Was the part where all these hugely wealthy guys are livid at America because they think the Iraq thing will sink their personal fortunes.
Yeah... OK. They could support the quick liberation of the oppressed peoples in Iraq and lose a paltry couple of million... but they'd rather let the Iraqis suffer and keep the cash. Well, I can see looking out for your own self interest, but wow... makes the whole thing seem rather mercenary.
It's not evil to be rich, and you can't force compassion and altruism (unless you are the government)... but it makes you think....
One's a modem (a REAL modem that I can configure with jumpers, that works under linux... don't even get me started on winmodems)
I also have a WINRADIO (or LINRADIO under linux); Those come as ISA cards if you get the internal version...
Yes, I know it's a dinosaur hardware interface, but I still find it useful... and I'll bet I'm not the only one. Hardware may find itself deprecated and unsupported (Apple's Newton, anyone?), but still useful.
So all cops and all white people are racist... Is that it? You accuse me of over-generalizing about social character of black males in an urban area, and then you tar all cops and all white people with an even broader brush? I never said that all black males were violent criminals, simply that some are, and that not all criminal charges are a result of racism. You seem to believe otherwise, based on your N=1 night in jail.
That was quite a stream-of-consciousness rant you typed... for an "ex-military intel analyst," you are not displaying very much logic or reason.
That's also quite an "I hate whitey" chip on your shoulder... that kind of rhetoric doesn't help make your case; it just gives more ammo to the racist nazi-wannabes out there. Quite honestly, it makes you sound like a militant nut.
Your blanket statements about all white people and cops totally invalidate the rest of your argument. Change the "white" to "black" in your statements and you sound just like a Klansman. Racism is wrong, whether it's white-on-black, or black-on-white, and don't give me any of that black-people-can't-be-racists nonsense. Anyone can be prejudiced, all it takes is a little hate, and that's something you seem to have in abundance.
I can't believe you just made a racial thing out of that...
Take a look at those arrest records on those urban black males you state are frivolously arrested. I'm going to go out on a limb here, and say that there'd be a variety of different crimes, including a few violent felonies, not just BS speeding tickets based on 100-year-old laws.
Now, I'm not implying that crime is genetic in black males or any of that National Alliance racist crap... it has a lot to do with being young urban males, making poor choices (as we all tend to do when young and stupid), and being surrounded by criminal subcultures, which young people tend to emulate. For instance, the "Gansta" style of dress... that whole thing simply escapes me. Why would anyone emulate a bunch of thugs, who largely prey on their own people? Boggles the mind...
OK... sorry, end of tangent. What I was trying to say is that people often get arrest records BECAUSE they commit crimes, not because "the man" is keeping them down.
I can see your point if we are simply talking about public nuisance-type crimes... but an armed robbery rap usually requires active participation.
yes... it sucks to be a poor college student. But call a spade a spade... these students are whores.
At one time I too was a poor college student.
I sold plasma right alongside the homeless guys at the plasma center down in the ghetto. I took a telemarketing job (*shudder* yeah, I still feel unclean. Even to this day, I sometimes wake in the dark of the night, shaking, in a cold sweat...No! Not the Phones! Noooo! The horror... the horror...).
I had to eat ramen, do my own car repairs (because I couldn't afford to pay somebody else) and lived in a smelly hole with a bunch of other guys for cheap rent.
What I didn't do was spam; even as an ex-telemarketer, I have to draw the line somewhere. At least in the telemarketing gig, people got the chance to give me a piece of their mind (and boy, did they!). I took my lumps... but spammers don't even get that little bit of comeuppance.
I'd like to withold judgement on this one, but I'm afraid that's just not possible. Rationalize it any way you like, but these students are ripping people off.
Twenty bucks? At least Judas got 30 pieces of silver...
Anyone who's ever dealt directly or indirectly with nuclear materials in the military knows what kind of security they require.
Guards authorized to use lethal force? Yep... they might not even try to arrest you.
The military uses pretty tight security to transport nukes... including multiple vehicles, on-call NEST teams (you don't want to meet those folks), and so forth. You think the hardened facilities where these things are stored long-term are just wide open for any reporter to walk into? If you really attempted to penetrate one of those areas, you'd find yourself proned out by an agressive 19yo, and his M16 muzzle would be drilled directly into the back of your head. After that pleasing introduction, the fun would REALLY start; as Ricky would say... you'd have some serious 'splainin to do. Nuclear security troops (often marines) have no sense of humor. It's hard to conjure up anything they would love more than laying a righteous smackdown on some snooping reporter... Imagine the fun they'd have had with this guy...
It's already been said, but I concur... I don't think this guy got close to anything important.
That's a truckload of data, even if it was just "traffic information."
I wonder just what that means... "traffic information." Surely time, date, duration, initiating and receiving parties. I can't see them having too much beyond that... It should be a logistical impossibility to have any information about the content of all those messages... way too much data to sift through and catalog.
Interesting that this was reportedly done by fiat.
I'm obsessive-compulsive about backups, precisely because data can be important (records, financial stuff, pics of the wife and kids, etc) and data is so ephemeral... just a dusting of magnetic molecules.
Plus, how often do you rebuild your machines? Linux boxen are no problem, but I am constantly retooling some box or other, and if it's a windows box, you'd better just start with a format and clean install. Taking an existing windows installation and swapping motherboards and peripherals around is like playing football with your wife's Waterford crystal... nothing good can come of it.
I also keep redundant backups... ever had your first backup fail? Or have you ever found that your CD-RW drive was making coasters instead of backups? I've had both... multiple redundant backups are the path to inner peace... you'd hate to lose those things that really mean something.
Losing the pics of your child? I can see a little crisis counseling being useful for that.
Some genius decides to blog on their mobile phone while driving.
You know it'll happen, because you've seen 'em too... driving with their knee, phone in one hand, lipstick (or a McDonalds shake) in the other, chatting away.
I don't know about you, but mindless "yeah.. Uh Huh..." conversation is at least possible while driving (and with a hand-free headset). As far as eloquent conversation goes, you probably won't be Winston Churchill while your attention is on the road, but you can at least make guttural affirmative noises. Blogging, on the other hand, requires some coherent, focused thought (insert obligatory comment about Slashdot trolls here).
Talking on a cell phone may be challenging, but I find dialing while driving to be almost impossible to do safely. Blogging on a cell phone? Somebody's gotta be dumb enough... I hope they have air bags.
only 3% have stopped buying CDs because prices are too high...
So, what? The other 97% also think prices are too high, but continue to buy CDs? The other 97% think prices are OK, but only patronize the used CD store? The other 97% think CDs are too low? Such a trite, convenient little statistic... what was the N?
100% of people surveyed (12 music industury executives in a quick boardroom poll), thought CDs were the bomb!
Interesting... I can't recall any kind of sideshow bob character; must've come on board after I stopped watching.
The killing was supposed to have been organized crime related. I always thought it was the boyfriend of one of the show's bikini dancers... there was this one, Claudia, that he seemed to have a real affinity for.
Heh... poor Paco. Then again, those drug cartels have a very direct way of expressing their displeasure; he should've known better.
It IS Ebays policy, apparently. They could certainly force a law enforcement agency to produce a warrant... but if they want to be more forthcoming than that, they are certainly within their rights.
Now, it may irk Ebay's USERS...
Of course, this could be open to abuse... Say you want your Ex-girlfriend's information... forge a law-enforcement agency letterhead, and fax the request from your local Kinkos (I wonder if they require a direct phone contact before they give up the goods... though that would also be easy to fake).
Hahahah... Yes, I remember Univision. A few years ago I was living in south florida, and there was this great game show on the Univision network called Llevatelo.
I can still remember the hosts... Gaby Ruffo and Paco Stanley (Paco was later assassinated by some unsavory mexican mafia types in Mexico city... machine-gunned him while he was sitting in his Lincoln Navigator at some cafe... they did it in broad daylight in front of God and everybody... nasty)
Anyway, it was like a Nickelodeon show for adults... they would climb things, crawl through slime pits, etc for prizes. What struck me at the time was how sexist the show was in terms of prizes. Now, I'm no hypersensitive politically-correct type (those people make me want to vomit), but the prizes for the women were always a vacuum cleaner, a stove, a toaster, etc. Notably, the prizes for the men were always just a bit different: a car, a stereo, etc, but NO household appliances. I guess that's cultural... but it was still funny.
The chicas-dancing-in-bikinis theme was present throughout, however. It was actually quite entertaining, particularly if you spoke a little spanish.
I believe the phrase "turnabout is fair play" applies to this situation.
Keep in mind... the bullies are the original oppressors in the vast majority of these situations; most geeks just want to be left alone. Simply stated, the bullies started it, and foolishly, since they are sometimes ill-equiped to thrive in the long-term game.
Sometimes fate deals the bully a nice tall glass of bitter medicine later in life. The fact that a geek is glad to see it happen doesn't make him elitist; it may just mean that he can appreciate the irony of the situation. Now, He'd be out of line to smugly rub the bully's nose in it; that's a bit petty, and hardly necessary... the bully can taste the irony on his own.
Who isn't glad to see their oppressor get his comeuppance? On the other hand, I'd say there's something wrong with someone who obsesses about it, or makes it their life's mission to be the hand of geek justice... but a private chuckle at someone getting a taste of their own medicine?
My experience has been that the elite schools can be worse than the public ones.
I experienced the Lord-of-the-Flies "mercedes edition" firsthand at an elite, wealthy college prep school in the midwest (which will remain unnamed). There were three types of kids that went to that school:
The kids who were incredibly bright (they were poor, but maxed out the entrance exams)
The kids who were athletes.
And the kids whose parents bought their way in.
Absolutely the cliquiest place I've ever seen... most of these kids started in the same prep-school pipeline together from 1st grade onward, and it was impossible to break in. Also, the politics were pernicious and nasty. If you were getting picked on by some kid whose dad was a fortune 500 CEO, the school would do nothing about it, particularly if your dad was some kind of small-fry (ie. just a doctor or small-fry businessman). Watching the school look the other way was an unpleasant eye-opener. The administration blindly backed the teachers, and denied any problems existed, even when the teachers were frankly abusive to students. I WAS the bottom of the ladder... nobody lower. Unfortunately, my parents were too involved in some other problems of their own to deal with mine, so I failed out on purpose just to get the hell out of there. The only thing worse than a bully is a spoiled-rich, politically-protected bully... and I had to deal with a school full of them. Not fun.
The public school I subsequently attended was a very different affair. Where I had been high-average at the college prep school, I ended up with the highest ACT/SAT scores in my public school of 2500 students. I also had a much larger pool of people from which to choose friends, and I chose the "hoods." A hood would never stab you in the back for one more shred of popularity... they were nothing if not loyal (and many of them were actually great guys).
I survived by keeping to myself (whenever the jock-types would let me... sheesh... some of those maggots just couldn't leave well enough alone). I had enough sense not to antagonize people, but making them look stupid was often my only retaliation for their snide remarks and cruelty, so I used it. Yes, it sometimes hurt me more in the end, but ask any Prisoner-of-War how important those "small victories" are against their captors. The answer: pretty damned important. You have to keep resisting to the bitter end... if you give up, you die.
I was socially inept, but had enough insight to realize it, and didn't put myself in situations where that handicap could become a liability.
That's all 20 years ago for me now... but I can still remember some of those people if I really try. The angst is gone, and I wouldn't go out of my way now to skewer one of those people (it wouldn't be worth my time). And yet, I can certainly understand the desire (expressed by multiple people in this discussion) to gig one of them, just to return the favor. There's something deeply satisfying about being the agent of karmic retribution.
Amen to that. My wife and I both work, and each of us has multiple jobs, some with independent contractor status, some as employee, different retirement plans, money earned while working outside the United States, investments, etc, etc. Like you, my tax return makes my head spin... I'm overjoyed that I can pay somebody to expertly maneuver that minefield for me, and even if my attorney didn't get me money back every year, it would be worth every penny for the frustation it saves.
I see the whole Jack-of-all-trades philosophy as OK for some things, until you start risking life, limb, or, as they say, "real money."
When the stakes are high, you're just better off hiring an expert.
Re:Can this really be considered a "hack"?
on
Hacking the Streamium
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· Score: 2, Informative
Why not? He's forcing the hardware to do something its designers/makers didn't intend.
By studying the hardware and software, he's succesfully extended the functionality of the device... why wouldn't this be reverse-engineering? Am I misunderstanding the term? (If I am, I'm sure hordes of ACs are just itching to tell me so)
Aibo owners make their dogs do all kinds of crazy stuff (that sony didn't intend) and extend the functionality of those devices; I'd say it's about the same thing... clearly a hack.
Now, he may not be trying to "stick it to the man" using Philip's device this way, but he's made a useful product more so... Unless you're some kind of anal It's-my-proprietary-design-what-do-those-damned-sl ashdot-hackers-think-they're-doing types, what's not to like?
I didn't like TurboTax anyway... this just gives me another good reason not to use it. Writing to the HD boot sector? What the hell?
Personally, I have my taxes done by a very good tax attorney, and the guy is an absolute wizard. For my money, there is no substitute for that level of expertise, particularly if you have a very complicated return. Tax software is great and all, but if that audit notice ever comes, I'd much rather have my personal tax attorney sitting next to me when I'm facing the IRS guy across the table.
Yes, he's expensive, but serious expertise costs money, and it's something where I'd be leery about going cheap. It's like buying the bargain-basement parachute, or the bulletproof vest that's 70% off...
I'm sure TurboTax is fine software, but it's not for me, particularly with this DRM stuff. I'm a thief until proven otherwise, but I'm supposed to trust them will all my financial info?
I remember learning about James Watt... I certainly never learned about the patent angle, and his subsequent crushing of his competitors. An interesting hypothesis, that his patent and "rent-seeking behavior" delayed the industrial revolution by 30+ years.
I don't know when the IP-seeking behavior began in academia (I haven't been in it long enough to pontificate about the "old days). Perhaps it has always been there, and people were simply much more discrete about their patent filings.
Some of the patent drive may be related to the "publish-or-perish" mentality that exists at many larger universities. Aside from generating prestige and name-recognition, having a nice fat generating-income-for-the-university patent out there could do wonders for your chances of being granted tenure. Then again, it might also be a transparent attempt to financially rest on one's laurels, as it were.
Heheh... that's quite a good pickup on your part. I have indeed never clicked a Goatse.cx link. From your description, I'm not missing much.
I know I'm probably in the minority here on Slashdot, but I've gotta say: I am not into Pr0n. I'm a regular married guy, and I just don't get into that kind of thing.
I can certainly understand the attraction, since sex is something that motivates many people... but I can't see having a Terabyte RAID at home, filled with Pr0n... really, it does nothing for me.
Quite honestly, I avoid (like the freakin' plague) anything that includes "Goat" and "sex" in the same sentence. My own imagination paints quite a vivid enough picture as it is... *shiver*
Don't get me wrong, I love Slashdot... but what about the above makes the moniker "freak" seem terribly unreasonable? (OK... the Natalie Portman thing could be chalked up to adolescent testosterone poisoning, but Goatsex? Cmon!)
Counterpane had a little blurb on their website about it... Crypto stuff
This may have been where the original "Snake Oil" comment came from.
I'm no elite cryptographer; I just try to be an educated user. I rely on people far smarter, and with far more expertise than I'll ever have in the field of cryptography to give me an idea of whether something is reasonably good. That said, even a rank amateur like myself can detect marketing-speak...
I have no authoritative expertise with which to judge encryption algorithms, but outrageous claims tend to speak for themselves... in a negative way.
I'm still using a palm IIIx, and it's more than adequate. The color screens and multimedia coolness are great though...
I admit that my use of a PDA is basically as a mobile "black book" and scheduling device. Seriously, how many people honestly require all these awesome features? (I understand the "bragging rights" argument, but I work with a stable of non-geeks who could hardly appreciate this device... they don't even know how to rip/encode an MP3...)
My Archos jukebox MP3 player gets roughly 7 hours of use on a set of 4 AA NiMH batteries... but it only intermittently runs the drive to fill up the buffer (this habit also adds to its shock resistance).
So how is this little Sony WiFi jobby going to serve files to up to 250 users without going dead in about 10 minutes flat? (not to mention the juice the 802.11 transmit/receive sucks down). Even for non-enterprise "baking UP purposes," at WiFi speeds, will this thing have enough juice to handle backing up 17gigs of data? Did they even mention battery capacity? I didn't see it...
This will have to be plugged in. I don't know why they are bothering with batteries at all.
Slashdot Mirror
Was the part where all these hugely wealthy guys are livid at America because they think the Iraq thing will sink their personal fortunes.
Yeah... OK. They could support the quick liberation of the oppressed peoples in Iraq and lose a paltry couple of million... but they'd rather let the Iraqis suffer and keep the cash. Well, I can see looking out for your own self interest, but wow... makes the whole thing seem rather mercenary.
It's not evil to be rich, and you can't force compassion and altruism (unless you are the government)... but it makes you think....
I have several ISA devices that I still use...
One's a modem (a REAL modem that I can configure with jumpers, that works under linux... don't even get me started on winmodems)
I also have a WINRADIO (or LINRADIO under linux); Those come as ISA cards if you get the internal version...
Yes, I know it's a dinosaur hardware interface, but I still find it useful... and I'll bet I'm not the only one. Hardware may find itself deprecated and unsupported (Apple's Newton, anyone?), but still useful.
So all cops and all white people are racist... Is that it? You accuse me of over-generalizing about social character of black males in an urban area, and then you tar all cops and all white people with an even broader brush? I never said that all black males were violent criminals, simply that some are, and that not all criminal charges are a result of racism. You seem to believe otherwise, based on your N=1 night in jail.
That was quite a stream-of-consciousness rant you typed... for an "ex-military intel analyst," you are not displaying very much logic or reason.
That's also quite an "I hate whitey" chip on your shoulder... that kind of rhetoric doesn't help make your case; it just gives more ammo to the racist nazi-wannabes out there. Quite honestly, it makes you sound like a militant nut.
Your blanket statements about all white people and cops totally invalidate the rest of your argument. Change the "white" to "black" in your statements and you sound just like a Klansman. Racism is wrong, whether it's white-on-black, or black-on-white, and don't give me any of that black-people-can't-be-racists nonsense. Anyone can be prejudiced, all it takes is a little hate, and that's something you seem to have in abundance.
I can't believe you just made a racial thing out of that...
Take a look at those arrest records on those urban black males you state are frivolously arrested. I'm going to go out on a limb here, and say that there'd be a variety of different crimes, including a few violent felonies, not just BS speeding tickets based on 100-year-old laws.
Now, I'm not implying that crime is genetic in black males or any of that National Alliance racist crap... it has a lot to do with being young urban males, making poor choices (as we all tend to do when young and stupid), and being surrounded by criminal subcultures, which young people tend to emulate. For instance, the "Gansta" style of dress... that whole thing simply escapes me. Why would anyone emulate a bunch of thugs, who largely prey on their own people? Boggles the mind...
OK... sorry, end of tangent. What I was trying to say is that people often get arrest records BECAUSE they commit crimes, not because "the man" is keeping them down.
I can see your point if we are simply talking about public nuisance-type crimes... but an armed robbery rap usually requires active participation.
from Bill Gates as the Borg, to Bill Gates as Judge Dredd...
"I don't break the law... I am the law!!"
Erm... on second thought, scratch that... might be too close to the truth to be funny.
yes... it sucks to be a poor college student. But call a spade a spade... these students are whores.
At one time I too was a poor college student.
I sold plasma right alongside the homeless guys at the plasma center down in the ghetto. I took a telemarketing job (*shudder* yeah, I still feel unclean. Even to this day, I sometimes wake in the dark of the night, shaking, in a cold sweat...No! Not the Phones! Noooo! The horror... the horror...).
I had to eat ramen, do my own car repairs (because I couldn't afford to pay somebody else) and lived in a smelly hole with a bunch of other guys for cheap rent.
What I didn't do was spam; even as an ex-telemarketer, I have to draw the line somewhere. At least in the telemarketing gig, people got the chance to give me a piece of their mind (and boy, did they!). I took my lumps... but spammers don't even get that little bit of comeuppance.
I'd like to withold judgement on this one, but I'm afraid that's just not possible. Rationalize it any way you like, but these students are ripping people off.
Twenty bucks? At least Judas got 30 pieces of silver...
Anyone who's ever dealt directly or indirectly with nuclear materials in the military knows what kind of security they require.
Guards authorized to use lethal force? Yep... they might not even try to arrest you.
The military uses pretty tight security to transport nukes... including multiple vehicles, on-call NEST teams (you don't want to meet those folks), and so forth. You think the hardened facilities where these things are stored long-term are just wide open for any reporter to walk into? If you really attempted to penetrate one of those areas, you'd find yourself proned out by an agressive 19yo, and his M16 muzzle would be drilled directly into the back of your head. After that pleasing introduction, the fun would REALLY start; as Ricky would say... you'd have some serious 'splainin to do. Nuclear security troops (often marines) have no sense of humor. It's hard to conjure up anything they would love more than laying a righteous smackdown on some snooping reporter... Imagine the fun they'd have had with this guy...
It's already been said, but I concur... I don't think this guy got close to anything important.
That's a truckload of data, even if it was just "traffic information."
I wonder just what that means... "traffic information." Surely time, date, duration, initiating and receiving parties. I can't see them having too much beyond that... It should be a logistical impossibility to have any information about the content of all those messages... way too much data to sift through and catalog.
Interesting that this was reportedly done by fiat.
I'm obsessive-compulsive about backups, precisely because data can be important (records, financial stuff, pics of the wife and kids, etc) and data is so ephemeral... just a dusting of magnetic molecules.
Plus, how often do you rebuild your machines? Linux boxen are no problem, but I am constantly retooling some box or other, and if it's a windows box, you'd better just start with a format and clean install. Taking an existing windows installation and swapping motherboards and peripherals around is like playing football with your wife's Waterford crystal... nothing good can come of it.
I also keep redundant backups... ever had your first backup fail? Or have you ever found that your CD-RW drive was making coasters instead of backups? I've had both... multiple redundant backups are the path to inner peace... you'd hate to lose those things that really mean something.
Losing the pics of your child? I can see a little crisis counseling being useful for that.
Some genius decides to blog on their mobile phone while driving.
You know it'll happen, because you've seen 'em too... driving with their knee, phone in one hand, lipstick (or a McDonalds shake) in the other, chatting away.
I don't know about you, but mindless "yeah.. Uh Huh..." conversation is at least possible while driving (and with a hand-free headset). As far as eloquent conversation goes, you probably won't be Winston Churchill while your attention is on the road, but you can at least make guttural affirmative noises. Blogging, on the other hand, requires some coherent, focused thought (insert obligatory comment about Slashdot trolls here).
Talking on a cell phone may be challenging, but I find dialing while driving to be almost impossible to do safely. Blogging on a cell phone? Somebody's gotta be dumb enough... I hope they have air bags.
only 3% have stopped buying CDs because prices are too high...
So, what? The other 97% also think prices are too high, but continue to buy CDs? The other 97% think prices are OK, but only patronize the used CD store? The other 97% think CDs are too low? Such a trite, convenient little statistic... what was the N?
100% of people surveyed (12 music industury executives in a quick boardroom poll), thought CDs were the bomb!
bah.
Interesting... I can't recall any kind of sideshow bob character; must've come on board after I stopped watching.
The killing was supposed to have been organized crime related. I always thought it was the boyfriend of one of the show's bikini dancers... there was this one, Claudia, that he seemed to have a real affinity for.
Heh... poor Paco. Then again, those drug cartels have a very direct way of expressing their displeasure; he should've known better.
It IS Ebays policy, apparently. They could certainly force a law enforcement agency to produce a warrant... but if they want to be more forthcoming than that, they are certainly within their rights.
Now, it may irk Ebay's USERS...
Of course, this could be open to abuse... Say you want your Ex-girlfriend's information... forge a law-enforcement agency letterhead, and fax the request from your local Kinkos (I wonder if they require a direct phone contact before they give up the goods... though that would also be easy to fake).
Hmmm... caveat emptor
Hahahah... Yes, I remember Univision. A few years ago I was living in south florida, and there was this great game show on the Univision network called Llevatelo.
I can still remember the hosts... Gaby Ruffo and Paco Stanley (Paco was later assassinated by some unsavory mexican mafia types in Mexico city... machine-gunned him while he was sitting in his Lincoln Navigator at some cafe... they did it in broad daylight in front of God and everybody... nasty)
Anyway, it was like a Nickelodeon show for adults... they would climb things, crawl through slime pits, etc for prizes. What struck me at the time was how sexist the show was in terms of prizes. Now, I'm no hypersensitive politically-correct type (those people make me want to vomit), but the prizes for the women were always a vacuum cleaner, a stove, a toaster, etc. Notably, the prizes for the men were always just a bit different: a car, a stereo, etc, but NO household appliances. I guess that's cultural... but it was still funny.
The chicas-dancing-in-bikinis theme was present throughout, however. It was actually quite entertaining, particularly if you spoke a little spanish.
I believe the phrase "turnabout is fair play" applies to this situation.
Keep in mind... the bullies are the original oppressors in the vast majority of these situations; most geeks just want to be left alone. Simply stated, the bullies started it, and foolishly, since they are sometimes ill-equiped to thrive in the long-term game.
Sometimes fate deals the bully a nice tall glass of bitter medicine later in life. The fact that a geek is glad to see it happen doesn't make him elitist; it may just mean that he can appreciate the irony of the situation. Now, He'd be out of line to smugly rub the bully's nose in it; that's a bit petty, and hardly necessary... the bully can taste the irony on his own.
Who isn't glad to see their oppressor get his comeuppance? On the other hand, I'd say there's something wrong with someone who obsesses about it, or makes it their life's mission to be the hand of geek justice... but a private chuckle at someone getting a taste of their own medicine?
Hardly elitist.
My experience has been that the elite schools can be worse than the public ones.
I experienced the Lord-of-the-Flies "mercedes edition" firsthand at an elite, wealthy college prep school in the midwest (which will remain unnamed). There were three types of kids that went to that school:
The kids who were incredibly bright (they were poor, but maxed out the entrance exams)
The kids who were athletes.
And the kids whose parents bought their way in.
Absolutely the cliquiest place I've ever seen... most of these kids started in the same prep-school pipeline together from 1st grade onward, and it was impossible to break in. Also, the politics were pernicious and nasty. If you were getting picked on by some kid whose dad was a fortune 500 CEO, the school would do nothing about it, particularly if your dad was some kind of small-fry (ie. just a doctor or small-fry businessman). Watching the school look the other way was an unpleasant eye-opener. The administration blindly backed the teachers, and denied any problems existed, even when the teachers were frankly abusive to students. I WAS the bottom of the ladder... nobody lower. Unfortunately, my parents were too involved in some other problems of their own to deal with mine, so I failed out on purpose just to get the hell out of there. The only thing worse than a bully is a spoiled-rich, politically-protected bully... and I had to deal with a school full of them. Not fun.
The public school I subsequently attended was a very different affair. Where I had been high-average at the college prep school, I ended up with the highest ACT/SAT scores in my public school of 2500 students. I also had a much larger pool of people from which to choose friends, and I chose the "hoods." A hood would never stab you in the back for one more shred of popularity... they were nothing if not loyal (and many of them were actually great guys).
I survived by keeping to myself (whenever the jock-types would let me... sheesh... some of those maggots just couldn't leave well enough alone). I had enough sense not to antagonize people, but making them look stupid was often my only retaliation for their snide remarks and cruelty, so I used it. Yes, it sometimes hurt me more in the end, but ask any Prisoner-of-War how important those "small victories" are against their captors. The answer: pretty damned important. You have to keep resisting to the bitter end... if you give up, you die.
I was socially inept, but had enough insight to realize it, and didn't put myself in situations where that handicap could become a liability.
That's all 20 years ago for me now... but I can still remember some of those people if I really try. The angst is gone, and I wouldn't go out of my way now to skewer one of those people (it wouldn't be worth my time). And yet, I can certainly understand the desire (expressed by multiple people in this discussion) to gig one of them, just to return the favor. There's something deeply satisfying about being the agent of karmic retribution.
Amen to that. My wife and I both work, and each of us has multiple jobs, some with independent contractor status, some as employee, different retirement plans, money earned while working outside the United States, investments, etc, etc. Like you, my tax return makes my head spin... I'm overjoyed that I can pay somebody to expertly maneuver that minefield for me, and even if my attorney didn't get me money back every year, it would be worth every penny for the frustation it saves.
I see the whole Jack-of-all-trades philosophy as OK for some things, until you start risking life, limb, or, as they say, "real money."
When the stakes are high, you're just better off hiring an expert.
Why not? He's forcing the hardware to do something its designers/makers didn't intend.
l ashdot-hackers-think-they're-doing types, what's not to like?
By studying the hardware and software, he's succesfully extended the functionality of the device... why wouldn't this be reverse-engineering? Am I misunderstanding the term? (If I am, I'm sure hordes of ACs are just itching to tell me so)
Aibo owners make their dogs do all kinds of crazy stuff (that sony didn't intend) and extend the functionality of those devices; I'd say it's about the same thing... clearly a hack.
Now, he may not be trying to "stick it to the man" using Philip's device this way, but he's made a useful product more so... Unless you're some kind of anal It's-my-proprietary-design-what-do-those-damned-s
I didn't like TurboTax anyway... this just gives me another good reason not to use it. Writing to the HD boot sector? What the hell?
Personally, I have my taxes done by a very good tax attorney, and the guy is an absolute wizard. For my money, there is no substitute for that level of expertise, particularly if you have a very complicated return. Tax software is great and all, but if that audit notice ever comes, I'd much rather have my personal tax attorney sitting next to me when I'm facing the IRS guy across the table.
Yes, he's expensive, but serious expertise costs money, and it's something where I'd be leery about going cheap. It's like buying the bargain-basement parachute, or the bulletproof vest that's 70% off...
I'm sure TurboTax is fine software, but it's not for me, particularly with this DRM stuff. I'm a thief until proven otherwise, but I'm supposed to trust them will all my financial info?
Bah.
I remember learning about James Watt... I certainly never learned about the patent angle, and his subsequent crushing of his competitors. An interesting hypothesis, that his patent and "rent-seeking behavior" delayed the industrial revolution by 30+ years.
I don't know when the IP-seeking behavior began in academia (I haven't been in it long enough to pontificate about the "old days). Perhaps it has always been there, and people were simply much more discrete about their patent filings.
Some of the patent drive may be related to the "publish-or-perish" mentality that exists at many larger universities. Aside from generating prestige and name-recognition, having a nice fat generating-income-for-the-university patent out there could do wonders for your chances of being granted tenure. Then again, it might also be a transparent attempt to financially rest on one's laurels, as it were.
Heheh... that's quite a good pickup on your part. I have indeed never clicked a Goatse.cx link. From your description, I'm not missing much.
I know I'm probably in the minority here on Slashdot, but I've gotta say: I am not into Pr0n. I'm a regular married guy, and I just don't get into that kind of thing.
I can certainly understand the attraction, since sex is something that motivates many people... but I can't see having a Terabyte RAID at home, filled with Pr0n... really, it does nothing for me.
Quite honestly, I avoid (like the freakin' plague) anything that includes "Goat" and "sex" in the same sentence. My own imagination paints quite a vivid enough picture as it is... *shiver*
Goatsx links...
Penis Birds...
Natalie Portman dancing, covered in Hot Grits...
Soviet Russia...
3. ????
4. Profit!!
Don't get me wrong, I love Slashdot... but what about the above makes the moniker "freak" seem terribly unreasonable? (OK... the Natalie Portman thing could be chalked up to adolescent testosterone poisoning, but Goatsex? Cmon!)
Counterpane had a little blurb on their website about it... Crypto stuff
This may have been where the original "Snake Oil" comment came from.
I'm no elite cryptographer; I just try to be an educated user. I rely on people far smarter, and with far more expertise than I'll ever have in the field of cryptography to give me an idea of whether something is reasonably good. That said, even a rank amateur like myself can detect marketing-speak...
I have no authoritative expertise with which to judge encryption algorithms, but outrageous claims tend to speak for themselves... in a negative way.
I'm still using a palm IIIx, and it's more than adequate. The color screens and multimedia coolness are great though...
;)
I admit that my use of a PDA is basically as a mobile "black book" and scheduling device. Seriously, how many people honestly require all these awesome features? (I understand the "bragging rights" argument, but I work with a stable of non-geeks who could hardly appreciate this device... they don't even know how to rip/encode an MP3...)
Still, I do like the fact that it runs on Linux
Good question.
My Archos jukebox MP3 player gets roughly 7 hours of use on a set of 4 AA NiMH batteries... but it only intermittently runs the drive to fill up the buffer (this habit also adds to its shock resistance).
So how is this little Sony WiFi jobby going to serve files to up to 250 users without going dead in about 10 minutes flat? (not to mention the juice the 802.11 transmit/receive sucks down). Even for non-enterprise "baking UP purposes," at WiFi speeds, will this thing have enough juice to handle backing up 17gigs of data? Did they even mention battery capacity? I didn't see it...
This will have to be plugged in. I don't know why they are bothering with batteries at all.