I can vouch for this. I interviewed Captain Crunch for a job about six years ag. When I first learned that I was going to interview a silicon valley legend I was really excited, but when I actually talked to him I was shocked at how little he knew. He pretty much wasn't able to answer a single technical question. My take on him is that he's a one-hit-wonder who has been riding on his reputation for thirty years.
Don't work in cubicles, ever. Working in cubicles is the sure sign that you're not working for a successful company.
I worked at Google. We had cubicles. Good thing this guy came along to tell me it wasn't a successful company or I never would have known.
Re:This is not a troll, but a query...
on
Practical Common Lisp
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
"Lisp is worth learning for the profound enlightenment experience you will have when you finally get it; that experience will make you a better programmer for the rest of your days, even if you never actually use Lisp itself a lot."
On a lark I decided to run the purported collisions in the paper through MD5 to verify the claim, and I got a weird result. The two examples given are indeed collisions, but the hash is not what the paper says it is. The paper says that the hashes for the two examples are supposed to be:
9603161f f41fc7ef 9f65ffbc a30f9dbf
and
8d5e7019 6324c015 715d6b58 61804e08
but the hashes I get are:
74BE7342 8C5BDB65 9BE40E00 CF6AE31C
and
BC5E1391 D31E52F3 D41CBE8C 05D7DBC1
I'm using the MD5 library built in to Darwin (OS X) and I've verified that it passes the standard MD5 test suite in RFC 1321.
It's an even worse analogy, because aircraft manufacturers CAN share components with each other
Actually, it's even worse than that. Aircraft manufacturers not only CAN share components, but they INVARIABLY DO share components. There is not an aircraft in the world whose airframe and engines are made by the same company. The same goes for avionics. For aircraft with propellers, the propellers are invariably made by speciality companies that make only propellers.
No one would ever dream of trying to start an airplane company that made all of the components for an entire aircraft.
The long and the short of it is that a stock (or anything else for that matter) is worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it, and rich people can skew the market with their whims. Chateau Petrus costs $400 dollars a bottle not because it's ten times better than Silver Oak cabernet at $40 a bottle, but because there are enough people out there with more money than brains willing to pay $400 for Petrus. As a result, some people who don't even like wine would pay $300 for a bottle of Petrus even though they know it isn't "really" worth that much because they can turn around and sell it to an even bigger fool at $400.
In the case of SCO the rich buyer skewing the market is, of course, Microsoft. Microsoft wants to keep SCO a viable company because they can use SCO as an attack dog against Linux. SCO's actions have been so extreme (I don't know how some of the SCO people can look at themselves in the mirror) that I suspect that Microsoft actually has some additional leverage over them that is not publicly known.
By the way, Apple is also a lap dog for Microsoft that they keep around only so that they can argue that they are not a monopoly.
What have we forgotten? We have forgotten (or perhaps never really come to grips with the fact) that Microsoft does not play fair, and that they are powerful enough to keep this fact very well hidden even from people who ought to know better.
The SCO people are not doing this to make money. They are doing this because Microsoft is strong-arming them to do it. SCO is just the patsy, the fall guy.
If you want to understand what's going on here go watch the Godfather movies.
One should be careful not to confuse professional with talented; they are not the same thing. There are many talented people who contribute to free software. Why do they do it? Because there is more to life than money. There is art, ethics, fellowship, and the joy of learning something new and meeting a technical challenge purely for its own sake. All of these concepts are foreign to the Microsoft mindset.
Slashdot Mirror
I can vouch for this. I interviewed Captain Crunch for a job about six years ag. When I first learned that I was going to interview a silicon valley legend I was really excited, but when I actually talked to him I was shocked at how little he knew. He pretty much wasn't able to answer a single technical question. My take on him is that he's a one-hit-wonder who has been riding on his reputation for thirty years.
Here's a paper that explains why FTL communications with entangled photons is not possible:
http://www.flownet.com/ron/QM.pdf
It has some hairy-looking math in it, but the mathematical details don't really matter to the explanation.
Wow, if Google isn't successful, who is?
you found a reason to leave. That says something
Well, I certainly have a gripe or two about the company, but a lack of success is not one of them.
But the reason I quit is that I had a 300 mile commute. (No, I'm not joking. I got a lot of frequent flyer points while I was there.)
I'm probably just bitter
That's a shame.
I worked at Google. We had cubicles. Good thing this guy came along to tell me it wasn't a successful company or I never would have known.
"Lisp is worth learning for the profound enlightenment experience you will have when you finally get it; that experience will make you a better programmer for the rest of your days, even if you never actually use Lisp itself a lot."
- Eric Raymond, "How to Become a Hacker"
Correction: the hashes I get are:
A4C0D35C 95A63A80 5915367D CFE6B751 and 79054025 255FB1A2 6E4BC422 AEF54EB4
These still bear no obvious resemblance to the published results.
On a lark I decided to run the purported collisions in the paper through MD5 to verify the claim, and I got a weird result. The two examples given are indeed collisions, but the hash is not what the paper says it is. The paper says that the hashes for the two examples are supposed to be:
9603161f f41fc7ef 9f65ffbc a30f9dbf
and
8d5e7019 6324c015 715d6b58 61804e08
but the hashes I get are:
74BE7342 8C5BDB65 9BE40E00 CF6AE31C
and
BC5E1391 D31E52F3 D41CBE8C 05D7DBC1
I'm using the MD5 library built in to Darwin (OS X) and I've verified that it passes the standard MD5 test suite in RFC 1321.
Good point.
Even someone making a "scratch built" aircraft as a hobby might well not make everything themselves.
They certainly would not. No home-builder would make their own flight instruments and avionics.
There probably hasn't been an airplane where every component was built by a single company since the Wright Flyer.
Actually, it's even worse than that. Aircraft manufacturers not only CAN share components, but they INVARIABLY DO share components. There is not an aircraft in the world whose airframe and engines are made by the same company. The same goes for avionics. For aircraft with propellers, the propellers are invariably made by speciality companies that make only propellers.
No one would ever dream of trying to start an airplane company that made all of the components for an entire aircraft.
I hope SCO decides to sue me. It will be so much fun, and I'll be able to retire on the proceeds for my countersuit for bringing frivolous claims.
The long and the short of it is that a stock (or anything else for that matter) is worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it, and rich people can skew the market with their whims. Chateau Petrus costs $400 dollars a bottle not because it's ten times better than Silver Oak cabernet at $40 a bottle, but because there are enough people out there with more money than brains willing to pay $400 for Petrus. As a result, some people who don't even like wine would pay $300 for a bottle of Petrus even though they know it isn't "really" worth that much because they can turn around and sell it to an even bigger fool at $400.
In the case of SCO the rich buyer skewing the market is, of course, Microsoft. Microsoft wants to keep SCO a viable company because they can use SCO as an attack dog against Linux. SCO's actions have been so extreme (I don't know how some of the SCO people can look at themselves in the mirror) that I suspect that Microsoft actually has some additional leverage over them that is not publicly known.
By the way, Apple is also a lap dog for Microsoft that they keep around only so that they can argue that they are not a monopoly.
What have we forgotten? We have forgotten (or perhaps never really come to grips with the fact) that Microsoft does not play fair, and that they are powerful enough to keep this fact very well hidden even from people who ought to know better.
The SCO people are not doing this to make money. They are doing this because Microsoft is strong-arming them to do it. SCO is just the patsy, the fall guy.
If you want to understand what's going on here go watch the Godfather movies.
One should be careful not to confuse professional with talented; they are not the same thing. There are many talented people who contribute to free software. Why do they do it? Because there is more to life than money. There is art, ethics, fellowship, and the joy of learning something new and meeting a technical challenge purely for its own sake. All of these concepts are foreign to the Microsoft mindset.