VJ42, I agree with most of your post, and I'm an American. In particular, I'd like to comment on your choice to visit European destinations rather than American ones. Personally, I've travelled as much as my budget has allowed me in the past few years, due to a lack of interest in my local environment; I've seen Japan (where I currently live), Singapore, China, Spain, Mexico, Canada, and all parts of the US. While I'm proud to be an American (as all Americans are, causing the popular cliche), I find that it's such an extreme monoculture, where even in the ethnically diverse cities such as Los Angeles the minority groups are pushed aside into small communities where they can't impact the groupthink, that it quickly becomes boring. If you've never been to America, you probably have the standard McDonalds and Baywatch stereotypical view of America. And while it's true that 20% of the females I've met in the States idolize Paris Hilton and roughly the same want to be John Elway (or Michael Jordan, et al), there is a good percentage of people who are interesting, unique, and dedicated to independant culture, be it art, cinema, literature, etc. The problem is that American culture, though not necessarily the people, is so driven towards capitalism that the culture itself places no merit on real artistic endeavors. You can see this in all forms of art, and not even that, you can see it in what interests are popular among the masses - I gravitate towards people who know who Miles Davis or H. L. Mencken are, but often find myself sifting through those obsessed instead with Britney Spears or Brad Pitt, the faces that are exposed to them in every possible media: television, film, music, even Google god-damn News on a daily basis.
My basic point is that America DOES have a culture, the problem is that it's very difficult to find above the layers of bullshit stacked on top of it by the media. There's somewhat of an upside to this, though. As a native, if you are dedicated and you do find bits of that underground culture, it is extremely rewarding and is usually better developed for the fact that it's been simmering under a heap of commercialistic nonsense for years. The downside, as we all know, is that to the outsider, it appears that America is completely devoid of any intelligence. Trust me, there are just as many Americans out there who despise "American Culture" as there are Europeans. The ultimate problem is that 20% of the people spending their dollars on one thing will bring more attention than the other 80% spending their money on a very diverse culture (be it Classical authors, Jazz/Underground Hip Hop/Indie Rock music, Indy Film, Indy Comics, Small run Literature, etc).
Slap
(my e-mail ain't public but feel free to hit slapspam/at/ yahoo.com)
There's gotta be some sort of article moderation system to prevent FUD like this from misleading Slashdot readers. I read the front page blurb of this story and was lead to believe LiveJournal was being evil, and if I hadn't taken the time to read the comments on this article (which I usually don't), I'd have had no idea that the entire article was blown out of proportion and context. It's probably the third or fourth time this has happened in the past six months, which is why I hardly even read Slashdot these days.
This must be for the Japanese market, where you are never more than a few feet away from a can of beer or a can of coffee. My guess in one of the seedier parts of Tokyo, a beer vending machine and coffee vending machine were dropped right next to each other outside a love hotel, and nine months later one of them vended this new beverage.
I'm surprised at how few serious *NIX Administrators I know are using GNU Screen. For some reason, it seems that the majority of them have not yet discovered the sheer power of the console window manager. It allows me to manage dozens of virtual windows all within the same terminal. In addition to eliminating the need to window-switching on my local machine, it also allows me to perform complex select, copy, and paste operations using only my keyboard. WIthout using a mouse, I can select and copy text in one window, advance into another window, and paste the text. The best part is that if my DSL drops or I decide to reboot my computer, all of my screened sessions stay on the server, leaving my work in exactly the same place as it always was, and with a nice scrollback history. I couldn't work without it.
Just attach a printed list of all the Internet Explorer security holes in the past few months to any existing robot's feet, and the resulting weight should be enough to reproduce this cat-like ability.
Unix nerds who care about usability are switching
on
Making Things Easy Is Hard
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
'Unix nerds who care about usability are switching to Mac OS X in droves'
This is absolutely true. If you don't believe it, then you're just needlessly anti-Apple. Myself and several of my friends, us having used Solaris (CDE WOOT) or similar UNIX variants for many years, are now switching to OSX.
What's not to love about an OS where I can have a great web browser, -pretty- window manager, tons of community software, AND comes with vi by default?
Let's see, the last time I wore a collar? Hrm. That's a tough one. I think it was the wedding for that distant relative. So unless I need to IRC during the vows, this isn't very useful for me.
> if all of slashdot started calling.. that would be something.. at the least
I completely agree. You'd be amazed how quickly people get the idea if they are deluged with phone calls. A phone call is much harder to ignore than an e-mail.
I wonder if the Slashdot effect can be transferred from HTTP to voice;)
Hey, if you feel strongly about this issue, you can reach them directly. Just call 703 925 6999. That's the direct line for VeriSign Naming and Directory Services. I tried to get Rusty on the line, but they're on the East coast and he had already left the office.
I just spoke with a nice secretary lady whom told me that she was 'sad to hear' that I, "an investor", was going to sell my "2000 shares" of Verisign first thing in the morning due to their horrible wildcard DNS policies.
When I asked why they are doing this, she told me it was a "marketing decision" and that "somebody in the marketing department" thought it up.
She said that I was the first person she had heard complain about it, though she had read somewhere that it was "controversial".
If anybody has any success getting through to these people, post any interesting tidbits you find out. Thanks.
As the "Security guy" for a medium-sized datacenter, I saw that Estonia is perhaps second only to Belaruse in terms of number of attacks on our network. The number of Estonian crackers is extremely high, more so than Korea/Vietnam/anywhere in Asia.
The result at the first one: Company, out of business. Me, out of job (8 months or so).
The result at the second one: Company has to scamble to keep things together. Me, out of job (5 months or so).
Though, in both cases it was a situation I felt like I had no choice, regardless of the outcome. If you feel like it's something you gotta do, go ahead and do it.
I'm don't care if I convince anybody that these allegations are true, but it would be nice to see him address them himself.
I think at this point it's obvious that these allegations are coming from enough of a diversity of people and over a significant period of time (at least 2 years on slashdot, several more years elsewhere), that they deserve to be addressed.
Read this comment, from a Captain Crunch related thread in 2001. Sounds a bit like today.
Overmoderation (Score:1) by Devi0us (21988) on Monday January 29, @08:20AM (#473681) (http://www.ghetto.org) Anyone notice this thread is being over moderated? There are/were a ton of posts about alleged child molestation, etc. Having seen this man in action, I hate to say it, but these people do have a valid point. Is slashdot afraid of a Libel Lawsuit against them? There's probably hundreds of people that could testify with first knowledge on this. This man is not eccentric. He's got a problem which people overlook because at one point, he did something that people thought was cool.
www.blackholes.us allows you to select a dnsbl for any country or provider. For instance, you can use their verio.blackholes.us dnsbl or their korea.blackholes.us dnsbl. I use the korean, chinese, and taiwanese lists.
Slashdot Mirror
VJ42, I agree with most of your post, and I'm an American. In particular, I'd like to comment on your choice to visit European destinations rather than American ones. Personally, I've travelled as much as my budget has allowed me in the past few years, due to a lack of interest in my local environment; I've seen Japan (where I currently live), Singapore, China, Spain, Mexico, Canada, and all parts of the US. While I'm proud to be an American (as all Americans are, causing the popular cliche), I find that it's such an extreme monoculture, where even in the ethnically diverse cities such as Los Angeles the minority groups are pushed aside into small communities where they can't impact the groupthink, that it quickly becomes boring. If you've never been to America, you probably have the standard McDonalds and Baywatch stereotypical view of America. And while it's true that 20% of the females I've met in the States idolize Paris Hilton and roughly the same want to be John Elway (or Michael Jordan, et al), there is a good percentage of people who are interesting, unique, and dedicated to independant culture, be it art, cinema, literature, etc. The problem is that American culture, though not necessarily the people, is so driven towards capitalism that the culture itself places no merit on real artistic endeavors. You can see this in all forms of art, and not even that, you can see it in what interests are popular among the masses - I gravitate towards people who know who Miles Davis or H. L. Mencken are, but often find myself sifting through those obsessed instead with Britney Spears or Brad Pitt, the faces that are exposed to them in every possible media: television, film, music, even Google god-damn News on a daily basis.
/at/ yahoo.com)
My basic point is that America DOES have a culture, the problem is that it's very difficult to find above the layers of bullshit stacked on top of it by the media. There's somewhat of an upside to this, though. As a native, if you are dedicated and you do find bits of that underground culture, it is extremely rewarding and is usually better developed for the fact that it's been simmering under a heap of commercialistic nonsense for years. The downside, as we all know, is that to the outsider, it appears that America is completely devoid of any intelligence. Trust me, there are just as many Americans out there who despise "American Culture" as there are Europeans. The ultimate problem is that 20% of the people spending their dollars on one thing will bring more attention than the other 80% spending their money on a very diverse culture (be it Classical authors, Jazz/Underground Hip Hop/Indie Rock music, Indy Film, Indy Comics, Small run Literature, etc).
Slap
(my e-mail ain't public but feel free to hit slapspam
There's gotta be some sort of article moderation system to prevent FUD like this from misleading Slashdot readers. I read the front page blurb of this story and was lead to believe LiveJournal was being evil, and if I hadn't taken the time to read the comments on this article (which I usually don't), I'd have had no idea that the entire article was blown out of proportion and context. It's probably the third or fourth time this has happened in the past six months, which is why I hardly even read Slashdot these days.
This must be for the Japanese market, where you are never more than a few feet away from a can of beer or a can of coffee. My guess in one of the seedier parts of Tokyo, a beer vending machine and coffee vending machine were dropped right next to each other outside a love hotel, and nine months later one of them vended this new beverage.
I'm surprised at how few serious *NIX Administrators I know are using GNU Screen. For some reason, it seems that the majority of them have not yet discovered the sheer power of the console window manager. It allows me to manage dozens of virtual windows all within the same terminal. In addition to eliminating the need to window-switching on my local machine, it also allows me to perform complex select, copy, and paste operations using only my keyboard. WIthout using a mouse, I can select and copy text in one window, advance into another window, and paste the text. The best part is that if my DSL drops or I decide to reboot my computer, all of my screened sessions stay on the server, leaving my work in exactly the same place as it always was, and with a nice scrollback history. I couldn't work without it.
Just attach a printed list of all the Internet Explorer security holes in the past few months to any existing robot's feet, and the resulting weight should be enough to reproduce this cat-like ability.
'Unix nerds who care about usability are switching to Mac OS X in droves'
This is absolutely true. If you don't believe it, then you're just needlessly anti-Apple. Myself and several of my friends, us having used Solaris (CDE WOOT) or similar UNIX variants for many years, are now switching to OSX.
What's not to love about an OS where I can have a great web browser, -pretty- window manager, tons of community software, AND comes with vi by default?
It reminds me of this Bill Gates Matrix spoof:
http://www.fromp.org/gates-1.jpg
Let's see, the last time I wore a collar? Hrm. That's a tough one. I think it was the wedding for that distant relative. So unless I need to IRC during the vows, this isn't very useful for me.
Bring on the pocket-protector-top-computer!
Less than 10 replies and the site is slashdotted.
If only it was this easy to disrupt Verisign's "services"...
> if all of slashdot started calling.. that would be something.. at the least
;)
I completely agree. You'd be amazed how quickly people get the idea if they are deluged with phone calls. A phone call is much harder to ignore than an e-mail.
I wonder if the Slashdot effect can be transferred from HTTP to voice
Hey, if you feel strongly about this issue, you can reach them directly. Just call 703 925 6999. That's the direct line for VeriSign Naming and Directory Services. I tried to get Rusty on the line, but they're on the East coast and he had already left the office.
I just spoke with a nice secretary lady whom told me that she was 'sad to hear' that I, "an investor", was going to sell my "2000 shares" of Verisign first thing in the morning due to their horrible wildcard DNS policies.
When I asked why they are doing this, she told me it was a "marketing decision" and that "somebody in the marketing department" thought it up.
She said that I was the first person she had heard complain about it, though she had read somewhere that it was "controversial".
If anybody has any success getting through to these people, post any interesting tidbits you find out. Thanks.
I just have to say for the record that I find MegaTF is be appalling, and that standard TF is the only way to play.
Stop fucking around and buy an iBook already.
As the "Security guy" for a medium-sized datacenter, I saw that Estonia is perhaps second only to Belaruse in terms of number of attacks on our network. The number of Estonian crackers is extremely high, more so than Korea/Vietnam/anywhere in Asia.
I've done this at two former employers.
The result at the first one:
Company, out of business.
Me, out of job (8 months or so).
The result at the second one:
Company has to scamble to keep things together.
Me, out of job (5 months or so).
Though, in both cases it was a situation I felt like I had no choice, regardless of the outcome. If you feel like it's something you gotta do, go ahead and do it.
I'm don't care if I convince anybody that these allegations are true, but it would be nice to see him address them himself.
I think at this point it's obvious that these allegations are coming from enough of a diversity of people and over a significant period of time (at least 2 years on slashdot, several more years elsewhere), that they deserve to be addressed.
Read this comment, from a Captain Crunch related thread in 2001. Sounds a bit like today.
i d=0&startat=&threshold=-1&mode=flat&commentsort=0& op=Change
Overmoderation (Score:1)
by Devi0us (21988) on Monday January 29, @08:20AM (#473681)
(http://www.ghetto.org)
Anyone notice this thread is being over moderated? There are/were a ton of posts about alleged child molestation, etc. Having seen this man in action, I hate to say it, but these people do have a valid point. Is slashdot afraid of a Libel Lawsuit against them? There's probably hundreds of people that could testify with first knowledge on this. This man is not eccentric. He's got a problem which people overlook because at one point, he did something that people thought was cool.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10237&cid=0&p
Well, I made the same point about this when his security company opened up: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10237&cid=4736 62
So at least you can be sure if it -is- a campaign against him, that it's not something -new-.
Mod this up please.
This has a lot of basis in fact and it is important for the slashdot community to know who they are idolizing.
Mod this up, please. I would like this answered, after an incident occurred with a friend of mine and Mr Crunch.
Your company's logo looks exactly like Sam Kieth's The Maxx comic-book character.
www.blackholes.us allows you to select a dnsbl for any country or provider. For instance, you can use their verio.blackholes.us dnsbl or their korea.blackholes.us dnsbl. I use the korean, chinese, and taiwanese lists.
You can bash FOX all you like, but they still play The Simpsons.
troll
A link for the lazy