This is not an excuse by any means, but sort of an understanding...
Why doesn't Mitnick go out and sue the pants off NYT and Markoff? Frankly, I doubt he'd win. Not because there was no wrong-doing at Mitnick's expense (while I don't believe everything he says, Kevin was pretty misrepresented in the press)...but because he's a convicted criminal. Let's face it, the guy did some HARD TIME in a Federal Pound-Me-In-The-Ass prison. Put a guy like that in court and have him try to sue one of the most "reputed" newspaper in the world (along with an aspiring author), and watch the judge piss his pants laughing.
Unfortunately, once you're convicted of a crime (at least here in the US), people will never give you a fair shot/chance/trial ever again. And that's something that Kevin has to live with.
Whether or not Wired "polled" all these people or not is ethical or not is one thing, whether or not it's legal is another. Is it legal? Well, I suppose that depends on whatever state you reside in, but most likely yes. Of course, after the Patriot Act, I can't answer this accurately.
Is it ethical??? That's way harder to answer. To be honest, I wouldn't care really if it was Wired probing me. However, I can see why people would be ROYALLY pissed when they read the article. Just because seeing if your neighbor's door is unlocked doesn't is legal, doesn't mean it's right.
On a related note to your story about scanning for BackOrfice on your subnet after getting nailed by DoS's within your ISP, I feel your pain. I got pissed after I got my cable modem hooked up and checked snort within a day or two. So, I fired up nmap, and looked for hosts on my subnet that seemed to like to try exploiting me...know what happened? I got a nasty letter in the mail (ESAD, RoadRunner!) threatening to cut me off for my "Hacking Attempts." All I was doing was nmaping people...not illegal over here, and I was really only scanning the people who were trying to root my box. Ironically, they still continue whereas I can't. Pig fuckers.
Point of story? ISPs can do whatever the hell they want to, and that applies to tolerance towards "Hacking Activities".
... if they start to sue individuals, things will get very bad.
No kidding. Although, in a way, it would also be a mixed blessing. Think of it this way: there's no better way for John Q. Public to wake up to all the crap and unfairness going on with the MPAA/RIAA than for his best friend to get sued to oblivion for downloading music/movies that he very well might legally own. Once that happens, just wait and watch for the headlines on your local favorite news channel. "Boy Sued For $1 Millon For Downloading Music To Replace Scratched CDs He Dropped In Shitter."
Of course, for every legitimate download there's probably 10-100 fold "illegal" downloads going on, and that's all the MPAA/RIAA really cares about. As Jay in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back so sussenctly put it, "we're going to get our MUTHAfuckin' movie check."
There are several diseases which, if they got into the main Banana growing parts of the world, could seriously threaten the very existence of the Banana.
This is a major problem when there is not enough diversification in a gene pool. Consider the cheetah. The cheetah has an incredibly small gene pool, due to massive inbreeding (amongst other things). Why is this bad? Because of the same reason that these bananas might be in trouble...if a disease comes along that the cheetah is particularly vulnerable to, then it's game over. Since there is no genetic variation within the species, every single cheetah would fall dead to the disease and they would quickly become extinct.
I don't know about you guys, but I can live without cheetahs...but I need my bananas!!! Just some food for thought (pun intended, biatches).
I was a bio/cs major when I came out of college a couple of years ago. After toiling around working as a Microbiologist for a little while, I realized something that my profs failed to mention during their lectures: advancement rarely exists when you're working in that field.
Most of the people in my labs were middle-aged. 30+ working as a labrat for 10, 15 years. Of course they received promotions and whatnot, but usually it was pretty menial...just enough to keep up with inflation. Basically, when you hit that Senior Scientist position, you've hit the glass ceiling. Depending on the company, you'll make decent money by that time, but the price you pay is repetition. Doing the same kind of experiments and procedures for 30 years is hardly what I'd call stimulating.
Granted, getting a PhD will open some doors. Hell, my best friend from college is working on his PhD right now in the Evolution/Ecological field. Know what he wants to be? A prof. For him it's the perfect life...you get decent money (enough to support your family), summers are basically freetime to spend in the lab/out in the field with a couple motivated students, and you always get to have people call you Doctor if you're into that whole arrogent ego-boosting bullshit.
Just $.02 from somebody who realized that working sucks.
So how many of you that qualify actually have receipts to prove your purchases during the period.
Funny sidenote, when I started buying CDs in 7th grade, I saved EVERY receipt, period. I was terrified of having my CDs stolen due to our house getting burglarized a few years earlier, and I too kept receipts on all "big ticket items" (hey, when you're 13, a CD *IS* a big ticket item). A few years later in the middle of high school, I checked my drawer and had hundreds of receipts from all the CDs I had bought over the years. Some CDs I loved, some I loathed, but I had proof that everything I listened to was mine (this was way before the advent of burnable CDs). If the day ever came when my shit got stolen, I could laugh my way to the insurance company and show them exactly what to buy.
The funny thing is, the summer after I graduated from college, I had all of my CDs (and a TON of receipts, out of habbit) in my parent's house for the summer. Just moved back home, nowhere else to put them, blah blah blah...
So I come home from a weekend camping in Wisconsin, and my house is burned down. All my gear, all my stuff, ALL MY CDS AND THEIR RECEIPTS WERE GONE. Burnt. Toast. In the end, it wasn't a crook that was responsible for my missing music...it was a misfunctional dehumidifer (beware: never buy whirlpool dehumidifiers. They tend to "spark" when unattended).
I actually started to work on Nagios because a friend and I had talked about starting a part-time business to provide monitoring services to local businesses. I didn't like what I saw in the other monitoring apps, so I decided to write my own.
Quotes like this give a pessimist(sp.) like me a bit of hope in the world. The guy saw something that he liked, but noticed several flaws (read: expensive, propriatary, etc.) in the product, so decided to build his own from scratch! I mean, come on...this is admirable. People (at least around here) tend to bitch a LOT about things in the world around them, yet offer no alternative or solution. Granted, sometimes it's so macroscopic that you can't do something that helps the world out significantly (think traffic, politics, etc.). However, it's nice to see that there's still a few people in the world who aren't afraid to get their hands dirty because they don't like how something works.
Kinda makes me wish I had that one thing...shit, what's it called? Motivation? Yeah, that's it. Maybe they have it at Target.
If you are a cop they why do you have the following posted in your Journal?
"There is a kid at my school who has a badge on his backpack (attached with a safety pin) with the words "Superjew" on it. What should I do?"
A-fucking-men. Seriously. Slashdot has gotten to the point of IRC #sex rooms it seems. Granted, this is a scientific-oriented "community" (if you can really call it that anymore...to me it's just a cool way of testing one's webserver to see if it can withstand millions of clicks within minutes), but come on folks. Everyone's posted "credintials" when they respond to an article like this SEEM honest and respectable enough. Who wouldn't believe somebody claiming to be a PhD in physics or an IT Manager or in this case a cop considering the articles at hand? No, this isn't a scientific article per se, but you guys get my point.
It just sucks when the curtain in OZ is removed and instead of there being a wizard, it's a 15 year old punk with a identity problem.
Aside from pissing off the odd script kiddy in IRC or on some online game, why would anyone feel the need to hack or exploit my PC? There's nothing there of any import. And I doubt there is on 99.9% of all home PCs out there.
Because they can. Quite simple really. There's no massive conspiracy out there, no arch enemy plotting to ruin your world and make you burst into tears. It's most likely going to be some teenager/early 20 year old who doesn't get out much and has a hidden destructive side to him.
Basically it's the modern day equivalent of Sir Edmond Hillary(sp.)'s response to why he'd EVER want to climb Mt. Everest:
Phish is a very,very successful touring group with armies of fans around the world. So, I'm assuming that they're not doing this for more money, since they're already rich as all hell (insert Metallica comment here). So why are they doing this?
It sounds like these are just mp3 and shn formats of the soundboard recording that Phish has been releasing as box sets over the last year. Why would I want to pay money to download these? Every concert ever played by Phish is basically already online somewhere, if you know where to look. Granted, you might not get the soundboard version, but most likely you'll find one comparable somewhere. Hell, I'll just fireup furthernet or hotline and find the same show and spend the $10 on a 6-pk of Guiness and a burger instead.
145 words, and two periods. Damn. Next time I interview for Apple or Volt, remind me to drink a pot of coffee, take meth, and run a few miles before hand.
As I get ready to graduate PSU next summer, I leave with one question... wtf am I ever going to do for a job?
Good question, my friend. I was in your same shoes a year ago and my outlook looked good. That is, until 9/11 "happened". Then companies went on hiring freezes, there were more cuts in budgets than on Jack the Ripper's victims, and getting a tech job became WAY harder.
I've been unemployed for 13 months so far, and it hasn't gotten any easier. I'm going about my job hunt the right way (cranking out resumes left and right, informational interviewing, networking, and any other way I can whore myself out to recruiters and HR fucks), but haven't gotten more than a couple interviews. It's gotten to the point where I'm almost about to give up and just shoot myself. Last time I posted that story on/. I got flamed by the masses saying in typical pseudo-intellect speak that's so common on/. that "you're doing something wrong" or "you're just an idiot". The truth is, the market sucks. Maybe it's my pessimestic attitude, but I don't see it getting much better in the near future.
I'd still suggest jumping through the hoops and utilizing any kind of campus career center that you (most likely) have. Just have a definite Plan B just in case. Keep an open mind about what kind of job you apply for...maybe be a suit for a year and shift over to the IT world. Remember, just because you have a certain major doesn't mean you have to work in that area. Also, a good way to buy time (literally) is grad school. I'd be there right now if I didn't already owe about $45k in loans and had a higher gpa. Such is life.
It's even making me think about SACD (Super Audio CD) and DVD-Audio... and I don't have perfect hearing
Welcome to the world of high-end audio, my friend. Enjoy your stay, and have confidence in the fact that when you leave, you WILL be broke.
Seriously though, you might wanna consider that SACD player. Although the selection of SACDs out there isn't exactly mind-blowing, the titles out there that ARE on SACD are definitely worth getting. I recently got into an argument with a guy on IRC (damn Europeans always argue) about why, if you have the money, SACDs are worth it. He claimed that you can't hear the difference, that it was all marketing hype and that anyone who thought different was an idiot. For me, after hearing Stevie Ray Vaughan's Texas Flood on normal CD, then hearing the same disc on SACD back-to-back, made me a believer. YMMV of course, depending on your gear.
Since there's been a (rather obvious) decline in consumer electronics quality over the years, in order to protect yourself it's necessary to do what all of us hate to do: pay the extra money for the extended warantee!!!.
I've never been a big fan of doing this, but after getting burned on quite a few products that I've bought over the years, it's become the only option. True, you can buy higher-quality goods. Guess what? They break too, sometimes at least as often as your lower-grade shit ( not always, of course). First thing I did when I bought my cheap-ass Western Digital 40 GB a few weeks ago was pay the extra 10 bucks on an extended warantee. Why? Because I know it WILL go bad eventually, and most likely within the next two years.
For all those stubborn folks who claim that their Krell amp or their Martin Logan speakers won't go bad, remember...shit happens. My best friend is a salesman at a high-end audio retailer here in the midwest, and you'd be suprised at the kind of shit people bring back that's defective.
I hate to say it, but you're right. Currently, open source software isn't ready to be adapted by the mainstream. That's the problem most of the/. folks have...not EVERYONE is using the open source software that they're using.
I recently asked a friend of mine (non-techie) ask me why I fired up Moz to show him something instead of IE. I told him it was open source, and that I liked that (and that IE wasn't). "Well shit, I can't read the code anyway...why would I care if it's open source?" he came with. Only after I showed him how tabbed browsing worked (and how insecure IE can be) did he even think about trying it.
My mom sure as hell isn't gonna care if she can see how linked-lists are implemented in IE! She just wants to check her email, and if it works, then that's all that matters. For her the term "Open Source" is just one more buzzword she has to ask me about.
there is some credibility to the theory that, when we started living indoors, sterilizing our environment,..., taking antibiotics, and so on, we diminished our exposure to pathogens
Indeed, Mr. Fishbowl. Most of us in "modern" civilized countries are starting to experience diseases and health problems that in the past weren't an issue.
One example, other than the whole antibiotic-resistant organisms emerging, is asthma. I don't have any URLs or statistics offhand, but asthma is WAY more common in places like the U.S, U.K., and Australia than in lesser places like Singapore or in the heart of Africa.
Basically asthma is becoming a problem for the rich. Ironic, isn't it? That only the people who have the money to use modern medicines and drugs are the ones most likely to get sick from diseases like these? Makes me second guess our obsession with staying clean and disinfected (and I worked as a Microbiologist last year for the biggest industrial soap and disinfectant company in the US)!
"Anyone who had the drive to complete something like this would already be coding. "
Hey, come on, some of us have the drive to do this kind of thing, but we're just stuck spending our freetime downloading pr0n and posting on/. how 1337 we are.
Honestly, people will flame you to all hell for saying that, being that the/. crowd developed a strong sense of ethics and morals over the last few years. But how many of them have a cracked version of Photoshop on their P9 1THz w/3000 gigs of ram? Or how many of them have a divx they "borrowed" off of giFT of a movie they never owned?
I liken the DOD bust to smoking weed: it's illegal, but there's much worse things in the world than marijuana. The amount of warez I use is analogous to smoking a joint...I don't do it often, and the chances of me getting caught are pretty slim-to-none because of my low-profile.
The DOD bust was analgous to moving MASSIVE amounts of drugs across America in a fleet of Semi trucks. Much higher profile, people tend to notice, and if you're driving that truck then God Bless.
Basically, if you play the game, be discrete. And if you get caught, there's nobody else to blame.
Hotline rocks, plain out and straight up. I remember using Hotline for the first time back in '97 or '98 and being absolutely awestruck at the amount of goodies available at only a click away. Two events happened though that brought on the demise of hotline:
porn companies and shady businesses discovered the joy of banners, and threw up bogus sites just to have people click on their website and make $.0000003 everytime someone visited.
most of the remaining sites that didn't fade into obscurity decided to disallow public downloads entirely. Nothing's more frustrating than seeing some file you need, only to get a "You are not allowed to download" error message. Messaging the admins usually doesn't help either, since there's a pretty prevalent "fuck you" attitude amongst them.
That being said, I still think hotline's a great tool, and I still check it out once in a while. As far as for people bitching about bandwidth throttling and what-not, all I can say is learn to deal with it. My old college decided to throw PacketShapers up a while back (almost 4 years now, I believe), and they didn't have the curteosy to inform the students. Out of nowhere ICQ, IRC, and pretty much everything else not port 80 was blocked, and it took me a LONG time to get an answer from the IT department (if anyone here is an admin at St. Olaf, fuck you). Move off campus and get a cable modem. That's what I did, and I have no complaints.
Seriously though, the school most likely didn't even need to name the Patriot Act as their justification for bringing down the site/hyperlinks. All they really had to say is, "It's our servers, our rules. If you don't like it, go somewhere else."
I know this situation all too well. When I was in college a couple years ago, I had a website on the school's webserver that was deemed "inappropriate" and "offensive" by the administration. All the website contained was writings and journals of mine, voicing my opinions and feelings about school, life, administration, and my ex girlfriend (although I never printed her name). No kiddie porn, no terrorist links, no warez.
Out of nowhere, my site was taken offline and my www folder was frozen. It turned out that my ex had stumbled across the site, gotten pissed and told her mom who basically threatened to sue the college (gotta love suburban soccer moms). I got a really ambigious letter in my P.O. box afterwords, pointing to a clause in their TOS saying that since it was the school's webservers they had the right to basically sensor any material they saw fit.
I sympathize with these students, especially since their site has more merit than one complaining about shitty parking services and bad caf food. However, it's UCSD's court, so unfortunately they have toplay by their rules. If the students are adament about voicing their opinions and providing terrorist links, run a web site and host it somewhere else. Just make sure to mention how UCSD censored you, and post a shitload of links back to the admins at UCSD and hopefully/. them into oblivion.
Hubbard's teaching isn't the problem here. What's the problem is that the government seems to allow these guys to do whatever they want. Harassment, legal threats, hell, death threats, the list goes on...
I'd say the government should have stepped into this whole mess a while back, but it's almost impossible with our current Constitution. Oh well, makes for interesting news.
From the parent:
"Any technical person worth their salt will be able to find productive work for the forseeable future"
This is ALMOST the way it is. However, you forgot an important demographic in the tech sector these days...those who are recent college graduates.
I graduated from college a little over one year ago, and maybe it's just my area (seriously doubtable), and it's IMPOSSIBLE to find IT related work around here without 3-5 years experience. Period. It doesn't matter how good you are, where you came from, or how leet you are as an admin, because you'll never make it through the front door. Not to sound cocky, but I know that I'd be a much better admin than most of the stiffs out in the workforce right now. I'm passionate about computers. It's amazing how many people hold jobs as a sys admin or a programmer who simply DON'T give a shit about what they're doing...they just like the paycheck.
It's simply unfortunate that there's people like me who will probably never get a chance to work in the IT field, simply because we're a few years too "late".
Slashdot Mirror
Why doesn't Mitnick go out and sue the pants off NYT and Markoff? Frankly, I doubt he'd win. Not because there was no wrong-doing at Mitnick's expense (while I don't believe everything he says, Kevin was pretty misrepresented in the press)...but because he's a convicted criminal. Let's face it, the guy did some HARD TIME in a Federal Pound-Me-In-The-Ass prison. Put a guy like that in court and have him try to sue one of the most "reputed" newspaper in the world (along with an aspiring author), and watch the judge piss his pants laughing.
Unfortunately, once you're convicted of a crime (at least here in the US), people will never give you a fair shot/chance/trial ever again. And that's something that Kevin has to live with.
Whether or not Wired "polled" all these people or not is ethical or not is one thing, whether or not it's legal is another. Is it legal? Well, I suppose that depends on whatever state you reside in, but most likely yes. Of course, after the Patriot Act, I can't answer this accurately.
Is it ethical??? That's way harder to answer. To be honest, I wouldn't care really if it was Wired probing me. However, I can see why people would be ROYALLY pissed when they read the article. Just because seeing if your neighbor's door is unlocked doesn't is legal, doesn't mean it's right.
On a related note to your story about scanning for BackOrfice on your subnet after getting nailed by DoS's within your ISP, I feel your pain. I got pissed after I got my cable modem hooked up and checked snort within a day or two. So, I fired up nmap, and looked for hosts on my subnet that seemed to like to try exploiting me...know what happened? I got a nasty letter in the mail (ESAD, RoadRunner!) threatening to cut me off for my "Hacking Attempts." All I was doing was nmaping people...not illegal over here, and I was really only scanning the people who were trying to root my box. Ironically, they still continue whereas I can't. Pig fuckers.
Point of story? ISPs can do whatever the hell they want to, and that applies to tolerance towards "Hacking Activities".
No kidding. Although, in a way, it would also be a mixed blessing. Think of it this way: there's no better way for John Q. Public to wake up to all the crap and unfairness going on with the MPAA/RIAA than for his best friend to get sued to oblivion for downloading music/movies that he very well might legally own. Once that happens, just wait and watch for the headlines on your local favorite news channel. "Boy Sued For $1 Millon For Downloading Music To Replace Scratched CDs He Dropped In Shitter."
Of course, for every legitimate download there's probably 10-100 fold "illegal" downloads going on, and that's all the MPAA/RIAA really cares about. As Jay in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back so sussenctly put it, "we're going to get our MUTHAfuckin' movie check."
This is a major problem when there is not enough diversification in a gene pool. Consider the cheetah. The cheetah has an incredibly small gene pool, due to massive inbreeding (amongst other things). Why is this bad? Because of the same reason that these bananas might be in trouble...if a disease comes along that the cheetah is particularly vulnerable to, then it's game over. Since there is no genetic variation within the species, every single cheetah would fall dead to the disease and they would quickly become extinct.
I don't know about you guys, but I can live without cheetahs...but I need my bananas!!! Just some food for thought (pun intended, biatches).
I was a bio/cs major when I came out of college a couple of years ago. After toiling around working as a Microbiologist for a little while, I realized something that my profs failed to mention during their lectures: advancement rarely exists when you're working in that field.
Most of the people in my labs were middle-aged. 30+ working as a labrat for 10, 15 years. Of course they received promotions and whatnot, but usually it was pretty menial...just enough to keep up with inflation. Basically, when you hit that Senior Scientist position, you've hit the glass ceiling. Depending on the company, you'll make decent money by that time, but the price you pay is repetition. Doing the same kind of experiments and procedures for 30 years is hardly what I'd call stimulating.
Granted, getting a PhD will open some doors. Hell, my best friend from college is working on his PhD right now in the Evolution/Ecological field. Know what he wants to be? A prof. For him it's the perfect life...you get decent money (enough to support your family), summers are basically freetime to spend in the lab/out in the field with a couple motivated students, and you always get to have people call you Doctor if you're into that whole arrogent ego-boosting bullshit.
Just $.02 from somebody who realized that working sucks.
Funny sidenote, when I started buying CDs in 7th grade, I saved EVERY receipt, period. I was terrified of having my CDs stolen due to our house getting burglarized a few years earlier, and I too kept receipts on all "big ticket items" (hey, when you're 13, a CD *IS* a big ticket item). A few years later in the middle of high school, I checked my drawer and had hundreds of receipts from all the CDs I had bought over the years. Some CDs I loved, some I loathed, but I had proof that everything I listened to was mine (this was way before the advent of burnable CDs). If the day ever came when my shit got stolen, I could laugh my way to the insurance company and show them exactly what to buy.
The funny thing is, the summer after I graduated from college, I had all of my CDs (and a TON of receipts, out of habbit) in my parent's house for the summer. Just moved back home, nowhere else to put them, blah blah blah...
So I come home from a weekend camping in Wisconsin, and my house is burned down. All my gear, all my stuff, ALL MY CDS AND THEIR RECEIPTS WERE GONE. Burnt. Toast. In the end, it wasn't a crook that was responsible for my missing music...it was a misfunctional dehumidifer (beware: never buy whirlpool dehumidifiers. They tend to "spark" when unattended).
Quotes like this give a pessimist(sp.) like me a bit of hope in the world. The guy saw something that he liked, but noticed several flaws (read: expensive, propriatary, etc.) in the product, so decided to build his own from scratch! I mean, come on...this is admirable. People (at least around here) tend to bitch a LOT about things in the world around them, yet offer no alternative or solution. Granted, sometimes it's so macroscopic that you can't do something that helps the world out significantly (think traffic, politics, etc.). However, it's nice to see that there's still a few people in the world who aren't afraid to get their hands dirty because they don't like how something works.
Kinda makes me wish I had that one thing...shit, what's it called? Motivation? Yeah, that's it. Maybe they have it at Target.
A-fucking-men. Seriously. Slashdot has gotten to the point of IRC #sex rooms it seems. Granted, this is a scientific-oriented "community" (if you can really call it that anymore...to me it's just a cool way of testing one's webserver to see if it can withstand millions of clicks within minutes), but come on folks. Everyone's posted "credintials" when they respond to an article like this SEEM honest and respectable enough. Who wouldn't believe somebody claiming to be a PhD in physics or an IT Manager or in this case a cop considering the articles at hand? No, this isn't a scientific article per se, but you guys get my point.
It just sucks when the curtain in OZ is removed and instead of there being a wizard, it's a 15 year old punk with a identity problem.
Because they can. Quite simple really. There's no massive conspiracy out there, no arch enemy plotting to ruin your world and make you burst into tears. It's most likely going to be some teenager/early 20 year old who doesn't get out much and has a hidden destructive side to him.
Basically it's the modern day equivalent of Sir Edmond Hillary(sp.)'s response to why he'd EVER want to climb Mt. Everest:
"Because it's there."
It sounds like these are just mp3 and shn formats of the soundboard recording that Phish has been releasing as box sets over the last year. Why would I want to pay money to download these? Every concert ever played by Phish is basically already online somewhere, if you know where to look. Granted, you might not get the soundboard version, but most likely you'll find one comparable somewhere. Hell, I'll just fireup furthernet or hotline and find the same show and spend the $10 on a 6-pk of Guiness and a burger instead.
145 words, and two periods. Damn. Next time I interview for Apple or Volt, remind me to drink a pot of coffee, take meth, and run a few miles before hand.
Good question, my friend. I was in your same shoes a year ago and my outlook looked good. That is, until 9/11 "happened". Then companies went on hiring freezes, there were more cuts in budgets than on Jack the Ripper's victims, and getting a tech job became WAY harder.
I've been unemployed for 13 months so far, and it hasn't gotten any easier. I'm going about my job hunt the right way (cranking out resumes left and right, informational interviewing, networking, and any other way I can whore myself out to recruiters and HR fucks), but haven't gotten more than a couple interviews. It's gotten to the point where I'm almost about to give up and just shoot myself. Last time I posted that story on /. I got flamed by the masses saying in typical pseudo-intellect speak that's so common on /. that "you're doing something wrong" or "you're just an idiot". The truth is, the market sucks. Maybe it's my pessimestic attitude, but I don't see it getting much better in the near future.
I'd still suggest jumping through the hoops and utilizing any kind of campus career center that you (most likely) have. Just have a definite Plan B just in case. Keep an open mind about what kind of job you apply for...maybe be a suit for a year and shift over to the IT world. Remember, just because you have a certain major doesn't mean you have to work in that area. Also, a good way to buy time (literally) is grad school. I'd be there right now if I didn't already owe about $45k in loans and had a higher gpa. Such is life.
Because it's easier than trying to get a job as a sys admin.
Welcome to the world of high-end audio, my friend. Enjoy your stay, and have confidence in the fact that when you leave, you WILL be broke.
Seriously though, you might wanna consider that SACD player. Although the selection of SACDs out there isn't exactly mind-blowing, the titles out there that ARE on SACD are definitely worth getting. I recently got into an argument with a guy on IRC (damn Europeans always argue) about why, if you have the money, SACDs are worth it. He claimed that you can't hear the difference, that it was all marketing hype and that anyone who thought different was an idiot. For me, after hearing Stevie Ray Vaughan's Texas Flood on normal CD, then hearing the same disc on SACD back-to-back, made me a believer. YMMV of course, depending on your gear.
I've never been a big fan of doing this, but after getting burned on quite a few products that I've bought over the years, it's become the only option. True, you can buy higher-quality goods. Guess what? They break too, sometimes at least as often as your lower-grade shit ( not always, of course). First thing I did when I bought my cheap-ass Western Digital 40 GB a few weeks ago was pay the extra 10 bucks on an extended warantee. Why? Because I know it WILL go bad eventually, and most likely within the next two years.
For all those stubborn folks who claim that their Krell amp or their Martin Logan speakers won't go bad, remember...shit happens. My best friend is a salesman at a high-end audio retailer here in the midwest, and you'd be suprised at the kind of shit people bring back that's defective.
Now, off to watch the Simpsons...
I recently asked a friend of mine (non-techie) ask me why I fired up Moz to show him something instead of IE. I told him it was open source, and that I liked that (and that IE wasn't). "Well shit, I can't read the code anyway...why would I care if it's open source?" he came with. Only after I showed him how tabbed browsing worked (and how insecure IE can be) did he even think about trying it.
My mom sure as hell isn't gonna care if she can see how linked-lists are implemented in IE! She just wants to check her email, and if it works, then that's all that matters. For her the term "Open Source" is just one more buzzword she has to ask me about.
there is some credibility to the theory that, when we started living indoors, sterilizing our environment,..., taking antibiotics, and so on, we diminished our exposure to pathogens
Indeed, Mr. Fishbowl. Most of us in "modern" civilized countries are starting to experience diseases and health problems that in the past weren't an issue.
One example, other than the whole antibiotic-resistant organisms emerging, is asthma. I don't have any URLs or statistics offhand, but asthma is WAY more common in places like the U.S, U.K., and Australia than in lesser places like Singapore or in the heart of Africa.
Basically asthma is becoming a problem for the rich. Ironic, isn't it? That only the people who have the money to use modern medicines and drugs are the ones most likely to get sick from diseases like these? Makes me second guess our obsession with staying clean and disinfected (and I worked as a Microbiologist last year for the biggest industrial soap and disinfectant company in the US)!
Seriously, it's been a while since I've seen a site get taken out THIS fast! Does kinda make you wonder.
Hey, come on, some of us have the drive to do this kind of thing, but we're just stuck spending our freetime downloading pr0n and posting on /. how 1337 we are.
Wait, shit...
Honestly, people will flame you to all hell for saying that, being that the /. crowd developed a strong sense of ethics and morals over the last few years. But how many of them have a cracked version of Photoshop on their P9 1THz w/3000 gigs of ram? Or how many of them have a divx they "borrowed" off of giFT of a movie they never owned?
I liken the DOD bust to smoking weed: it's illegal, but there's much worse things in the world than marijuana. The amount of warez I use is analogous to smoking a joint...I don't do it often, and the chances of me getting caught are pretty slim-to-none because of my low-profile.
The DOD bust was analgous to moving MASSIVE amounts of drugs across America in a fleet of Semi trucks. Much higher profile, people tend to notice, and if you're driving that truck then God Bless.
Basically, if you play the game, be discrete. And if you get caught, there's nobody else to blame.
porn companies and shady businesses discovered the joy of banners, and threw up bogus sites just to have people click on their website and make $.0000003 everytime someone visited.
most of the remaining sites that didn't fade into obscurity decided to disallow public downloads entirely. Nothing's more frustrating than seeing some file you need, only to get a "You are not allowed to download" error message. Messaging the admins usually doesn't help either, since there's a pretty prevalent "fuck you" attitude amongst them.
That being said, I still think hotline's a great tool, and I still check it out once in a while. As far as for people bitching about bandwidth throttling and what-not, all I can say is learn to deal with it. My old college decided to throw PacketShapers up a while back (almost 4 years now, I believe), and they didn't have the curteosy to inform the students. Out of nowhere ICQ, IRC, and pretty much everything else not port 80 was blocked, and it took me a LONG time to get an answer from the IT department (if anyone here is an admin at St. Olaf, fuck you). Move off campus and get a cable modem. That's what I did, and I have no complaints.
Seriously though, the school most likely didn't even need to name the Patriot Act as their justification for bringing down the site/hyperlinks. All they really had to say is, "It's our servers, our rules. If you don't like it, go somewhere else."
I know this situation all too well. When I was in college a couple years ago, I had a website on the school's webserver that was deemed "inappropriate" and "offensive" by the administration. All the website contained was writings and journals of mine, voicing my opinions and feelings about school, life, administration, and my ex girlfriend (although I never printed her name). No kiddie porn, no terrorist links, no warez.
Out of nowhere, my site was taken offline and my www folder was frozen. It turned out that my ex had stumbled across the site, gotten pissed and told her mom who basically threatened to sue the college (gotta love suburban soccer moms). I got a really ambigious letter in my P.O. box afterwords, pointing to a clause in their TOS saying that since it was the school's webservers they had the right to basically sensor any material they saw fit.
I sympathize with these students, especially since their site has more merit than one complaining about shitty parking services and bad caf food. However, it's UCSD's court, so unfortunately they have toplay by their rules. If the students are adament about voicing their opinions and providing terrorist links, run a web site and host it somewhere else. Just make sure to mention how UCSD censored you, and post a shitload of links back to the admins at UCSD and hopefully /. them into oblivion.
I'd say the government should have stepped into this whole mess a while back, but it's almost impossible with our current Constitution. Oh well, makes for interesting news.
This is ALMOST the way it is. However, you forgot an important demographic in the tech sector these days...those who are recent college graduates.
I graduated from college a little over one year ago, and maybe it's just my area (seriously doubtable), and it's IMPOSSIBLE to find IT related work around here without 3-5 years experience. Period. It doesn't matter how good you are, where you came from, or how leet you are as an admin, because you'll never make it through the front door. Not to sound cocky, but I know that I'd be a much better admin than most of the stiffs out in the workforce right now. I'm passionate about computers. It's amazing how many people hold jobs as a sys admin or a programmer who simply DON'T give a shit about what they're doing...they just like the paycheck.
It's simply unfortunate that there's people like me who will probably never get a chance to work in the IT field, simply because we're a few years too "late".