A guy I know rigged his windshield washer dispenser to shoot vodka into a hose hanging next to his drivers side visor. Great set up; he could drink and drive at the touch of a switch.
When the cops pulled him over, the drips from the hose gave him away. Nothing like having vodka drip onto a speeding ticket to ruin your day.
Caller: yadda yadda yadda... huh? *blink* *blink* Bystander: Whats wrong? Caller: I just got cut off... and there's this goop comming out of my cell.. Bystander: *rubs finger in goop* *licks finger*... hmmm... rasberry... dude, youre getting jammed!
The impetus has been there for a while, but camera phones seem to have brought the idea of cell phone jamming out in the open.
Of course, if all cell phone / radio signals are jammed to protect privacy, perhaps the gold-chain running-suit set will hold meetings in locker rooms rather than doctors / lawyers offices.
It had to be only a matter of time before dedicated individuals / groups took advantage of the plethora of spyware out there for criminal intent. The truly dedicated would write their own, natch.
Christ, William Gibson brought this up in Neuromancer back in what, 1982?
I dont want to give any spoilers, but the plot covers your concerns.
Radio will be around, just ask talk radio
on
Who Needs Radio?
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· Score: 1
If you think radio is only a music delivery system, then sure that model has problems. However, if you think radio is an information delivery system, then you might also think it will be with us for some time.
Talk radio is everywhere. I'm a die hard NPR listener, but also check out other local talk radio from time to time. It seems like talk radio will be around for a while, since news and commentary seem popular.
Perhaps radio has figured that out as well, considering ClearChannel's ubiquitous presence in the talk-radio landscape.
Not sure if platform makes a difference, but I've tried using styles on Word2k/Win2k. They do work as you suggest, but tend to break down if I email the document to someone else. IIRC, there was a way to include custom styles in a document but I never got it to work right ( i.e. without answering 20+ minutes of questions from my PHB ).
These days if I have to write something at work I'll use gvim, then save the file with an extention of.doc . Word opens it right up, and no questions from the PHB's
Code snippets were ment as examples, not a be-all end-all solution.
The point I was trying to make is "check that the input is as expected", and there are a number of ways to do that. For command line input in perl I like regex, for web / gui apps I prefer list boxes, radio buttons, etc. to limit user input.
Of course, the only 100% sure way to prevent hash corruption is "dont use hashes".;)
First, you're assuming the identification of a particular DNA sample to a particular human is 100% accurate. Multiple testing of the same sample can reduce the error rate, but only if it's done.
Second, what about crimes commited in a public place? The classic mob hit in resteraunt springs to mind. There would be hundreds if not thousands of DNA samples to sort through.
Third, the same thing was said of fingerprints. Funny, criminals learned to wear gloves. Even if perfect DNA sample collection and processing exists ( HAH! ) criminals can and will find a way to destroy the samples they might leave ( gasoline and match, ammonia, etc. ) or just leave less / no samples ( clean room suit ).
How did you approach the extreme violence in the book- and were there ever any points where you thought you might have gone too far?
You can't ever go too far with violence. You either write it or you dont. If you choose to avoid it, that's fine, but if not, you've got to do it justice. I've taken some stick for passages in Altered Carbon which people complained had sickened them, but then violence should be sickening. I have no time for the sanitised approach you find in so much contemporary literature and film - the gun battles where bullets make neat red holes and bad guys fall conveniently and quietly dead, the interrogations where people get slapped about a bit and then rescued. Or worse still the Lock, Stock brand of violence where it's all seen as a bit of a giggle and as long as you're enough of a cheeky geezer, it all comes out OK. Its precisely because of this "light" approach that we misunderstand the subject of violence so badly. Im not interested in pursuing that line. Where violence arises in my books, it is intended to shock, to horrify and to some extent to get the reader to face up to their own ambiguity on the subject. Because we all like seeing the bad guys taken down, but we dont usually like it so much when the flesh and blood reality of that act is rubbed in our faces. That ambiguity is exactly what Im after.
I've read this book...
on
Altered Carbon
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· Score: 4, Informative
and It's worth your time.
Getting beyond the thumbnail film-noir meets cyberpunk, the book does cover some interesting questions.
Backing up humans is covered, but so is religious opposition to the process. Copying humans is likewise considered, as is modifying the flesh in unusual ways ( picture a very hot chick. now picture a very hot chick who secretes XTC when she's turned on. ) and some of the more usual ones ( installing the consiousness of a male in a female body ).
But dont think this is some preachy isnt-the-future-cool diatribe. Its complex plot is, as others have said, worthy of Dashel or Hammet with a similar man-against-system feel.
Overall, it gave me the same feel that Neuromancer gave me when I read it; a future darkly lit in a form that stands outside traditional genres.
Sure, every once in a while I get a Bender-esq remark. Then I remind the commenter that cooking involves playing with knives and fire; how can that be bad?
Besides, it's the best way I know to avoid the tasteless bland crap at the chainery.
And not only are the bills of a different size, but in the lower right hand corner ( IIRC ) of the bill face are a number of raised dots. One dot == 1000 yen, two dots == 5000 yen and three dots == 10000 yen.
What you're talking about is common with oracle. You can make a select-only query against two databases via DBLINK. With local ( or public ) synonyms the remote tables look like they're a part of your schema.
you might be surprised that most of our clients need oracle. Our accounting system (for instance) would grind to a halt without range partioning ( damn near did... s'why we reconfigured the db to use it ).
as to smaller canned applications that require oracle, we combined many of their databases into a single oracle instance.
Not that I'm an expert, but when did that ever stop a post...
What about biodiesel? Home Power magazine just ran an article on it. Seems like it would be a good way to introduce renewable energy into transportation without a lot of overhead. It stores the same as regular diesel and runs in unmodified diesel engines.
To clarify, I said: "The example you cite is interesting, but doesn't seem to have enough information."
I did not assume that the manager was trying to help, nor did I assume the manager wasn't. Thanks for providing more information.
The post contained a line I disagreed with: "The men tended to be very cruel in various ways (not just to me -- also to each other). I suspect this problem wouldn't have occured if there had been more women in the group."
What was described sounds like bad management letting childish behavior impact performance. A similar situation I was in was a tech support job. The shop was majority female.
Bad management is bad management, regardless of gender. I work (and have worked) for and with people of both genders and many different races. I've never found management skill to be related to chromosomes or genetics.
On reading the comment, it sounds like the poster is suggesting more females == better management. That strikes me as bigoted and sexist.
Is Micro$oft a bad place to work? I have no idea; I've never worked there. It sounds like I wouldn't like it though: closed community, insular mentality, etc.
I guess what's galling me is the "this and his lack of caring" line in your post above.
My feelings are irrelevant to my work requirements.
My work stands on it's own merrits, regardless of how someone feels, because it either meets or fails to meet objective standards.
If I fail to meet objective standards, I should be told that. If I meet objective standards, I should be told that.
The example you cite is interesting, but doesn't seem to have enough information. Was the manager continually assigning tasks to her weak areas in an attempt to give her the experience needed to improve her skills? The "lack of caring"... was that just telling her where and how she failed?
This evil manager could have been trying to make her a better coder, but since he didn't tell her she was perfect all the time and assigned her things she didn't want to learn he never got the chance... and neither would she.
"I got boring projects which I found it difficult to get motivated for, and which focused more on exactly the things in which I had little experience, rather than on one of my strengths. And I got seriously slammed when I made mistakes stemming from my lack of experience, thus further reducing my motivation. "
Instead of constantly playing to your strengths, I'd expect any mentor worth of the title to try to shore up your weaknesses.
It sounds like you did poorly on your assignment and, rather than looking to improve your skills, felt bad about it and wallowed in self pity.
Having more women around probably wouldn't have done anything to help that. If you're not willing to do things to improve your weaknesses (whatever they are) yet expect constant praise and adoration, don't be surprised when people don't want to work with you.
Slashdot Mirror
A guy I know rigged his windshield washer dispenser to shoot vodka into a hose hanging next to his drivers side visor. Great set up; he could drink and drive at the touch of a switch.
When the cops pulled him over, the drips from the hose gave him away. Nothing like having vodka drip onto a speeding ticket to ruin your day.
They don't call it "impared" for nothing.
Shades of Spaceballs....
... hmmm... rasberry... dude, youre getting jammed!
Caller: yadda yadda yadda... huh? *blink* *blink*
Bystander: Whats wrong?
Caller: I just got cut off... and there's this goop comming out of my cell..
Bystander: *rubs finger in goop* *licks finger*
The impetus has been there for a while, but camera phones seem to have brought the idea of cell phone jamming out in the open.
Of course, if all cell phone / radio signals are jammed to protect privacy, perhaps the gold-chain running-suit set will hold meetings in locker rooms rather than doctors / lawyers offices.
It had to be only a matter of time before dedicated individuals / groups took advantage of the plethora of spyware out there for criminal intent. The truly dedicated would write their own, natch.
Christ, William Gibson brought this up in Neuromancer back in what, 1982?
Amazon Link
I dont want to give any spoilers, but the plot covers your concerns.
If you think radio is only a music delivery system, then sure that model has problems.
However, if you think radio is an information delivery system, then you might also think it will be with us for some time.
Talk radio is everywhere. I'm a die hard NPR listener, but also check out other local talk radio from time to time. It seems like talk radio will be around for a while, since news and commentary seem popular.
Perhaps radio has figured that out as well, considering ClearChannel's ubiquitous presence in the talk-radio landscape.
::Does jedi hand wave::
These aren't the chips you're looking for... move along...
Not sure if platform makes a difference, but I've tried using styles on Word2k/Win2k. They do work as you suggest, but tend to break down if I email the document to someone else. IIRC, there was a way to include custom styles in a document but I never got it to work right ( i.e. without answering 20+ minutes of questions from my PHB ).
.doc . Word opens it right up, and no questions from the PHB's
These days if I have to write something at work I'll use gvim, then save the file with an extention of
Why surprised?
These analysts were the same people pushing enron and worldcom before the news of their illegalities got out.
Perhaps at one time they were independant, but these days they seem to be salesmen for the investment banking community.
check Frontline Dot Con for more info.
porn... well, that explain why everyone keeps posting about tactile feedback.
Code snippets were ment as examples, not a be-all end-all solution.
;)
The point I was trying to make is "check that the input is as expected", and there are a number of ways to do that. For command line input in perl I like regex, for web / gui apps I prefer list boxes, radio buttons, etc. to limit user input.
Of course, the only 100% sure way to prevent hash corruption is "dont use hashes".
If you're taking input from the user, a sanity check on that input is in order.
I use regular expressions for this. Example code is perl ( since I use that more often, not to dis python ):
Checks for all alpha input, while
Checks that the input is no greater than 5 characters, but can be less.
Nope.
First, you're assuming the identification of a particular DNA sample to a particular human is 100% accurate. Multiple testing of the same sample can reduce the error rate, but only if it's done.
Second, what about crimes commited in a public place? The classic mob hit in resteraunt springs to mind. There would be hundreds if not thousands of DNA samples to sort through.
Third, the same thing was said of fingerprints. Funny, criminals learned to wear gloves. Even if perfect DNA sample collection and processing exists ( HAH! ) criminals can and will find a way to destroy the samples they might leave ( gasoline and match, ammonia, etc. ) or just leave less / no samples ( clean room suit ).
No system is perfect.
Or, should the site get /.'d, the relavent bit is:
and It's worth your time.
Getting beyond the thumbnail film-noir meets cyberpunk, the book does cover some interesting questions.
Backing up humans is covered, but so is religious opposition to the process. Copying humans is likewise considered, as is modifying the flesh in unusual ways ( picture a very hot chick. now picture a very hot chick who secretes XTC when she's turned on. ) and some of the more usual ones ( installing the consiousness of a male in a female body ).
But dont think this is some preachy isnt-the-future-cool diatribe. Its complex plot is, as others have said, worthy of Dashel or Hammet with a similar man-against-system feel.
Overall, it gave me the same feel that Neuromancer gave me when I read it; a future darkly lit in a form that stands outside traditional genres.
Yeah, I like to cook.
Sure, every once in a while I get a Bender-esq remark. Then I remind the commenter that cooking involves playing with knives and fire; how can that be bad?
Besides, it's the best way I know to avoid the tasteless bland crap at the chainery.
And not only are the bills of a different size, but in the lower right hand corner ( IIRC ) of the bill face are a number of raised dots. One dot == 1000 yen, two dots == 5000 yen and three dots == 10000 yen.
What you're talking about is common with oracle. You can make a select-only query against two databases via DBLINK. With local ( or public ) synonyms the remote tables look like they're a part of your schema.
you might be surprised that most of our clients need oracle. Our accounting system (for instance) would grind to a halt without range partioning ( damn near did... s'why we reconfigured the db to use it ).
as to smaller canned applications that require oracle, we combined many of their databases into a single oracle instance.
Not that I'm an expert, but when did that ever stop a post...
What about biodiesel? Home Power magazine just ran an article on it. Seems like it would be a good way to introduce renewable energy into transportation without a lot of overhead. It stores the same as regular diesel and runs in unmodified diesel engines.
To clarify, I said:
"The example you cite is interesting, but doesn't seem to have enough information."
I did not assume that the manager was trying to help, nor did I assume the manager wasn't. Thanks for providing more information.
The post contained a line I disagreed with:
"The men tended to be very cruel in various ways (not just to me -- also to each other). I suspect this problem wouldn't have occured if there had been more women in the group."
What was described sounds like bad management letting childish behavior impact performance. A similar situation I was in was a tech support job. The shop was majority female.
Bad management is bad management, regardless of gender. I work (and have worked) for and with people of both genders and many different races. I've never found management skill to be related to chromosomes or genetics.
On reading the comment, it sounds like the poster is suggesting more females == better management. That strikes me as bigoted and sexist.
Is Micro$oft a bad place to work? I have no idea; I've never worked there. It sounds like I wouldn't like it though: closed community, insular mentality, etc.
Glad to see we can agree on something (wink).
I guess what's galling me is the "this and his lack of caring" line in your post above.
My feelings are irrelevant to my work requirements.
My work stands on it's own merrits, regardless of how someone feels, because it either meets or fails to meet objective standards.
If I fail to meet objective standards, I should be told that. If I meet objective standards, I should be told that.
The example you cite is interesting, but doesn't seem to have enough information. Was the manager continually assigning tasks to her weak areas in an attempt to give her the experience needed to improve her skills? The "lack of caring"... was that just telling her where and how she failed?
This evil manager could have been trying to make her a better coder, but since he didn't tell her she was perfect all the time and assigned her things she didn't want to learn he never got the chance... and neither would she.
William S. Burroughs said it better:
"Anyone who owns a frying pan owns death"
You and I disagree.
Morale ( or personal self-worth, motivation, etc. ) should come from both internal and external acknowledgement of valid capability.
If I'm not doing a good job, my mentor should tell me whether or not it hurts my feelings.
My morale improves when I see myself doing good work and my clients like the work that I produce.
Making people feel good for the sake of feeling good is destructive, i.e. without negative motivation the positive motivation becomes irrelevant.
If success and failure feel the same, why succeed?
"I got boring projects which I found it difficult to get motivated for, and which focused more on exactly the things in which I had little experience, rather than on one of my strengths. And I got seriously slammed when I made mistakes stemming from my lack of experience, thus further reducing my motivation. "
Instead of constantly playing to your strengths, I'd expect any mentor worth of the title to try to shore up your weaknesses.
It sounds like you did poorly on your assignment and, rather than looking to improve your skills, felt bad about it and wallowed in self pity.
Having more women around probably wouldn't have done anything to help that. If you're not willing to do things to improve your weaknesses (whatever they are) yet expect constant praise and adoration, don't be surprised when people don't want to work with you.