Uh, yes- disarming HUD residents was indeed a limitation of personal rights in the United States, as every NRA member knew at the time. I like you see no difference between Clinton's limitation of weapons in Housing and Urban Development; and the Patriot Act. One used crime, the other used terrorism, but the end result was the same- a massive curtailing of civil liberties. I decried both at the time- especially since neither seemed to attack the actual problems to me.
You are a direct product of this time period. "I have nothing to hide. I don't care." That's what's wrong. People *should* care and *should* be questioning that idea.
How about preventing the social constructs that encourage such abuse instead of trying to prevent technology from advancing? The danger I see in this thread isn't from the technology- the danger comes from the fact that we've already let corporations become first class citizens- making real human beings mere second-class has beens at best. Worrying about privacy is just a symptom- the real problem is an overly invasive, super-powerfull business world that places profit above all other considerations.
It's a good way to do it. But far better is already KNOWING several different programming languages + assembly, machine code if you can get the basic processor manual. Only then will you truly understand what programming is.
And as long as we continue to coddle such people, they will continue to outbreed us. If intelligence is going to count for anything at all in the war that is survival of the fittest, then the stupid need to not be allowed to survive.
Who said anything about reverse engineering? Just run the code in your head. It's no harder than understanding comments in English, it's just another language. A simpler one at that, for most computer langages (a notable exception is SQL with it's recursive layers of interpretation, but even that is fairly readable once you get used to it).
Value added is for project managers, not coders. If you aspire to be a project manager fine- but don't make me read through 200 lines of comments for every 150 lines of code. Only the code matters- the rest is just meatspace.
Anybody working on a team ought to be able to read code and understand the internals of the machine. If they can't- they're working in the wrong industry.
Keep up the good work. I hope you're an intellectual armchair marxist. Otherwise, GET OUT THERE AND SELL YOUR PAPERS, dude.
Right now I'm spending too much time just trying to survive on my hacking skills, since I have no other skills to work with:-). However, yes, I am getting out there as well. Trouble is- where does a Catholic who respects Marx's ideas about Capitalism go in the United States to get out there? I'm a socially conservative fiscal liberal. Every other combination of social and conservative bents has a place to go other than me. Social liberals who are fiscally conservative are democrats. Social conservatives who are fiscally conservative are Republicans. Social liberals who are fiscally liberal are libertarians. Every socialist party in the United States is full of FBI agents and other finks. There ain't no such thing as a good Catholic in US Politics- or a good Marxist.
Exactly right- if you'll notice, that four months (I can't seem to find a link to it now, but there was an article in one of those stupid CIO magazines about it back in 2000 or 2001) is one month past the quarterly reporting period- in other words, the statement was basically that no stockholder wants to see the same project still in development on the next balance sheet, without seeing a return on that investment.
In other words, standard corporate governance means that long term R&D is at best, something that will make your company's stock market price go down- and at worst, is something that will not be tolerated by a risk-adverse management team.
Funny how successful people have a chronic case of good luck.
Funny how you rewrite history to suit the outcome. OF COURSE SUCCESSFULL PEOPLE SEEM TO HAVE A CHRONIC CASE OF GOOD LUCK- because the people who have bad luck aren't successfull.
In reality- when people have actually done studies on this- what you really have is two main things going on. Successfull children of successfull parents are usually successfull because of networking- a birthright. Successfull children of unsuccessfull parents are gamblers- risk takers who lose on about 2/3rds of what they try- but they keep trying and never quit, and thus become successfull because they raise the number of times they try. Unsuccessfull children of successfull parents are idiots for the most part- skilless wonders who never learned to fend for themselves to begin with. Unsuccessfull children of unsuccessfull parents have risk adversion tendencies- they want to be "safe" rather than "rich", and since they don't have the opportunities of the upper class.
But I've also seen successfull people make mistakes- and end up bankrupt- so don't get to cocky.
Bull. It's true in a way- but I've never had an R&D job last more than 2 years, and any software R&D project in the last 5 years was considered a failure if we weren't shipping in 4 months.
The way that it's true is that in my experience, the R&D guys were usually the last to leave. At least 3/5 jobs that was true.
I find it silly that multi-billion dollar corporations think that there's a shortage of creative people out there willing to work in Computer Science. I would think the answer would be obvious. CUT PROFITS, FUND SCHOLORSHIPS AND RESEARCH GRANTS YOURSELF. Don't wait for a government that you're already avoiding paying taxes to to spend taxes taken from poorer people on R&D. Don't expect that just because you can get a coder in Bangalore for $2.50/hr that you can hire somebody in Seattle for the same price. And if you want loyalty from your employees, you need to show loyalty to your employees- by banking their salary several years in advance so that you don't have to lay people off when you hit a rough patch. THAT is the cost of having good people- so don't come whining to us that you can't hire people if you're not willing to pay for the cost of educating them.
At Oregon Institute of Technology, Software Engineering was considered the second hardest major. The hardest was Lasers (really optical hardware in general). I struggled through my math- because I'm a verbal thinker- and was rather sad that OIT offered only the basics in the stuff that gave you problems. Took me 6 years to get my 4 year degree- because I took a year off to catch up on my math, and because I did a natural language processor for my senior project.
I'm 36 now- and like everybody else, I'm earning about 80% less than I was 5 years ago. I've never worked for a company that stayed in business more than 2 years. I now work for government- hopefully a lot more stable but I'm currently a contractor and can be fired easily.
When kids ask me what they should go into- I say business courses and managment. Keep CS or Engineering as a minor- because the United States talks a good game of being technologically advanced, but in reality the general assumption is that engineering is better done in third world countries for half our minimum wage. And you know what? Given the basic assumption of corporations today to completely fuck the country in favor of profit- that's the right choice. Until of course China buys us all, because managers are stupid.
An XML representation of a third-normal form relational database- because that is usually both what I'm coming from and what I'm going to. Since learning database normalization in college about 10 years back, I'm surprised that ANY Real World application uses mere flat files anymore- even when I'm storing data in text files I had a tendency to create relational text files (basically the same data, one table to a text file, as if I was actually using a real relational database, coding carefully to ensure data integrity on the client side). I have not coded numerically sequential fields in years- I always make a child table instead.
The one thing I, as a microcomputer (not neccessarily limited to Windows, just forced there by the market) programmer have never understood: The propensity of mainframe programmers to output huge numbers of columns of text for import/export files. At the state agency that I currently am contracting at, I've seen 200-300 columns of data in basically position delimited flat file format, which gets imported into 20-30 tables of relational data. I never understood this until I RTFA'd- and now I understand- they're going for least common denominator probably due to the huge amounts of storage available on a mainframe.
Both Unix and Windows use slightly different one-way hashes for encrypting and storing passwords. These character length recommendations are based on those hash algorithims- and happen to be the number of bytes actually stored. IIRC- and I'm not at all sure that I do- these hash algorithims using one-way mathematics recurse down when they hit their stored character limit- using both the next character and the hash of the first character as input for the second time through the algorithim. Thus a longer password will be more secure- less likely to collide with an entirely different password.
1. For a throwaway, relatively cheap silver shavings and hydrogen peroxide will do enough to push it away from the shuttle- and manuver it in the right direction. Remember, you don't neccessarily need to get it back to get the pictures.
2. The thrusters can do this job relatively well, IF you have a high enough resolution camera so that when it's far enough away you can still get a good enough digital picture back to get the whole bottom of the orbiter.
3. Camera and optics is the cheap part- an 8 megapixel digital camera will do the job nicely.
4. Also well proven off-the-shelf technology at this point- so well proven that you've got that much in $200 worth of equipment from Fry's.
5. That's not so hard at all- we've been building small sattelites that work in LEO for nearly 50 years now, also off-the-shelf parts.
Here's two you failed to mention- not completely insurmountable, but enough that the extension boom on the canadarm is a better choice:
6. Getting a radio signal through the faraday cage that is the underside of the shuttle (hint- need to find and choose the correct set of frequencies for the 8 channels that you'd need- 6 for manuvering, 1 for camera control, 1 return to get the picture back). The arm is wired control, less flakey than RF.
7. It's possible that a bot will miss a slight flaw less than 1 pixel in size when taking a picture of the entire bottom of the shuttle- where the arm can do an up-close inspection.
True enough- but there are broad lessons that can be learned. The lesson from Challenger was that they needed better inspection on the ground before launch, not just of the O rings, but of everything- as well as a way to escape an aborted launch. The lesson from Columbia was that they needed in-orbit inspection *before* returning to Earth- especially of any air-control surface (which is basically the whole shuttle- it does become an huge glider on re-entry). Each broad lesson learned doesn't just eliminate the specific problem- it elminates a whole slew of possible problems.
If you know the hole is there- then alternatives can be found for getting back. If you don't know the hole is even there- then you have no chance at all. There are other countries with spacecraft available that would be plenty happy to rescue our people if neccessary- plus emergency Apolo and Soyuz command modules in orbit if the shuttle can get to the International Space Station- but all of that is useless if the crew has no way to inspect the outside of the shuttle.
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Uh, yes- disarming HUD residents was indeed a limitation of personal rights in the United States, as every NRA member knew at the time. I like you see no difference between Clinton's limitation of weapons in Housing and Urban Development; and the Patriot Act. One used crime, the other used terrorism, but the end result was the same- a massive curtailing of civil liberties. I decried both at the time- especially since neither seemed to attack the actual problems to me.
You are a direct product of this time period. "I have nothing to hide. I don't care." That's what's wrong. People *should* care and *should* be questioning that idea.
How about preventing the social constructs that encourage such abuse instead of trying to prevent technology from advancing? The danger I see in this thread isn't from the technology- the danger comes from the fact that we've already let corporations become first class citizens- making real human beings mere second-class has beens at best. Worrying about privacy is just a symptom- the real problem is an overly invasive, super-powerfull business world that places profit above all other considerations.
If you don't know the language, what are you doing messing with the source code at all?
It's a good way to do it. But far better is already KNOWING several different programming languages + assembly, machine code if you can get the basic processor manual. Only then will you truly understand what programming is.
And as long as we continue to coddle such people, they will continue to outbreed us. If intelligence is going to count for anything at all in the war that is survival of the fittest, then the stupid need to not be allowed to survive.
Who said anything about reverse engineering? Just run the code in your head. It's no harder than understanding comments in English, it's just another language. A simpler one at that, for most computer langages (a notable exception is SQL with it's recursive layers of interpretation, but even that is fairly readable once you get used to it).
Value added is for project managers, not coders. If you aspire to be a project manager fine- but don't make me read through 200 lines of comments for every 150 lines of code. Only the code matters- the rest is just meatspace.
Or is it only an Oregon Phenomenon? http://www.freegeek.org/, for anybody in the Portland Metro
I keep one in a logical place where it will get used occasionally and where I don't mind being tethered to a line at all- by the toilet.
Anybody working on a team ought to be able to read code and understand the internals of the machine. If they can't- they're working in the wrong industry.
Given today's problems with employer-employee loyalty- I'd rather you keep me around to begin with than to speak well of me when I'm gone.
It's built into Windows Scripting Host, you can use it with VBS, and it will do everything you need in that regard.
Keep up the good work. I hope you're an intellectual armchair marxist. Otherwise, GET OUT THERE AND SELL YOUR PAPERS, dude.
:-). However, yes, I am getting out there as well. Trouble is- where does a Catholic who respects Marx's ideas about Capitalism go in the United States to get out there? I'm a socially conservative fiscal liberal. Every other combination of social and conservative bents has a place to go other than me. Social liberals who are fiscally conservative are democrats. Social conservatives who are fiscally conservative are Republicans. Social liberals who are fiscally liberal are libertarians. Every socialist party in the United States is full of FBI agents and other finks. There ain't no such thing as a good Catholic in US Politics- or a good Marxist.
Right now I'm spending too much time just trying to survive on my hacking skills, since I have no other skills to work with
It's already too late- the industry is NOW paying the price for their short-sighted and profit-centric behavior over the last two decades.
I just find it rediculous that they thought they could treat people like crap, and not expect people to treat them like crap in return.
Exactly right- if you'll notice, that four months (I can't seem to find a link to it now, but there was an article in one of those stupid CIO magazines about it back in 2000 or 2001) is one month past the quarterly reporting period- in other words, the statement was basically that no stockholder wants to see the same project still in development on the next balance sheet, without seeing a return on that investment.
In other words, standard corporate governance means that long term R&D is at best, something that will make your company's stock market price go down- and at worst, is something that will not be tolerated by a risk-adverse management team.
Funny how successful people have a chronic case of good luck.
Funny how you rewrite history to suit the outcome. OF COURSE SUCCESSFULL PEOPLE SEEM TO HAVE A CHRONIC CASE OF GOOD LUCK- because the people who have bad luck aren't successfull.
In reality- when people have actually done studies on this- what you really have is two main things going on. Successfull children of successfull parents are usually successfull because of networking- a birthright. Successfull children of unsuccessfull parents are gamblers- risk takers who lose on about 2/3rds of what they try- but they keep trying and never quit, and thus become successfull because they raise the number of times they try. Unsuccessfull children of successfull parents are idiots for the most part- skilless wonders who never learned to fend for themselves to begin with. Unsuccessfull children of unsuccessfull parents have risk adversion tendencies- they want to be "safe" rather than "rich", and since they don't have the opportunities of the upper class.
But I've also seen successfull people make mistakes- and end up bankrupt- so don't get to cocky.
Bull. It's true in a way- but I've never had an R&D job last more than 2 years, and any software R&D project in the last 5 years was considered a failure if we weren't shipping in 4 months.
The way that it's true is that in my experience, the R&D guys were usually the last to leave. At least 3/5 jobs that was true.
I find it silly that multi-billion dollar corporations think that there's a shortage of creative people out there willing to work in Computer Science. I would think the answer would be obvious. CUT PROFITS, FUND SCHOLORSHIPS AND RESEARCH GRANTS YOURSELF. Don't wait for a government that you're already avoiding paying taxes to to spend taxes taken from poorer people on R&D. Don't expect that just because you can get a coder in Bangalore for $2.50/hr that you can hire somebody in Seattle for the same price. And if you want loyalty from your employees, you need to show loyalty to your employees- by banking their salary several years in advance so that you don't have to lay people off when you hit a rough patch. THAT is the cost of having good people- so don't come whining to us that you can't hire people if you're not willing to pay for the cost of educating them.
At Oregon Institute of Technology, Software Engineering was considered the second hardest major. The hardest was Lasers (really optical hardware in general). I struggled through my math- because I'm a verbal thinker- and was rather sad that OIT offered only the basics in the stuff that gave you problems. Took me 6 years to get my 4 year degree- because I took a year off to catch up on my math, and because I did a natural language processor for my senior project.
I'm 36 now- and like everybody else, I'm earning about 80% less than I was 5 years ago. I've never worked for a company that stayed in business more than 2 years. I now work for government- hopefully a lot more stable but I'm currently a contractor and can be fired easily.
When kids ask me what they should go into- I say business courses and managment. Keep CS or Engineering as a minor- because the United States talks a good game of being technologically advanced, but in reality the general assumption is that engineering is better done in third world countries for half our minimum wage. And you know what? Given the basic assumption of corporations today to completely fuck the country in favor of profit- that's the right choice. Until of course China buys us all, because managers are stupid.
An XML representation of a third-normal form relational database- because that is usually both what I'm coming from and what I'm going to. Since learning database normalization in college about 10 years back, I'm surprised that ANY Real World application uses mere flat files anymore- even when I'm storing data in text files I had a tendency to create relational text files (basically the same data, one table to a text file, as if I was actually using a real relational database, coding carefully to ensure data integrity on the client side). I have not coded numerically sequential fields in years- I always make a child table instead.
The one thing I, as a microcomputer (not neccessarily limited to Windows, just forced there by the market) programmer have never understood: The propensity of mainframe programmers to output huge numbers of columns of text for import/export files. At the state agency that I currently am contracting at, I've seen 200-300 columns of data in basically position delimited flat file format, which gets imported into 20-30 tables of relational data. I never understood this until I RTFA'd- and now I understand- they're going for least common denominator probably due to the huge amounts of storage available on a mainframe.
Both Unix and Windows use slightly different one-way hashes for encrypting and storing passwords. These character length recommendations are based on those hash algorithims- and happen to be the number of bytes actually stored. IIRC- and I'm not at all sure that I do- these hash algorithims using one-way mathematics recurse down when they hit their stored character limit- using both the next character and the hash of the first character as input for the second time through the algorithim. Thus a longer password will be more secure- less likely to collide with an entirely different password.
1. For a throwaway, relatively cheap silver shavings and hydrogen peroxide will do enough to push it away from the shuttle- and manuver it in the right direction. Remember, you don't neccessarily need to get it back to get the pictures.
2. The thrusters can do this job relatively well, IF you have a high enough resolution camera so that when it's far enough away you can still get a good enough digital picture back to get the whole bottom of the orbiter.
3. Camera and optics is the cheap part- an 8 megapixel digital camera will do the job nicely.
4. Also well proven off-the-shelf technology at this point- so well proven that you've got that much in $200 worth of equipment from Fry's.
5. That's not so hard at all- we've been building small sattelites that work in LEO for nearly 50 years now, also off-the-shelf parts.
Here's two you failed to mention- not completely insurmountable, but enough that the extension boom on the canadarm is a better choice:
6. Getting a radio signal through the faraday cage that is the underside of the shuttle (hint- need to find and choose the correct set of frequencies for the 8 channels that you'd need- 6 for manuvering, 1 for camera control, 1 return to get the picture back). The arm is wired control, less flakey than RF.
7. It's possible that a bot will miss a slight flaw less than 1 pixel in size when taking a picture of the entire bottom of the shuttle- where the arm can do an up-close inspection.
True enough- but there are broad lessons that can be learned. The lesson from Challenger was that they needed better inspection on the ground before launch, not just of the O rings, but of everything- as well as a way to escape an aborted launch. The lesson from Columbia was that they needed in-orbit inspection *before* returning to Earth- especially of any air-control surface (which is basically the whole shuttle- it does become an huge glider on re-entry). Each broad lesson learned doesn't just eliminate the specific problem- it elminates a whole slew of possible problems.
If you know the hole is there- then alternatives can be found for getting back. If you don't know the hole is even there- then you have no chance at all. There are other countries with spacecraft available that would be plenty happy to rescue our people if neccessary- plus emergency Apolo and Soyuz command modules in orbit if the shuttle can get to the International Space Station- but all of that is useless if the crew has no way to inspect the outside of the shuttle.