly by elimination, don't you think?
+1
Google scares me. It's getting more and more pervasive - and invasive.
A while ago, I installed Waze on my Android device as an alternative navigation app to avoid using Google Maps, because I don't want Google to know where I'm going (or where I am, or how fast I drive, or anything at all about me.)
Guess what? Waze has been purchased by Google. It's sickening. Google is silently cornering us.
I'm at a point where, whenever I install a new app or use a new PC application, I check whether Google owns the company that makes it, or whether it made it, or whether for one reason or another, Google has a vested interest in it. I used to do that with Microsoft, now Google has joined them in my list of evil-companies-to-avoid-at-all-cost. Only with Google, it's getting really, really tough because they're f*ing everywhere...
I have no trouble believing the human eye does not do well in zero gravity. Case in point, I have a bookstand that holds a book upside down, to read lying down in bed. If I read for an hour in that position, my vision becomes all blurred, something that doesn't happen when I read with my head upright or tilted backward at a slight angle.
I'm pretty sure proper vision depends on gravity pulling the eyeball the direction the eyeball is used to to maintain its shape, i.e. down.
Government bureaucrats don't concoct regulations anymore. At least no regulations that doesn't serve their interests. In case you haven't noticed, it's pretty much we-the-people against them nowadays.
Wouldn't it be funny if the NSA came forward and claimed the prize money many times until the company went under? Because surely they have backdoors all over the place to walk right through these guys' security measures.
is gonna love this.
was Silkroad.
If all Americans started acting just a little Snowden-like, there would be another revolution in this country. That on the other hand is just some guy renowned in a very narrow, very specialized field, sulking.
It's better than nothing though - as the American public's response to the absolute outrage that is this whole affair has only been a big, fat, shameful nothing.
The point is, I've used that poem and that method for so many years, and it's such a simple system, that it might be the one thing I'll remember first if I have amnesia.
But you're right, at the end of the day, you have to choose between a single point of failure in your head or outside your head. I think the odds of compromising your passwords because your trusted relative, friend, attorney... wasn't so trustworthy or careful is far greater than having amnesia.
Full disk encryption says hi.
Software deprecation says hi too: have you ever tried to read a cryptoloop-encrypted volume with a recent Linux kernel? Good luck with that.
I'd rather give my password to a russian hacker than to a lawyer. The former is probably more trustworthy...
keep passwords inside the head rather than on a file - encrypted or otherwise. But if you can't do that, keep it on a piece of paper, and if you're worried about others seeing your paper, well, lock it up somewhere safe
Let's see: in a safe with a combination lock perhaps?
It's very easy to create unique passwords that are hard to guess, and completely trivial to remember. My method is this:
- I have a 4 "stems" that are the first letters of 4 lines of poetry I remember from school. one stem is used for "very personal" things (ssh private key passwords for instance), another for login on "trusted" machines (my servers), and a third to use on various websites I trust moderately, and a fourth is a "junk" stem to use on shite websites (hotmail and the likes).
- To each stems, I append 2 digits (always the same)
- I prefix each stem with the first 3 letters of my username, and I append the 3 first letters of the machine's name, or website name I'm logging onto, after the digits.
- Finally, I append the number of letters in the machine name or website name (sans www. or .com).
The passwords that I create that way are reasonably secure, usually unique, and all I have to remember is a poem, my username for a particular machine/website (those I can store somewhere in plain text just in case) and the method to derive the corresponding password.
I have kajillions of passwords, and zero trouble remembering them. How hard can it be? I've never felt the need for a password storage solution of any kind.
The blockchain will soon grow disproportionally large. Right now it's probably managable, but you know what? I'm not downloading tens of gigabytes of blockchain just for the plessure of reading lols on decentralized blogs.
Nice idea though...
And how do you suppose they are to do that?
In this case, it's just a matter of making a phone call. As in "Hello, Alaskan Way Viaduct project officials? This is STP. The DOT says you bore a hole in the ground in 2002. We're just calling to make sure you guys removed the pipe."
One quick phone call. Just like that...
I'm not saying each and every danger can be predicted in a project like that, but in this case, the hazard was known and could have been fully assessed.
Also, while all potential problems can't be avoided, at $1.44Bn, they should at least try their best to minimize them.
From TFA:
Chris Dixon, project director for contractor group Seattle Tunnel Partners, said the builders presumed there would be no pipe in the way, because casings are customarily removed after use.
When I dig in hole in my backyard, I may presume there's nothing in the ground. That's because if I hit a snag, my cost will be the price of the shovel.
But for a $1.44B hole in the ground, I'd want to make damn sure every inch I dig through presents abolutely no risk whatsoever. And since that's taxpayer's money, if I was Seattle resident, I'd sure as hell want to know who the fuck "presumed" stuff on my money...
Slashdot is really letting itself go, when posts describing the mundane reality take precedence over a good conspiracy story.
Or could it be that the coroner was bought by the peacemaker manufacturing lobby to give that statement? Hmm...