Three guys are standing around, bragging about how good their cellphones are. "I can play poker and blackjack on my cellphone," said the first. "Oh, yeah? Well, mine has a color display and can play games like Splinter Cell on it," said the second. The third guy places his phone on the ground and begins violently stomping on it repeatedly. "What are you doing?!" shout the other two.
Three guys are standing around, bragging about how good their cellphones are. "I can play poker and blackjack on my cellphone," said the first. "Oh, yeah? Well, mine has a color display and can play games like Splinter Cell on it," said the second. The third guy places his phone on the ground and begins violently stomping on it repeatedly. "What are you doing?!" shout the other two.
I work for the food industry as a systems administrator. My systems help in abbatoirs to turn happy cows into happy steaks, happy pigs into happy bacon, etc. Our systems are relatively complex with miles and miles of customized code.
Recently, I had a conversation with my boss about my job and the jobs of my peers. He admitted something--technically, even though our systems are so complex, all of our jobs could be outsourced to India. He said this unabashedly, without blinking an eye. "But," he said, "the value and knowledge you have about our industry and knowing how to leverage our systems to generate revenue is worth more to us than shipping your jobs overseas to cut costs."
Yes, many sysadmin positions could be sent to Banaglore at the drop of a hat, but the truth is that in many environments the additional day-to-day knowledge of how a business works will keep jobs around. Like a fellow poster also mentioned, there is a certain degree of laying on hands that some companies will never lose, which will also keep sysadmins around.
...then again, trying to convince a bunch of Hindus to run systems that help kill cows is a bit of a challenge...
My grandfather was one of the guys who created the flying wing and worked on the B-2 bomber project for Northrop. He had high-level security clearance and government agents were always coming around his neighborhood asking the people who lived there if he ever talked about his job, what he has been working on, etc.
Before he came down with Alzheimers (God bless him), I asked him once if he had ever been to Area 51 given his work on these previously top secret aircraft. I told him that I would understand if he could not reveal any details. He sat back, smiled in his gentle way, and with a twinkle in his eyes said, "No, but I have been to Area 42."
Apparently, Area 42 is some sort of rocket test range out in the middle of nowhere in California or Nevada. I just performed a Google search and came up with nothing except for a whole bunch of bad fanfics. He said that he saw various tests out there of aircraft, but no UFOs. Then again, he was a 32nd or 33rd degree Master Mason, so who knows. Illuminati and all, you know. FNORD.
Keep Time in Mind-The Future Sucks
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· Score: 4, Interesting
While I agree with the parent poster's statement that seeing such stuff inspires the imagination, keep in mind the world in which Disney presented things.
People who were living during the 1950s and 1960s saw advances that would have been considered acts of magic fifty years before; if someone from the 1890s or 1900s were transported into the 60s, they would have been totally caught off-guard. Vehicles that could allow you to travel on any road at 55 mph? Devices that allow you to see and hear images of people thousands of miles away? A large tower that could put someone on the moon? It would be a fantasy world.
Now, take someone from the 1950s or 1960s and put them into the current 21st century. Imagine this conversation:
"So, do you have your hovercar now?" No, but now we have cars that can run on electricity, some of the time!
"Well, how about the Moon or Mars? Do you have friends who live on bases up there?" No, we went to the moon a few times with a couple dozen people, and that was it. We have had a couple of space stations, but only one is left because the others crashed after funding was cut.
"What about diseases? Have you cured cancer?" No, we have had some progress, but there are some even worse diseases now.
"Is there any new technology that is actually good, then?! Jetpacks? Super-buildings? Contact with aliens?" Well, we did shrink the size of computers and made them hundreds of times faster, and anyone can communicate with anyone else in the world real-time. We can store large quantities of data on small disks. Here, check this out...
(The computer accidentally gets rerouted to Goatse.)
"AAUAAUAGGHHH! My word, what is wrong with that man's bottom?"
Face it, the future largely sucks. I want my hovcercraft.
DeVore describes the current Mars missions as a "teachable moment," an opportunity to teach factual science and astronomy in the context of sensationalistic psuedo-science and the legion of money-grubbing opportunists who make their living churning it out.
Or is it that she is just another cog in the vast conspiracy machine trying to detract people from what is really going on? I mean, it would seem so simple for the Illuminati to put an "actual scientist" in a place to debunk the "myths" that about. Come on, we know what is really going on! Stop covering things up! Maybe they should reveal the truth behind the s786fh&^23b!@}{!n7afy23jsdf.... NO CARRIER
Before my wife and I went to Japan for our honeymoon, I spent numerous hours learning the basics of Japanese, gleaning key words and learning the Katakana and Hiragana alphabets. I felt pretty good knowing that I would be able to get around the country without having to resort to pantomine or asking for a translator. When we arrived in Narita, after standing in the customs lines for over an hour and a half, I had my first chance to use my mad language skills when we noticed our luggage was sitting on a cart next to an information desk. We walked over to the young woman and I proceeded to tell her that these were our bags.
Sumimasen, demo, kore wa watashi no... eto...
She jumped in and said in plain English, "Yeah, we were wondering where you were. The rest of the people got their bags over an hour ago!" Her voice practically had a Texan twang to it. It turned out that the rest of the people on our plane were Japanese nationals, who were easily permitted admission to the country, while we gaijin got to stand in the long-ass line.
As English is so proliferated over there, I do not see the PDA being used too much for translations in the airport.
I saw a comedian the other day on Comedy Central who made fun of the good ol' Speak & Spell. He could almost duplicate the voice from that wonderful learning tool and said things demonically like, "A, B, C, D, E, F, G... I will eat your family." Very funny skit, but it also reminded me of a "hack" I did to my Speak & Spell when I was 6 or so that awakened the true demon of the dictionary.
I had one of the original Speak & Spells with the raised-button letters (unlike the later models that were completely flat). On all Speak & Spells there is a "Code" mode where up to 8 letters can by typed and transposed into a code that only people with other Speak & Spells could decipher (ROT13, or something else very weak). One day I grew bored with this mode and leaned on all of the buttons at once. This caused the multi-directional character LEDs to all light up like 8 little boxes. I then started pressing the apostrophe key. Each box would turn into an apostrophe. Boop... Boop... Boop... Boop... Boop... Boop... Boop...
As I pressed the apostrophe key one more time to erase the last malformed chaacter, I awakened the demon within the Speak & Spell. All of a sudden the Speak & Spell went into the "Say It" mode where it would teach particular words. Normally, it would show a word like "OCEAN" and the speaker would state, "Say it... OCEAN." But in this crazy mode I had put it into, the speaker would shout incoherently. "Say it...HUGAXCKHUAAAHRETA!!!" It would keep on doing this, screaming incoherently until the enter key was pressed, at which time it would pick a random word and shout it out. "MOTHER!"
It definitely made my parents laugh, and the same Speak & Spell works to this day with the same bug. Keep in mind that the Voyager space probe also had less memory than a Speak & Spell, too...
So, Skywalker Ranch is coming out with some new whines? I prefer some of the old ones:
But I was going to the Tashi Station to pick up some power converters...
It's not impossible. I used to bullseye womprats in my T-16 back home; they're not much bigger than two meters.
No... that's not true... that's impossible!
The Soviets also were the first ones to land probes on Venus in a series of missions known as Venera. These probes, amazingly, were a part of a mission that lasted over 20 years time, and brought us lots of goodies, including how anyone landing on Venus would encounter a lovely environment where lead melts on the ground and sulphuric acid rains from the sky... kind of like Los Angeles.
I say that this system would only be fair if the help desk people to whom the calls get transferred get to use explicatives, too
Thanks for calling ABC Corp, how may...
Porcupine balls! Transferring your call now...
(muttering) Stupid computer... Hi, this is Mike at the Internet Help Desk, how can I help you?
I think I accidentally deleted my link to your Internet. Can I get it back?
Holy crap! We have our own Internet? Why wasn't I made aware of this?! Well, restoring your link shouldn't be a problem, unless you happen to be a rhesus monkey suffering from simian hemmorhagic fever. Does this fit your description, little man? Uhhh....
I guess it does! Now, here's how you fix your stupid problem...
I studied the history of mathematics back in college, and one interesting culture we discussed were the Mesopotamians. While base-10 systems were typically used amongst ancient civilizations, these guys went out and used a base-60 system. So, if you wanted to count to 61, for instance, you would count all the way from 1 to 59, then place a "1" in the 60s place holder, and add another "1" in the 1s place holder.
I realize for most of us this concept is old hat, since we know binary, or hex, or octal. However, this relates to the discussion of alien mathematics because here we have a system of non-traditional mathematics that was actually used and had its own structure. Many people argue that aliens may not understand concepts such as "prime numbers" or such. But even the Mesopotamians understood these concepts and had their own problems that we face in a base-10 number system.
For example, the Mesopotamians loved the number 60. After all, it is evenly divisible by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, right off of the bat. But the number 7 always gave them headaches. Why? It's the first number where its reciprocal does not terminate (i.e. 1/4 =.25) or have a predictable pattern (i.e. 1/3 =.33333...). Just because the enumeration or base of a number system may be different, the rules of mathematics are still the same. And, as other Slashdot readers state, the very laws of nature and movements in the heavens will accurately adhere to different number systems.
Now, aliens may have a different way of looking at mathematics, or may have come up with different structures for representing mathematical ideas. Think of the Indian man who found a book on algebra and without any sort of education or outside intervention devised many proofs, some of which were old, some of which were new (I think his name was Ranmujon). Alien mathematics may not include things know, and vice versa. But I must agree with the general thought--Mathematics is universal.
Telegrams would also have more of an impact because of the use of "STOP" to terminate lines of messages.
Dear Senator. STOP.
Please consider the following things that should be changed. STOP.
-The RIAA. STOP.
-Microsoft. STOP.
-The war in Iraq. STOP.
-The Patriot Act. STOP. No, stop. STOP. I mean seriously, stop it now. STOP.
I always got a chuckle whenever I saw a Disney commercial advertising a particular movie on VHS or DVD, where they would swear that this was the absolute last time you could possibly buy a copy of the film. "Buy your limited silver-plated collector's edition 2000 version copy of Cinderella now, before it goes back in the Disney vault forever! We mean it! It won't be coming back in two years as a special gold-lithographed edition, we swear it!" It makes me wonder how they could advertise these self-destructing DVDs...
"Get your limited copy of Beauty and the Beast now! And we do mean limited! This film will expire in two weeks and after that you will have to wait until we rehash this film and sell it again in another two months! Don't even think of renting a copy from Blockbuster, because we own them, too! This film will only last in your memories!"
Seriously, though, here's the amazing truth: people like buying crap that doesn't break. Imagine if your copy of Detective Comics #27 spontaneously combusted after 60 years of age. Who would want to collect and read that?
I tell ya, first this happens, then the Pope goes and blesses some breakdancers. It's that whole "Cats and dogs, end of the world" speech Bill Murray's character in Ghostbusters dished out. What will happen next?
This whole discovery seems a little too convenient and I think that this whole thing was set up by the MPAA. I know that this borders on conspiracy theory, but let's look at the facts:
-Caridi is a B-movie actor who has been in a ton of films, yet no one seems to have a picture of him, not even the IMDB.
-Caridi is given an advance copy of a movie. Now, perhaps this guy has more power than thought, but who gives an advance screening of a movie to a B-movie actor? Then again, when movies like Glitter and Gigli are leaked onto the Internet, who knows?
-Caridi is a 69 year-old man who allegedly had the knowledge to transfer a movie onto his computer and distribute it onto the Internet. My grandmother prints out e-mails and sends them via postal service to me. And I am supposed to believe this guy knows how to work video capture?
Add in other things like how bad the movie is and the unique tracking mechanisms, and one must seriously begin to wonder about the convenience of this discovery. Long live John Titor.
Many people may think that linking to a Google cache, hosting a copy of information on a personal website, or just copying and pasting an article into Slashdot is a fast and simple way to swipe some karma, but we often forget about the guys like me who have company-installed web blockers and don't have a fast enough connection at home for tunneling. It is thanks to the dilligence and karma grabbing of these individuals that we web eunuchs are able to get the latest news. "WebSense-It's About Productivity." No, Websense, it's about being a gorilla suffering from simian hemmoragic fever trying to communicate to me that it is having a seizure in sign language, saying that needs its epilectic medication, and blocking me from viewing a simple, innocent web page about Legos, for crying out loud!
As one of the previous posters mentioned, the password scheme, as described by Microsoft, is not designed to be a means of protection of data, but more of a way to deter users from accidentally modifying Word documents. I suppose the poor man's version of this would be the copy protect tab on a VHS tape. You could tape over it in order to record over something, but it prevents accidental modification.
Ergo, if this password crack is constituted a breach of the DMCA, me taping over my neighbor's wedding and video of his kid's first steps with that weird Swedish adult channel I get on the dish must also be a violation of the DMCA, too. Stupid neighbor.
I work for one of the largest beef and pork producers in the United States. Obviously, the case of BSE got our attention real quick. We had been anticipating such a problem for quite a while and had been working on a tracking mechanism to track every part of the slaughter process, from the live cow to ground beef and trim. RFID was one of our options for tracking the cows, but there were issues with attaching the chips to the cattle, proximity, etc. Also, after the slaughter, the attachment of an RFID chip to the carcass could be considered an adulterant, which is forbidden by USDA regulations.
Our solution? Go back to an earlier Slashdot article. Although there are proximity issues as well, this optical tracking system is what we will be using. No adulteration to the product, and we will be able to use this information to track cattle as they go through the process (albeit the head is removed at slaughter, but there is tracking through other means for the carcass).
If you are a designer who must work with a D'ohLT, don't despair. Treat him or her as mildly retarded, in need of help, not criticism, and you will get along fine.
I'm sorry, but the evil is welling up within me. Do you clap and go, "Hooray for the special manager!" when someone actually grasps these concepts? Or do you speak to them in terms like "Pak Chooie Unf" or "Timmah"?
Having a truly secure environment is impossible. The thing that is critical to remember is that security is about mitigating risk. As I always tell my customers, "It's not a matter of if you have a security issue, but a matter of when." Just like the article says, when too much security is applied to any area people will develop loopholes around them to avoid the "inconvenience." But by the same token without any inkling of security people will give out passwords over the phone. It's trying to find the happy middle that is the problem.
Does enforcement matter? I'd be lying if I said it didn't. However, the means in which it is dispensed is the issue. No one enforces a security policy? Don't be surprised when a stranger walks in the door. People enforce security like a police state? Don't be surprised when people in power abuse their abilities and allow their friends to skate around issues. Then, of course, there is the typical knee-jerk reaction when an event happens and everything is locked down to only be forgotten about two months later.
Use common sense, as it isn't common to most people. Tailor the security to the individual company; a meat processor protects their beef, Lockheed Martin protects missile technology--each is deadly in different ways.
Slashdot Mirror
"Mine has got Dance Dance Revolution on it."
"Mine has got Dance Dance Revolution on it."
Recently, I had a conversation with my boss about my job and the jobs of my peers. He admitted something--technically, even though our systems are so complex, all of our jobs could be outsourced to India. He said this unabashedly, without blinking an eye. "But," he said, "the value and knowledge you have about our industry and knowing how to leverage our systems to generate revenue is worth more to us than shipping your jobs overseas to cut costs."
Yes, many sysadmin positions could be sent to Banaglore at the drop of a hat, but the truth is that in many environments the additional day-to-day knowledge of how a business works will keep jobs around. Like a fellow poster also mentioned, there is a certain degree of laying on hands that some companies will never lose, which will also keep sysadmins around.
Before he came down with Alzheimers (God bless him), I asked him once if he had ever been to Area 51 given his work on these previously top secret aircraft. I told him that I would understand if he could not reveal any details. He sat back, smiled in his gentle way, and with a twinkle in his eyes said, "No, but I have been to Area 42."
Apparently, Area 42 is some sort of rocket test range out in the middle of nowhere in California or Nevada. I just performed a Google search and came up with nothing except for a whole bunch of bad fanfics. He said that he saw various tests out there of aircraft, but no UFOs. Then again, he was a 32nd or 33rd degree Master Mason, so who knows. Illuminati and all, you know. FNORD.
People who were living during the 1950s and 1960s saw advances that would have been considered acts of magic fifty years before; if someone from the 1890s or 1900s were transported into the 60s, they would have been totally caught off-guard. Vehicles that could allow you to travel on any road at 55 mph? Devices that allow you to see and hear images of people thousands of miles away? A large tower that could put someone on the moon? It would be a fantasy world.
Now, take someone from the 1950s or 1960s and put them into the current 21st century. Imagine this conversation:
"So, do you have your hovercar now?"
No, but now we have cars that can run on electricity, some of the time!
"Well, how about the Moon or Mars? Do you have friends who live on bases up there?"
No, we went to the moon a few times with a couple dozen people, and that was it. We have had a couple of space stations, but only one is left because the others crashed after funding was cut.
"What about diseases? Have you cured cancer?"
No, we have had some progress, but there are some even worse diseases now.
"Is there any new technology that is actually good, then?! Jetpacks? Super-buildings? Contact with aliens?"
Well, we did shrink the size of computers and made them hundreds of times faster, and anyone can communicate with anyone else in the world real-time. We can store large quantities of data on small disks. Here, check this out...
(The computer accidentally gets rerouted to Goatse.)
"AAUAAUAGGHHH! My word, what is wrong with that man's bottom?"
Face it, the future largely sucks. I want my hovcercraft.
Or is it that she is just another cog in the vast conspiracy machine trying to detract people from what is really going on? I mean, it would seem so simple for the Illuminati to put an "actual scientist" in a place to debunk the "myths" that about. Come on, we know what is really going on! Stop covering things up! Maybe they should reveal the truth behind the s786fh&^23b!@}{!n7afy23jsdf.... NO CARRIER
FNORD
Sumimasen, demo, kore wa watashi no... eto...
She jumped in and said in plain English, "Yeah, we were wondering where you were. The rest of the people got their bags over an hour ago!" Her voice practically had a Texan twang to it. It turned out that the rest of the people on our plane were Japanese nationals, who were easily permitted admission to the country, while we gaijin got to stand in the long-ass line.
As English is so proliferated over there, I do not see the PDA being used too much for translations in the airport.
It's called movieoke-Okie-gnocchi-karaoke.
I had one of the original Speak & Spells with the raised-button letters (unlike the later models that were completely flat). On all Speak & Spells there is a "Code" mode where up to 8 letters can by typed and transposed into a code that only people with other Speak & Spells could decipher (ROT13, or something else very weak). One day I grew bored with this mode and leaned on all of the buttons at once. This caused the multi-directional character LEDs to all light up like 8 little boxes. I then started pressing the apostrophe key. Each box would turn into an apostrophe. Boop... Boop... Boop... Boop... Boop... Boop... Boop...
As I pressed the apostrophe key one more time to erase the last malformed chaacter, I awakened the demon within the Speak & Spell. All of a sudden the Speak & Spell went into the "Say It" mode where it would teach particular words. Normally, it would show a word like "OCEAN" and the speaker would state, "Say it... OCEAN." But in this crazy mode I had put it into, the speaker would shout incoherently. "Say it...HUGAXCKHUAAAHRETA!!!" It would keep on doing this, screaming incoherently until the enter key was pressed, at which time it would pick a random word and shout it out. "MOTHER!"
It definitely made my parents laugh, and the same Speak & Spell works to this day with the same bug. Keep in mind that the Voyager space probe also had less memory than a Speak & Spell, too...
But I was going to the Tashi Station to pick up some power converters...
It's not impossible. I used to bullseye womprats in my T-16 back home; they're not much bigger than two meters.
No... that's not true... that's impossible!
D'oh! Zymurgy... my bad.
Thanks for calling ABC Corp, how may...
Porcupine balls!
Transferring your call now...
(muttering) Stupid computer...
Hi, this is Mike at the Internet Help Desk, how can I help you?
I think I accidentally deleted my link to your Internet. Can I get it back?
Holy crap! We have our own Internet? Why wasn't I made aware of this?! Well, restoring your link shouldn't be a problem, unless you happen to be a rhesus monkey suffering from simian hemmorhagic fever. Does this fit your description, little man?
Uhhh....
I guess it does! Now, here's how you fix your stupid problem...
I realize for most of us this concept is old hat, since we know binary, or hex, or octal. However, this relates to the discussion of alien mathematics because here we have a system of non-traditional mathematics that was actually used and had its own structure. Many people argue that aliens may not understand concepts such as "prime numbers" or such. But even the Mesopotamians understood these concepts and had their own problems that we face in a base-10 number system.
For example, the Mesopotamians loved the number 60. After all, it is evenly divisible by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, right off of the bat. But the number 7 always gave them headaches. Why? It's the first number where its reciprocal does not terminate (i.e. 1/4 = .25) or have a predictable pattern (i.e. 1/3 = .33333...). Just because the enumeration or base of a number system may be different, the rules of mathematics are still the same. And, as other Slashdot readers state, the very laws of nature and movements in the heavens will accurately adhere to different number systems.
Now, aliens may have a different way of looking at mathematics, or may have come up with different structures for representing mathematical ideas. Think of the Indian man who found a book on algebra and without any sort of education or outside intervention devised many proofs, some of which were old, some of which were new (I think his name was Ranmujon). Alien mathematics may not include things know, and vice versa. But I must agree with the general thought--Mathematics is universal.
Dear Senator. STOP.
Please consider the following things that should be changed. STOP.
-The RIAA. STOP.
-Microsoft. STOP.
-The war in Iraq. STOP.
-The Patriot Act. STOP. No, stop. STOP. I mean seriously, stop it now. STOP.
"Get your limited copy of Beauty and the Beast now! And we do mean limited! This film will expire in two weeks and after that you will have to wait until we rehash this film and sell it again in another two months! Don't even think of renting a copy from Blockbuster, because we own them, too! This film will only last in your memories!"
Seriously, though, here's the amazing truth: people like buying crap that doesn't break. Imagine if your copy of Detective Comics #27 spontaneously combusted after 60 years of age. Who would want to collect and read that?
OT, I know, but aren't all Christopher Lambert movies, by definition, bad?
-Caridi is a B-movie actor who has been in a ton of films, yet no one seems to have a picture of him, not even the IMDB.
-Caridi is given an advance copy of a movie. Now, perhaps this guy has more power than thought, but who gives an advance screening of a movie to a B-movie actor? Then again, when movies like Glitter and Gigli are leaked onto the Internet, who knows?
-Caridi is a 69 year-old man who allegedly had the knowledge to transfer a movie onto his computer and distribute it onto the Internet. My grandmother prints out e-mails and sends them via postal service to me. And I am supposed to believe this guy knows how to work video capture?
Add in other things like how bad the movie is and the unique tracking mechanisms, and one must seriously begin to wonder about the convenience of this discovery. Long live John Titor.
Sorry, had to get that out.
Ergo, if this password crack is constituted a breach of the DMCA, me taping over my neighbor's wedding and video of his kid's first steps with that weird Swedish adult channel I get on the dish must also be a violation of the DMCA, too. Stupid neighbor.
Our solution? Go back to an earlier Slashdot article. Although there are proximity issues as well, this optical tracking system is what we will be using. No adulteration to the product, and we will be able to use this information to track cattle as they go through the process (albeit the head is removed at slaughter, but there is tracking through other means for the carcass).
If you are a designer who must work with a D'ohLT, don't despair. Treat him or her as mildly retarded, in need of help, not criticism, and you will get along fine.
I'm sorry, but the evil is welling up within me. Do you clap and go, "Hooray for the special manager!" when someone actually grasps these concepts? Or do you speak to them in terms like "Pak Chooie Unf" or "Timmah"?
Ugh... the evil is now going away...
Does enforcement matter? I'd be lying if I said it didn't. However, the means in which it is dispensed is the issue. No one enforces a security policy? Don't be surprised when a stranger walks in the door. People enforce security like a police state? Don't be surprised when people in power abuse their abilities and allow their friends to skate around issues. Then, of course, there is the typical knee-jerk reaction when an event happens and everything is locked down to only be forgotten about two months later.
Use common sense, as it isn't common to most people. Tailor the security to the individual company; a meat processor protects their beef, Lockheed Martin protects missile technology--each is deadly in different ways.