"It never ceases to amaze me that so many people here rage at the fact that people get sued and prosecuted for doing illegal things just because they disagree with the law."
Two words: civil disobedience.
You *should* break laws you disagree with, then stomp up and down when someone tries to prosecute for it. "The is unjust" is a well trod, and accepted, defense for just about any criminal matter. Mind you, this is just part of it, you are absolutely correct that people should work to change laws they don't like. But disobeying those laws is a step to doing that.
First, let me say military recruiters aren't bad people. But they are, essentially, salesmen. And they have quotas to meet. Some ratings are more critical than others, so they always steer people in those directions, because that's what their bosses drill them on. But if you're just looking to do four years to get some real world IT experience, and see the world while you're at it, you might not care so much about long term career prospects for what you want to do.
With all this in mind, anyone who's a regular on/. is gonna score *really* high on the ASVAB, the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery test. This is the test that will determine what you can do in the military. I aced mine (got every question right), so of course they tried to push me into nuclear power. But I had zero interest in having a kid with one eye (this was before Futurama, of course), so I opted for electronics, instead. The same thing will likely happen to you.
Also, if you tell an active duty recruiter you're interested in the Reserves, he'll try to push you into the SAM program (Sea-Air Mariner). It's a three year active duty commitment, followed by 5 years in the Reserves. It's not a bad deal, but most SAMs don't get the school of their choice. The recruiter will tell you "you can always strike for your rating later." This is bullshit. If you go in undesignated, with no school, it *will* hurt your future career. There are ways you can fix it, and I've known Master Chiefs and Warrant Officers who started out as undesignated strikers, but why put yourself on a harder road if you don't have to?
Lastly, get your friend to go with you to the recruiter's office. Make sure he doesn't identify himself as a reservist. There are two Navies, and they don't always play nicely with each other. Ideally, he should go with you in his working uniform and identify himself as Petty Officer So-and-so. The recruiters will treat you like a shipmate, and make sure you get the best schools possible. I've known guys who have gone in with a friend or family member in tow, and have gotten guaranteed A *and* C schools (basic, advanced, respectively). Just make sure it's all in your contract before you sign.
Oh, and don't believe the recruiter if he tells you you'll work 8-4 everyday. This might be true at some shore installations, but underway you'll be working 25 hours a day. You'll be bone tired, sea sick, home sick, will hate the food and the smell of the berthing. But it'll be the most rewarding thing you've ever done, and years later when your civilian coworkers find out you're a vet, you'll really appreciate the glow of admiration in their eyes.
Ditto parent. I'm an IT in the Reserves, and love it. I'm assigned to a Coastal Warfare unit, so when I do my monthly drills we're usually out in the field, working on satellite comms, secure high frequency datalinks spanning hundreds of square kilometers, and eating nothing but MREs. Either that, or we're on the rifle range or working out in the gym. None of which I get to do in my civilian job.
And forget seeing your recruiter. If you're in the LA area, see me first (org.waddingham@cory). I'll make sure you get what you want, not what the recruiter has on his quota list. Remember the one thing the US military and Al Queda have in common: our recruiters lied to us, too.
"OTOH, the recent self-censorship most Americans (especially journalists) have had to undergo, vis-a-vis the current administration, is really quite bizarre...."
No more bizarre than that sentance. You refer to "self-censorship", which implies it's voluntary. Then state they "had to undergo", which implies it's involuntary. Then you throw in "for example the current administration", which makes no sense whatsoever.
Well, apparently being a judge not only requires no contact with computers, you don't even have to understand the difference between a virus and a security intrusion.
A story in the 1920s about resource depletion wasn't cutting edge. Thomas Malthus was preaching doom and gloom from overpopulation in 1798. Now, over 200 years later, he still hasn't been proven right.
Re:Let's start a game...
on
Bay of Souls
·
· Score: 3, Funny
OK, I'll do the obvious one:
corbettw writes "Imagine if JK Rowling wrote a Harry Potter novel in which Harry and Ron were required to travel to a foreign, dangerous land to destroy Lord Voldemort's magic wand. Now replace Harry and Ron with two hobbits and the wand with a Ring. And target the writing to intelligent adults, rather than adolescents. That should give you an idea of the latest series from JRR Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings.
"Designer drugs. Yes, we have them, but they're nowhere near as sophisticated or readily available as in speculative fiction. We also have the smokeless cigarettes, but it's not a plexiglass tube filled with crystals, nor do they make you zonk out."
"Frankly, I still view superstring theory as a fringe science, considering the fact that it holds merit (many of it's hypothesis are built upon solid scientific foundations), but none of it's claims can yet be tested and verified."
This is why I prefer sillystring theory. You can easily prove or disprove the effects of sillystring in a great many environments. For example:
1) If I shoot sillystring at the hot blonde across the room, will she sleep with me, or slap me? 2) How slow must I drive on the freeway to enable me to shoot sillystring, and still have it maintain cohesion enough to obscure another driver's windshield completely? 3) If I replace my roommate's shaving cream with sillystring, how many times will he cut his face before he realizes the switch?
You see? Definite, provable, questions. None of thos "alternate universe" or "quintuple bajillion watts of energy" problems.
"I do work for the Defense Department, and we won't consider using Microsoft code for anything that's important."
You are so wrong it's painful.
NT/2K is used *everywhere* in DoD, on all sorts of mission critical systems. From the field laptops used for imaging work, to the comm systems in Hummers, to the systems DFAS uses to process pay (go ahead, tell me paying the troops ain't important, I dare ya). Sure, Solaris and HP-UX are used on most of the high end comm servers, like GCCS and such, but even then the actual clients run on Windows.
I'm curious which part of DoD you work in. You obviously haven't been out in the field with the troops any time recently. I'm an IT in the Navy, and just took the advancement exam for First Class a few weeks ago. In the technical section, there were about 30 questions on computers. Two were DOS questions, maybe 5 were UNIX, about an equal number were general computer/networking. All the rest were NT specific, down to "how many trees are there in the system registry?" Feel free to draw whatever conclusions from that you like.
"Remember the destroyer that had to be towed into port because its Windows network crashed and it was dead in the water, because someone entered a 'zero' into a database field, and windows shit the bed? Yeah, the mission-critical functions of a nuclear powered destroyer aren't very important."
Two points, just to keep things straight:
1) The USS Yorktown (CG 48) is not a destroyer, she is a cruiser.
2) There's no such thing as a "nuclear powered destroyer." The Navy has nuke subs, carriers, and two cruisers (the Texas and the Virginia), but all destroyers are powered by gas turbines (basically, the same engines found on large aircraft).
"Ha ha, prison rape is funny! I'm so glad this country is civilized enough that we can not only condone it, but we can laugh at his humiliation!"
When people laugh at prison rape, they're not laughing at the act of rape itself. They're laughing at the weak little girly men people assume it happens to. One of the reasons the rape scenes in "American History X", "An Innocent Man", and "The Shawshank Redemption" were troubling were that Edward Norton, Tom Selleck, and Tim Robbins aren't usually considered weak and girlish (well, maybe Norton in some of his roles, but not in that one). Compare that with the guys in "Office Space", who were just screaming to be used like the women they are.
I think if more people understood what rape really is, you'd see less of this kind of joking. It's violence and hateful, but most people can't get past the sex element of it.
Actually, that's the situation today. The US could go to war with the entire planet, and there's fuckall anyone could do to stop us. Be very grateful Americans aren't the warmongering fascists most people think we are (I know I am).
"Here at work we were just warned of the horror that is P2P. My boss' boss' boss was telling us that he would never allow a P2P program on his computer and that running one here at work was grounds for termination. Of course, he was only referring to music swapping. But in his mind, the two are inseparately connected. This is common in the "real" world ( and I don't mean the "reality?" series )."
You should explain to him, then, that Windows file shares are, basically, a P2P network. Ask him if opening Windows shares on work computers is grounds for termination.
Slashdot Mirror
"It never ceases to amaze me that so many people here rage at the fact that people get sued and prosecuted for doing illegal things just because they disagree with the law."
Two words: civil disobedience.
You *should* break laws you disagree with, then stomp up and down when someone tries to prosecute for it. "The is unjust" is a well trod, and accepted, defense for just about any criminal matter. Mind you, this is just part of it, you are absolutely correct that people should work to change laws they don't like. But disobeying those laws is a step to doing that.
When you want to put down Americans and their TV watching, just remember: it wasn't America who made "Baywatch" the most watched show on the planet.
"The universe of knowledge has not been transfered to the internet."
Of course it hasn't, not yet. It won't be for another 1000 years until the evil brains build their uberdatabase of everything.
First, let me say military recruiters aren't bad people. But they are, essentially, salesmen. And they have quotas to meet. Some ratings are more critical than others, so they always steer people in those directions, because that's what their bosses drill them on. But if you're just looking to do four years to get some real world IT experience, and see the world while you're at it, you might not care so much about long term career prospects for what you want to do.
/. is gonna score *really* high on the ASVAB, the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery test. This is the test that will determine what you can do in the military. I aced mine (got every question right), so of course they tried to push me into nuclear power. But I had zero interest in having a kid with one eye (this was before Futurama, of course), so I opted for electronics, instead. The same thing will likely happen to you.
With all this in mind, anyone who's a regular on
Also, if you tell an active duty recruiter you're interested in the Reserves, he'll try to push you into the SAM program (Sea-Air Mariner). It's a three year active duty commitment, followed by 5 years in the Reserves. It's not a bad deal, but most SAMs don't get the school of their choice. The recruiter will tell you "you can always strike for your rating later." This is bullshit. If you go in undesignated, with no school, it *will* hurt your future career. There are ways you can fix it, and I've known Master Chiefs and Warrant Officers who started out as undesignated strikers, but why put yourself on a harder road if you don't have to?
Lastly, get your friend to go with you to the recruiter's office. Make sure he doesn't identify himself as a reservist. There are two Navies, and they don't always play nicely with each other. Ideally, he should go with you in his working uniform and identify himself as Petty Officer So-and-so. The recruiters will treat you like a shipmate, and make sure you get the best schools possible. I've known guys who have gone in with a friend or family member in tow, and have gotten guaranteed A *and* C schools (basic, advanced, respectively). Just make sure it's all in your contract before you sign.
Oh, and don't believe the recruiter if he tells you you'll work 8-4 everyday. This might be true at some shore installations, but underway you'll be working 25 hours a day. You'll be bone tired, sea sick, home sick, will hate the food and the smell of the berthing. But it'll be the most rewarding thing you've ever done, and years later when your civilian coworkers find out you're a vet, you'll really appreciate the glow of admiration in their eyes.
Ditto parent. I'm an IT in the Reserves, and love it. I'm assigned to a Coastal Warfare unit, so when I do my monthly drills we're usually out in the field, working on satellite comms, secure high frequency datalinks spanning hundreds of square kilometers, and eating nothing but MREs. Either that, or we're on the rifle range or working out in the gym. None of which I get to do in my civilian job.
And forget seeing your recruiter. If you're in the LA area, see me first (org.waddingham@cory). I'll make sure you get what you want, not what the recruiter has on his quota list. Remember the one thing the US military and Al Queda have in common: our recruiters lied to us, too.
Well, he did something about wanting natural selection to improve driving ability. So maybe these signs would work, afterall.
"OTOH, the recent self-censorship most Americans (especially journalists) have had to undergo, vis-a-vis the current administration, is really quite bizarre...."
.
No more bizarre than that sentance. You refer to "self-censorship", which implies it's voluntary. Then state they "had to undergo", which implies it's involuntary. Then you throw in "for example the current administration", which makes no sense whatsoever
Care to reparse that a bit?
"I think they'd be asking why most of the world doesn't have enough clean drinking water, while parts just dump it on the ground around their house."
So you're assuming that an alien race wouldn't understand the concepts of nation-states and borders???
"But pretty much anywhere I've been in Europe people don't reject you just because of your opinions."
Let me be the first to say "*cough*bullshit*cough*".
If people in Europe are so advanced as to welcome other's "non-mainstream ideas", then how come Yahoo can't sell Nazi memorabilia in France?
Well, apparently being a judge not only requires no contact with computers, you don't even have to understand the difference between a virus and a security intrusion.
A story in the 1920s about resource depletion wasn't cutting edge. Thomas Malthus was preaching doom and gloom from overpopulation in 1798. Now, over 200 years later, he still hasn't been proven right.
Here's the link from the text.
OK, I'll do the obvious one:
corbettw writes "Imagine if JK Rowling wrote a Harry Potter novel in which Harry and Ron were required to travel to a foreign, dangerous land to destroy Lord Voldemort's magic wand. Now replace Harry and Ron with two hobbits and the wand with a Ring. And target the writing to intelligent adults, rather than adolescents. That should give you an idea of the latest series from JRR Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings.
"When I worked there OSHA (Sp.?) had done a lot to make things better."
You know you're on Slashdot when someone is unsure of the spelling of "OSHA".
We have that, and his name is Miguel.
"Designer drugs. Yes, we have them, but they're nowhere near as sophisticated or readily available as in speculative fiction. We also have the smokeless cigarettes, but it's not a plexiglass tube filled with crystals, nor do they make you zonk out."
Haven't spent much time in the 'hood, have you?
"Frankly, I still view superstring theory as a fringe science, considering the fact that it holds merit (many of it's hypothesis are built upon solid scientific foundations), but none of it's claims can yet be tested and verified."
This is why I prefer sillystring theory. You can easily prove or disprove the effects of sillystring in a great many environments. For example:
1) If I shoot sillystring at the hot blonde across the room, will she sleep with me, or slap me?
2) How slow must I drive on the freeway to enable me to shoot sillystring, and still have it maintain cohesion enough to obscure another driver's windshield completely?
3) If I replace my roommate's shaving cream with sillystring, how many times will he cut his face before he realizes the switch?
You see? Definite, provable, questions. None of thos "alternate universe" or "quintuple bajillion watts of energy" problems.
OK, so it's only a subcontinent. But can you think of a more effective way to get rid of offshore outsourcing?
"I do work for the Defense Department, and we won't consider using Microsoft code for anything that's important."
You are so wrong it's painful.
NT/2K is used *everywhere* in DoD, on all sorts of mission critical systems. From the field laptops used for imaging work, to the comm systems in Hummers, to the systems DFAS uses to process pay (go ahead, tell me paying the troops ain't important, I dare ya). Sure, Solaris and HP-UX are used on most of the high end comm servers, like GCCS and such, but even then the actual clients run on Windows.
I'm curious which part of DoD you work in. You obviously haven't been out in the field with the troops any time recently. I'm an IT in the Navy, and just took the advancement exam for First Class a few weeks ago. In the technical section, there were about 30 questions on computers. Two were DOS questions, maybe 5 were UNIX, about an equal number were general computer/networking. All the rest were NT specific, down to "how many trees are there in the system registry?" Feel free to draw whatever conclusions from that you like.
Two points, just to keep things straight:
1) The USS Yorktown (CG 48) is not a destroyer, she is a cruiser.
2) There's no such thing as a "nuclear powered destroyer." The Navy has nuke subs, carriers, and two cruisers (the Texas and the Virginia), but all destroyers are powered by gas turbines (basically, the same engines found on large aircraft).
You should know by now, anything this amusing can only come out around 4:20.
"Ha ha, prison rape is funny! I'm so glad this country is civilized enough that we can not only condone it, but we can laugh at his humiliation!"
When people laugh at prison rape, they're not laughing at the act of rape itself. They're laughing at the weak little girly men people assume it happens to. One of the reasons the rape scenes in "American History X", "An Innocent Man", and "The Shawshank Redemption" were troubling were that Edward Norton, Tom Selleck, and Tim Robbins aren't usually considered weak and girlish (well, maybe Norton in some of his roles, but not in that one). Compare that with the guys in "Office Space", who were just screaming to be used like the women they are.
I think if more people understood what rape really is, you'd see less of this kind of joking. It's violence and hateful, but most people can't get past the sex element of it.
But I thought we were supposed to welcome our new overlords?
Actually, that's the situation today. The US could go to war with the entire planet, and there's fuckall anyone could do to stop us. Be very grateful Americans aren't the warmongering fascists most people think we are (I know I am).
"Here at work we were just warned of the horror that is P2P. My boss' boss' boss was telling us that he would never allow a P2P program on his computer and that running one here at work was grounds for termination. Of course, he was only referring to music swapping. But in his mind, the two are inseparately connected. This is common in the "real" world ( and I don't mean the "reality?" series )."
You should explain to him, then, that Windows file shares are, basically, a P2P network. Ask him if opening Windows shares on work computers is grounds for termination.