>They knew they were different and smarter than the rest, and they liked being smarter. Made them cocky, and they looked down upon the rest.
This is a very good point. In my experience, people tend to gravitate towards whatever gives them a feeling of security and control over their surroundings. With geeks this is mostly achieved through a concerted effort to understand the world around them. In my case, it took til about age 14 to realise that, to an extent, I was fooling myself. Mere knowledge couldn't give me power over my life.
I have since devoted some of my not-inconsiderable mental skills to studying those around me and, whilst not completely happy with the outcome (I should probably take an acting course or something) I'm doing pretty well. And I actually feel I have a better understanding of people than those who dived into society at an earlier age, even if my automatic reactions to given situations are slightly poorer than average.
UNOStudent: wish your student good luck from me and ask him what he wants out of life.
Obviously, this abuse is nowhere near as bad as child abuse. But it is still misuse of the system of printer purchase to rip off the consumer.
People may be throwing the word about too much, but "abuse" is just a word. Using it in this way in no way devalues its use in other situations - I'm not going to be thinking "child abuse... hmm, isn't that what printer companies are doing to their clients?" There's no harm in using a word in a technically accurate way as long as it isn't misleading.
I fear I'm a Ken. Years of calmly explaining to the lUsers at my school that no, the monitor cable is unplugged or no, I didn't break your keyboard (there's a guy who insisted on using Dvorak and never changed back afterwards) have done horrible things to my cute fluffy tech brain. Nowadays if I tell someone they need to reformat their hard drive, it's not cos I want to get them off the phone but because I hate them and all their kind. Die users! DIE!
Ahem. I am fully aware that the above may qualify me for institutionalisation or, even worse, loss of karma...
See if we can compile a list of possibilities.
Natural:
Abnormal solar radiation
Unexpected other space radiation (supernovae? pulsars?)
Earthquakes (similar earth-based cockups such as changes in the mantle)
Man-made:
Nuclear testing
A lot of batteries being manufactured at the same time
Secret military/terrorist testing
Just plain unlikely:
Alien activity
Can anyone think of anything I've missed? Especially in the "man-made" section. Even more useful would be actual data on any of these. Do we have any astrophysicists or geologists posting here? Thanks.
OT: Kung Fu isn't a fancy name for a couple of techniques. If Neo really did know Kung Fu, most of the things he did in the Matrix wouldn't have been surprising. Punching through concrete: check. Ridiculously fast reactions: check. So many punches/second that your arms blur: check. Even a form of levitation has been reported in advanced practitioners, although I'm not so sure about that one.
But What about the blue screen of death? I'm happy with all of this as long a Bill Gates goes first on the Windows version.
More seriously, the wole stimulation of nerve cells thing in my opinion isn't as important as the successful interface. *That* is what will lead to brain implants.
I sympathise completely. On the other hand, low-level knowledge disappears annoyingly quickly - I'm having a hard time learning assembler. OT: can anyone recommend any resources?
I can just imagine all the "Dear Friend, Have you considered the possibility of earning $10k in your spare time?" There will of course be a small upfront fee to turn a spammer in, for administrative purposes...
I think the parent should be modded up - we need more conflicting viewpoints. After all, monocultures are dangerous (possibly depending on the monoculture).
On the other hand, I do think that this is also part of the price you pay for choosing a closed-source system. My preference, despite the fact that my summer job with a closed-source company is helping to pay for my uni lifestyle, is for open source.
For example, I'm pretty sure that I made at least a couple of errors when programming for said company that could allow attacks by a smart non-admin insider. Unfortunately it's too late to fix them so I'll just have to learn all I can and not do the same the next time I take up programming as a career.
Personally I think blacksun.box.sk should be required reading for all programmers. If I'd read it's content before last summer I'd have stood a chance of not being stupid in obvious ways.
My feeling is that, in the context of preventing attacks, it's bad. With linux, discovery almost immediately leads to a fix cos it's the same volunteer community does the finding and the fixing, but Microsoft doesn't let the Bugtraqs of this world help. It's going to buckle under the strain of too many bugs at once.
Of course, from the point of view of converting everyone to Linux, this can only be a good thing:)
I'm not sure that's accurate. If this were the case then the teacher in question presumably would have dropped the issue after the offending comments were taken down. Instead, he chose to express what seems to me behaviour closer to psychosis or at least bad anger management than paranoia. Not someone I'd want teaching me.
Thanks to MichaelCrawford for giving us this perspective
erm... the parent seems kind of worrying without the context of the reply that is likely to be below everyone's browsing limit. Read the reply, dammit.
I am a member of a university organisation called the Assassins Guild, the basic premise being that, on the basis of the most limited possible information, we hunt down and "kill" other guild members with weapons such as cap guns and cardboard swords.
As such, I have some personal experience of the use of Google in stalking. I can tell you that, in a university composed presumably of some of the most net-savvy people around, I have only found a photo once. Occasionally I have found a usenet posting or slashdot account. Old schools are common, but the folk at my uni are often those who are mentioned in school newsletters.
The average web presence of the average user is approximately nil. In a range of cases, someone may become more prominent (either by accident or design - Darl McBride for example), but on the whole there is very little you can gather from Google.
Occasionally it's enough to kill your target, but don't count on bank details.
I think the guy was being ironic and making up a bunch of random unsupported facts. He is aware they are unsupported; he is just using them to illustrate the lack of valid proof that the original article is using
I seriously doubt that this is the cause. My dad has been building up a classical CD collection and has stopped buying them now cos he has all the good stuff that's readily available.
Classical music fileswapping may happen, but I suspect the biggest causes are full collections and diminishing marginal returns
Slashdot Mirror
>They knew they were different and smarter than the rest, and they liked being smarter. Made them cocky, and they looked down upon the rest. This is a very good point. In my experience, people tend to gravitate towards whatever gives them a feeling of security and control over their surroundings. With geeks this is mostly achieved through a concerted effort to understand the world around them. In my case, it took til about age 14 to realise that, to an extent, I was fooling myself. Mere knowledge couldn't give me power over my life. I have since devoted some of my not-inconsiderable mental skills to studying those around me and, whilst not completely happy with the outcome (I should probably take an acting course or something) I'm doing pretty well. And I actually feel I have a better understanding of people than those who dived into society at an earlier age, even if my automatic reactions to given situations are slightly poorer than average. UNOStudent: wish your student good luck from me and ask him what he wants out of life.
You need an "Alas, poor Empire" in there for maximum score I'm afraid.
Obviously, this abuse is nowhere near as bad as child abuse. But it is still misuse of the system of printer purchase to rip off the consumer.
People may be throwing the word about too much, but "abuse" is just a word. Using it in this way in no way devalues its use in other situations - I'm not going to be thinking "child abuse... hmm, isn't that what printer companies are doing to their clients?" There's no harm in using a word in a technically accurate way as long as it isn't misleading.
I fear I'm a Ken. Years of calmly explaining to the lUsers at my school that no, the monitor cable is unplugged or no, I didn't break your keyboard (there's a guy who insisted on using Dvorak and never changed back afterwards) have done horrible things to my cute fluffy tech brain. Nowadays if I tell someone they need to reformat their hard drive, it's not cos I want to get them off the phone but because I hate them and all their kind. Die users! DIE!
Ahem. I am fully aware that the above may qualify me for institutionalisation or, even worse, loss of karma...
I was thinking that they might all start showing the effects of depletion at around the same time
- Abnormal solar radiation
- Unexpected other space radiation (supernovae? pulsars?)
- Earthquakes (similar earth-based cockups such as changes in the mantle)
Man-made:- Nuclear testing
- A lot of batteries being manufactured at the same time
- Secret military/terrorist testing
Just plain unlikely:- Alien activity
Can anyone think of anything I've missed? Especially in the "man-made" section. Even more useful would be actual data on any of these. Do we have any astrophysicists or geologists posting here? Thanks.OT: Kung Fu isn't a fancy name for a couple of techniques. If Neo really did know Kung Fu, most of the things he did in the Matrix wouldn't have been surprising. Punching through concrete: check. Ridiculously fast reactions: check. So many punches/second that your arms blur: check. Even a form of levitation has been reported in advanced practitioners, although I'm not so sure about that one.
But What about the blue screen of death? I'm happy with all of this as long a Bill Gates goes first on the Windows version.
More seriously, the wole stimulation of nerve cells thing in my opinion isn't as important as the successful interface. *That* is what will lead to brain implants.
I sympathise completely. On the other hand, low-level knowledge disappears annoyingly quickly - I'm having a hard time learning assembler. OT: can anyone recommend any resources?
I can just imagine all the "Dear Friend, Have you considered the possibility of earning $10k in your spare time?" There will of course be a small upfront fee to turn a spammer in, for administrative purposes...
I think the parent should be modded up - we need more conflicting viewpoints. After all, monocultures are dangerous (possibly depending on the monoculture).
On the other hand, I do think that this is also part of the price you pay for choosing a closed-source system. My preference, despite the fact that my summer job with a closed-source company is helping to pay for my uni lifestyle, is for open source.
For example, I'm pretty sure that I made at least a couple of errors when programming for said company that could allow attacks by a smart non-admin insider. Unfortunately it's too late to fix them so I'll just have to learn all I can and not do the same the next time I take up programming as a career.
Personally I think blacksun.box.sk should be required reading for all programmers. If I'd read it's content before last summer I'd have stood a chance of not being stupid in obvious ways.
I think themessenger was mainly being blamed for being a politically-incorrect asshole... I can sympathise with this point of view.
My feeling is that, in the context of preventing attacks, it's bad. With linux, discovery almost immediately leads to a fix cos it's the same volunteer community does the finding and the fixing, but Microsoft doesn't let the Bugtraqs of this world help. It's going to buckle under the strain of too many bugs at once.
:)
Of course, from the point of view of converting everyone to Linux, this can only be a good thing
Mine's called "Linux". Seems to fix a whole host of problems.
I'm not sure that's accurate. If this were the case then the teacher in question presumably would have dropped the issue after the offending comments were taken down. Instead, he chose to express what seems to me behaviour closer to psychosis or at least bad anger management than paranoia. Not someone I'd want teaching me.
Thanks to MichaelCrawford for giving us this perspective
I draw your attention to backyardartillery.com. Weapons such as this are the cleanest way to kill.
It truly is amazing how paranoia rises when everyone is armed. I don't know how you folk in the US stand the real thing.
A navel dictionary? Very novel
Oh come on, someone had to say it...
[Insert obligatory "Making new friends" joke here]
erm... the parent seems kind of worrying without the context of the reply that is likely to be below everyone's browsing limit. Read the reply, dammit.
I'll have you know that many of our members have an active sex life. Or so I'm told. Whatever.
It's good fun though. Great way to meet people. And then shoot them in the head :)
I am a member of a university organisation called the Assassins Guild, the basic premise being that, on the basis of the most limited possible information, we hunt down and "kill" other guild members with weapons such as cap guns and cardboard swords. As such, I have some personal experience of the use of Google in stalking. I can tell you that, in a university composed presumably of some of the most net-savvy people around, I have only found a photo once. Occasionally I have found a usenet posting or slashdot account. Old schools are common, but the folk at my uni are often those who are mentioned in school newsletters. The average web presence of the average user is approximately nil. In a range of cases, someone may become more prominent (either by accident or design - Darl McBride for example), but on the whole there is very little you can gather from Google. Occasionally it's enough to kill your target, but don't count on bank details.
That's a point... do you think this has any connection to the recent breakup with Pixar maybe?
I think the guy was being ironic and making up a bunch of random unsupported facts. He is aware they are unsupported; he is just using them to illustrate the lack of valid proof that the original article is using
I seriously doubt that this is the cause. My dad has been building up a classical CD collection and has stopped buying them now cos he has all the good stuff that's readily available.
Classical music fileswapping may happen, but I suspect the biggest causes are full collections and diminishing marginal returns
Shouldn't that be one year *less* for every Britney Spears song? Haven't they suffered enough already??? (Well someone had to say it...)