Reminds me of my in-depth psychological conversations with 'Eliza' on the C64. How does 'to fuck' make you feel?....
Re:Read something that will FUCK with your head
on
A Good Summer Read?
·
· Score: 1
Also in this category (though more for creepy weirdness rather than drug-induced weirdness) is House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. The only book I've read where, from time to time, you'd begin to think you were actually part of the story rather than just reading it. Technically more in the horror/thriller genre than SF though. Also, anyone who has ever seen it has to admit it must have been a type-setters wet-dream with it's pages after pages of colored, spiraling, inverted, transposed and randomly allocated text.
Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage by Cliff Stoll
Good documentary account of tracing international hackers from a sysadmin-like guy's point of view. A little dated now but well-written, humorous and very entertaining.
This reminds me of that late 80's or early 90's show about a SWAT team in Las Vegas. What was it called? Bad Boys? Let everyone wear ninja masks and have flashlights on their guns. Ooooo..cool. When I was 10.
Seriously, though, could be a good idea if you introduce some of the moral, political and intrigue concepts. Need to give them a good motivating factor (like some shows use controversial concepts like the drug war). Star Trek meets The Wire. HBO should pick this up.
Is this the desparate attempt of a dying company to litigate revenue or is it a threat against IBM by the UNIX vendor to stay away from open source? A one billion dollar lawsuit is sure to draw CEO-level attention. I hope this doesn't prompt IBM (and others) to reconsider their Linux stance for fear of IP infringement. I hope this doesn't start a trend, widespread lawsuits like this could kill big player support for open source pretty quick, even if they are frivolous (which this one might not be).
Another thing about Thinkpads I found out. I used to connect my a T21 to a 19" external monitor, but couldn't get an external keyboard to work. I'd use the TP keyboard with the external monitor. So I didn't have to look at a blank display, I tilted the TP LCD all the way back so that it was almost at 180 degrees in relation to the kb. I found out that this stresses the wires that lead to the LCD, and after a few months in that position, the LCD no longer worked. Pitch one more Thinkpad. Oh well. I still like them a helluva lot better than the HPs, Toshibas and (god forbid) the Dells my company has employed over the years. The Thinkpads are very comfortable to use, very ergonomic. A note about the Dells, they were uniformly built like shit. The frickng keys fall off the keyboards. I don't think I knew a single person who had a Dell laptop that wasn't missing at least one key.
A few years ago I had a Thinkpad 600 as a work computer. I knocked a glass of wine on the keyboard one night and *zap*, the thing fried instantly. Little bit of smoke and odor too. I took it into work on Monday and gave it over to the tech folks, told them it 'just stopped working'. Of course they could smell burnt grapes on the keyboard and told me they were putting me on the 'abusers list', which means absolutely nothing. (2 demerits for you!)
About a month ago I spilled a Captain and Coke on the keyboard of my personal TP T23. Learning from past experience I immediately flipped the thing upside down, pulled the power cable and ripped out the battery. Wiped it down and tried to power it back up...nothing. I figured it fried and was pissed. The next morning I wake up to this beeping noise in my kitchen. Go out to take a look. The T23 is powered up, running and low on battery. Resurrection. Go figure.
Also spilled Captain and Coke on my current HP lapop. Nothing fried but a I have a number of sticky keys, probably should look into cleaning that up.
Used to dip Skoal when I was in college, especially while playing games on my computer. Spilled more than a couple of cups filled with spit on my PC keyboard, but never had any problem (besides the disgusting appearance of the keyboard covered in little flecks of tobacco and brown stains, which is still in use on a Linux server, 8 years later). My ex-roommate would occasionly use the server console to look things up on the web because she didn't have a computer of her own. She kept a pair of rubber kitchen gloves next to the box so she wouldn't have to touch the kb with her bare hands.
That same Linux server I assembled myself. The first mobo that I had for it never fired up. I'm not exactly sure why, but there are three possible explanations: 1) I was building it without static guard during winter on the hardwood floor of my apartment. Might have fried it that way, but unlikely. 2) The instructions for installing the heat sink for my AMD processor were a little confusing, and I was doing it backwards initially. The instructions said that I may need to apply a bit of force to get the sink on, but I might have torqued the board more than intended. 3) The board was fried out of the box. Either way, it was replaced without cost and when I got the new board I had no probs.
Having just chugged through the entire Sopranos set over Christmas and now working my way through '24', I think DVD's are the best way to expeience a continuuity-heavy show. No missing of episodes to throw you off, no building a schedule around the show, no waiting an entire week or (gasp) and entire summer to see how something plays out. Perhaps that means this is a third category outside of the quick cuts of TV and the medium-cuts of movies: the long-cuts of a DVD series.
Speaking as someone who has been cashless for the past 3 weeks (too lazy to go to the ATM, plenty of cash in my checking account), a plastic life ins't too horrible. My primary complaint is with 2 aspects:
1) Slow bandwidth. Sometimes those who accept credit/debit cards use dial-up modems to authenticate. This causes me a few extra minutes in the checkout line and a few dirty looks from the people in line behind me. I visited a Home Depot today (for phone line punch-down baords, if you must know) and their system was lightening-quick. Every quicker than cash. With $40/mo. DSL lines, makes you wonder why the rest of businesses haven't signed up.
2) Lack of credit/debit card support. I want all my cabs to support this. I want fast-food restaurants to support this. Everytime I buy something, I should be able to swipe. (I understand the cab/wireless dilemma, but why doesn't Wendy's have swipe stalls at the drive-thru?)
We are 90% there in terms of economical technology. But there is still a sort of stigma associated with using a piece of plastic to buy things. Like you can't afford it. Why is this?
Why is this in the NYT magazine and not the front page of the NYT. Perhaps/. readers should be emailing (or snailmailing, or faxing) NYT to get this on the front-page. Something that costs ISPs billions(?) of dollars per year would be extremely relevant to the readership of the NYT.
Only $2000? That isn't much of a return on investment for spending so much time and effort. One would think he could do a lot better. Perhaps he had too much data to work with. I think maybe this guy should have learned some scripting skills to harvest a few more credit card numbers
Just last night there was a special on Discovery channel called "Science of the Sexes" that discussed the difference between males and females in multi-tasking. It seems that women are neurologically set up to handle multitasking much better than men, whereas men are geared to focusing in on single tasks. I wasn't paying real close attention at the time, but I think the reasons had something to do with there being less connections between the right and left hemispheres in a male brain than in a females. (Can anyone confirm?)
If this is the case, you might be able to think of it as female neurology provides a distributed processing architecture. Each area within the brain may allow a person to perform a different functions such as talking on the phone, doing math, making soup and writing a letter. The female brain provides more bandwidth between different areas of the brain to allow distributed processing of complex, compartmentalized tasks.
Males brains, on the other hand, are set up with a centralized architecture (like a mainframe or supercomputer, for instance), Because they can't switch focus from one area to another, or coordinate areas as easily, they aren't very good at multitasking. But, by the same token, men become best equipped to efficiently handle single, processining-intensive monolithic tasks that stay in one area. They are neuroligically inclined to focus because that's easier for them.
These conditions, or course, are driven by evolution. Men were required to perform intnsive long-running tasks like the coordinated stalking and killing of large animals. Women, on the other hand, where required to perform many diverse tasks simulataenously involved in running the households, gathering food, cooking, taking care of children, etc.
Ok. Do you know the latest Java/C/C++ patterns? Yes? Great. Do you know what to do with XYZ algorithms? Fine. I gotta lay down the truth here. I don't give a damn what you know or don't know. I want someone that can make my job easier....i.e. either save my company/client money, or make money for my client/company money with me having to do as little oversight as possible (assuming I'm your manager). Do you take on new tech challenges and responsibilities with enthusiasm? Have you ever worked a menial job and found yourself working towards making things better, bigger, faster with no prodding? Do you count matchsticks which fall on the floor? You are a gear-head, but can you talk to pointy-headed-bosses? Great, you have growth potential, OR no, you can still be a valuable gearhead to me. DO YOU DO YOUR FRIGGIN JOB? Do you go home at 5 even though deadlines have not been met? Do you have a dream, and does it involve perfection of your code? Are you flexible, can you take on new technologies? Are you resilient, can you work on the same old shit for years on end? Do you understand the software development lifecycle and your role in it? Yes? Good, explain it to me. Do you know what testing is? Do you know what version control is? Do you know what UNIX is? No? Well, your're just like the rest of them, can I see your standardized test results? No. I don't care about your certifications.
Think small. I'm assuming (I hope) you are located in a large city (as this market is the most likely to offer opportunites and the one I'm most familiar with). Take small contracting jobs. There are plenty positions out there for coders-for-hire. Look for opportunities in the financial industry (banks, brokerages and exchanges) as they are under the most stress for tech projects. Bring yourself to play as an individual contractor and then work that to bring on your co-workers. Play on what they are looking for, probe for their weaknesses, and try to fill them in an interview. If you have some credentials, or can make something believable up, go for it. Talk intelligently, probe in the interview to find their needs. Lie as neccessary, but not beyond your means. Remember, if they had a sufficient number of competent people working for them, they wouldn't be looking for contractors. The ends (if you are capable) will justify the means (this is a balance between shifty sales people and street-side technologists).
Ok. Let suppose the following hypothetical situation:
I have cable internet, shared bandwidth. I do not use file trading networks (either because I'm a good RIAA-clone or because the materials I get off these networks is crap). I share my bandwidth with Kazaa lusers. DoS is allowed against my neighbor, the Kazaa luser. I suffer reduced ROI for my connection as a result. Pop quiz: Who do I get to sue? Who do I get to sue?
I've done this before, and the most important advice I can give is limit the number of suppliers you get parts from. If possible, buy everything from one vendor. This a)reduces your shipping costs b)reduces the number of transactions you have to manage. (Any issues you have, you only deal with one place).
If you do it right, you can get all of your components to show up on your doorstep at one time. Also, pick a dealer with a good reputation. It may cost a little more money to do things this way rather than grazing pricewatch.com for the lowest on everything, but the extra cash you spend is worth the headache you might be saving.
Yeah.. the no local news, traffic or weather is a bit of a bad deal. Especially since traffic and weather are so variable where I live (Chicago). Also, I looked at the channels and really only found one station I'd probably listen to.
What XM and Sirius really need to do is become like DirectTV and start re-broadcasting some local stations for metropolitan areas and some of the better indepenedent stations around the country (and the world). I imagine there is a market for ex-patriates who would like to hear music, news, etc from their home countries. I personally would like access to the better rock stations in London, LA and NYC. I also miss NYC's local NPR station from when I used to live there. The Chicago one just isn't the same.
cynicism is the difference between science and magic. His theory should be approached with with doubt in mind, but not outright dismissal. From reading the paper, however, I am by no means convinced. I need some practical proof. Very interesting though.
When I went to school at Indiana, they had 'public access' UNIX labs in some of the buildings around campus. Not Linux, but Solaris and IRIX. Though they were mainly geared for graphics and CS students, anyone could get an account just be applying on a web page. I think that is a good approach to getting initial interest in the Linux labs. Start small (a couple dozen machines), put productivity software, graphics and science apps on the machines. And let people begin to use them at their leisure. If your school is anything like mine was, there are always a shortage of available public PCs and you'll find that students who wouldn't normally show up at the Linux lab, will just come for the open PCs. Make sure the lab is staffed with people who can translate from Windows to Linux, and gradually you'll gain acceptance and begin to spread out the labs.
If the method worked so well in the music industry, how come we have so much garbage coming out in the music industry to this day? For every decent band in the spotlight, I can name 50 that should be there and 200 that shouldn't....and that includes hip hop and "new country" (alt-country?).
I think you will see the same lopsided results in books. The literature industry controls (to a slightly lesser degree than the music industry) what is made available to the public, and far more importantly, what is publicized to the public. That which does not get publicity, will not succeed on a mainstream level. If a book (no matter how good it is) is not considered mainstream material (read: risk-averse vanilla) then it will not hit the bestsellers list. Some of the better music/books out there will never be accepted by the mainstream, but achieve decent sales through the phenomenon known as 'cult'. 'Cult' tends to not be significant enough to be blockbuster (as the music industry has shown).
Slashdot Mirror
Ah, the Segway.
All the inconveniance of walking without the dignity.
Reminds me of my in-depth psychological conversations with 'Eliza' on the C64. How does 'to fuck' make you feel?....
Also in this category (though more for creepy weirdness rather than drug-induced weirdness) is House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. The only book I've read where, from time to time, you'd begin to think you were actually part of the story rather than just reading it. Technically more in the horror/thriller genre than SF though. Also, anyone who has ever seen it has to admit it must have been a type-setters wet-dream with it's pages after pages of colored, spiraling, inverted, transposed and randomly allocated text.
Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage by Cliff Stoll
Good documentary account of tracing international hackers from a sysadmin-like guy's point of view. A little dated now but well-written, humorous and very entertaining.
This reminds me of that late 80's or early 90's show about a SWAT team in Las Vegas. What was it called? Bad Boys? Let everyone wear ninja masks and have flashlights on their guns. Ooooo..cool. When I was 10.
Seriously, though, could be a good idea if you introduce some of the moral, political and intrigue concepts. Need to give them a good motivating factor (like some shows use controversial concepts like the drug war). Star Trek meets The Wire. HBO should pick this up.
Is this the desparate attempt of a dying company to litigate revenue or is it a threat against IBM by the UNIX vendor to stay away from open source? A one billion dollar lawsuit is sure to draw CEO-level attention. I hope this doesn't prompt IBM (and others) to reconsider their Linux stance for fear of IP infringement. I hope this doesn't start a trend, widespread lawsuits like this could kill big player support for open source pretty quick, even if they are frivolous (which this one might not be).
Another thing about Thinkpads I found out. I used to connect my a T21 to a 19" external monitor, but couldn't get an external keyboard to work. I'd use the TP keyboard with the external monitor. So I didn't have to look at a blank display, I tilted the TP LCD all the way back so that it was almost at 180 degrees in relation to the kb. I found out that this stresses the wires that lead to the LCD, and after a few months in that position, the LCD no longer worked. Pitch one more Thinkpad. Oh well. I still like them a helluva lot better than the HPs, Toshibas and (god forbid) the Dells my company has employed over the years. The Thinkpads are very comfortable to use, very ergonomic. A note about the Dells, they were uniformly built like shit. The frickng keys fall off the keyboards. I don't think I knew a single person who had a Dell laptop that wasn't missing at least one key.
A few years ago I had a Thinkpad 600 as a work computer. I knocked a glass of wine on the keyboard one night and *zap*, the thing fried instantly. Little bit of smoke and odor too. I took it into work on Monday and gave it over to the tech folks, told them it 'just stopped working'. Of course they could smell burnt grapes on the keyboard and told me they were putting me on the 'abusers list', which means absolutely nothing. (2 demerits for you!)
About a month ago I spilled a Captain and Coke on the keyboard of my personal TP T23. Learning from past experience I immediately flipped the thing upside down, pulled the power cable and ripped out the battery. Wiped it down and tried to power it back up...nothing. I figured it fried and was pissed. The next morning I wake up to this beeping noise in my kitchen. Go out to take a look. The T23 is powered up, running and low on battery. Resurrection. Go figure.
Also spilled Captain and Coke on my current HP lapop. Nothing fried but a I have a number of sticky keys, probably should look into cleaning that up.
Used to dip Skoal when I was in college, especially while playing games on my computer. Spilled more than a couple of cups filled with spit on my PC keyboard, but never had any problem (besides the disgusting appearance of the keyboard covered in little flecks of tobacco and brown stains, which is still in use on a Linux server, 8 years later). My ex-roommate would occasionly use the server console to look things up on the web because she didn't have a computer of her own. She kept a pair of rubber kitchen gloves next to the box so she wouldn't have to touch the kb with her bare hands.
That same Linux server I assembled myself. The first mobo that I had for it never fired up. I'm not exactly sure why, but there are three possible explanations: 1) I was building it without static guard during winter on the hardwood floor of my apartment. Might have fried it that way, but unlikely. 2) The instructions for installing the heat sink for my AMD processor were a little confusing, and I was doing it backwards initially. The instructions said that I may need to apply a bit of force to get the sink on, but I might have torqued the board more than intended. 3) The board was fried out of the box. Either way, it was replaced without cost and when I got the new board I had no probs.
Gee, maybe I should be on an 'abusers list'.
You worked at McDonalds for 4 years in high school? Was McDonalds hiring 14 year olds back then or were you on the 6-year high-school plan?
Having just chugged through the entire Sopranos set over Christmas and now working my way through '24', I think DVD's are the best way to expeience a continuuity-heavy show. No missing of episodes to throw you off, no building a schedule around the show, no waiting an entire week or (gasp) and entire summer to see how something plays out. Perhaps that means this is a third category outside of the quick cuts of TV and the medium-cuts of movies: the long-cuts of a DVD series.
Speaking as someone who has been cashless for the past 3 weeks (too lazy to go to the ATM, plenty of cash in my checking account), a plastic life ins't too horrible. My primary complaint is with 2 aspects:
1) Slow bandwidth. Sometimes those who accept credit/debit cards use dial-up modems to authenticate. This causes me a few extra minutes in the checkout line and a few dirty looks from the people in line behind me. I visited a Home Depot today (for phone line punch-down baords, if you must know) and their system was lightening-quick. Every quicker than cash. With $40/mo. DSL lines, makes you wonder why the rest of businesses haven't signed up.
2) Lack of credit/debit card support. I want all my cabs to support this. I want fast-food restaurants to support this. Everytime I buy something, I should be able to swipe. (I understand the cab/wireless dilemma, but why doesn't Wendy's have swipe stalls at the drive-thru?)
We are 90% there in terms of economical technology. But there is still a sort of stigma associated with using a piece of plastic to buy things. Like you can't afford it. Why is this?
Why is this in the NYT magazine and not the front page of the NYT. Perhaps /. readers should be emailing (or snailmailing, or faxing) NYT to get this on the front-page. Something that costs ISPs billions(?) of dollars per year would be extremely relevant to the readership of the NYT.
Only $2000? That isn't much of a return on investment for spending so much time and effort. One would think he could do a lot better. Perhaps he had too much data to work with. I think maybe this guy should have learned some scripting skills to harvest a few more credit card numbers
Sam's not gonna waste the money on buying booze. He's gonna waste the money on building a still....or more capacitors
...media review site to move into game reviews on top of movies/TV.
Rottentomatos.com has been doing it for a little while now.
Just last night there was a special on Discovery channel called "Science of the Sexes" that discussed the difference between males and females in multi-tasking. It seems that women are neurologically set up to handle multitasking much better than men, whereas men are geared to focusing in on single tasks. I wasn't paying real close attention at the time, but I think the reasons had something to do with there being less connections between the right and left hemispheres in a male brain than in a females. (Can anyone confirm?)
If this is the case, you might be able to think of it as female neurology provides a distributed processing architecture. Each area within the brain may allow a person to perform a different functions such as talking on the phone, doing math, making soup and writing a letter. The female brain provides more bandwidth between different areas of the brain to allow distributed processing of complex, compartmentalized tasks.
Males brains, on the other hand, are set up with a centralized architecture (like a mainframe or supercomputer, for instance), Because they can't switch focus from one area to another, or coordinate areas as easily, they aren't very good at multitasking. But, by the same token, men become best equipped to efficiently handle single, processining-intensive monolithic tasks that stay in one area. They are neuroligically inclined to focus because that's easier for them.
These conditions, or course, are driven by evolution. Men were required to perform intnsive long-running tasks like the coordinated stalking and killing of large animals. Women, on the other hand, where required to perform many diverse tasks simulataenously involved in running the households, gathering food, cooking, taking care of children, etc.
Ok. Do you know the latest Java/C/C++ patterns? Yes? Great. Do you know what to do with XYZ algorithms? Fine. I gotta lay down the truth here. I don't give a damn what you know or don't know. I want someone that can make my job easier....i.e. either save my company/client money, or make money for my client/company money with me having to do as little oversight as possible (assuming I'm your manager). Do you take on new tech challenges and responsibilities with enthusiasm? Have you ever worked a menial job and found yourself working towards making things better, bigger, faster with no prodding? Do you count matchsticks which fall on the floor? You are a gear-head, but can you talk to pointy-headed-bosses? Great, you have growth potential, OR no, you can still be a valuable gearhead to me. DO YOU DO YOUR FRIGGIN JOB? Do you go home at 5 even though deadlines have not been met? Do you have a dream, and does it involve perfection of your code? Are you flexible, can you take on new technologies? Are you resilient, can you work on the same old shit for years on end? Do you understand the software development lifecycle and your role in it? Yes? Good, explain it to me. Do you know what testing is? Do you know what version control is? Do you know what UNIX is? No? Well, your're just like the rest of them, can I see your standardized test results? No. I don't care about your certifications.
Think small. I'm assuming (I hope) you are located in a large city (as this market is the most likely to offer opportunites and the one I'm most familiar with). Take small contracting jobs. There are plenty positions out there for coders-for-hire. Look for opportunities in the financial industry (banks, brokerages and exchanges) as they are under the most stress for tech projects. Bring yourself to play as an individual contractor and then work that to bring on your co-workers. Play on what they are looking for, probe for their weaknesses, and try to fill them in an interview. If you have some credentials, or can make something believable up, go for it. Talk intelligently, probe in the interview to find their needs. Lie as neccessary, but not beyond your means. Remember, if they had a sufficient number of competent people working for them, they wouldn't be looking for contractors. The ends (if you are capable) will justify the means (this is a balance between shifty sales people and street-side technologists).
Ok. Let suppose the following hypothetical situation:
I have cable internet, shared bandwidth. I do not use file trading networks (either because I'm a good RIAA-clone or because the materials I get off these networks is crap). I share my bandwidth with Kazaa lusers. DoS is allowed against my neighbor, the Kazaa luser. I suffer reduced ROI for my connection as a result. Pop quiz: Who do I get to sue? Who do I get to sue?
I've done this before, and the most important advice I can give is limit the number of suppliers you get parts from. If possible, buy everything from one vendor. This a)reduces your shipping costs b)reduces the number of transactions you have to manage. (Any issues you have, you only deal with one place).
If you do it right, you can get all of your components to show up on your doorstep at one time. Also, pick a dealer with a good reputation. It may cost a little more money to do things this way rather than grazing pricewatch.com for the lowest on everything, but the extra cash you spend is worth the headache you might be saving.
Yeah .. the no local news, traffic or weather is a bit of a bad deal. Especially since traffic and weather are so variable where I live (Chicago). Also, I looked at the channels and really only found one station I'd probably listen to.
What XM and Sirius really need to do is become like DirectTV and start re-broadcasting some local stations for metropolitan areas and some of the better indepenedent stations around the country (and the world). I imagine there is a market for ex-patriates who would like to hear music, news, etc from their home countries. I personally would like access to the better rock stations in London, LA and NYC. I also miss NYC's local NPR station from when I used to live there. The Chicago one just isn't the same.
cynicism is the difference between science and magic. His theory should be approached with with doubt in mind, but not outright dismissal. From reading the paper, however, I am by no means convinced. I need some practical proof. Very interesting though.
When I went to school at Indiana, they had 'public access' UNIX labs in some of the buildings around campus. Not Linux, but Solaris and IRIX. Though they were mainly geared for graphics and CS students, anyone could get an account just be applying on a web page. I think that is a good approach to getting initial interest in the Linux labs. Start small (a couple dozen machines), put productivity software, graphics and science apps on the machines. And let people begin to use them at their leisure. If your school is anything like mine was, there are always a shortage of available public PCs and you'll find that students who wouldn't normally show up at the Linux lab, will just come for the open PCs. Make sure the lab is staffed with people who can translate from Windows to Linux, and gradually you'll gain acceptance and begin to spread out the labs.
Lessee...need to move my seat back...ummm.
U-U-D-L-L-RF-D-L-U
dang..scissor-kicked the driver.
Oh well...might as well finish him.
D-D-L-U-LF-UF-D-U--D-L-L
Thwack!
If the method worked so well in the music industry, how come we have so much garbage coming out in the music industry to this day? For every decent band in the spotlight, I can name 50 that should be there and 200 that shouldn't....and that includes hip hop and "new country" (alt-country?).
I think you will see the same lopsided results in books. The literature industry controls (to a slightly lesser degree than the music industry) what is made available to the public, and far more importantly, what is publicized to the public. That which does not get publicity, will not succeed on a mainstream level. If a book (no matter how good it is) is not considered mainstream material (read: risk-averse vanilla) then it will not hit the bestsellers list. Some of the better music/books out there will never be accepted by the mainstream, but achieve decent sales through the phenomenon known as 'cult'. 'Cult' tends to not be significant enough to be blockbuster (as the music industry has shown).