My first computer was a TRS 80 model III. It was the first computer that the primary school owned. They didn't exactly know what to do with it. I'd bring it home on weekends to play with it, keying in basic programs from books and/or magazines (I don't remember which).
My first home computer was a TI 99/4A. Then we later upgraded to an Apple IIe. By high school, PC's were showing up in many classrooms, but they were still more of a novelty than an actual teaching aide. At the time, I had friends with the whole variety of home computers. Anything you could tie a modem to ended up calling local BBS's (also running on a variety of hardware). The Internet was still very primitive, and still mostly the realm of universities. My first exposure to the Internet was a college student who could dial up from his apartment, and could do file transfers and chat via IRC (I'm pretty sure it was IRC). There was no "web" yet.
We've come a long way, but this is only the beginning. Things will be so different in 30 years, that what we have now will be archaic.:)
The post made it seem to be a bad thing. Is it really so bad? I wouldn't even know where to get a pen that you fill from an ink well. That was a huge step above using a quill dipped in the ink well. Either is so much more efficient than carving letters into stone tables.:)
Hey, I'm posting this from an old tablet that the CPU is 1000x faster than the first computer I used (1Ghz), and this thing is ancient.:) At least it has a wireless network card (802.11b), so I can get online without tying it down to much more than a power source on occasion.:) I have to get my real laptop fixed (damaged power jack). This is just a somewhat suitable fallback machine.
I'm sure you learned just as I did, that to make a mechanical typewriter work, you had to push hard on the keys.
I built up my real speed in typing after getting very active with BBS's and message networks (such as FidoNet). I was up past 100wpm in the 80's. At those speeds, when i was finally on a PC, I had a tendency of wearing out keyboards very quickly. Beyond the fact that the lettering on the keys would wear away from use, the keys themselves would frequently break from too much pressure. The life expectancy of a keyboard that I used was about 6 months before a (or multiple) keys would simply stop functioning. It took me a long time to unlearn that, but now keyboards usually survive years of use, long after the lettering wears off.:) Sometimes when I get deep in thought, I'll slam keys, not because I'm being aggressive, but because that's how you make the letters show up.:)
Did you have the same problem?
Almost everyone I've spoke with has never used a mechanical typewriter. They may have seen one once, but they never had real experience with them. Many people may have learned once with a mechanical, but since electric typewriters entered the office place so many years ago, most learned to type on those. They don't really realize with a CRLF is, where you would hit the arm on the typewriter to do a linefeed, or push the whole thing over for a carriage return.
You missed the first two versions. Somewhere between pathetic and horrible. Originally, I was going to list out all the events that were planned for 2012, both normal ones like the 2012 Olympics in London, and the conspiracy based. I was finding plenty of stuff, I just never found a good format to post it with. So, it's just news.:) At least the casual reader will have something fresh to look at if they visit each day.:)
I'm 36 years old. The only place I have ever seen "carbon" paper used for typing was from an old box of office supplies my mom had. She also had an old mechanical typewriter, which I used to poke at as a kid. They may have been used in offices, but I've never seen it done. I only used them when I was a kid playing with her typewriter, proving to myself that I could spell.:) Big deal.
How many people on here learned to type on a mechanical typewriter? Not very many, I'd guess. I only learned on it, because it was there. We had no purpose to buy an electronic typewriter, and when I was still young, we were using a (oh my gosh) computer to type up letters.
That post was terrible, and really deserved to be in idle, not as a main story. There are plenty of things that have historical value, but are of little purpose 30 years later. It's written as a sad fact that the world changes, but change is a thing that happens frequently with humanity. Get over it.:)
Actually, the implication of 2012 is the end of a period, and the beginning of a new one. It doesn't necessarily mean we're all going to die. I'm sure some people will, due to natural attrition.
I don't discount the idea that 2012 will be the collapse of civilization as we know it, I'm just not packing up my survival gear and heading to the hills to wait out the end of the zombie attack.:) I'm preparing just as hard as I did for Y2K. I bought a couple boxes of ammo, put them away with my preferred weapon, and went out for a drink. Actually, I still have my Y2K ammo, and probably will still for 2012.:) I plan on a night of drinking and sex. When I wake up the next morning, I expect to turn on the TV, and find it's just another day.
Since you'll be a freshman, I suggest not doing the drinking part when Dec 21 2012 rolls around. Just make sure you know someone who's well armed, in case the poles flip, the comet hits, zombies attack, and... well... whatever else is theorized. None of us are very good at telling the future. If we were, Vegas would be bankrupt, and the stock market would be stagnant since everyone would already know what was going to happen.:) The lottery would be much less interesting, since every time there would be millions of winners.
Don't panic about the conspiracy theorists. I love a good conspiracy, and since Bush didn't stage a military occupation of the US, I'm pretty much stuck with 2012 and aliens. I'm sure I'll work up a few new ones soon for my own entertainment. It's always a good way to start a conversation to make someone think I'm nuts, or at least feel them out for their insanities.:)
I did set up a 2012 web site. It has recent news relating to 2012. It'll be running until the ice caps melt and flood all the coastal cities of the world.:)
I found out the hard way with one company that you must make things scaleable. It started out with a 2 letter company code, and a two digit number. That's all fine and dandy, until it grows, and keeps growing.
One site and one rack is fun. A half dozen sites and 3 to 20 racks in each needs a good method. It's a pain to find out "three-mile-island" is down, and have to go hunting to find what city it's in, what KVM and PDU it's plugged into, while the boss is standing over you asking "why isn't this back up yet, it's essential!"
At another company, we had the same fun with virtual machines. They weren't documented, and there were a half dozen servers handing the virtual hosts. Some didn't have working consoles. The people working on them hadn't even labled the machines, since they were in-house. They were mixed in with a few dozen machines that weren't suppose to be turned on (retired or whatever, but still racked).
Maybe the host machine powered itself down. Maybe someone did it on purpose. Maybe the VM just died. Maybe... maybe... maybe... It makes you look like a complete fool to sit there trying to find it, while a department manager is saying "my whole department is dead in the water until you bring it back up"
The place that I designed and had full control over, once you were introduced to a few basic items like "here's the intranet, it's all documented here. Machines are named for the nearest airport code, rack, and position number" it was very intuitive. I liked being able to bring a new sysadmin on, and they'd be up and running with everything in less than a week.
What was worse was a counterintuitive numbering system, which had mixed systems across the whole thing, because standardization wasn't allowed. Machines kept their old city name, regardless of if they had moved. Some were duplicated, so you had to know the difference between "old LA1", "new LA1", and "replacement LA1", even though both had the same hostname and label, but different IP's, and they both may reside in Houston, Chicago, or New York. "Call the datacenter, and have them physically check the machine" became a nightmare, when you weren't even sure what company to call.
My way, if a server was moved from LAX (Los Angeles) to JFK (New York), it got a new hostname, and was noted in changelogs. If the question ever came up, "What happened to the original LA1", it became a simple matter to say "Oh, that was shipped to JFK, and is now named JFK.01.03.09.
We had friendly names too, but they associated well, so problems with "mail" were expedited (people scream when email stops working for even 30 seconds). That's a simple number of having any paging system list both the official name, and the friendly name. "mail (JFK.01.03.09)" or "timbuktu (LAX.01.09.99)". But, would I know that timbuktu is a virtual hosting server, mail server, dns server, or VM host? It gives no hint to a new tech.
If I came to work at your shop, I may remember three-mile-island is a server name, but really I don't even remember what you said it did from the previous posting. It does... well... something. At least it probably did before it melted down.:)
In our usage list, it may say "LAX.01.09.99 (timbuktu) down for refurb", because it's actually suppose to be down. I liked just writing "dead" as the use, if it just stopped working and no one had a clue of why. It gave an easy hint of what to repair when someone went to the site. "Fix or ship back to the office, all machines noted as dead."
Now, that format isn't precise to our old format, but the idea is there.
I knew a hosting company, who is actually pretty big now, that warm fuzzy friendly names for everything. That was all fun and games, until
A happy little web interface for entering data. A SQL back end. MAC addresses were stored in a text area because I was lazy, but they were still searchable. We had anywhere from 1 to 8 MAC's on a single machine (ya, annoying, I know). It got worse if a machine was retired, and parts were moved to new machines. Do you really need to buy a new 2 to 4 port NIC, or just move a perfectly good working one to another machine.
That was resolved easily. Retired machines were noted as such, and taken out of most of the searches, unless you looked specifically at "all" hardware, rather than "active" hardware.
It was easy enough to have a script crawl the machines for the data too. dmidecode would capture everything including the service tag on most machines, so you could just search. The errors occurred in hand written parts, such as the paper invoices from vendors, and those who received the data.
A135X could have been AL3SX or AL35X. Sometimes they failed totally, and put down some other arbitrary number from the machine. It's not all that useful to have the model number listed as the serial number, when you have 50 of that model. Parts of it took a long time to resolve for accounting.
mx.mycorp.com was on NYC.A.332.4.01, but we migrated it over to LAX.G.222.1.08. That was all fine and dandy until it got load balanced.:)
Ya, it breaks less people, when they can simply continue to use mx.mycorp.com, regardless of what machine to stick it on that day.
They should make a system for that. It should have a bunch of servers, that'll let you take a name and convert it into an internet routeable address. It should also let you have aliases just for doing stuff like this. Damn, I'm going to patent that. I'll make a fortune.:)
[spins up Tardis, set Dec 31, 1968, Times Square, NYC]
See ya, suckers! Hopefully I'll remember after the party tonight! I may have to swing by another somewhere around there in August 15th too. Damn, this Tardis thing is useful.
(as a side note, since the present hasn't changed noticeably, I forgot to patent DNS, but I may be grandfather to quite a few of you now. I really can't remember.)
Why would there be problems when they're pronounced "three eight zero" and "three alpha tango"?:)
Arbitrary names are difficult when people aren't familiar with what you're spelling. Using Norse gods can be interesting. Sure, Thor is a short easy to spell name, unless you don't know who he is. He could be Porr, Punarr, Punor, Punaer, Tonger, Donar, or Thunaraz.
What about that device hanging off of Thor? Obviously Thor's Hammer. Or is that Mjollnir, Mjolner.
My apologies for the spellings. Slashdot can't handle anything but US-ASCII characters, but that's fine since you'd need to stick with that for hostnames and machine names anyways.:) I'll just say Loki made me do it.:)
The problems with arbitrary names are, they're a nightmare to find, especially for new people.
"Where is three-mile-island?" No, not the beloved nuclear reactor, but the server. Sure, someone who's been there for a while will know "Oh, that's at the London facility, building C, 4th floor, room 426, rack 3.
Logical names are best.
How about LYC.C.426.3.01
(City, building, room, rack, serial number). You'd guide a tech straight to the machine, and he may have to glance at stickers of up to 40 machines.
The same would apply to desktops. One in the London facility, building D, 2nd floor, room 221, cubical 44 could be
LYC.D.221.44.01
You'd still need to document where building D is, but it reduces the papertrail required to find a computer.
It's far better than "asset45562", which may be accessible through a spreadsheet, but not terribly useful if the spreadsheet isn't available.
For servers, this has worked well for me.
I've seen sites that name for arbitrary things, which in a room of say 100 machines makes a real headache. even worse is when it gets moved. If you have a name for locating the machine, and then a friendly alias in DNS, it'll work fine for you.
LHR.A.155.01.01 has a DNS alias of dns01.example.com, I'd bet it does DNS. It would likely even be the first DNS server. I'd always wonder what mx01.example.com would do though (oh, a mail server).
Of course, it's just an idea, not a recommendation. I've used fixed length fields with no delimiters. I once just assigned blocks, so 01.example.com through 20.example.com all belonged to one city, but as the company grew, that pool ran out, and 21.example.com through 100.example.com had already been assigned to another city. That's when it became necessary to provide a city identifier.
That's great.:) I love seeing women doing stuff that they're "not suppose to do". In the last few weeks, I've worked on several cars where the owners (mostly women) had been given huge quotes for "essential" work, yet found that it was unnecessary.
The last one was a car that was occasionally overheating. It "needed" a water pump, where they would also replace the timing belt and thermostat. (the pump is behind the timing belt. Weird car.). I gave it a proper evaluation, which took more than the 30 seconds the others had given it, and found it to just be the thermostat. It does have other problems, but those were nonessential. So far it's been evaluated by 4 other mechanics, but she made the mistake of repeating what the others had told her. I not only evaluated the problem, but explained to her how the cooling system worked, and why it was happening.
She happened to have the shop manual, so after explaining it, I flipped through the pages to where it talked about the thermostat, They not only talked about evaluating the symptoms and testing it in detail (cold water, then hot water, and monitor it's response), and how different behaviors would make the car behave. Basically, it's sticking partly open.
Most of the others were hugely over priced easy repairs. I'm amazed how shops will try to take advantage of people. My friends appreciate having me around. Even if I can't do the work (time or equipment constraints), they can now go to another shop and say "I *ONLY* want this done."
I used to get a huge laugh out of a local Sears. My mom would go down to get tires or whatever. I will have checked it over carefully first. They'd quote her $300 in repairs. She'd bring it home, and I'd check out the repairs that they said were necessary, and they weren't. Next trip (many months later), she'd get a new quote for $300 in repairs, but they were always for something different. It was pretty clear that they had already figured $300 was a decent price point, where most customers would pay without getting too nervous about the bill. Lately they've been over $1000. I don't know where they think the money is coming from, but I guess at least some people are falling for it. It's driven friends, and friends of friends, to me to check the quote first. But hey, I can honestly say once it was a legitimate quote. That was pretty easy though, the car was beyond it's life expectancy (and the duct tape was wearing out). They could have listed almost anything, and I would have agreed with it. I recommended a tow to the junk yard as the best option. The necessary repairs were more than the car was worth, and it would take me weeks to make it serviceable again.
Would it have been any better if she had the urge to follow bank courier trucks, note their routes, names and home addresses of the drivers? Maybe she could have included how many bags and their apparent load. Pictures of their stops, and notes of visibility at various stops would be useful.
That is obviously terribly dangerous. It would almost definitely lead to courier thefts, and probably shootouts between thieves and the couriers.
I know someone who was a bank courier years ago. They take extreme precautions, including decoy vehicles, and route randomization, but it would still be an extreme risk.
How about truckers who are moving high value cargo? A truck of oranges may not be all that interesting to a criminal, but how about an unmarked truck transporting jewelry, addictive pharmaceuticals, or high dollar electronics?
Regardless of what your job is, let the person do their job. If it's a criminal act (like drug dealing), let the professionals take care of it.
Hell, I knew someone in a call center who was harassed at work and home, because some nutjob thought that they were wronged. If you've worked a call center, I'm sure you've received some of those calls.
It's pretty obvious that the drug dealers, manufacturers, and couriers are the ones who would profit best by the outing of all the officers involved. It's almost asking for them to get dead.
I will be more than happy to argue for the legalization of some currently illegal drugs, BUT since they are not legal at this time, I hold nothing against those who are enforcing such laws. What she has done has put lives in jeopardy. While she may have just seen it as an interesting hobby, that may just lead to a very final conclusion for some of the people she's harassing.
There's actually a really good market here in the states for "recycled" electronics. I know a big company who buys lots (like pallet fulls, not just a large quantity) from gov't auctions, and sometimes they're simply contracted by the government to haul off the equipment. They're perfectly good working units. They sell them through their store, and on eBay. What they can't sell because they're broken, they break down to components, and then have some 3rd parties that break them down more for precious metals.
They're SUPPOSE to wipe all sensitive information. I have received routers that were still configured for government agencies and large businesses. I don't know how they ever made it out the door of the original facilities, but they did. I've bought some really nice, and previously really expensive, equipment for real cheap. Sometimes some doesn't work quite right, but I'd say I have a >90% success rate with it.
Those shops never test them though, so I buy untested, and absorb my losses. BTW, if anyone needs a nice Cisco 5005, I have one sitting in the garage that needs a good home.:) I swapped it out for a Cisco WS-C2980G because it took up less space and less power.:) That, and I have 3 working spare 2980G's in case the first breaks.:)
They also sell lots of hard drives, but what would I do with 1,000 untested (i.e., not formatted) 80Gb drives, besides pilfer them for information?:) Nah, I have better things to do with my time.
The way I look at it is this. For a PC game, you're hopeful it works on your hardware. Maybe it doesn't like your chipset, your video card, your sound card, or something that's running in Windows. You pretty much have to run Windows (or fight with Wine, for those that work).
I like flight sims. I *WANT* to play MS FSX. On my laptop the video card isn't good enough to do much. On my PC, it's better, but crashes with a fairly common problem. I can improve it with different video cards, and multiheaded displays to get the full view that I really want. I want to see the gauges. I want to see the horizon. I want to see out the sides. The setups I've seen that do it well have a whole array of monitors, and some pretty beefy hardware to back it up.
If I want to play another game, I may need a different video card, that's better supported for that game.
Maybe one wants a different version of DirectX, or some other software to help out. Maybe it doesn't like the antivirus, so I have to disable that, but do I want to disable the antivirus while I'm online?
I've been helping my friend's son try to play a game. It refused to work. I upgraded the drivers, and that broke another game, so I downgraded the drivers, and through a whole song and dance of driver versions for the video and sound, the original game works, but the second game doesn't render parts of it, and their site only suggests to upgrade to the current drivers. Blah. 6 hours wasted. One game is playable. The other game is partially playable, except parts don't render, so he won't play it.
Now, a console game was written specifically for THAT hardware. You know it will work out of the box. If it doesn't, there's a problem with the disk. There's no "you don't have enough memory", or "your CPU isn't fast enough" or "you need a different video card." They developed it on that platform. They tested it on that platform. Every single user out there has exactly the same platform. I won't say that console games are bug free, I've run into a few.
I won't buy a console. I'll just play when I'm at someone's house that has one. I'll take a day or three, and play through the entire game, so now I'm done. I've accomplished the goal, there's nothing else to do. I'm actually pretty good at games, even though I'm not a "gamer", so 2 player or online play can get boring pretty quick. I don't see the sense in buying a PS3, and spending $50/game to find out it sucks, or renting countless games from Blockbuster. I'll only play a game if someone else has it and I see it looks remotely interesting. I'll play it over a weekend, and I'm done. a $400 console and a $50 game isn't worth a weekend. I can spend $450 in much more interesting ways, usually taking a lovely lady out for an enjoyable weekend.:)
It's not that I'm old. When I was 18, I did the same thing.
I did at one point buy a PS2, before the PS3's came out. They were on sale. It was more of a community toy, not a personal one. It entertained 5 or 6 people who were around that played it, until it broke. For some reason, the colors went away, and games are almost impossible to play in black and white. It's a toy, and it never got replaced.
I'll play the occasional old game, on my newer PC, because I know it'll work. They're always hand-me-downs, so I could care less how entertaining it is. If it's not worth playing, I hand it back. Even if it is worth playing, I spend a few hours on it, and then hand it back with a "Thanks for the distraction.":)
I'm enjoying WipEout HD on the PS3. It's not my console, and not my game, so I spend a few hours mastering tracks. I still have to get my hours in on it to master the new release of it. Then I'll go online, and fly fast, and get bored with it again.
The police are doing a job, which is required by law. The are the investigative and enforcement branch of the legal system.
I have been known to dig up personal information on people using publicly available information. When I do it, it's usually either to find someone (say, a family member or friend) that has been out of contact for a while. Many times, when I dig for information, it's requested by the person who I'm digging the information up on, because they're curious to what I can find. It's usually a friend, so I already have a good basis to start with. That doesn't get published, and that's a long stretch from digging for information on an entire group of individuals, and then potentially putting them in harms way.
Someone else used the example of abortion clinic doctors, and it's terrible result.
She wasn't just doing a bit of research. She was stalking. I think it's sad that stalking laws needed to be created, but it's good that they are on the books now.
If someone made a profile on me, my movements, and other assorted data. Say even a small segment of the population wanted to cause me harm (which I don't believe there is), then it could be hazardous to me and my health.
In her case, what if I happened to be friends with one of the officers, and had been spotted going in and out of the police station, which put me on her list? I could be a target for some twisted revenge situation, simply for being in the wrong places at the right times. When I was in high school, I had a friend who worked in local law enforcement in a minor capacity. I did show up at the police station occasionally. That could have potentially put me on her list as an undercover officer, and my family and myself could be at risk of retaliation by any segment of the population who may have a grudge against law enforcement.
Reading the article, it says that she was charged with only a single charge of harassment. They were being nice. They didn't throw the book at her. I'm sure she could have been hit with a whole stack of charges. That was just a friendly warning, "Stop it.", which I'm sure was not the first warning she got. Hopefully she'll oblige, and start behaving like a normal person again.
And people wonder why I use an alias exclusively on the Internet.:) Because there are enough nutjobs out there, that when they begin searching for information on me they'll find a little truth and a lot of disinformation, intentionally put out there. Law enforcement (local through federal) have enough information to find me at any time, so it's not that I'm running from them. I'm just avoiding the nutjobs with a blog.:)
I will admit, there are some less than friendly people working in law enforcement. There are some amazingly great people working there too. I once lived next door to an officer like that. If she had made friends, rather than enemies, with those officers, she would have likely been way more comfortable with her life.
Hint #1: Put down the bong.:) Being socially acceptable to smoking weed, and being stoned more often than not are two different things. Occasionally it works out, but not usually. It's not going to help you in the least if you get busted, that'll stick with you for a long time. Every job I've had for years required drug testing, and one failure is a nasty thing. No, I haven't been there, but I've known those who have.
Hint #2: Get off the Internet, and start talking to them in real life. Learn and practice your approach *AND* holding a conversation. It's fine to email and text when you're apart, it's all communication. It's very doubtful you'll find her on Slashdot though.:)
Hint #3: Maybe clean up your look a little, and shower every day. Give a little thought to how you look, so they want to actually be seen with you.:) I don't know how you look, but this would apply to >50% of the folks your age that I've known (even when I was your age). Looking back, my high school look was terrible, because I didn't care. It didn't stop me, but it really slowed me down.
Hint #4: Always (ALWAYS) treat them right, no matter how wrong they're acting (guaranteed to happen once a month). Don't rush anything. Give that little bit of extra effort, without being a damned stalker. If a relationship is going to work in the long term, you have to not only be the guy she really likes, but her best friend.
Hint #5: If she says "just friends" it probably means just friends, because she's not interested. But, you can stay being friends. You may end up dating one of her female friends.:) It's not the worst thing in the world, and if you treated her nice, she'll tell her friends glowing things about you (hopefully). Sometimes "just friends" means "just friends for now", so that really sweet pretty girl that you're friends with may be your girlfriend someday. Don't hold your breath though.
Hint #6: Just like putting in job applications, dating is a numbers game. You can pick the one girl you've always wanted to be with, but you'll find out the hard way she isn't interested, and you'll just become a stalker. You'll find the right girl eventually. Accept any rejection with a smile. You'll have a bigger smile when it really does work out. But never EVER EVER date more than one girl at the same time. That's the best way to lose both of them. They'll always find out, no matter how slick you think you are.
Hint #7: Situational awareness. Pay attention to what people are doing around you. That's more of a combat tactic, but if you really pay attention, you may find that there's a girl who likes you, that is really very cute, and you screwed up by never asking HER out. I've found out in the last few years that girls I knew years ago wanted to date me. I never asked, because I assumed they didn't, because I hadn't been paying attention. Now they're off living elsewhere or married, so that chance is long since gone. But who knows, they're the ones who found me to talk to again.:)
and finally...
Hine #8: Talk to your dad. That may seem like the stupidest thing ever, but he was your age in your position, and he's about as genetically close as you can get to you.:) I'd bet your mom was cute when they met. He did it right, since you're even here to talk about it.:) Parents, uncles, and older friends are a wonderful resource, because they've made every mistake you're about to make. You'll still make the mistakes, but maybe you can avoid some of them.... and for the R rated hints, email me. Slashdot isn't exactly the right place to post stuff like that.:)
That's what you get for posting drunk. Put the bottle down, and don't pick it up again until you're 30.:)
There are many many levels of age appropriateness.
What should a 5 year old be told about sex? It's something adults do together because the love each other.
a 13 year old? You're going through changes, hair growing in strange places, So, you're starting to hold hands, and wanting to kiss, blah, blah, blah. Probably an introduction to condoms, and opening up the idea of talking more about what may be coming?
a 15 year old? Respect for your partner. Safe sex, don't get caught by her father. The possibilities of pregnancy and disease, and the real facts about it.
a 17 year old? Finer points of technique that aren't taught watching Internet porn.
Now, if he came to me at 14, and told me about having sex, the timeline would change substantially. But, jumping to the end at 12 may be so uncomfortable that he or she doesn't want to ever talk about it again, regardless of how well he or she was raised.
You might be able to cite a few cases, but I'm afraid it would take an individual years to compile a list of the convicted innocent, even if you only consider the last 20 years, and only in the United States.
Your last statement leads us right back to politicians, but even some of them screw that up terribly. Usually it's for stupid things too. At least the CIA covers their tracks pretty well on their illegal drug trade.:) (reference Air America, Cocaine One, and more shell companies world wide than legitimate companies that exist in quite a few major US cities.)
In case #1, you don't describe the means, which is ok at this point. It's a given that it could have happened. You elude to motive with "no apparent reason". Opportunity would need to be left to further evidence.
I would believe that the motive was there. People never do anything "for no reason". There's a purpose for it for some reason. If they're willing to admit to it is a completely different situation. The "no reason" could have been a psychotic epsiode, PTSD moment, unadmitted drug related hallucination, or enough other possibilities.
Have you read the Dexter books, or watched the TV series? In almost every case in the series, as far as almost everyone other than Dexter and the reader/viewer knew there was absolutely no connection between the victim and Dexter. This absolutely fits your example, if he had been caught killing one victim.
In case #2, you state the means (well, close enough), and there are plenty of opportunities for both. There was some sort of motive for the doctor. Was it control over the husband? Once the doctor has convinced the husband to murder his wife with nothing to trace it back to the doctor, who could then tell him to do almost anything. Blackmail for part of the the life insurance? Is the doctor male or female? Either way, maybe the doctor intended a romantic relationship with the husband, and considered the wife a problem which had to be absolutely removed.
More evidence would be required to evaluate either case. It's more likely for a logical reason to be applied more than just "evil". Without knowing the reasons, there would be no way to judge. The first would sound to be the most evil. If you're a follower of the Dexter series, you'll see that he, in his own twisted way, he was actually the power of good.
I liked the idea of the open-cycle nuclear engines. Then again, I wouldn't want to be within a million miles of the damned thing.:) I'm not sure how many astronauts you could really convince that blowing up a nuke under their ass is a good thing anyways.
I don't think you'd have to worry about the sterilization part. Various radiation sources (solar, cosmic, etc) would (hopefully) take care of that, since there isn't anything resembling an atmosphere there to protect them.
Unless, of course, the radiation mutates them slightly, letting them reproduce faster.
Ok, on with the mandatory pre-launch sterilizations!
Slashdot Mirror
You weren't too far ahead of me. :)
My first computer was a TRS 80 model III. It was the first computer that the primary school owned. They didn't exactly know what to do with it. I'd bring it home on weekends to play with it, keying in basic programs from books and/or magazines (I don't remember which).
My first home computer was a TI 99/4A. Then we later upgraded to an Apple IIe. By high school, PC's were showing up in many classrooms, but they were still more of a novelty than an actual teaching aide. At the time, I had friends with the whole variety of home computers. Anything you could tie a modem to ended up calling local BBS's (also running on a variety of hardware). The Internet was still very primitive, and still mostly the realm of universities. My first exposure to the Internet was a college student who could dial up from his apartment, and could do file transfers and chat via IRC (I'm pretty sure it was IRC). There was no "web" yet.
We've come a long way, but this is only the beginning. Things will be so different in 30 years, that what we have now will be archaic. :)
The post made it seem to be a bad thing. Is it really so bad? I wouldn't even know where to get a pen that you fill from an ink well. That was a huge step above using a quill dipped in the ink well. Either is so much more efficient than carving letters into stone tables. :)
Hey, I'm posting this from an old tablet that the CPU is 1000x faster than the first computer I used (1Ghz), and this thing is ancient. :) At least it has a wireless network card (802.11b), so I can get online without tying it down to much more than a power source on occasion. :) I have to get my real laptop fixed (damaged power jack). This is just a somewhat suitable fallback machine.
I have a silly question for you.
I'm sure you learned just as I did, that to make a mechanical typewriter work, you had to push hard on the keys.
I built up my real speed in typing after getting very active with BBS's and message networks (such as FidoNet). I was up past 100wpm in the 80's. At those speeds, when i was finally on a PC, I had a tendency of wearing out keyboards very quickly. Beyond the fact that the lettering on the keys would wear away from use, the keys themselves would frequently break from too much pressure. The life expectancy of a keyboard that I used was about 6 months before a (or multiple) keys would simply stop functioning. It took me a long time to unlearn that, but now keyboards usually survive years of use, long after the lettering wears off. :) Sometimes when I get deep in thought, I'll slam keys, not because I'm being aggressive, but because that's how you make the letters show up. :)
Did you have the same problem?
Almost everyone I've spoke with has never used a mechanical typewriter. They may have seen one once, but they never had real experience with them. Many people may have learned once with a mechanical, but since electric typewriters entered the office place so many years ago, most learned to type on those. They don't really realize with a CRLF is, where you would hit the arm on the typewriter to do a linefeed, or push the whole thing over for a carriage return.
Oh, the good ol' days, how I don't miss thee. :)
You missed the first two versions. Somewhere between pathetic and horrible. Originally, I was going to list out all the events that were planned for 2012, both normal ones like the 2012 Olympics in London, and the conspiracy based. I was finding plenty of stuff, I just never found a good format to post it with. So, it's just news. :) At least the casual reader will have something fresh to look at if they visit each day. :)
I'm 36 years old. The only place I have ever seen "carbon" paper used for typing was from an old box of office supplies my mom had. She also had an old mechanical typewriter, which I used to poke at as a kid. They may have been used in offices, but I've never seen it done. I only used them when I was a kid playing with her typewriter, proving to myself that I could spell. :) Big deal.
How many people on here learned to type on a mechanical typewriter? Not very many, I'd guess. I only learned on it, because it was there. We had no purpose to buy an electronic typewriter, and when I was still young, we were using a (oh my gosh) computer to type up letters.
That post was terrible, and really deserved to be in idle, not as a main story. There are plenty of things that have historical value, but are of little purpose 30 years later. It's written as a sad fact that the world changes, but change is a thing that happens frequently with humanity. Get over it. :)
Actually, the implication of 2012 is the end of a period, and the beginning of a new one. It doesn't necessarily mean we're all going to die. I'm sure some people will, due to natural attrition.
I don't discount the idea that 2012 will be the collapse of civilization as we know it, I'm just not packing up my survival gear and heading to the hills to wait out the end of the zombie attack. :) I'm preparing just as hard as I did for Y2K. I bought a couple boxes of ammo, put them away with my preferred weapon, and went out for a drink. Actually, I still have my Y2K ammo, and probably will still for 2012. :) I plan on a night of drinking and sex. When I wake up the next morning, I expect to turn on the TV, and find it's just another day.
Since you'll be a freshman, I suggest not doing the drinking part when Dec 21 2012 rolls around. Just make sure you know someone who's well armed, in case the poles flip, the comet hits, zombies attack, and ... well ... whatever else is theorized. None of us are very good at telling the future. If we were, Vegas would be bankrupt, and the stock market would be stagnant since everyone would already know what was going to happen. :) The lottery would be much less interesting, since every time there would be millions of winners.
Don't panic about the conspiracy theorists. I love a good conspiracy, and since Bush didn't stage a military occupation of the US, I'm pretty much stuck with 2012 and aliens. I'm sure I'll work up a few new ones soon for my own entertainment. It's always a good way to start a conversation to make someone think I'm nuts, or at least feel them out for their insanities. :)
I did set up a 2012 web site. It has recent news relating to 2012. It'll be running until the ice caps melt and flood all the coastal cities of the world. :)
Cheers to you in 2012! :)
Doesn't everyone maintain a character set for ancient languages? :)
I found out the hard way with one company that you must make things scaleable. It started out with a 2 letter company code, and a two digit number. That's all fine and dandy, until it grows, and keeps growing.
One site and one rack is fun. A half dozen sites and 3 to 20 racks in each needs a good method. It's a pain to find out "three-mile-island" is down, and have to go hunting to find what city it's in, what KVM and PDU it's plugged into, while the boss is standing over you asking "why isn't this back up yet, it's essential!"
At another company, we had the same fun with virtual machines. They weren't documented, and there were a half dozen servers handing the virtual hosts. Some didn't have working consoles. The people working on them hadn't even labled the machines, since they were in-house. They were mixed in with a few dozen machines that weren't suppose to be turned on (retired or whatever, but still racked).
Maybe the host machine powered itself down. Maybe someone did it on purpose. Maybe the VM just died. Maybe ... maybe ... maybe ... It makes you look like a complete fool to sit there trying to find it, while a department manager is saying "my whole department is dead in the water until you bring it back up"
The place that I designed and had full control over, once you were introduced to a few basic items like "here's the intranet, it's all documented here. Machines are named for the nearest airport code, rack, and position number" it was very intuitive. I liked being able to bring a new sysadmin on, and they'd be up and running with everything in less than a week.
What was worse was a counterintuitive numbering system, which had mixed systems across the whole thing, because standardization wasn't allowed. Machines kept their old city name, regardless of if they had moved. Some were duplicated, so you had to know the difference between "old LA1", "new LA1", and "replacement LA1", even though both had the same hostname and label, but different IP's, and they both may reside in Houston, Chicago, or New York. "Call the datacenter, and have them physically check the machine" became a nightmare, when you weren't even sure what company to call.
My way, if a server was moved from LAX (Los Angeles) to JFK (New York), it got a new hostname, and was noted in changelogs. If the question ever came up, "What happened to the original LA1", it became a simple matter to say "Oh, that was shipped to JFK, and is now named JFK.01.03.09.
We had friendly names too, but they associated well, so problems with "mail" were expedited (people scream when email stops working for even 30 seconds). That's a simple number of having any paging system list both the official name, and the friendly name. "mail (JFK.01.03.09)" or "timbuktu (LAX.01.09.99)". But, would I know that timbuktu is a virtual hosting server, mail server, dns server, or VM host? It gives no hint to a new tech.
If I came to work at your shop, I may remember three-mile-island is a server name, but really I don't even remember what you said it did from the previous posting. It does ... well ... something. At least it probably did before it melted down. :)
In our usage list, it may say "LAX.01.09.99 (timbuktu) down for refurb", because it's actually suppose to be down. I liked just writing "dead" as the use, if it just stopped working and no one had a clue of why. It gave an easy hint of what to repair when someone went to the site. "Fix or ship back to the office, all machines noted as dead."
Now, that format isn't precise to our old format, but the idea is there.
I knew a hosting company, who is actually pretty big now, that warm fuzzy friendly names for everything. That was all fun and games, until
I used (oh my gosh) a database for that.
A happy little web interface for entering data. A SQL back end. MAC addresses were stored in a text area because I was lazy, but they were still searchable. We had anywhere from 1 to 8 MAC's on a single machine (ya, annoying, I know). It got worse if a machine was retired, and parts were moved to new machines. Do you really need to buy a new 2 to 4 port NIC, or just move a perfectly good working one to another machine.
That was resolved easily. Retired machines were noted as such, and taken out of most of the searches, unless you looked specifically at "all" hardware, rather than "active" hardware.
It was easy enough to have a script crawl the machines for the data too. dmidecode would capture everything including the service tag on most machines, so you could just search. The errors occurred in hand written parts, such as the paper invoices from vendors, and those who received the data.
A135X could have been AL3SX or AL35X. Sometimes they failed totally, and put down some other arbitrary number from the machine. It's not all that useful to have the model number listed as the serial number, when you have 50 of that model. Parts of it took a long time to resolve for accounting.
mx.mycorp.com was on NYC.A.332.4.01, but we migrated it over to LAX.G.222.1.08. That was all fine and dandy until it got load balanced. :)
Ya, it breaks less people, when they can simply continue to use mx.mycorp.com, regardless of what machine to stick it on that day.
They should make a system for that. It should have a bunch of servers, that'll let you take a name and convert it into an internet routeable address. It should also let you have aliases just for doing stuff like this. Damn, I'm going to patent that. I'll make a fortune. :)
[spins up Tardis, set Dec 31, 1968, Times Square, NYC]
See ya, suckers! Hopefully I'll remember after the party tonight! I may have to swing by another somewhere around there in August 15th too. Damn, this Tardis thing is useful.
(as a side note, since the present hasn't changed noticeably, I forgot to patent DNS, but I may be grandfather to quite a few of you now. I really can't remember.)
Why would there be problems when they're pronounced "three eight zero" and "three alpha tango"? :)
Arbitrary names are difficult when people aren't familiar with what you're spelling. Using Norse gods can be interesting. Sure, Thor is a short easy to spell name, unless you don't know who he is. He could be Porr, Punarr, Punor, Punaer, Tonger, Donar, or Thunaraz.
What about that device hanging off of Thor? Obviously Thor's Hammer. Or is that Mjollnir, Mjolner.
My apologies for the spellings. Slashdot can't handle anything but US-ASCII characters, but that's fine since you'd need to stick with that for hostnames and machine names anyways. :) I'll just say Loki made me do it. :)
The problems with arbitrary names are, they're a nightmare to find, especially for new people.
"Where is three-mile-island?" No, not the beloved nuclear reactor, but the server. Sure, someone who's been there for a while will know "Oh, that's at the London facility, building C, 4th floor, room 426, rack 3.
Logical names are best.
How about LYC.C.426.3.01
(City, building, room, rack, serial number). You'd guide a tech straight to the machine, and he may have to glance at stickers of up to 40 machines.
The same would apply to desktops. One in the London facility, building D, 2nd floor, room 221, cubical 44 could be
LYC.D.221.44.01
You'd still need to document where building D is, but it reduces the papertrail required to find a computer.
It's far better than "asset45562", which may be accessible through a spreadsheet, but not terribly useful if the spreadsheet isn't available.
For servers, this has worked well for me.
I've seen sites that name for arbitrary things, which in a room of say 100 machines makes a real headache. even worse is when it gets moved. If you have a name for locating the machine, and then a friendly alias in DNS, it'll work fine for you.
LHR.A.155.01.01 has a DNS alias of dns01.example.com, I'd bet it does DNS. It would likely even be the first DNS server. I'd always wonder what mx01.example.com would do though (oh, a mail server).
Of course, it's just an idea, not a recommendation. I've used fixed length fields with no delimiters. I once just assigned blocks, so 01.example.com through 20.example.com all belonged to one city, but as the company grew, that pool ran out, and 21.example.com through 100.example.com had already been assigned to another city. That's when it became necessary to provide a city identifier.
That's great. :) I love seeing women doing stuff that they're "not suppose to do". In the last few weeks, I've worked on several cars where the owners (mostly women) had been given huge quotes for "essential" work, yet found that it was unnecessary.
The last one was a car that was occasionally overheating. It "needed" a water pump, where they would also replace the timing belt and thermostat. (the pump is behind the timing belt. Weird car.). I gave it a proper evaluation, which took more than the 30 seconds the others had given it, and found it to just be the thermostat. It does have other problems, but those were nonessential. So far it's been evaluated by 4 other mechanics, but she made the mistake of repeating what the others had told her. I not only evaluated the problem, but explained to her how the cooling system worked, and why it was happening.
She happened to have the shop manual, so after explaining it, I flipped through the pages to where it talked about the thermostat, They not only talked about evaluating the symptoms and testing it in detail (cold water, then hot water, and monitor it's response), and how different behaviors would make the car behave. Basically, it's sticking partly open.
Most of the others were hugely over priced easy repairs. I'm amazed how shops will try to take advantage of people. My friends appreciate having me around. Even if I can't do the work (time or equipment constraints), they can now go to another shop and say "I *ONLY* want this done."
I used to get a huge laugh out of a local Sears. My mom would go down to get tires or whatever. I will have checked it over carefully first. They'd quote her $300 in repairs. She'd bring it home, and I'd check out the repairs that they said were necessary, and they weren't. Next trip (many months later), she'd get a new quote for $300 in repairs, but they were always for something different. It was pretty clear that they had already figured $300 was a decent price point, where most customers would pay without getting too nervous about the bill. Lately they've been over $1000. I don't know where they think the money is coming from, but I guess at least some people are falling for it. It's driven friends, and friends of friends, to me to check the quote first. But hey, I can honestly say once it was a legitimate quote. That was pretty easy though, the car was beyond it's life expectancy (and the duct tape was wearing out). They could have listed almost anything, and I would have agreed with it. I recommended a tow to the junk yard as the best option. The necessary repairs were more than the car was worth, and it would take me weeks to make it serviceable again.
Would it have been any better if she had the urge to follow bank courier trucks, note their routes, names and home addresses of the drivers? Maybe she could have included how many bags and their apparent load. Pictures of their stops, and notes of visibility at various stops would be useful.
That is obviously terribly dangerous. It would almost definitely lead to courier thefts, and probably shootouts between thieves and the couriers.
I know someone who was a bank courier years ago. They take extreme precautions, including decoy vehicles, and route randomization, but it would still be an extreme risk.
How about truckers who are moving high value cargo? A truck of oranges may not be all that interesting to a criminal, but how about an unmarked truck transporting jewelry, addictive pharmaceuticals, or high dollar electronics?
Regardless of what your job is, let the person do their job. If it's a criminal act (like drug dealing), let the professionals take care of it.
Hell, I knew someone in a call center who was harassed at work and home, because some nutjob thought that they were wronged. If you've worked a call center, I'm sure you've received some of those calls.
It's pretty obvious that the drug dealers, manufacturers, and couriers are the ones who would profit best by the outing of all the officers involved. It's almost asking for them to get dead.
I will be more than happy to argue for the legalization of some currently illegal drugs, BUT since they are not legal at this time, I hold nothing against those who are enforcing such laws. What she has done has put lives in jeopardy. While she may have just seen it as an interesting hobby, that may just lead to a very final conclusion for some of the people she's harassing.
Creative Recycling
http://crserecycling.com/
eBay seller ID: bargain_crh
eBay store: http://stores.shop.ebay.com/Bargain-Computer-Products
There's actually a really good market here in the states for "recycled" electronics. I know a big company who buys lots (like pallet fulls, not just a large quantity) from gov't auctions, and sometimes they're simply contracted by the government to haul off the equipment. They're perfectly good working units. They sell them through their store, and on eBay. What they can't sell because they're broken, they break down to components, and then have some 3rd parties that break them down more for precious metals.
They're SUPPOSE to wipe all sensitive information. I have received routers that were still configured for government agencies and large businesses. I don't know how they ever made it out the door of the original facilities, but they did. I've bought some really nice, and previously really expensive, equipment for real cheap. Sometimes some doesn't work quite right, but I'd say I have a >90% success rate with it.
Those shops never test them though, so I buy untested, and absorb my losses. BTW, if anyone needs a nice Cisco 5005, I have one sitting in the garage that needs a good home. :) I swapped it out for a Cisco WS-C2980G because it took up less space and less power. :) That, and I have 3 working spare 2980G's in case the first breaks. :)
They also sell lots of hard drives, but what would I do with 1,000 untested (i.e., not formatted) 80Gb drives, besides pilfer them for information? :) Nah, I have better things to do with my time.
The way I look at it is this. For a PC game, you're hopeful it works on your hardware. Maybe it doesn't like your chipset, your video card, your sound card, or something that's running in Windows. You pretty much have to run Windows (or fight with Wine, for those that work).
I like flight sims. I *WANT* to play MS FSX. On my laptop the video card isn't good enough to do much. On my PC, it's better, but crashes with a fairly common problem. I can improve it with different video cards, and multiheaded displays to get the full view that I really want. I want to see the gauges. I want to see the horizon. I want to see out the sides. The setups I've seen that do it well have a whole array of monitors, and some pretty beefy hardware to back it up.
If I want to play another game, I may need a different video card, that's better supported for that game.
Maybe one wants a different version of DirectX, or some other software to help out. Maybe it doesn't like the antivirus, so I have to disable that, but do I want to disable the antivirus while I'm online?
I've been helping my friend's son try to play a game. It refused to work. I upgraded the drivers, and that broke another game, so I downgraded the drivers, and through a whole song and dance of driver versions for the video and sound, the original game works, but the second game doesn't render parts of it, and their site only suggests to upgrade to the current drivers. Blah. 6 hours wasted. One game is playable. The other game is partially playable, except parts don't render, so he won't play it.
Now, a console game was written specifically for THAT hardware. You know it will work out of the box. If it doesn't, there's a problem with the disk. There's no "you don't have enough memory", or "your CPU isn't fast enough" or "you need a different video card." They developed it on that platform. They tested it on that platform. Every single user out there has exactly the same platform. I won't say that console games are bug free, I've run into a few.
I won't buy a console. I'll just play when I'm at someone's house that has one. I'll take a day or three, and play through the entire game, so now I'm done. I've accomplished the goal, there's nothing else to do. I'm actually pretty good at games, even though I'm not a "gamer", so 2 player or online play can get boring pretty quick. I don't see the sense in buying a PS3, and spending $50/game to find out it sucks, or renting countless games from Blockbuster. I'll only play a game if someone else has it and I see it looks remotely interesting. I'll play it over a weekend, and I'm done. a $400 console and a $50 game isn't worth a weekend. I can spend $450 in much more interesting ways, usually taking a lovely lady out for an enjoyable weekend. :)
It's not that I'm old. When I was 18, I did the same thing.
I did at one point buy a PS2, before the PS3's came out. They were on sale. It was more of a community toy, not a personal one. It entertained 5 or 6 people who were around that played it, until it broke. For some reason, the colors went away, and games are almost impossible to play in black and white. It's a toy, and it never got replaced.
I'll play the occasional old game, on my newer PC, because I know it'll work. They're always hand-me-downs, so I could care less how entertaining it is. If it's not worth playing, I hand it back. Even if it is worth playing, I spend a few hours on it, and then hand it back with a "Thanks for the distraction." :)
I'm enjoying WipEout HD on the PS3. It's not my console, and not my game, so I spend a few hours mastering tracks. I still have to get my hours in on it to master the new release of it. Then I'll go online, and fly fast, and get bored with it again.
I totally agree.
The police are doing a job, which is required by law. The are the investigative and enforcement branch of the legal system.
I have been known to dig up personal information on people using publicly available information. When I do it, it's usually either to find someone (say, a family member or friend) that has been out of contact for a while. Many times, when I dig for information, it's requested by the person who I'm digging the information up on, because they're curious to what I can find. It's usually a friend, so I already have a good basis to start with. That doesn't get published, and that's a long stretch from digging for information on an entire group of individuals, and then potentially putting them in harms way.
Someone else used the example of abortion clinic doctors, and it's terrible result.
She wasn't just doing a bit of research. She was stalking. I think it's sad that stalking laws needed to be created, but it's good that they are on the books now.
If someone made a profile on me, my movements, and other assorted data. Say even a small segment of the population wanted to cause me harm (which I don't believe there is), then it could be hazardous to me and my health.
In her case, what if I happened to be friends with one of the officers, and had been spotted going in and out of the police station, which put me on her list? I could be a target for some twisted revenge situation, simply for being in the wrong places at the right times. When I was in high school, I had a friend who worked in local law enforcement in a minor capacity. I did show up at the police station occasionally. That could have potentially put me on her list as an undercover officer, and my family and myself could be at risk of retaliation by any segment of the population who may have a grudge against law enforcement.
Reading the article, it says that she was charged with only a single charge of harassment. They were being nice. They didn't throw the book at her. I'm sure she could have been hit with a whole stack of charges. That was just a friendly warning, "Stop it.", which I'm sure was not the first warning she got. Hopefully she'll oblige, and start behaving like a normal person again.
And people wonder why I use an alias exclusively on the Internet. :) Because there are enough nutjobs out there, that when they begin searching for information on me they'll find a little truth and a lot of disinformation, intentionally put out there. Law enforcement (local through federal) have enough information to find me at any time, so it's not that I'm running from them. I'm just avoiding the nutjobs with a blog. :)
I will admit, there are some less than friendly people working in law enforcement. There are some amazingly great people working there too. I once lived next door to an officer like that. If she had made friends, rather than enemies, with those officers, she would have likely been way more comfortable with her life.
Hint #1: Put down the bong. :) Being socially acceptable to smoking weed, and being stoned more often than not are two different things. Occasionally it works out, but not usually. It's not going to help you in the least if you get busted, that'll stick with you for a long time. Every job I've had for years required drug testing, and one failure is a nasty thing. No, I haven't been there, but I've known those who have.
Hint #2: Get off the Internet, and start talking to them in real life. Learn and practice your approach *AND* holding a conversation. It's fine to email and text when you're apart, it's all communication. It's very doubtful you'll find her on Slashdot though. :)
Hint #3: Maybe clean up your look a little, and shower every day. Give a little thought to how you look, so they want to actually be seen with you. :) I don't know how you look, but this would apply to >50% of the folks your age that I've known (even when I was your age). Looking back, my high school look was terrible, because I didn't care. It didn't stop me, but it really slowed me down.
Hint #4: Always (ALWAYS) treat them right, no matter how wrong they're acting (guaranteed to happen once a month). Don't rush anything. Give that little bit of extra effort, without being a damned stalker. If a relationship is going to work in the long term, you have to not only be the guy she really likes, but her best friend.
Hint #5: If she says "just friends" it probably means just friends, because she's not interested. But, you can stay being friends. You may end up dating one of her female friends. :) It's not the worst thing in the world, and if you treated her nice, she'll tell her friends glowing things about you (hopefully). Sometimes "just friends" means "just friends for now", so that really sweet pretty girl that you're friends with may be your girlfriend someday. Don't hold your breath though.
Hint #6: Just like putting in job applications, dating is a numbers game. You can pick the one girl you've always wanted to be with, but you'll find out the hard way she isn't interested, and you'll just become a stalker. You'll find the right girl eventually. Accept any rejection with a smile. You'll have a bigger smile when it really does work out. But never EVER EVER date more than one girl at the same time. That's the best way to lose both of them. They'll always find out, no matter how slick you think you are.
Hint #7: Situational awareness. Pay attention to what people are doing around you. That's more of a combat tactic, but if you really pay attention, you may find that there's a girl who likes you, that is really very cute, and you screwed up by never asking HER out. I've found out in the last few years that girls I knew years ago wanted to date me. I never asked, because I assumed they didn't, because I hadn't been paying attention. Now they're off living elsewhere or married, so that chance is long since gone. But who knows, they're the ones who found me to talk to again. :)
and finally...
Hine #8: Talk to your dad. That may seem like the stupidest thing ever, but he was your age in your position, and he's about as genetically close as you can get to you. :) I'd bet your mom was cute when they met. He did it right, since you're even here to talk about it. :) Parents, uncles, and older friends are a wonderful resource, because they've made every mistake you're about to make. You'll still make the mistakes, but maybe you can avoid some of them. ... and for the R rated hints, email me. Slashdot isn't exactly the right place to post stuff like that. :)
That's what you get for posting drunk. Put the bottle down, and don't pick it up again until you're 30. :)
There are many many levels of age appropriateness.
What should a 5 year old be told about sex? It's something adults do together because the love each other.
a 13 year old? You're going through changes, hair growing in strange places, So, you're starting to hold hands, and wanting to kiss, blah, blah, blah. Probably an introduction to condoms, and opening up the idea of talking more about what may be coming?
a 15 year old? Respect for your partner. Safe sex, don't get caught by her father. The possibilities of pregnancy and disease, and the real facts about it.
a 17 year old? Finer points of technique that aren't taught watching Internet porn.
Now, if he came to me at 14, and told me about having sex, the timeline would change substantially. But, jumping to the end at 12 may be so uncomfortable that he or she doesn't want to ever talk about it again, regardless of how well he or she was raised.
You might be able to cite a few cases, but I'm afraid it would take an individual years to compile a list of the convicted innocent, even if you only consider the last 20 years, and only in the United States.
Your last statement leads us right back to politicians, but even some of them screw that up terribly. Usually it's for stupid things too. At least the CIA covers their tracks pretty well on their illegal drug trade. :) (reference Air America, Cocaine One, and more shell companies world wide than legitimate companies that exist in quite a few major US cities.)
What are the three things to look for.
Means. Motive. Opportunity.
In case #1, you don't describe the means, which is ok at this point. It's a given that it could have happened. You elude to motive with "no apparent reason". Opportunity would need to be left to further evidence.
I would believe that the motive was there. People never do anything "for no reason". There's a purpose for it for some reason. If they're willing to admit to it is a completely different situation. The "no reason" could have been a psychotic epsiode, PTSD moment, unadmitted drug related hallucination, or enough other possibilities.
Have you read the Dexter books, or watched the TV series? In almost every case in the series, as far as almost everyone other than Dexter and the reader/viewer knew there was absolutely no connection between the victim and Dexter. This absolutely fits your example, if he had been caught killing one victim.
In case #2, you state the means (well, close enough), and there are plenty of opportunities for both. There was some sort of motive for the doctor. Was it control over the husband? Once the doctor has convinced the husband to murder his wife with nothing to trace it back to the doctor, who could then tell him to do almost anything. Blackmail for part of the the life insurance? Is the doctor male or female? Either way, maybe the doctor intended a romantic relationship with the husband, and considered the wife a problem which had to be absolutely removed.
More evidence would be required to evaluate either case. It's more likely for a logical reason to be applied more than just "evil". Without knowing the reasons, there would be no way to judge. The first would sound to be the most evil. If you're a follower of the Dexter series, you'll see that he, in his own twisted way, he was actually the power of good.
I liked the idea of the open-cycle nuclear engines. Then again, I wouldn't want to be within a million miles of the damned thing. :) I'm not sure how many astronauts you could really convince that blowing up a nuke under their ass is a good thing anyways.
Maybe we could use it for "B" Ark.
I don't think you'd have to worry about the sterilization part. Various radiation sources (solar, cosmic, etc) would (hopefully) take care of that, since there isn't anything resembling an atmosphere there to protect them.
Unless, of course, the radiation mutates them slightly, letting them reproduce faster.
Ok, on with the mandatory pre-launch sterilizations!
True evil would be a blend. They'd need to be aware of the laws, and smart enough not to get caught.
Then again, the best way to not get caught is to not commit the crimes. That eliminates chaotic evil.
Lawful evil all become politicians, and even my soul isn't that corrupt. :)
Haha..
Sorry, too old for that. :)