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User: JRHelgeson

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  1. Astounding... on Censored Nagasaki Bomb Story Found · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    The first sentence of the link states:
    American George Weller was the first foreign reporter to enter Nagasaki following the U.S. atomic attack on the city on Aug. 9, 1945.

    I can't believe they call it an "atomic attack", like we weren't at war and this was a wholly unprovoked attack on a soverign nation. This was World War II for crying out loud! These bombings brought about the end of it while by every estimate saving millions of lives in the process.

    Regardless of what you think of the current administration, the USA is a good country. It amazes me the lengths people go to paint us in a negative light.

    Please consider before moderating...

  2. Humorous anecdote... on How To Balance Life And Technology For Kids? · · Score: 1

    Back in 1995-96 timeframe, I was working as a network admin for a company. I was constantly amazed when I would encounter "normal" people that were talking about email, internet, databases and just generally using the 'nerd' vocabulary I'd been using for years as it was rapidly becoming a part of the "average joe's" lexicon.

    I went to lunch at a greasy spoon diner with three other network admin buddies. The four of us were in a booth and sitting behind me was a mother with her three-year-old son. The boy started practicing his ABC's: ABCDEFG... "H" his mother chimed in, the boy continued: HIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWWWdotXYZ!

    If that wasn't the last time Mountain Dew came out my nose, it was certainly the most memorable.

    It was also at that moment I realized the internet was becoming part of our mainstream culture.

  3. All things being equal... on Body Modifications Still Hinder IT Professionals? · · Score: 1

    As a professional that interviews and hires IT professionals, all other things being equal (skills, etc.) I will ALWAYS give preference to candidates with the cleaner appearance because it provides a more professional image to my company.

    In my opinion, body modification is the candidates way of stating: "In a competitive industry, how can I make myself even more unemployable." No matter how you slice it, it cannot work out well for you, the question is; how much is it going to hurt you.

  4. Re:Old news... on HTTP Request Smuggling · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Bah, I'm a reseller who enjoys a product... is it so wrong to share it with people? I have no dog in this fight.

  5. Old news... on HTTP Request Smuggling · · Score: -1, Troll

    The WebScurity applicaiton firewall protected against this straight out of the box. Check it out, www.webscurity.com.

    It's pretty cool, they use an artificial intelligence engine that automatically maps business logic so that it needs little or no configuration.

    I'm installing it at customer sites and having great success with it, check it out.

  6. Holy Cow!!! on LinuxWorld Editorial Machinations · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    You mean, O'Gara is a liberal journalist? GHASP!! WTF do you think the entire country is getting bent out of shape regarding journalists. O'Gara is just one of thousands of loony reporters that choose to report their opinion rather than fact.

    The New York times had 38 cover stories on abu ghrab prison scandal, yet an illegal immigrant murders a mother of three and her three children by BURNING them to death and nobody bats an eyelash. When asked, the NYT says they don't want to "Expose the public to such horrors."

    Give me a break!

  7. Simple Psychology... on How to Leave a Job on Good Terms? · · Score: 1

    He's dealing with separation anxiety. He likes you and is fearing your loss and actually missing you, he's going through the steps of making a mental separation such that after you're gone, he can say that he's glad yer gone, rather than missing you. Makes it a lot easier on the psyche.

    This happens with all breakups where the individual has emotional insecurities. Chances are that he's a semi-psycho jerk because he deals with insecurities and views your separation personally, as a personal rejection of him and is therefore distancing himself.

  8. My original DVD still works... on Short Lifetimes of Optical Drives? · · Score: 1

    I have a 7 year old Pioneer DVD Player (Model DV-505 MFD March 1998) that still plays disks, everything except discs I burn can be played. Even DVD's I burn will play, just without audio (minor detail).

    Whenever I have a problem playing a disc on a CD player or DVD, I open them up and hit the lens with a Q-Tip soaked with Alcohol (what are you going to do, ruin the player that won't work? -- Puh-leease!)

    I've never damaged a lens that I've cleaned with a q-tip, just don't jam it with the thing, treat it as gingerly as you would your own eardrum and you'll be just fine.

  9. Use a globe... on Software Engineering Demo for a K-5 Career Fair? · · Score: 1

    Take a globe with you. Point out the United States on the globe, then spin the globe and show them India...

  10. Typo in story: on Consumers Data Stolen from LexisNexis · · Score: 1

    This comes on the heals of rival Check Point being breached...

    The company that was breached was Choice Point, not Check Point. Big difference as Check Point is a computer security company best known for their firewalls.

  11. This puts people out of business... on Publishing Exploit Code Ruled Illegal In France · · Score: 4, Informative

    There are top notch security experts in France, specifically the folks at K-Otik http://www.k-otik.com/

    I'm a security consultant and I look to these folks as a source of reputable information. I spent a LOT of time on their site when Microsoft was trying to deal with the fallout of the MSO3-026 vulnerability which begat the MSBlaster worm. I even got the source code for blaster from the K-Otik crew.

    This is going to have huge ramifications if it is interpreted as described here.

  12. I'm an american... on Mount St. Helens Shoots Steam, Ash · · Score: -1, Troll

    7600 meters... what is that, like 500 feet?

    Okay, okay, its like 25,000 feet

  13. I disagree that innovation is stifiled... on An Engineer's View of Carly Fiorina's Leadership · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Carly may have killed innovation at HP, but it doesn't mean that innovation in America has been killed - just pushed back to the garage.

    There has been a truism that is as true today as when it was coined back in the early 1800's: Americans invent as the French paint, or the Italians sculpt.

    It is our nature to innovate. If it is not happening at Lucent, HP or wherever, it will revert back to the garage where countless American innovations have started. Analysts that look to HP and Lucent (Bell Labs) for innovation in the future are sure to be blind-sided by the invention they didn't see coming from some garage or shed somehwere in this great land of ours.

  14. Let me see if I get this straight... on Brightest Galactic Flash Ever Detected Hits Earth · · Score: 1

    We get hit by 10,000 trillion trillion trillion watts of energy, and yet burning fossil fuels are the source of global warming?

  15. RFID Tags in Casino Chips on Following the Chips in Wynn's New Casino · · Score: 1

    The Indian casino here in Minnesota has been using RFID tags in their players chips for quite a while. You place your bet in the circle at the blackjack table and the dealer hits a button on the table just before he starts dealing.

    That button sends a radio pulse up through the bet circle and the casino records exactly how much was bet for each player each hand. If someone trys something sly like placing a $25 or $100 chip under their $5 bet after they have a winning hand, the Casino can detect the cheat immediately.

    The primary reason they do this is for the Comp system. Back in the early 90's I was doing work for the Tropicanna Hotel Casino in Las Vegas. Back then the Casino Administrator, Doug Gomes estimated that they were losing $20 million a year from the loose comp system due to employees stating that their {insert friend/relative here} was a high-roller and played a lot at the {insert any table game here}, and then have the hotel buy the airplane ticket with the promise of big play that never happened.

    Tracking play at the slots is automatic with your players card. At the tables, they have to see how much you bought in with, figure your average bet amount, and the length of time you're playing. Its a very imprecise system but it was the best they had, and it was ripe for abuse.

    What this means is that if you really did lose thousands of dollars at the craps table, you're more likely to get that free room or meal.

  16. Re:How do other countries do this? on Biggest Identity Thief Ever Gets Put Away · · Score: 1

    Is there a single repository for credit reporting data? Who keeps track of people with *good* credit or *bad* credit?

    Is Identity theft a uniquely American Problem?

  17. How do other countries do this? on Biggest Identity Thief Ever Gets Put Away · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The USA uses the Social Security Number to apply for credit. How do citizens of other countries apply for credit? What unique identifying number do they use to identify themselves? Do they have companies similar to Experian, TransUnion or Equifax?

  18. Link to Auction on Man Auctions Forehead Advertising on eBay · · Score: 1

    Direct Link to the eBay auction.

    It has over 100 bids and a price of over $15,000. Still not enough for me to give up my dignity though. I'm sure most of those bids are bogus.

  19. Re:How to break walmat via UPC (not monetarily) on $1.5 Million Bar-code Scheme Bilks Wal-Mart Stores · · Score: 1

    This would not work as the registers or scanners need to be placed into configuration mode manually before the barcodes would have any effect.

    Keep in mind that the barcode is simply an effective method of entering a sequence of digits into a computer and it is often interfaced with the keyboard port on the computer itself... Scanning a custom barcode will only enter the sequence of digits that would result in a "UPC NOT FOUND" error.

  20. Everything you want, Half Price! (or better) on $1.5 Million Bar-code Scheme Bilks Wal-Mart Stores · · Score: 1

    I've been warning of this type of scam going on for YEARS! Just read my Journal entry from September 2003. I have coinded a term for this type of theft, I call it Barcode Scamming and it is on the rise. It is becoming a HUGE problem for retailers and they're just waking up to it. It is for this very reason that we MUST move to RFID and retire from this easily defrauded system.

  21. We already have this... on A Diagnosis of Self-Healing Systems · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The space shuttle, as old as it is, has an absolutely incredible computer system that is self healing.

    The Shuttle has many thousands of sensors and backup sensors. Each sensor feeds into one of many computer systems. These computer systems talk to each other as more of a committee rather than just passing data amongst themselves. If a computer discovers a fault, another computer will see that fault as well, it will combine data gathered from other computer systems throughout the suttle and each computer system will literally cast a vote on what the best solution should be for the particular fault discovered.

    If one computer system suffers a partial or complete failure, the remaining systems will work around the failed system.

    This computer system has managed to keep our astronauts alive for every mission, except those two that suffered from a catastrophic mechanical failure. The second of which (Columbia) the computers kept the craft flying until it broke apart completely.

    I say not bad for a system designed over 20 years ago!

  22. DDOS it... see how it holds up... on What Do You Look For in a Big Iron Review? · · Score: 1

    I learned something about hardware from a simple worm.. I wrote an article on it and I'll re-post it here. Additional comments are at the bottom:

    -----
    Blaster was a worm, and of worms in general I would say that there is little new to be learned from them. They simply exploit holes that haven't been patched in vulnerable software from Microsoft. The security community continues to lambaste Microsoft regarding their alleged push toward making security their #1 priority, which actually comes in second place - after profits of course.

    I did learn something new with blaster though. I have a very good friend that works for a large ISP. They have a number of Cisco 12000 series GSR routers as well as Foundry Big Iron Switches. For those who are not familiar with the Cisco 12000 series routers, let it be sufficed to say that it is Cisco's biggest, baddest router that stands up to 6 feet tall and comes from the factory with a 4 barrel carburetor, dual testosterone modules and a custom paint job with flames painted on the side (pin stripes are optional). These switches are designed to handle hundreds of gigs of traffic across their backplane and through their interfaces. If the ISP were forewarned that they would be seeing 300 mbps of traffic coming from the MS Blaster worm, they would have said "Bring it on!"

    For those of us that aren't CCIE's, Cisco routers and Layer 3 switches have a function called CEF, or Cisco Express Forwarding. CEF is a technology that by its simplest definition caches routes.

    If a packet from my computer is destined for yahoo.com, it will first hit the DNS server to resolve the host name to its IP address. My computer will then send packets to my ISP with the destination IP of yahoo.com (66.218.71.198). My ISP's router, presuming it's a Cisco router with CEF enabled, will look at its internet BGP tables and determine the optimal route my packet should take on the internet to arrive at that destination. Once the router has processed the route, it caches it so that all future packets coming from my home IP address, destined for yahoo.com will automatically be routed using the cached route. This takes a tremendous load off the router CPU as each packet no longer needs to be processed by the CPU, hence the term "Express Forwarding".

    What the blaster worm did was send out hundreds of thousands of ICMP pings per second. This usually wouldn't be a problem for the router, except for each packet was destined for a unique IP address. What started happening is that each route was looked up, routed, and stored in its cache for future packets - only there weren't any future packets. What happened next was the memory space allocated for caching CEF routes filled up, and once full, the router simply purged its cache so that every packet had to then go to the CPU to be routed. Once this happened, all hell broke loose.

    CPU utilization on the routers jumped to 100%, which should never happen under normal conditions, but this was clearly not a normal condition, and the internet came to a crawl.
    -------------

    As you can see, Worms have an ability to push hardware beyond its designed purpose and now ISP's are wondering what level of testing goes into these devices to see if they can withstand the severe abuse that falls outside of the design parameters.

    Hope this helps,
    Joel

  23. Re:Solution to the problem... on Patrick Volkerding Battles Mystery Illness · · Score: 1

    Yes, it does eventualy return to normal frequency of once per day.

    While you're starting on it, it makes your farts noxious, enough to make little kids cry and adults eyes water... and BOY does your poop STINK! Well, at least at first it stinks (for about the first month when you're REALLY cleansing). Be sure to grab some matches.. :)

    Cool thing is that the smell goes away. Once it does then you can decrease your dose to a "Maintenance dose" of about 3 tablets 2x day.

  24. Solution to the problem... on Patrick Volkerding Battles Mystery Illness · · Score: 1

    The solution to your problem is deceptively simple, and no, it does not involve the use of a pistol.

    Please read this through in its entirety. You will have to purchase 2 products and it is not a replacement for antibiotics or conventional therapy but I will GUARANTEE that it will help things immeasurably.

    Your problem is that you're full of shit. No, literally, you are, but you don't realize it. See, I, like you once was wracked with infection after infection that wouldn't go away and the doctors were clueless because they could only treat symptoms and they couldn't treat them fast enough.

    Simply put, you need to start with a colon cleanse. Hear me out.

    As a fellow nerd, I know that we don't eat healthy. I mainly lived on Mountain Dew and solar power for, oh, about 10 years. What happens, especially in America is that we don't eat enough fiber and the walls of your intestine get coated with sludge. This creates a problem as toxins that are filtered out of our system are emptied into the intestine to be carried off. When the walls get coated, they can't dump toxins into your body efficiently and you start to clog up. Your body will then store the toxins in your liver, kidneys and lungs and every other cell in your body for that matter.

    This buildup of toxins exhibits itself differently in different people. Some get tired, some get infections. Chronic fatigue? Yup.. that too.

    Now, this is not the solution, in and of itself. Cleansing the colon only enables your body to start purging the toxins that are in the body and prevent further buildup. You will not be able to get rid of the infection you have until you open up your internal "Toxic Waste Dump".

    The best place to get a colon cleanse kit is www.colonblow.com. I love that place, they treat the whole issue with a bit of humor. Their email address? Flushtwice@colonblow.com. They sell a kit that will clean you out in 72 hours and it doesn't even hurt. You'll be amazed at the stuff that comes out.

    Once you've opened up the toxic waste dump, go to www.vitaganza.com and order some Wobenzym. I recommend getting the 800 count bottle as you'll go through the 200 count bottle in about a week as you start cleansing. Better yet, start off with their "Pollution Pack" which includes other nutrients that will help you out.

    Wobenzym will help "chew up" infections and all other waste in your body and get them out of your body. Wobenzym is simply enzymes. I'll paste here a snippet from their website www.wobenzym.com:

    "Enzymes are proteins composed of amino acids, the basic building blocks of life, arranged in chains that spontaneously fold into three-dimensional structures. These three-dimensional structures confer specificity of function. Whereas all enzymes are proteins, not all proteins are enzymes. Enzymes are involved in nearly all metabolic and physiological processes in the body. Thus, they are a key in the maintenance of a strong immune system, a robust cardiovascular tree,a healthy and intact central nervous system, and optimal hormonal balance in the body."

    Wobenzym is simply enzymes, about 20 of them that once ingested create a cascading set of 2000 enzymes. These enzymes are then used to cleanse the body.

    Now, this does not replace the antibiotics, but I will tell you that all the antibiotics in the world will not help anything until you have a cleared "pathway" in your body for the toxins and infections to leave your body.

    Once you have completed the colon cleanse, and started Wobenzym, you will continue to poop, and poop, and poop. You will wonder where the heck all that crap is coming from but I can guarantee that you will feel better. I feel great now and I know that I wouldn't feel this good if I didn't take this same course of remedy.

    I guarantee that if you do these two simple things that your body will then start getting rid of the infection that you're suffering from, and the antibiotics will have a much greater impact on your system in helping you fight this battle.

    Regards,

    Joel R. Helgeson

  25. First, prove that global warming is a problem... on U.S. Continues Opposition to Kyoto Environmental Treaty · · Score: 0

    The alarm bells may be turned off if the global temperature measurements of the satellites continue to tell a different story. Since they were launched in 1979, satellite measurements of the lower atmosphere show little or no warming, contradicting the surface measurements that might be biased from the heat island (urbanization) effect and other factors. Balloon temperature measurements are also more supportive of the satellites than surface thermometers regarding the warming residual. Even if both temperature records turn out to be right, the alarmists will be on the defensive. Greenhouse physics dictate that the warming should be greater in the lower troposphere than at the surface. If it is not, the surface warming must be more related to increased solar brightness and natural variability than a human-induced "greenhouse signal."

    Read more about it here:
    http://www.austinreview.com/articles/58.htm l