I've got to respond to this one. Were we asking for trouble? No. Were we doing anything that could be construed as looking for trouble? Oh hell no. Why did my parents stand by and let the principal do that shit? 1) because my mother is employed by our school district (I'n really surprised she dropped the name of that reporter; she's usually more overly-politically correct than that) and 2) because she was already planning my submission of the hours video taping as hours of community service when we were still in that guy's office. She's pretty crafty.
"Cry me a fucking river. If you weren't stupid, and hadn't got caught..."
Why should I cry you a fucking river? What were we being so stupid that would have made us afraid of being caught? What were we doing wrong? Installing software for teachers. Fixing things that didn't work right (which are too numerous to list). Installing Doom on publicly-useable and accessible machines with world writeable volumes to use after hours. What's wrong with any of that? The Doom one might be if we had been told we couldn't use the machines for that purpose. We hadn't been though. We were given free rane on that machines, no questions asked. But when something broke, someone had to be the fall guy. Guess who got that honor...
Oh, and that crack about "that's to be expected from a Mac user...", I have only one that to say to that. Fuck off, Troll. Normally I wouldn't waste my time on people like yourself, but this post hit a nerve.
When I was a freshman in HS, we got a whole bunch of shitty little 486s and a Novell 3.11 server. Nowadays we'd think it was worthless but it played Doom and Heretic quite well. They gave each teacher an account and each in a drafting class an account. Then they had the machines autologin to a generic account. They didn't secure anything. all machines had File Manager, full access to just about everything, etc... We were curious and we snooped. Most people didn't know squat, and to an extent neither did we (myself and a friend). We were quick learners though. We quickly found out how to do different things like install and fix user's problems, etc.. I'd been a Mac admin for 3-4 years before but hadn't done much with Windows. It was a good learning experience. One day everything went to hell and the whole damned thing came crashing down. They paid some guys to drive out @ $120 an hour plus driving time and mileage to fix it. They knew my friend and I had been using them heavily, so we were blamed for their failure. They haggled us and told everyone it was us that lost everything (we'd had it for a few months and some papers had been written and saved on them--they hadn't bought floppies for 'security reasons'). We took a lot of shit to say the least. The tech eventually got things fixed. Before he left he took a detailed log from the server and pointed out the two things that caused the damage. One happened on a Saturday afternoon during a JV basketball tournament. My friend was on the court at the time (back to back games) and I was at home sicker than hell. The 2nd entry was on the following Monday evening. My friend was at home eating supper with the whole family and I was in Wichita on my way home from the doctor with a bag full of drugs (prescription drugs). I had buddied up with the tech (he didn't know who I was) and he'd told me that info as well. He said he'd told the super, principal, and the head secretary that was supposed to be running the server. The next day the principal dragged my friend and I into his office and called our parents. When everyone arrived he told them that my friend and I were going to be suspended and have to do community service because of the damage we caused which was in the thousands. I had already told my parents about what the tech said about the logs. We confronted him with what the tech said and proved that at those dates and times neither kid was available to cause the damage. He said the tech never said such a thing and flat out called us liars. That pissed my Dad off something fierch and I thought I might get to see him kick a little ass. My Mom was much cooler. She simply said it was time to go and herded us towards the door. On the way out as Dad was asking her what was up, she dropped the name of a reporter at our local newspaper that was well known for stirring up shit (even in our small 2A school). That got the principal's attention and he convinced my parents not to leave. Then he slowly admitted that the tech had mentioned something about the logs. After a little pressing of the issue he eventually said that neither of us could have caused the damage. He still said we'd have to do 120 hours of community service each. At that point the other guy's Dad told the principal to 'fsck off' and they walked out. God I wish I had a recording of that. We left eventually and he tried to stick me with the community service. I came in the next day with a simple, well prepared list of dates and times. See I had been the junior high football manager for the two previous years. My eighth grade year I had also video taped the HS games. I added all that up and presented him with a list of dates and times of football games and totalled the hours. In the end I had more than enough hours to meet the 120. So... I billed him at the rate of $5.25 and hour to the extra hours.:) I never got it but he never brought it up again. Even after his admission he never admitted in public that we hadn't done the damage. We took shit for years from teachers and students alike. It made things quite difficult. I was hired later my freshman year as the sysadmin for the elementary school. An Apple Systems Engineer recommended they hire me and they did. Now I'm the network and Systems Manager at a state university and contract admin for the phone company back home. I also specialize in security.:-)
"...the right to vote, drive and drink alcohol (not at the same time of course!)..."
Why's that? Doing at least two of those at the same time was required for our past Presidential Election. Since it lasted what a month, all 3 ended up being a daily thing. Drive to work, drink at lunch while watching the lastest up-to-the-minute report on the 2000 election, drive home, waller away in pitty and dispair while thinking of the dumbass at the helm of nukes and drink/cry yourself to sleep.
One of our state reps (I'm not sure the title or anything like that) is the Networking God from Wichita State University. He's a great guy. We're looking at a state-wide educational network that would cover all schools, libraries, hospitals, and a few others things and he's got a big hand in that. It's a good thing to because he's probably the only knowledgeable voice there who can tell them if something is technically possible or is worth doing at all. He is a great guy. I work at a peer state university and have had to call him in the past for assistance.
How can a $500 fine be assessed against an off shore entity? Honestly abot 90% of my or more is open relay spam. Most of it comes from somewhere in Korea, China, or Taiwan (no offense guys). What's to stop these mass mailers from going overseas for their bulk mailing?
Not sure if I like that idea. Sometimes I do that just to see if I've been abused.:) j/k Honestly I never noticed my karma rating until the +1 bonus appeared one day. If it hadn't been for that I never would have noticed. I'm glad I found it though. I didn't care what my karma was before; I just posted comments--if they were modded up, woohoo. Now I actually care about my karma a little bit because it reflects directly upon what I write. I don't feel like posting troll comments because they hurt others' impression of me based on my karma. The quality of my posting has actually gone up; that's a good thing.
I think the recent story submissions should be put on the user info page. That would be handy I think.
I would also like to see some sort of comment attached to rejected stories. Sometimes I post a story that I think is worth reading but it gets rejected. Other times I see stories used that are just plain dumb and only generate 79 comments or so (they might be interesting to someone but apparently not alot of people). It doesn't have to be a long comment. A pull-down menu of the most common reasons for rejections would be a great start. Having an "other" option and text field for writing their reasons for rejecting would also be worth it. I've often wondered why a submission was rejected. Did I come off in an arogant way? Did the "trained monkey" reviewing my submission think I should have changed the wording a bit, shorten the submission, or look for a few links to reference? It would be nice to know why a comment was rejected. Feedback (in the form of karma) helped my comment posting. Feedback would surely improve my story submissions as well.
One last thing that I can think of is I think there should be a karma gift if you story is selected for posting. It's shouldn't be really big. If it was like 20 or 50 every karma whore under the moon would submit everything imagineable in hopes of getting just one story accepted. I think 5 is reasonable. If it's good enough to get posted, you should get something from it. I've had a couple items posted. One was an Ask/. post about Napster and Bandwidth and another was an article but I can't recall what it was.
Starting a 0 would be ok but then someone actually that might actually have a reason to see the message won't see it unless they lower their standards a bit. Maybe having a mark that says "A karmaless comment has been attached to this message" or something to that affect. I don't know. Careful thought would have to be given to this before implementing it. An example of getting wrongly modded is here, the original comment starting this thread. My karma is high enough that I get a +1 bonus just for posting. My message wasn't left at my default karma and was modded down by someone that didn't like it. At least I wasn't marked "troll" (no that's not a hint!). I sure wish Taco man or some/. person would respond to my points. It would be good to have their experienced input on this. Thanks for the comment.
I had another idea that I didn't put in that original comment (check my user history). I think there should be a karmaless comment. A comment that can't be modded down at all. For me I'd use it for my replies to moderating or comments that are nothing special; just a note on something. If it's a good note, modding it up is good but it shouldn't be able to be modded down. This allows you to respond to a troll and not be trolled as well. It also allows for you to comment on a troll modding job without suffering the wrath of the same troll or counterpart. For example, I've had a few of my comments be marked as trolls lately (no that's not a hint!) when really they weren't and can't even possibly be taken that way. I replied to make that known and my question to the moderator was trolled as well. There's a fine line between insightful, funny, interesting, and troll. That's my $.02 anyhow.
Taco man, have any changes been made to the way moderating is done or have any other admin-selectable options been added? I posted a comment last weeke and emailed you with its URL for your viewing. I think it might be worth investigating. Maybe a slashcode poll or something. Keep up the great work!
How can some patent something that can natrually occur in nature? The next thing we'll hear is that they are suing the UN in the Court of God to have the polar magnetism of the Earth nixed!
Some of the problem was rendering problems. Some had to do with plugins. Some had to do with cookies. Actually a lot of it had to do with cookies and userid/passwd history. It's a great product. It just needs a little honing to make it excellent. If I could program worth a damn, I'd offer to help. As it is, the best I can do for them is to test releases for them and report back.
I saw something on I believe Discovery about him and his efforts. He's a brilliant guy. I hope he can get support he needs to really watch the heavens as intently as we need to be. If anyone is interested in that sort of thing, that special on Discovery is sure to repeat so keep your eyes out for it.
As much as I love Mozilla 0.8, I have personally encountered either what I'd call bugs or burrs that simply haven't been ground off yet. God I hope they get them fixed soon. Mozilla would be incredibly excellent if they could hone it done a bit. (Oh god no, not the Pentium 4 commercial with the bald smurfs. Noooo!!! It's on TV right now.:( ) I personally think the Mozilla folks, while they're doing a great job, they should spend time fixing the existing bugs and honing the product than adding more features. Please....:)
This is an interesting thought. Is/. considered a radical rebel group with a large and loyal following that occasionally posts provocative articles promoting action of some sorts? If so then what are the odds that upstream of Andover someone (Big Brother) is watching all/.'s traffic? It's really not that far fetched if you think about it. This.. is the "Penguin Brief®". Within minutes of posting this comment, I expect some person clad in black with dark sunglasses and big guns to knock on my front door. I sure hope it's Barb Wire.:)
I just agreed to keep a Dell Latitude here at work. I really wanted one of the Apple Titanium G4s but it's a long story. That laptop gets pretty dang toasty. I wonder if this will turn out to be like the Firestone tires. Independant reviewers find that more than just the few models the manufacturer lists are vulnerable.
Now not to diminish Dell's fault or anything like that in this matter, but Apple had a similar issue a long while back. I believe the faulty batteries were in the PowerBook 5300 line that was introduced over 5.5 years ago. The problem was found quickly and the faulty type of batteries were replaced with another type. They didn't cause a fire but they could get hot enough under the right conditions to melt the battery casing or the case of the laptop. I've got a Sparc laptop at home (we call it the Sparcable) that weighs like 30lbs. Basically it's an IPC in a slightly smaller case with a battery and a screen attached. You cannot stand to have that thing on your laptop. Your legs will be nice and tanned after five minutes with that puppy.
I appreciate it. Yes the trolls have gotten out of hand lately. It's not that I'm a karma whore but my karma is how I judge how good my comments are. If I haven't gone up a point or two in a week or so, I must not be spending much time thinking about what I'm writing and should do better.
I emailed Taco man with a link to one of my two posts and asked him to take a look at it. Not that I'm asking for karma but because I wanted him to read my suggestions when he had time and to see the exact case of what's happened here. Sure he's probably seen it before but maybe he hasn't. So many threads happen so quickly, how can one or two people check and double check everyone else's work. That really the only bad thing about the moderating system. Good karma is awarded easily if you hit a on a good point with someone. If you don't please the first moderator though, they'll mark you down and most moderators will follow suit. No real checks and balances take place. Anyhow, that's my opinion. I could be wrong. Thanks again.
I'm gonna start an AA support group I think -- Auctions Anonymous. Much like the QVC and HSN support groups of yester-year, we'll cater to people that have squandered their hard earned HaX0r Bucks® on unneeded items on eBay and Yahoo! that were "really good deals." How many extra hubs, cases, 256k 30-pin SIMMS, and 250MB hard drives does one person need after all?
I personally spent so much on misc networking equipment (fancy hubs, switches, routers, etc..) from last year that I managed to deduct all of it as business expenses and get my profit from all my spare time contracts down to $31 profit.:-)
Does anyone have a good comparison of XFS, Ext3 and other journaling filesystems? I know Ext3 is being used on rpmfind.net, also know as rufus.w3.org, and it works very well there. I'd like to give XFS or Ext3 a whirl but I don't have time to search out all the gotchas myself.
It's been really nice working with you, Jason. If you ever need previous customer references, I'd be more than happy to be one for you. I hope you keep some ties with the LPPC project. You've been a great asset to it. Go out and take a vacation with Cassie. You both deserve it. Good luck buddy.
If you're buying 1000 OS-less PC's there's a far greater chance you'll resell them or use an illegal liscense.
My apologies if this sounds brisk, but your viewpoint on this matter as expressed in that last sentence is inherently wrong. Just because I purchased 1000 machines *without* a copy of Windows doesn't mean that I'm a) going to install a pirated copy of Windows, b) mean that I'm more likely to resell them to users down the pipe with a pirated copy of Windows, or c) mean that I'm not planning on putting legal copies of Windows on those 1000 machines anyhow. At the university I previously worked for, we had a license agreement with M$ that gave us permission to install Windows on any and all machines we wanted to site-wide. We later noticed that the wording didn't exclue out users from gaining from the arragement either. Any dealer that cares as little about their customers so as to sell off the confidential information isn't worth dealing with in my opinion.
I was so pissed when I started writing my comment that I goofed up the title rather badly. I meant to saw Who really cares for the kids? in reference to those people that are suing and just not letting it go for the kids sake.
Obviously not the families if they want to keep dragging this out. This is absolute bullshit. They aren't doing this in the best interest of the kids; they are doing it in the best interest of the pocket books. They want to pick a fight and claim victim when they get bit.
I personally blame the media. All they ever show on TV is real-life blood and guts, not the pretend stuff in movies and in games. Every damned time there is a shooting or a supposed threat they swarm the scene like flies on a fresh pile of shit. They make a mountain out of a mole hill. They never tell you that violence in schools is on a massive decline. That's right! Violence in educational institutions is dropping like a rock! You'll never hear that from the media though because that's a big source of revenue for them. When Columbine happened, violence in schools was less than half of what it was in the mid-70s. It's been going down ever since. Now you may not believe me since everything you hear on TV or read on the front cover of newspapers says otherwise. They have a new "incident" every damned day. Without the real numbers in front of you, an unknowing person that just watches the news would think that our country is going to hell in a hand basket. It is true though. Violence in schools is on the decline. Do the research. Find out for yourself. I have. The irresponsible actions are actually promoting violence in our schools. They present the kids with guns and their friends with the chance to become a martyr (or at least think they will be). I don't know what we can do to fix the problem though. If we try to hold the media accountable for their piss-poor actions, they will scream "freedom of speech" and "freedom of the press" from the highest hilltops. I love those freedoms as much as the next guy and I wouldn't want them taken away either. Still there is something that can be done, isn't there? What about simply requiring that the media record where every piece of information for an article came from so that if they are ever accused of being irresponsible, that info can be audited by a official power to determine if they were actually reporting fact of fiction. If they falsely reported something, I think they should be forced to print a retraction and the retraction should be placed in the same position in the paper. ie, if they accuse teacher XYZ of being a horrific sex offender on the front page and later it is found out that a couple of his students set him up, than the retraction should be displayed just as prominently on the front page.
This violence in schools issue is a very touchy subject for me. I have gotten in more hallway verbal brawls over it than imaginable. My mother is a elementary school teacher in a small district. I came from a rural community with a graduating class of 32. I've been brought up hearing all this about the media and the poor job many parents today are doing for years. It wasn't until I actually did the research that I could then believe it for myself. Do you realize that last year there were more suicides by teenagers claiming to be tortured at school than there were deaths by school related shootings? That gives you something to think about. How many of you have seen those commercials that go something like "Do you part. Mentor a child."? Maybe we should. If all/.ers see part of this problem as being a lack of appropriate guidance from parents, maybe we should step up to the plate and become a mentor. I'm willing. Are you?
To the people that grosely misuse the word "firewall", which includes the media, sales reps, and other advertising means that prefer this flashy word over the correct word. This is one thing that has really irked me for some time. A firewall by definition is a protection barrier in which nothing (read: NOTHING) passes through. A firewall with holes in it is a defunct firewall and should be replaced, figuratively speaking. A true firewall allows nothing to pass through it from one side to the other. What the media, sales personnel, and advertisers at large really mean is "secure router". That's right. A true firewall is a router. Duh. This isn't brain sience folks. A condom is a firewall. You wouldn't want a condom with holes in it would you? Well? Didn't think so. I'm in Dallas right now taking an Enterasys SSR class and this point has come up with much proof on my side to support these statements. A "secure router" selectively allows certain traffic to pass based on a number of different criteria: source, destination, TCP/UDP port #, ICMP type, existing flows, MAC, subnet, interface, utilization, unicast, multicast, or just about anything else you can imagine. A secure router is configured to pass certain traffic while discarding other traffic. A firewall passes nothing from one side to the next. Yes, you can connect to the firewall itself and can from there connect to the outside world. That's because the firewall can see both sides of the fence. It's riding the line so to speak, where one network is on the one side and the other network is on the other side and can't talk to each other. If they could talk to each other, their conversation would have to be routed to one another with the aide of the middleman, which would have to be a router. Everyone with me here? Having a proxy on the firewall is where opinions really very. It's not passing traffic but only requests from one side (assuming it's stateful). That would make it either a loose firewall or a shitty router. It does however require that you first connect to the firewall and the firewall makes the public request. That supports more the fact that it's still a firewall. You've made a connection to the firewall and issued a command. Now you're waiting to data to be returned. I know this blatently goes against what the ads say. Hell numerous books contradict this too. It's like the cracker/hacker battle. Eventually you get tired of saying the appropriate word and then explaining to pin-headed supers what you're talking about and just say the buzz word. That doesn't make it right though. One book that blatently outlines this (with nice pictures and everything) is O'Rielly's "TCP/IP Administration". That's a dated book but is still worth the read. Well, I hope this helps clear up this misuse of the word "firewall". Yes the word "firewall" is more sexy that the phrase "secure router", and yes telling a hot chick at Bone Daddy's in Dallas (excellent steak BTW) that you have build firewalls rather that secure routers is more likely yo get you laid, but it still isn't right. Bite the bullet and take a stand.
Slashdot Mirror
--
Oh, and that crack about "that's to be expected from a Mac user...", I have only one that to say to that. Fuck off, Troll. Normally I wouldn't waste my time on people like yourself, but this post hit a nerve.
--
--
Why's that? Doing at least two of those at the same time was required for our past Presidential Election. Since it lasted what a month, all 3 ended up being a daily thing. Drive to work, drink at lunch while watching the lastest up-to-the-minute report on the 2000 election, drive home, waller away in pitty and dispair while thinking of the dumbass at the helm of nukes and drink/cry yourself to sleep.
--
--
--
I think the recent story submissions should be put on the user info page. That would be handy I think.
I would also like to see some sort of comment attached to rejected stories. Sometimes I post a story that I think is worth reading but it gets rejected. Other times I see stories used that are just plain dumb and only generate 79 comments or so (they might be interesting to someone but apparently not alot of people). It doesn't have to be a long comment. A pull-down menu of the most common reasons for rejections would be a great start. Having an "other" option and text field for writing their reasons for rejecting would also be worth it. I've often wondered why a submission was rejected. Did I come off in an arogant way? Did the "trained monkey" reviewing my submission think I should have changed the wording a bit, shorten the submission, or look for a few links to reference? It would be nice to know why a comment was rejected. Feedback (in the form of karma) helped my comment posting. Feedback would surely improve my story submissions as well.
One last thing that I can think of is I think there should be a karma gift if you story is selected for posting. It's shouldn't be really big. If it was like 20 or 50 every karma whore under the moon would submit everything imagineable in hopes of getting just one story accepted. I think 5 is reasonable. If it's good enough to get posted, you should get something from it. I've had a couple items posted. One was an Ask /. post about Napster and Bandwidth and another was an article but I can't recall what it was.
Well, that's my $.02. Cheers
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
Now not to diminish Dell's fault or anything like that in this matter, but Apple had a similar issue a long while back. I believe the faulty batteries were in the PowerBook 5300 line that was introduced over 5.5 years ago. The problem was found quickly and the faulty type of batteries were replaced with another type. They didn't cause a fire but they could get hot enough under the right conditions to melt the battery casing or the case of the laptop. I've got a Sparc laptop at home (we call it the Sparcable) that weighs like 30lbs. Basically it's an IPC in a slightly smaller case with a battery and a screen attached. You cannot stand to have that thing on your laptop. Your legs will be nice and tanned after five minutes with that puppy.
--
I emailed Taco man with a link to one of my two posts and asked him to take a look at it. Not that I'm asking for karma but because I wanted him to read my suggestions when he had time and to see the exact case of what's happened here. Sure he's probably seen it before but maybe he hasn't. So many threads happen so quickly, how can one or two people check and double check everyone else's work. That really the only bad thing about the moderating system. Good karma is awarded easily if you hit a on a good point with someone. If you don't please the first moderator though, they'll mark you down and most moderators will follow suit. No real checks and balances take place. Anyhow, that's my opinion. I could be wrong. Thanks again.
--
I personally spent so much on misc networking equipment (fancy hubs, switches, routers, etc..) from last year that I managed to deduct all of it as business expenses and get my profit from all my spare time contracts down to $31 profit. :-)
--
--
Justin
--
My apologies if this sounds brisk, but your viewpoint on this matter as expressed in that last sentence is inherently wrong. Just because I purchased 1000 machines *without* a copy of Windows doesn't mean that I'm a) going to install a pirated copy of Windows, b) mean that I'm more likely to resell them to users down the pipe with a pirated copy of Windows, or c) mean that I'm not planning on putting legal copies of Windows on those 1000 machines anyhow. At the university I previously worked for, we had a license agreement with M$ that gave us permission to install Windows on any and all machines we wanted to site-wide. We later noticed that the wording didn't exclue out users from gaining from the arragement either. Any dealer that cares as little about their customers so as to sell off the confidential information isn't worth dealing with in my opinion.
--
--
I was so pissed when I started writing my comment that I goofed up the title rather badly. I meant to saw Who really cares for the kids? in reference to those people that are suing and just not letting it go for the kids sake.
--
I personally blame the media. All they ever show on TV is real-life blood and guts, not the pretend stuff in movies and in games. Every damned time there is a shooting or a supposed threat they swarm the scene like flies on a fresh pile of shit. They make a mountain out of a mole hill. They never tell you that violence in schools is on a massive decline. That's right! Violence in educational institutions is dropping like a rock! You'll never hear that from the media though because that's a big source of revenue for them. When Columbine happened, violence in schools was less than half of what it was in the mid-70s. It's been going down ever since. Now you may not believe me since everything you hear on TV or read on the front cover of newspapers says otherwise. They have a new "incident" every damned day. Without the real numbers in front of you, an unknowing person that just watches the news would think that our country is going to hell in a hand basket. It is true though. Violence in schools is on the decline. Do the research. Find out for yourself. I have. The irresponsible actions are actually promoting violence in our schools. They present the kids with guns and their friends with the chance to become a martyr (or at least think they will be). I don't know what we can do to fix the problem though. If we try to hold the media accountable for their piss-poor actions, they will scream "freedom of speech" and "freedom of the press" from the highest hilltops. I love those freedoms as much as the next guy and I wouldn't want them taken away either. Still there is something that can be done, isn't there? What about simply requiring that the media record where every piece of information for an article came from so that if they are ever accused of being irresponsible, that info can be audited by a official power to determine if they were actually reporting fact of fiction. If they falsely reported something, I think they should be forced to print a retraction and the retraction should be placed in the same position in the paper. ie, if they accuse teacher XYZ of being a horrific sex offender on the front page and later it is found out that a couple of his students set him up, than the retraction should be displayed just as prominently on the front page.
This violence in schools issue is a very touchy subject for me. I have gotten in more hallway verbal brawls over it than imaginable. My mother is a elementary school teacher in a small district. I came from a rural community with a graduating class of 32. I've been brought up hearing all this about the media and the poor job many parents today are doing for years. It wasn't until I actually did the research that I could then believe it for myself. Do you realize that last year there were more suicides by teenagers claiming to be tortured at school than there were deaths by school related shootings? That gives you something to think about. How many of you have seen those commercials that go something like "Do you part. Mentor a child."? Maybe we should. If all /.ers see part of this problem as being a lack of appropriate guidance from parents, maybe we should step up to the plate and become a mentor. I'm willing. Are you?
--
--