> Is that like the same buddy network that keeps giving idiot CEOs 10 million dollar a year salaries for laying people off while they run companies into the ground?
Yes, it is that exact buddy network. The old axiom 'It's not what you know, it's WHO you know' is true, whether you like it or not, whether you think it's "fair" or not. Why shouldn't I take advantage of the same tool CEOs are taking advantage of (a strong network of contacts)? It doesn't mean I can't do great work. I just means I could find the best place to do it for the most reward.
> making [...] business contacts > the IT world doesn't really work that way
You're in for a surprise if you believe this. Unless you are content to be a code-monkey your whole life, you will need to sell yourself and you will need contacts. The more the better. Every GOOD job I've ever had came through a personal contact. The lousy ones came through recruiters. Now that I run my own business I would starve to death without contacts.
When I was in college, I refered to frats as the "Rent a buddy system." I had plenty of friends and thought the frats were for people who had to join a club to find friends.
Now, 16 years later, I wish I had joined a frat for the many contacts I would have made. I work with some people that were in frats in college and it seems we can't go to a seminar, conference, or business without someone recognizing on of their 'brothers'. Makes for easy introductions.
I voted for Badnarik. When I stepped out of the booth my wife asked, 'Did you vote for Kerry?'. I replied 'No'. She hit me 'Oh No! You didnt!'. "No honey, I didnt vote for Bush.:-)"
This is the same reason that our adversarial legal system also falls flat. Having two skilled attorneys argue each side of a case just proves which is the better debater, not which is 'right' or 'true'.
Unfortunately, I can't think of any better system. Having someone in power decide (Judge, King, etc) is worse.
Sorry to break the news to you, but when I was hiring we wouldn't even consider anyone without a four year CS degree as a developer. Too many technical schools sending out shoe-salesmen with a visual basic cheat sheet. I'm sure there were a few amazing developers that got overlooked because of this, but there was no shortage of CS degree's applicants then, and it's even more so now.
1. Make a list of everyone that is clearly special, and everyone else who isn't special.
2. The first person on the "not special" list is clearly special by being the "First Non-Special". He'll get interviews, appearances, etc as the "First Normal". This makes him special. Move him to the special list.
3. Repeat step two until the normal list is empty.
> the attacker would have to know the URL you go to for online banking and replace it in your hosts file with a different site. It seems unlikely that it would work on too many people
Yeah, because it would be too hard to fill a hosts file with the URLs for Citibank, Chase, BankAmerica, and the rest of the top 10 or top 100 banks. Nobody could do that.
> what technical/practical benifits do the 'server versions' of these apps provide?
It's about time! How many servers out there are running a desktop Excel that is being COM controlled by a web application? Excel is NOT made to handle multiple simultaneous requests, and hangs, crashes, corrupts and does other nasty things when it is asked to. I don't know how many times I've had to kludge together a solution to manipulating Excel spreadsheets or Powerpoint presentations in a web server application. None of the solutions are perfect. Controlling Excel and Powerpoint with COM leads to an unstable solution. Emulating Excel or Powerpoint data leads to buggy data (since Microsoft actively tries to F* up anybody trying to emulate their data formats).
A server-capable Office engine would enable me to manipulate Excel, Powerpoint, and Word documents in a web application.
> I'm not so sure it's impossible. It seems like you could use some public-key approach to verifying that the software you are voting on matches the official build.
I think what the parent poster is arguing is that some nefarious party could install an election box running their own software, perhaps incorporating parts of the open source software, that appears identical in every visible way to the true open source software, including any checksums and verifications forged from the true open source software.
My solution to that is: the software is open source, the company doing the hardware installations is a non-profit with audit teams from both (all) parties watching over the installations. Part of the open source software would be an installation procedure that installs from a blank machine over the net. The audit team could watch (or even have part in) the process of blanking a new machine, installing it over the net, and physically setting it up at an election site.
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> Is that like the same buddy network that keeps giving idiot CEOs 10 million dollar a year salaries for laying people off while they run companies into the ground?
Yes, it is that exact buddy network.
The old axiom 'It's not what you know, it's WHO you know' is true, whether you like it or not, whether you think it's "fair" or not.
Why shouldn't I take advantage of the same tool CEOs are taking advantage of (a strong network of contacts)? It doesn't mean I can't do great work. I just means I could find the best place to do it for the most reward.
> making [...] business contacts
> the IT world doesn't really work that way
You're in for a surprise if you believe this. Unless you are content to be a code-monkey your whole life, you will need to sell yourself and you will need contacts. The more the better. Every GOOD job I've ever had came through a personal contact. The lousy ones came through recruiters. Now that I run my own business I would starve to death without contacts.
When I was in college, I refered to frats as the "Rent a buddy system." I had plenty of friends and thought the frats were for people who had to join a club to find friends.
Now, 16 years later, I wish I had joined a frat for the many contacts I would have made. I work with some people that were in frats in college and it seems we can't go to a seminar, conference, or business without someone recognizing on of their 'brothers'. Makes for easy introductions.
I voted for Badnarik. When I stepped out of the booth my wife asked, 'Did you vote for Kerry?'. I replied 'No'. She hit me 'Oh No! You didnt!'. "No honey, I didnt vote for Bush. :-)"
> Make sure you continue to re-elect these politicians
Not *ME*. None of the candidates I voted for won the election.
> skipping any commercials or promotional announcements would be prohibited
I cant believe it. I don't even own my eyes anymore! These politicians can GO TO HELL.
This is the same reason that our adversarial legal system also falls flat. Having two skilled attorneys argue each side of a case just proves which is the better debater, not which is 'right' or 'true'.
Unfortunately, I can't think of any better system. Having someone in power decide (Judge, King, etc) is worse.
> one year course should be sufficient
Sorry to break the news to you, but when I was hiring we wouldn't even consider anyone without a four year CS degree as a developer. Too many technical schools sending out shoe-salesmen with a visual basic cheat sheet. I'm sure there were a few amazing developers that got overlooked because of this, but there was no shortage of CS degree's applicants then, and it's even more so now.
There is no in-joke. Everything you need to understand this joke is right in front of you.
Proof that everyone is special:
1. Make a list of everyone that is clearly special, and everyone else who isn't special.
2. The first person on the "not special" list is clearly special by being the "First Non-Special". He'll get interviews, appearances, etc as the "First Normal". This makes him special. Move him to the special list.
3. Repeat step two until the normal list is empty.
> When the Arab nations realize they can't eat sand and can't afford to import food because their oil is worthless, there'll be hell to pay.
And if their oil is worthless, they will pay for a war... how?
> run a checksum on designated files
It's called TripWire, and it's an excellent program.
> the attacker would have to know the URL you go to for online banking and replace it in your hosts file with a different site. It seems unlikely that it would work on too many people
Yeah, because it would be too hard to fill a hosts file with the URLs for Citibank, Chase, BankAmerica, and the rest of the top 10 or top 100 banks. Nobody could do that.
He was right. HE didn't have to debug his programs. He had you for that.
The Matrix 2 & 3 sucked so badly, who is excited about this game?
Now a MMORPG based on Gigli... that would rock.
> Do you read all of the Received: headers on every piece of email that you get?
I absolutely DO read the headers before accusing an otherwise reputable company of sending child pornography, yes.
The child-porn spams would have a trail of servers that clearly did NOT come from the company's mail server.
By the way, SPF checking on mail servers would stop this kind of garbage.
> when you move from MSSQL to MySQL, what do you do about
We use PostGreSQL.
> Perhaps they should solve other problems of being able to visit Mars such as its gravitation and the fact that the surface is quite uninhabitable.
Last I heard, both Earth orbit and the Moon are quite uninhabitable, yet we've visited both of those.
> Your sig is my favorite Philip K. Dick quote.
In an unexpected symmetry, your sig is my favorite Buffy quote.
I tape the superbowl so I can fast forward through the sports parts to watch the commercials (and the occasional escaped breast).
> The first edition of this book came in really handy in college
Man, I feel old.
For me, 'Programming Cyber 7600 Assembly' came in really handy in college.
> what technical/practical benifits do the 'server versions' of these apps provide?
It's about time! How many servers out there are running a desktop Excel that is being COM controlled by a web application? Excel is NOT made to handle multiple simultaneous requests, and hangs, crashes, corrupts and does other nasty things when it is asked to.
I don't know how many times I've had to kludge together a solution to manipulating Excel spreadsheets or Powerpoint presentations in a web server application. None of the solutions are perfect. Controlling Excel and Powerpoint with COM leads to an unstable solution. Emulating Excel or Powerpoint data leads to buggy data (since Microsoft actively tries to F* up anybody trying to emulate their data formats).
A server-capable Office engine would enable me to manipulate Excel, Powerpoint, and Word documents in a web application.
> I'm not so sure it's impossible. It seems like you could use some public-key approach to verifying that the software you are voting on matches the official build.
I think what the parent poster is arguing is that some nefarious party could install an election box running their own software, perhaps incorporating parts of the open source software, that appears identical in every visible way to the true open source software, including any checksums and verifications forged from the true open source software.
My solution to that is: the software is open source, the company doing the hardware installations is a non-profit with audit teams from both (all) parties watching over the installations. Part of the open source software would be an installation procedure that installs from a blank machine over the net. The audit team could watch (or even have part in) the process of blanking a new machine, installing it over the net, and physically setting it up at an election site.
Replying to myself, here are some links relating to open source voting technology:
Project to provide open source voting to California
Australian elections done right with open source voting software