I am in a constant battle with one of my customers over this very idea. A new team bought the company I had worked with for years and has tried to implement all sorts of new ideas. So far, I have had to fight the "No, you do NOT want an open access point on your network, no matter how badly your visiting vendors need to be able to access the internet without a password" fight. Then there was the guy who made several frantic emergency calls to me.... because he couldn't get his CDROM to play his music CDs anymore. First off, it's an office, that's hardly a requirement. Secondly, it was on some spare computer they had found in the office, and had set it up because this new guy NEEDED his own computer, yet never did anything with it or used any of the programs. Since it ran windows, it was the only one in the office with a working CD and sound. I didn't have CDROM drives in any of the workstation computers ever since one of their vendors tried to install some program on one of them, and somehow in the resulting frustration of trying ot figure out why his windows programs weren't running under linux, started rebooting computers and tampering with the network, and finally leaving.
Oh, and they had a vendor who wanted to get online, so found the dsl modem, unplugged it from our network and plugged his laptop into it. Only problem was, it wasn't set up for dhcp, so he wasn't able to actually get an ip address. So his solution was to unplug every modem looking device he could find, including 2 switches and one router, and after giving up, just left it like that. Amazingly, I was able to talk someone through getting most of it hooked back up over the phone. I kept all of this in a back closet that I had instructed everyone to not let anyone have access to.
And now, I'm actually in the process of helping them transition to a new system, at their request, so they can fire me. What's amusing is the fact that they can't even seem to do that right, and I'm bending over backwards to make it posible for them. What scares me and excites me at the same time is the fact that I know that 3 days after they decide they no longer need me, they will suddenly discover that I was doing a lot more for them than simply providing support for a single software package, which is all they're going to have once I'm gone. The next time their printer breaks or a workstation won't boot... well, I don't know who they're going to call, but it's not going to be me.
YAY!
No.. They'll want me back.. at least for a little while. And I'll let them hire me back... after they've made a colossal mess of things. Because that's what I do. I fix the nightmares of someone else's creation.
Now, the point I was really trying to make here. They pay the bills, so they are the boss, and although I can object endlessly to their braindead requests, it's still my job to do it, or quit. And they have the root password to all of the systems, just in case I get hit by a bus. Thankfully, they really don't know what to do with it, so it doesn't affect me at all. I did have a test of wills with one of them once though when they brought a windows laptop in from home for office use. I demanded they be in compliance on all licenses for all software installed on that system, and keep that documentation on site. The end solution was uninstalling almost everything on it. Hey, I'm not going to be the one who gets blamed when one of the 20-year employees they were firing on a monthly basis for "not being a team player" decided to listen to those stupid SPA radio ads and get a little vengeance.
I can resonate with #3 a bit. A company that I have been providing leased accounting software and support to for years is about to switch to something entirely new (and in the process, no longer require my services). Now, while the loss of monthly income (when they pay on time) is certainly cause for concern, I also won't have to answer phone calls while I'm sleeping, and it will free up my more conventional work schedule so I can consider other job opportunities.
The problem here, is that just today I got an email from the guys who are involved in the process of converting the company over to the new software. We are once again, for the third time now, starting from scratch with someone new who has no idea of what work has been done before. I'm getting emails with a bunch of specs and "can you do this for us" when I already did all of it months ago.
And I know, for a fact, that there will be extensive resistance to the change. The software they're using now they've been using for 20+ years. The girls who work with it know it so well that they can crank out orders in literally a few seconds. No need to look up part numbers, or customer numbers, or do a lot of mouse manipulation, and they can do it without even looking at the screen for the most part. This allows them to have 1 office manager and one secretary handle a workload that involves taking phone orders at a rate of about one per minute. Each.
When... if.. this switchover happens, they'll probably need to hire several new people just to handle it, at least for a little while. Not to mention, I provide nearly all of their computer services. I maintain their network, I handle their backups, both onsite and offline. When the printer stops working or a computer won't boot, they call me, and if necessary, I jump in my car, go down there, and fix the problem. I suspect they don't realize everything that I actually do, so they'll plop in a bunch of windows boxes (they currently use all linux right now), get the software set up, wish them well, and leave. Sure, the new provider will support the software package, but I'm sure the first time they get a virus they're going to be SOL.
And the best part of it is, I WON'T HAVE TO DEAL WITH IT!!!!:)
Assuming the people who wrote and sell this software reside in the US or some country which will happily extradite them for us, it's possible that what they're doing isn't technically illegal. They're not actually USING the software, just selling it. This is somewhat equivalent to someone selling lockpicks. Granted, this software probably has no legitimate purpose, except perhaps to be used for security audits or something. However, even if it IS illegal, to get the Feds involved will require an almost certain guarantee of conviction. They want a jury to be debating the length of the sentence, not whether or not the suspects are actually guilty or not. If there is enough legal doubt as to whether or not a crime was even committed, the Feds will be leery of even getting involved.
So fine, lets pass a law making the creation and/or publication of software that has mostly malicious intent. That'll be good... right? The only problem is, Congress gets to write that law. This means three things. First off, the law will likely be written in a way that is so vague that it ends up not only applying to the software in question, but half of the legitimate software ever written. Before you know it, all advertising, security software, operating systems other than windows, and of course, the ping program, will now be considered illegal.. technically. This means that the law will end up not being enforced. Next, they will be sure to word it in such a way as to render it unconstitutional, so next thing you know, the Supreme Court will tie it up for 10 years, and finally kill it. And finally, you can't pass a law without attaching a large number of completely unrelated riders, which will end up causing parties opposed to the riders to vote against and/or filibuster the bill, which causes the other side to insist that the opposing party WANTS people to have their banking credentials stolen... and so on.
Anyways, to answer your question, Yes. You were simplifying it. It would be MUCH easier to just find a way to sneak a few images of child porn on one of their computers, and shut them down that way. THAT avenue at least seems to have no roadblocks.
It's like any other obscure car problem. Assuming there is an ACTUAL problem, despite the lack of efforts to find it, it will probably not affect more than 100-150 vehicles over the lifetime of all of the products that have the potentially faulty system. It's enough to justify a recall, but on the other hand, it's probably less of an occurrence than random chance would otherwise provide. Even if there IS a glaring problem, most Toyota owners will never experience it.
The problem now is that Toyota has a PR problem and they're going to have to find a way to solve it. Either discover a technical flaw... ANY flaw.. and fix it, or prove beyond the shadow of a doubt to a skeptic public that none exists.
R&D can and is a justified business expense. The problem is that most of the "green" energy is currently more expensive to produce than through conventional methods, and is likely to remain that way no matter how much money you throw at it, at least until the conventional methods become more expensive. Of course, when that happens, there will be a sudden surge in the development and deployment of green technologies, until the lack of demand results in cheaper fuel sources again, which means we'll be back to using it.
What this ultimately means that the best we can hope for is that as our energy needs grow, green technologies can pick up most of the extra need, but we will still have a large base load that's produced by conventional carbon based fuel sources.
Promo boxes that were intentionally designed to be used as such would come from the same source as the real product, and would therefore have the correct spelling on the packaging.
I think the point here is that the server is supposed to be "managed" already. He already understands that he's too n00b to properly handle the problem. What he IS requesting is any additional advice for simple activities or procedures that might help to improve the security and are within his abilities to implement on his own.
He's not asking how to perform surgery.. He's asking for advice on the proper way to apply a bandage.
As others have suggested, just use one of the coax lines to pull the cat5+ through. If that for some reason doesn't work, just run your own wires. It might be a pain, but those coax wires got installed SOMEHOW, so it can probably be done again.
As far as trying to throw together a solution with mixing multiple wires to achieve a pseudo cat5 connection, you probably don't want to bother. Attaining the high speeds is highly dependent on shielding, resistance, and wire balance, not to mention the fact that each of the coax wires is likely a different length. The speed of light might be fast, but it IS finite, and it starts to matter when you're working in the 10+ mbps range. You can suffer serious speed reduction if you have so much as half an inch of wires untwisted at the connection point... So yeah, trying to adapt the coax wires for an application they weren't designed for is not likely to have beneficial results.
I'm right handed. I shoot a pistol with my right hand. My watch is on my left wrist. While it is advisable to use both hands when firing a gun (for stability, as well as accuracy issues), it is certainly not required. If I understand this correctly, the gun is disarmed whenever it gets more than 20 cm away from the watch. Which means, as soon as I drop my arm to open a door, the gun will be disarmed. I'm assuming it doesn't get rearmed as soon as it gets back within range of the watch, as this would defeat the whole purpose of the automatic disarming feature. If the perp gets a gun away from me and turns it on me, and we get into a struggle, it will likely get back within the 20cm range, and then be usable again. And I certainly hope he doesn't try to steal my watch... because an armed assailant would NEVER try to do that....
I understand the issues at hande, I would expect your garden variety administrator might not be able to differentiate between a motion sensor and a bomb. The general masses don't always have a firm grasp on technology. I deal with this all the time. A person has no problem believing that there is this huge network, with millions, even billions of computers that spans the entire planet, connected by copper wires, fiber optics, and even satellite. This amazingly complex contraption can allow them to hold a live conversation with both audio and video with a person on the other side of the planet, and it won't cost them a thing. They download a whole CD of music or a movie in a matter of minutes. All of this is easily believable. However, a computer controlled lightswitch is CLEARLY fake, as there's NO possible way to do that.
I don't doubt that your average school administrator might suffer from the same technological myopia. They know what a stereo, TV , computer, flashlight, and cellphone look like. But get outside of that comfort zone and present them with an uncovered circuit board and some loose wires.... well.. that looks like a bomb, and they will react accordingly. This in and of itself is not surprising. What IS surprising is the fact that we're talking about a tech school here. You would assume that the bar would be set slightly higher in this circumstance. Enough to assume that those who teach and administrate at the school had at least an introductory electronics course at SOME point. One would assume anyway.
What are you doing with Ubuntu such that you so frequently lock it up that you have a key set aside to mitigate that particular frustration? Not that I've never locked up a linux box before, but it's rare. Then again, most of my boxes don't even have a monitor, so I'm probably not pushing the envelope much.
I know you're being sarcastic, but I vaguely recall having to use a lowercase L as a 1 key during typing class for some reason. I'm sure the typewriter had a 1 key, but I distinctly remember that the 1 and lower case L on that keyboard had the same footprint... dangit.. now I'm going to spend the next several days trying to figure out the significance of this.
He's trying to find a GIRLFRIEND, not a wife. Obviously, one would assume that the girlfriend might eventually become a wife, but since we're still at the girlfriend stage, the numbers can be adjusted a bit. Remove the college degree requirement and the attractive requirement, and there will be plenty of opportunities. I can certainly understand why someone is finding it difficult to find 30 year old, college educated, attractive women available who is also interested in return.
Remember... if at first you don't succeed, lower your standards.
If you haven't started working on it yet, figure out who owns the IP on the old game, track them down, and get permission. IN WRITING. If you can get it, you're home free and can safely not concern yourself with future legal challenges on the matter. If you don't get permission, then find some other idea to steal... or come up with your own. However, if you've already completed the game and you're just trying to find the safest way to release it without getting sued... well... good luck.
Please.... you wouldn't have to resort to anything as drastic as bombing... just have a nice sized boyscout troop march in and they'll surrender right off.
I can understand the whining about predatory loans when you're talking about someone who's making $8 an hour. While I wouldn't want to stereotype or anything, I can at least believe there's a chance that individual MIGHT not have the financial experience necessary to fully understand the nature of the mortgage. The borrower does some simple math, sees that he can probably "barely" afford the low payment on the APR loan, and after listening to a well rehearsed speech about how housing prices only go up year after year and there is absolutely no risk, and you'll be able to refinance and yada yada yada... Ok. I understand that one.
This guy, at one time, earned enough to be able to afford payments on a $1.3 million house. They did not just pluck this guy out of the ghetto and shove him into a house he couldn't afford. Anyone making a 6-figure salary (less than that he'd have no chance of affording the payments) should be able to understand how to purchase a house within his means. And, I hate to say it, but "barely getting by" is not the same thing as "living within your means". Living within your means implies that you're putting away 10% for retirement and an equal amount for an emergency fund (for medical, legal, or unemployment purposes). For major purchases (homes, cars), you put down a large down payment and the shortest payment schedule you can reasonably afford. Sometimes... it means passing on purchasing that extra 42" TV if it's going to cut into your saving budget.
The shows were also several minutes longer, but had to fit in the same 1 hour timeslot. They would cheat a bit on sindication and cut short the opening and credit scenes, but even then, you had a good 3-4 minutes more actual show time, and therefore less time for commercials.
myths about excessive code comments. Provide comments in places where the comment might be useful. If you have some obscure function, the purpose of which might be confusing if you or someone else looks at it a year later, then you need a comment. The more obscure or terse, the more detailed the comment should be. On the other hand, if the function's purpose is obvious just by glancing at it, or the function name is sufficient to describe the entire purpose of the function, there's probably not a need for any comments at all.
Within a function, if you only have nested loops one deep, there's probably no need to comment each closing bracket. But if you have some horrendous 12 dimensional loop with lots of if statements, it might save a few headaches to know exactly which bracket lines up with which routine. It's just a matter of commenting what is necessary, and avoiding it when it's not.
20 years ago, I would agree with the assessment that people who had any remarkable skills, or even an interest in computers at all were branded nerds, geeks, or whathaveyou. However, today, you'd be hardpressed to find ANY kid over the age of 5 that doesn't use a computer on a daily basis. Its use as a tool is no longer considered taboo, and I seriously doubt that people avoid them as a career choice has anything to do with branding. The possible problem today is that we're half a generation after high school students everywhere geared up for a computer science degree, and suddenly found themselves in an oversaturated market when the dotcom bust happened. Many students that followed were probably wary of it and instead chose "safer" degree paths, and career paths as a result.
gee... I have a whole cabinet full of P4's... real P4's and celery's. Maybe I should upgrade a bit... of course... they're all linux boxes, so it's all good.
They don't HAVE to take the shirt back, they just generally will because it's better to lose a few sales than lose the customer. However, stores all the time have "absolutely no refunds" signs posted, and will stick to that policy. They might give refunds or exchanges on defective merchandise, but not on something you just didn't want.
First off, home addresses and phone numbers never used to be a private matter. Everyone was always in the phone book, student directories with phone numbers AND addresses were passed out to all the students every year. IF someone had an unlisted number, it seemed to be noteworthy for some reason. Of course, I'm talking 20+ years ago. Now, people seem to be much more cautious about having their home addresses and phone numbers listed. Of course, now that you can be targeted for prank calls by anyone on the internet... perhaps hiding this information seems to make more sense.
As for medical information, how did that end up on the searchable internet to begin with? Hospitals don't tend to create public webpages detailing the medical conditions of their patients, complete with real names. About the only way news of her extreme toenail fungus would end up on the internet is if she were blogging about it.... or telling friends about it, who in turn feel the need to discuss it in front of a world audience.
As the post made clear, if you want something to disappear, the quickest way to do so is to STOP TALKING ABOUT IT. Nothing stirs up popularity in the age of the internet more quickly than someone complaining about, and then posting a link to, offensive content.
Also, while Google can pretty much do whatever they want as far as delisting or rank adjusting, it's not in their best interests to censor information just because it's mildly offensive to someone, as it provides precedent and opens them up to potential lawsuits when they don't... or do... Common carrier defense and all that. However, in the age of pedophile witch-hunts, they can pretty safely de-link something of that nature without getting anyone too upset about it. Nobody is going to mount a strong opposition to the removal of that type of material, and anyone who supported it has no fight once it has been removed, so nobody talks about it. No talking, no linking, and therefore no Googling.
Well, in all fairness, it wasn't one mistake, it was at least two. First, he screwed up. Then, after that had more or less blown over, he decided to brag about it.. I mean "mentioned it to a friend who published the details of the exploit using real names". Congrats. You're notorious now. You have your street cred.
If you're REALLY concerned, take comfort in the fact that you are not the only one to ever screw up, and with luck and a long period of time without a history of further screwups, past indiscretions will be all but forgotten.
However, as I see it, you have three options. Either forget about it and hope nobody finds out, embrace it as a life lesson and show how you used the fallout from that event to learn to better take responsibility for your actions.... Or bury it. Publish a huge volume of information to the internet using your real name so eventually anyone searching for you will only find the good stuff and hopefully will get bored before they find that one blemish.
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I am in a constant battle with one of my customers over this very idea. A new team bought the company I had worked with for years and has tried to implement all sorts of new ideas. So far, I have had to fight the "No, you do NOT want an open access point on your network, no matter how badly your visiting vendors need to be able to access the internet without a password" fight. Then there was the guy who made several frantic emergency calls to me.... because he couldn't get his
CDROM to play his music CDs anymore. First off, it's an office, that's hardly a requirement. Secondly, it was on some spare computer they had found in the office, and had set it up because this new guy NEEDED his own computer, yet never did anything with it or used any of the programs. Since it ran windows, it was the only one in the office with a working CD and sound. I didn't have CDROM drives in any of the workstation computers ever since one of their vendors tried to install some
program on one of them, and somehow in the resulting frustration of trying ot figure out why his windows programs weren't running under linux, started rebooting computers and tampering with the network, and finally leaving.
Oh, and they had a vendor who wanted to get online, so found the dsl modem, unplugged it from our network and plugged his laptop into it. Only problem was, it wasn't set up for dhcp, so he wasn't able to actually get an ip address. So his solution was to unplug every modem looking device he could find, including 2 switches and one router, and after giving up, just left it like that. Amazingly, I was able to talk someone through getting most of it hooked back up over the phone. I kept all of this in a back closet that I had instructed everyone to not let anyone have access to.
And now, I'm actually in the process of helping them transition to a new system, at their request, so they can fire me. What's amusing is the fact that they can't even seem to do that right, and I'm bending over backwards to make it posible for them. What scares me and excites me at the same time is the fact that I know that 3 days after they decide they no longer need me, they will suddenly discover that I was doing a lot more for them than simply providing support for a single software package, which is all they're going to have once I'm gone. The next time their printer breaks or a workstation won't boot... well, I don't know who they're going to call, but it's not going to be me.
YAY!
No.. They'll want me back.. at least for a little while. And I'll let them hire me back... after they've made a colossal mess of things. Because that's what I do. I fix the nightmares of someone else's creation.
Now, the point I was really trying to make here. They pay the bills, so they are the boss, and although I can object endlessly to their braindead requests, it's still
my job to do it, or quit. And they have the root password to all of the systems, just in case I get hit by a bus. Thankfully, they really don't know what to do with it, so it doesn't affect me at all. I did have a test of wills with one of them once though when they brought a windows laptop in from home for office use. I demanded they be in compliance on all licenses for all software installed on that system, and keep that documentation on site. The end solution was uninstalling almost everything on it. Hey, I'm not going to be the one who gets blamed when one of the 20-year employees they were firing on a monthly basis for "not being a team player" decided to listen to those stupid SPA radio ads and get a little vengeance.
-Restil
I can resonate with #3 a bit. A company that I have been providing leased accounting software and support to for years is about to switch to something entirely new (and in the process, no longer require my services). Now, while the loss of monthly income (when they pay on time) is certainly cause for concern, I also won't have to answer phone calls while I'm sleeping, and it will free up my more conventional work schedule so I can consider other job opportunities.
The problem here, is that just today I got an email from the guys who are involved in the process of converting the company over to the new software. We are once again, for the third time now, starting from scratch with someone new who has no idea of what work has been done before. I'm getting emails with a bunch of specs and "can you do this for us" when I already did all of it months ago.
And I know, for a fact, that there will be extensive resistance to the change. The software they're using now they've been using for 20+ years. The girls who work with it know it so well that they can crank out orders in literally a few seconds. No need to look up part numbers, or customer numbers, or do a lot of mouse manipulation, and they can do it without even looking at the screen for the most part. This allows them to have 1 office manager and one secretary handle a workload that involves taking phone orders at a rate of about one per minute. Each.
When... if.. this switchover happens, they'll probably need to hire several new people just to handle it, at least for a little while. Not to mention, I provide nearly all of their computer services. I maintain their network, I handle their backups, both onsite and offline. When the printer stops working or a computer won't boot, they call me, and if necessary, I jump in my car, go down there, and fix the problem. I suspect they don't realize everything that I actually do, so they'll plop in a bunch of windows boxes (they currently use all linux right now), get the software set up, wish them well, and leave. Sure, the new provider will support the software package, but I'm sure the first time they get a virus they're going to be SOL.
And the best part of it is, I WON'T HAVE TO DEAL WITH IT!!!! :)
-Restil
Here's the problem:
Assuming the people who wrote and sell this software reside in the US or some country which will happily extradite them for us, it's possible that what they're doing isn't technically illegal. They're not actually USING the software, just selling it. This is somewhat equivalent to someone selling lockpicks. Granted, this software probably has no legitimate purpose, except perhaps to be used for security audits or something. However, even if it IS illegal, to get the Feds involved will require an almost certain guarantee of conviction. They want a jury to be debating the length of the sentence, not whether or not the suspects are actually guilty or not. If there is enough legal doubt as to whether or not a crime was even committed, the Feds will be leery of even getting involved.
So fine, lets pass a law making the creation and/or publication of software that has mostly malicious intent. That'll be good... right? The only problem is, Congress gets to write that law. This means three things. First off, the law will likely be written in a way that is so vague that it ends up not only applying to the software in question, but half of the legitimate software ever written. Before you know it, all advertising, security software, operating systems other than windows, and of course, the ping program, will now be considered illegal.. technically. This means that the law will end up not being enforced. Next, they will be sure to word it in such a way as to render it unconstitutional, so next thing you know, the Supreme Court will tie it up for 10 years, and finally kill it. And finally, you can't pass a law without attaching a large number of completely unrelated riders, which will end up causing parties opposed to the riders to vote against and/or filibuster the bill, which causes the other side to insist that the opposing party WANTS people to have their banking credentials stolen... and so on.
Anyways, to answer your question, Yes. You were simplifying it. It would be MUCH easier to just find a way to sneak a few images of child porn on one of their computers, and shut them down that way. THAT avenue at least seems to have no roadblocks.
-Restil
It's like any other obscure car problem. Assuming there is an ACTUAL problem, despite the lack of efforts to find it, it will probably not affect more than 100-150 vehicles over the lifetime of all of the products that have the potentially faulty system. It's enough to justify a recall, but on the other hand, it's probably less of an occurrence than random chance would otherwise provide. Even if there IS a glaring problem, most Toyota owners will never experience it.
The problem now is that Toyota has a PR problem and they're going to have to find a way to solve it. Either discover a technical flaw... ANY flaw.. and fix it, or prove beyond the shadow of a doubt to a skeptic public that none exists.
-Restil
Well, in all fairness, waiting for one to show up worked for me. It sure took a long time though. Maybe I needed a better marketing department.
-Restil
He's already been convicted. The time to present the video has already passed.
-Restil
R&D can and is a justified business expense. The problem is that most of the "green" energy is currently more expensive to produce than through conventional methods, and is likely to remain that way no matter how much money you throw at it, at least until the conventional methods become more expensive. Of course, when that happens, there will be a sudden surge in the development and deployment of green technologies, until the lack of demand results in cheaper fuel sources again, which means we'll be back to using it.
What this ultimately means that the best we can hope for is that as our energy needs grow, green technologies can pick up most of the extra need, but we will still have a large base load that's produced by conventional carbon based fuel sources.
-Restil
Promo boxes that were intentionally designed to be used as such would come from the same source as the real product, and would therefore have the correct spelling on the packaging.
-Restil
I think the point here is that the server is supposed to be "managed" already. He already understands that he's too n00b to properly handle the problem. What he IS requesting is any additional advice for simple activities or procedures that might help to improve the security and are within his abilities to implement on his own.
He's not asking how to perform surgery.. He's asking for advice on the proper way to apply a bandage.
As others have suggested, just use one of the coax lines to pull the cat5+ through. If that for some reason doesn't work, just run your own wires. It might be a pain, but those coax wires got installed SOMEHOW, so it can probably be done again.
As far as trying to throw together a solution with mixing multiple wires to achieve a pseudo cat5 connection, you probably don't want to bother. Attaining the high speeds is highly dependent on shielding, resistance, and wire balance, not to mention the fact that each of the coax wires is likely a different length. The speed of light might be fast, but it IS finite, and it starts to matter when you're working in the 10+ mbps range. You can suffer serious speed reduction if you have so much as half an inch of wires untwisted at the connection point... So yeah, trying to adapt the coax wires for an application they weren't designed for is not likely to have beneficial results.
-Restil
I'm right handed. I shoot a pistol with my right hand. My watch is on my left wrist. While it is advisable to use both hands when firing a gun (for stability, as well as accuracy issues), it is certainly not required. If I understand this correctly, the gun is disarmed whenever it gets more than 20 cm away from the watch. Which means, as soon as I drop my arm to open a door, the gun will be disarmed. I'm assuming it doesn't get rearmed as soon as it gets back within range of the watch, as this would defeat the whole purpose of the automatic disarming feature. If the perp gets a gun away from me and turns it on me, and we get into a struggle, it will likely get back within the 20cm range, and then be usable again. And I certainly hope he doesn't try to steal my watch... because an armed assailant would NEVER try to do that....
-Restil
I understand the issues at hande, I would expect your garden variety administrator might not be able to differentiate between a motion sensor and a bomb. The general masses don't always have a firm grasp on technology. I deal with this all the time. A person has no problem believing that there is this huge network, with millions, even billions of computers that spans the entire planet, connected by copper wires, fiber optics, and even satellite. This amazingly complex contraption can allow them to hold a live conversation with both audio and video with a person on the other side of the planet, and it won't cost them a thing. They download a whole CD of music or a movie in a matter of minutes. All of this is easily believable. However, a computer controlled lightswitch is CLEARLY fake, as there's NO possible way to do that.
I don't doubt that your average school administrator might suffer from the same technological myopia. They know what a stereo, TV , computer, flashlight, and cellphone look like. But get outside of that comfort zone and present them with an uncovered circuit board and some loose wires.... well.. that looks like a bomb, and they will react accordingly. This in and of itself is not surprising. What IS surprising is the fact that we're talking about a tech school here. You would assume that the bar would be set slightly higher in this circumstance. Enough to assume that those who teach and administrate at the school had at least an introductory electronics course at SOME point. One would assume anyway.
-Restil
What are you doing with Ubuntu such that you so frequently lock it up that you have a key set aside to mitigate that particular frustration? Not that I've never locked up a linux box before, but it's rare. Then again, most of my boxes don't even have a monitor, so I'm probably not pushing the envelope much.
-Restil
I know you're being sarcastic, but I vaguely recall having to use a lowercase L as a 1 key during typing class for some reason. I'm sure the typewriter had a 1 key, but I distinctly remember that the 1 and lower case L on that keyboard had the same footprint... dangit.. now I'm going to spend the next several days trying to figure out the significance of this.
-Restil
He's trying to find a GIRLFRIEND, not a wife. Obviously, one would assume that the girlfriend might eventually become a wife, but since we're still at the girlfriend stage, the numbers can be adjusted a bit. Remove the college degree requirement and the attractive requirement, and there will be plenty of opportunities. I can certainly understand why someone is finding it difficult to find 30 year old, college educated, attractive women available who is also interested in return.
Remember... if at first you don't succeed, lower your standards.
-Restil
If you haven't started working on it yet, figure out who owns the IP on the old game, track them down, and get permission. IN WRITING. If you can get it, you're home free and can safely not concern yourself with future legal challenges on the matter. If you don't get permission, then find some other idea to steal... or come up with your own. However, if you've already completed the game and you're just trying to find the safest way to release it without getting sued... well... good luck.
-Restil
Please.... you wouldn't have to resort to anything as drastic as bombing... just have a nice sized boyscout troop march in and they'll surrender right off.
-Restil
I can understand the whining about predatory loans when you're talking about someone who's making $8 an hour. While I wouldn't want to stereotype or anything, I can at least believe there's a chance that individual MIGHT not have the financial experience necessary to fully understand the nature of the mortgage. The borrower does some simple math, sees that he can probably "barely" afford the low payment on the APR loan, and after listening to a well rehearsed speech about how housing prices only go up year after year and there is absolutely no risk, and you'll be able to refinance and yada yada yada... Ok. I understand that one.
This guy, at one time, earned enough to be able to afford payments on a $1.3 million house. They did not just pluck this guy out of the ghetto and shove him into a house he couldn't afford. Anyone making a 6-figure salary (less than that he'd have no chance of affording the payments) should be able to understand how to purchase a house within his means. And, I hate to say it, but "barely getting by" is not the same thing as "living within your means". Living within your means implies that you're putting away 10% for retirement and an equal amount for an emergency fund (for medical, legal, or unemployment purposes). For major purchases (homes, cars), you put down a large down payment and the shortest payment schedule you can reasonably afford. Sometimes... it means passing on purchasing that extra 42" TV if it's going to cut into your saving budget.
-Restil
The shows were also several minutes longer, but had to fit in the same 1 hour timeslot. They would cheat a bit on sindication and cut short the opening and credit scenes, but even then, you had a good 3-4 minutes more actual show time, and therefore less time for commercials.
-Restil
myths about excessive code comments. Provide comments in places where the comment might be useful. If you have some obscure function, the purpose of which might be confusing if you or someone else looks at it a year later, then you need a comment. The more obscure or terse, the more detailed the comment should be. On the other hand, if the function's purpose is obvious just by glancing at it, or the function name is sufficient to describe the entire purpose of the function, there's probably not a need for any comments at all.
Within a function, if you only have nested loops one deep, there's probably no need to comment each closing bracket. But if you have some horrendous 12 dimensional loop with lots of if statements, it might save a few headaches to know exactly which bracket lines up with which routine.
It's just a matter of commenting what is necessary, and avoiding it when it's not.
-Restil
20 years ago, I would agree with the assessment that people who had any remarkable skills, or even an interest in computers at all were branded nerds, geeks, or whathaveyou. However, today, you'd be hardpressed to find ANY kid over the age of 5 that doesn't use a computer on a daily basis. Its use as a tool is no longer considered taboo, and I seriously doubt that people avoid them as a career choice has anything to do with branding. The possible problem today is that we're half a generation after high school students everywhere geared up for a computer science degree, and suddenly found themselves in an oversaturated market when the dotcom bust happened. Many students that followed were probably wary of it and instead chose "safer" degree paths, and career paths as a result.
-Restil
gee... I have a whole cabinet full of P4's... real P4's and celery's. Maybe I should upgrade a bit... of course... they're all linux boxes, so it's all good.
-Restil
They don't HAVE to take the shirt back, they just generally will because it's better to lose a few sales than lose the customer. However, stores all the time have "absolutely no refunds" signs posted, and will stick to that policy. They might give refunds or exchanges on defective merchandise, but not on something you just didn't want.
-Restil
First off, home addresses and phone numbers never used to be a private matter. Everyone was always in the phone book, student directories with phone numbers AND addresses were passed out to all the students every year. IF someone had an unlisted number, it seemed to be noteworthy for some reason. Of course, I'm talking 20+ years ago. Now, people seem to be much more cautious about having their home addresses and phone numbers listed. Of course, now that you can be targeted for prank calls by anyone on the internet... perhaps hiding this information seems to make more sense.
As for medical information, how did that end up on the searchable internet to begin with? Hospitals don't tend to create public webpages detailing the medical conditions of their patients, complete with real names. About the only way news of her extreme toenail fungus would end up on the internet is if she were blogging about it.... or telling friends about it, who in turn feel the need to discuss it in front of a world audience.
As the post made clear, if you want something to disappear, the quickest way to do so is to STOP TALKING ABOUT IT. Nothing stirs up popularity in the age of the internet more quickly than someone complaining about, and then posting a link to, offensive content.
Also, while Google can pretty much do whatever they want as far as delisting or rank adjusting, it's not in their best interests to censor information just because it's mildly offensive to someone, as it provides precedent and opens them up to potential lawsuits when they don't... or do... Common carrier defense and all that. However, in the
age of pedophile witch-hunts, they can pretty safely de-link something of that nature without getting anyone too upset about it. Nobody is going to mount a strong opposition to the removal of that type of material, and anyone who supported it has no fight once it has been removed, so nobody talks about it. No talking, no linking, and therefore no Googling.
-Restil
Well, in all fairness, it wasn't one mistake, it was at least two. First, he screwed up. Then, after that had more or less blown over, he decided to brag about it.. I mean "mentioned it to a friend who published the details of the exploit using real names". Congrats. You're notorious now. You have your street cred.
If you're REALLY concerned, take comfort in the fact that you are not the only one to ever screw up, and with luck and a long period of time without a history of further screwups, past indiscretions will be all but forgotten.
However, as I see it, you have three options. Either forget about it and hope nobody finds out, embrace it as a life lesson and show how you used the fallout from that event to learn to better take responsibility for your actions.... Or bury it. Publish a huge volume of information to the internet using your real name so eventually anyone searching for you will only find the good stuff and hopefully will get bored before they find that one blemish.
-Restil