As do I. But I believe he meant this to address the extreme (yes, 1984 extreme). On the other side of that spectrum of privacy to security, we don't want complete freedom without any security. It is exactly that point - to identify the essential liberties and freedoms that we hold above all else - which makes our declaration of independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights to be so powerful. Because they spell out the things that we value. It is necessary to re-evaluate those over time, of course...
As with any organization, nobody wants to take the blame for bad things that happen. When something bad happens to you, you wonder what could have been done to prevent it. In the case of wars, terrorism, privacy invasions, etc. people look to their governments for protection. It's called "security." In order to increase your security, you will be giving up some of your freedoms. As unfortunate as that is, people really do want it.
The problem arises when people like you and I don't agree with the lengths to which the government(s) go to secure us. Personally, I put a premium on my freedom so I perceive the government as taking away too much of it. Others don't see a problem with this situation because they value security a little more than I do (or freedom a little less).
"Free" governments rarely act against the wishes of the people as a whole. When the vast majority wants something, the appointed representatives are likely to listen (it's in their best interest). Unfortunately for you and me, Slashdot doesn't constitute a majority (yet).
I completely agree. This is on par with people who send me all their email forwards. I will be as rude as necessary to get the point across that I don't appreciate crap in my email inbox.
I, too, am happy to help a friend out when they ask for recommendations on a restaurant or whatever. But if they ask for the recommendation and end their email with "btw, I gave your email address to a few spammers before I sent this to you" then I will be very angry.
To clarify, I was referring more to the implementation of existing encryption tools and algorithms. I was programming basic stuff for a long time before I ever needed to think about encrypting data for transmission (say with SSL or PGP) or storage (including hashing). I'm no expert (I know enough not to try creating my own algorithm), but without the fundamentals it's really easy to make mistakes. Costly mistakes.
"All this information is out there to find for free, but having it all collected and summarized is worth every penny."
Is it? If you are, as the author says, someone familiar with Python but you have no clue about network concepts or programming, perhaps this book isn't for you. The first 100 pages or so are all intro to networking; after that, you have specific Python networking programming topics. Perhaps you'd be better suited with a networking book and then this book (sans the first 100 pages).
I've read a few books on programming languages and when they decide that the reader needs an intro to something, they usually provide pretty poor coverage of that topic. You end up being lost after you get done with the intro section. I did this when I was learning some encryption programming... before I could start actually writing code that deals with encryption, I needed a solid base. Instead of trying to teach me all I needed to know, the reference I was using pointed me at the industry's best encryption and security books and authors (like Bruce Schneier).
Disclaimer: Not having read this particular book, maybe this one is different. I don't know.
You seem to think you have no right in your work other than to quit. Personally, I prefer to take the approach of trying to improve my situation through less drastic means before quitting altogether.
You also seem to think that a 70 hour work week is the employee's fault. Have you ever had to work several days without sleep because there was a major hardware failure and the company grinds to a halt? Have you ever had your boss tell you "I don't care if it's an emergency - I'm golfing?"
If you take a job for 40 hours a week at a defined salary, and then your manager's incompetence results in you needing to work 70 hours a week, you have every right to bitch about it. The better solution, as you say, is to improve your own situation. But that doesn't automatically mean quitting.
If you're the manager and you don't understand why everyone is bitching about their job, then it's because you're an idiot and shouldn't be there.
And IT workers are no different than anyone else, as far as I can tell. Everyone I know bitches about work. Everywhere I've ever worked, IT or not, is full of incompetent people (on all levels) and ridiculous problems that result in everyone being unhappy.
This conversation is clearly unnecessary; people either take responsibility for their own situation or they don't. You and I both know what the solution is. Everyone here knows. But not everyone is going to do something about it. I think the only difference between you and I is that I'm not so jaded as to boil the whole thing down to "accept it or leave."
So 70+ hours a week of detail-oriented, highly-skilled work is easy? When the IT staff is underpaid and overworked, and they see the company president's idiot nephew get hired out college for twice the IT staffer's salary (the ones with 20+ years of experience), they get mad.
The parent post is correct: not every corporation respects that "solid portfolio of work history" or the "hard work."
Did you miss the corporate scandals in the news over the past few years? Execs pay themselves instead of their employees. The fact is, if you are working for them then YES - THEY DO OWE YOU. A statement like "you are due nothing" is true only if you're not doing anything to earn it. And the fact is, a lot of people work their asses off to earn it but are still not appreciated or compensated.
Sure, it's just a job - but if that job makes your life hell, try to get out. If you're really lucky, you might find an employer that's not going to make your life hell.
You're still subject to federal, state, county, city, and municipal laws and regulations. A neighborhood association is essentially another body of government under those. Now I realize it's not the same, but it is designed (at least in part) to protect the investments of the homeowners in the neighborhood. If your neighbor doesn't follow the rules (in my city, your grass must be less than 9 inches in height before the city will come cut it for you and send you the bill) your property values can go down. It's not always treated this way, but my covenant rules are pretty reasonable. I wouldn't have bought the house if I didn't accept the rules along with them.
Most of them are for making sure the place looks nice and doesn't pose any dangers (pools, for example) or annoyances (pets on leashes or in fenced yards only).
I just got a note from my neighborhood association stating that, while the neighborhood covenant specifically prohibits them, the Supreme Court has ruled that signs for political candidates are protected speech and cannot be overruled by neighborhood agreements (contractual or not).
If they're going to regulate political speech from candidates, that's one thing. That's not regulation of the Internet, but regulation of campaigns no matter where they are executed. Regulating political speech on the Internet for the regular user won't happen - not likely in theory and definitely not in reality.
Yeah... but live music means that you're actively playing (and not partying). And in a small house crammed with three times as many guests as the fire marshall would approve of isn't the best venue for a band...
They recently redesigned and programmed the site. It used to be a static site with a forum attached to it. Now it looks like they've built it up quite a bit. If there's a way to find a bug in their site, it's to expose them to the Slashdot hordes.
As for impressing party guests, most of them have seen the trouble you get when you have a bunch of strangers and a lot of easy to lift equipment. No CDs lying around, no laptop to grab. What's impressive is when he's standing behind the bar and whips out the laptop (which he physically secures under the bar) to change the music. People just love that.
I agree. If you want it to work as a stereo appliance mp3 server, that's one thing. But I wouldn't expect to take that with me as a portable. One or the other, maybe.
Portable player? Go with either a low-storage and inexpensive Creative USB player or a high-storage and expensive iPod. Anything in between fails to impress me.
MP3 server for your home stereo? Slap an 80GB drive into an old box with your favorite flavor of OS and remote connect. It's not that hard; my non-geek brother did this for his house (he's a college senior) and it's impressed the hell out of their party guests.
They're more than used to this kind of traffic. Not only have they been linked from Slashdot many times in the past, but they've scaled up to handle the bandwidth as it grew. From their FAQ:
"The videos are 320x240 to save bandwidth. Our first series, Red vs Blue regularly chewed up 170 Terrabytes of downloads in a month."
For those without any reference, bandwidth can run from "unlimited" (see Serverbeach) to paying $x/GB. When you're talking 170TB/month at approx $6/GB, you're over $28,000 in that month. Of course, if you're doing that much traffic and working with a host that charges you like that you need to switch fast.
I always thought Phone tech and phone sex were kinda similar.
"Now reach around the back and grab the end of the cable. Next, try to feel around with your fingers for the hole. Stick the end in the hole and make sure it's nice and snug. You might need to wiggle it a bit to get it in there just right. Is that working for you?"
Cheetahs wouldn't have wheels because they wouldn't work for them. Wheels wouldn't work so well over uneven terrain, through grassy plains, and in soft dirt. Wheels would also prevent them from turning and reacting to prey as well as their current legs allow. Also, independently moving parts (such as wheels) require maintenance likely to be outside the ability of a cheetah.
Cars were once known as the "horseless carriage." They were designed to look and act like a horse and carriage, sans horse. It would be silly to put a completely useless figure of a horse in front of the car; but robots are not designed to look like animals for appearance as much as function.
Seemingly off-topic but really related question: Why do you think most fictitious depictions of aliens are humanoid?
Like exposing your server to the Slashdot effect, presenting your product or service to the Slashdot crowd may be a good way of seeing how it really stacks up.
I always wondered how my server would do against the tide of Slashdot.
I agree... but as many people commented, it's even better when someone else posts that story. It gives credibility because it's not self-promotion. In the case of Wired Magazine, I'd expect plenty of people to discover the story and submit it to Slashdot. If it had been a tiny project with no audience or recognition, then I'd be more accepting of the self-submission. But as you say, it need to identify the relationship. I'm glad that Slashdot posts those kinds of disclaimers when they run stories from their parent group.
There was a "this is so funny!" post a while back, something along the lines of an open letter to Microsoft Windows. First thing I noticed - before I even read the story - was that the guy who wrote it appeared to be the one who submitted to Slashdot. Shameless.
Companies get good publicity through blogs because we tend to trust them... Well, there have been quite a few Slashdot "stories" lately from posters with something to gain - such as the editor from Wired magazine.
It's not necessarily the fault of Slashdot or its editors, but one of those classic guerilla marketing tools is to create publicity (good or bad) around your product, service, etc. It works because it's not always recognizable as marketing, but it ends up being effective as such.
I really like Bogle Cabernet (~$12). I bought a case of it for my wedding this summer, and still have a few bottles in my basement. I had a bottle of 2000 and loved it, but can't find it anymore. The case I bought was 2001 and it's excellent as well.
For really cheap but still enjoyable table red wine, I also buy Inglenook Burgundy. My wife picked up a bottle at Meijer for $3 or $4 on sale... she doesn't usually distinguish between wines and sees it all as a waste of money. It wasn't bad. Of course, she was not happy with my decision to get the case of Bogle.
I can't really drink white wine anymore - had a bad experience with a $30 bottle of white wine, some lobster, and a Japanese teppan-yaki in Okinawa. I doubt I'll ever get over it.
Slashdot Mirror
As do I. But I believe he meant this to address the extreme (yes, 1984 extreme). On the other side of that spectrum of privacy to security, we don't want complete freedom without any security. It is exactly that point - to identify the essential liberties and freedoms that we hold above all else - which makes our declaration of independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights to be so powerful. Because they spell out the things that we value. It is necessary to re-evaluate those over time, of course...
As with any organization, nobody wants to take the blame for bad things that happen. When something bad happens to you, you wonder what could have been done to prevent it. In the case of wars, terrorism, privacy invasions, etc. people look to their governments for protection. It's called "security." In order to increase your security, you will be giving up some of your freedoms. As unfortunate as that is, people really do want it.
The problem arises when people like you and I don't agree with the lengths to which the government(s) go to secure us. Personally, I put a premium on my freedom so I perceive the government as taking away too much of it. Others don't see a problem with this situation because they value security a little more than I do (or freedom a little less).
"Free" governments rarely act against the wishes of the people as a whole. When the vast majority wants something, the appointed representatives are likely to listen (it's in their best interest). Unfortunately for you and me, Slashdot doesn't constitute a majority (yet).
I completely agree. This is on par with people who send me all their email forwards. I will be as rude as necessary to get the point across that I don't appreciate crap in my email inbox.
I, too, am happy to help a friend out when they ask for recommendations on a restaurant or whatever. But if they ask for the recommendation and end their email with "btw, I gave your email address to a few spammers before I sent this to you" then I will be very angry.
"...featuring interviews with adult Neopets addicts..."
I believe that's "adult Neopets."
As in, Neopet pr0n. Reminds me of the Furbisexual craze a few years back.
To clarify, I was referring more to the implementation of existing encryption tools and algorithms. I was programming basic stuff for a long time before I ever needed to think about encrypting data for transmission (say with SSL or PGP) or storage (including hashing). I'm no expert (I know enough not to try creating my own algorithm), but without the fundamentals it's really easy to make mistakes. Costly mistakes.
"All this information is out there to find for free, but having it all collected and summarized is worth every penny."
Is it? If you are, as the author says, someone familiar with Python but you have no clue about network concepts or programming, perhaps this book isn't for you. The first 100 pages or so are all intro to networking; after that, you have specific Python networking programming topics. Perhaps you'd be better suited with a networking book and then this book (sans the first 100 pages).
I've read a few books on programming languages and when they decide that the reader needs an intro to something, they usually provide pretty poor coverage of that topic. You end up being lost after you get done with the intro section. I did this when I was learning some encryption programming... before I could start actually writing code that deals with encryption, I needed a solid base. Instead of trying to teach me all I needed to know, the reference I was using pointed me at the industry's best encryption and security books and authors (like Bruce Schneier).
Disclaimer: Not having read this particular book, maybe this one is different. I don't know.
You seem to think you have no right in your work other than to quit. Personally, I prefer to take the approach of trying to improve my situation through less drastic means before quitting altogether.
You also seem to think that a 70 hour work week is the employee's fault. Have you ever had to work several days without sleep because there was a major hardware failure and the company grinds to a halt? Have you ever had your boss tell you "I don't care if it's an emergency - I'm golfing?"
If you take a job for 40 hours a week at a defined salary, and then your manager's incompetence results in you needing to work 70 hours a week, you have every right to bitch about it. The better solution, as you say, is to improve your own situation. But that doesn't automatically mean quitting.
If you're the manager and you don't understand why everyone is bitching about their job, then it's because you're an idiot and shouldn't be there.
And IT workers are no different than anyone else, as far as I can tell. Everyone I know bitches about work. Everywhere I've ever worked, IT or not, is full of incompetent people (on all levels) and ridiculous problems that result in everyone being unhappy.
This conversation is clearly unnecessary; people either take responsibility for their own situation or they don't. You and I both know what the solution is. Everyone here knows. But not everyone is going to do something about it. I think the only difference between you and I is that I'm not so jaded as to boil the whole thing down to "accept it or leave."
So 70+ hours a week of detail-oriented, highly-skilled work is easy? When the IT staff is underpaid and overworked, and they see the company president's idiot nephew get hired out college for twice the IT staffer's salary (the ones with 20+ years of experience), they get mad.
The parent post is correct: not every corporation respects that "solid portfolio of work history" or the "hard work."
Did you miss the corporate scandals in the news over the past few years? Execs pay themselves instead of their employees. The fact is, if you are working for them then YES - THEY DO OWE YOU. A statement like "you are due nothing" is true only if you're not doing anything to earn it. And the fact is, a lot of people work their asses off to earn it but are still not appreciated or compensated.
Sure, it's just a job - but if that job makes your life hell, try to get out. If you're really lucky, you might find an employer that's not going to make your life hell.
You're still subject to federal, state, county, city, and municipal laws and regulations. A neighborhood association is essentially another body of government under those. Now I realize it's not the same, but it is designed (at least in part) to protect the investments of the homeowners in the neighborhood. If your neighbor doesn't follow the rules (in my city, your grass must be less than 9 inches in height before the city will come cut it for you and send you the bill) your property values can go down. It's not always treated this way, but my covenant rules are pretty reasonable. I wouldn't have bought the house if I didn't accept the rules along with them.
Most of them are for making sure the place looks nice and doesn't pose any dangers (pools, for example) or annoyances (pets on leashes or in fenced yards only).
I just got a note from my neighborhood association stating that, while the neighborhood covenant specifically prohibits them, the Supreme Court has ruled that signs for political candidates are protected speech and cannot be overruled by neighborhood agreements (contractual or not).
If they're going to regulate political speech from candidates, that's one thing. That's not regulation of the Internet, but regulation of campaigns no matter where they are executed. Regulating political speech on the Internet for the regular user won't happen - not likely in theory and definitely not in reality.
Yeah... but live music means that you're actively playing (and not partying). And in a small house crammed with three times as many guests as the fire marshall would approve of isn't the best venue for a band...
They recently redesigned and programmed the site. It used to be a static site with a forum attached to it. Now it looks like they've built it up quite a bit. If there's a way to find a bug in their site, it's to expose them to the Slashdot hordes.
Good call on the CD MP3 player.
As for impressing party guests, most of them have seen the trouble you get when you have a bunch of strangers and a lot of easy to lift equipment. No CDs lying around, no laptop to grab. What's impressive is when he's standing behind the bar and whips out the laptop (which he physically secures under the bar) to change the music. People just love that.
I agree. If you want it to work as a stereo appliance mp3 server, that's one thing. But I wouldn't expect to take that with me as a portable. One or the other, maybe.
Portable player? Go with either a low-storage and inexpensive Creative USB player or a high-storage and expensive iPod. Anything in between fails to impress me.
MP3 server for your home stereo? Slap an 80GB drive into an old box with your favorite flavor of OS and remote connect. It's not that hard; my non-geek brother did this for his house (he's a college senior) and it's impressed the hell out of their party guests.
They're more than used to this kind of traffic. Not only have they been linked from Slashdot many times in the past, but they've scaled up to handle the bandwidth as it grew. From their FAQ:
"The videos are 320x240 to save bandwidth. Our first series, Red vs Blue regularly chewed up 170 Terrabytes of downloads in a month."
For those without any reference, bandwidth can run from "unlimited" (see Serverbeach) to paying $x/GB. When you're talking 170TB/month at approx $6/GB, you're over $28,000 in that month. Of course, if you're doing that much traffic and working with a host that charges you like that you need to switch fast.
I'm all about having the FDIC backing our banks; without the FDIC, many people still wouldn't trust banks (market crashes, S&L scandals, etc).
Which is exactly the issue with PayPal - who is not FDIC insured and does not consider itself to be a bank at all.
coughcough1929coughcough
I won't use PayPal and alwys warn my clients about using it because of those issues.
I always thought Phone tech and phone sex were kinda similar.
"Now reach around the back and grab the end of the cable. Next, try to feel around with your fingers for the hole. Stick the end in the hole and make sure it's nice and snug. You might need to wiggle it a bit to get it in there just right. Is that working for you?"
*faint*
Cheetahs wouldn't have wheels because they wouldn't work for them. Wheels wouldn't work so well over uneven terrain, through grassy plains, and in soft dirt. Wheels would also prevent them from turning and reacting to prey as well as their current legs allow. Also, independently moving parts (such as wheels) require maintenance likely to be outside the ability of a cheetah.
Cars were once known as the "horseless carriage." They were designed to look and act like a horse and carriage, sans horse. It would be silly to put a completely useless figure of a horse in front of the car; but robots are not designed to look like animals for appearance as much as function.
Seemingly off-topic but really related question: Why do you think most fictitious depictions of aliens are humanoid?
Like exposing your server to the Slashdot effect, presenting your product or service to the Slashdot crowd may be a good way of seeing how it really stacks up.
I always wondered how my server would do against the tide of Slashdot.
I agree... but as many people commented, it's even better when someone else posts that story. It gives credibility because it's not self-promotion. In the case of Wired Magazine, I'd expect plenty of people to discover the story and submit it to Slashdot. If it had been a tiny project with no audience or recognition, then I'd be more accepting of the self-submission. But as you say, it need to identify the relationship. I'm glad that Slashdot posts those kinds of disclaimers when they run stories from their parent group.
There was a "this is so funny!" post a while back, something along the lines of an open letter to Microsoft Windows. First thing I noticed - before I even read the story - was that the guy who wrote it appeared to be the one who submitted to Slashdot. Shameless.
Companies get good publicity through blogs because we tend to trust them... Well, there have been quite a few Slashdot "stories" lately from posters with something to gain - such as the editor from Wired magazine.
It's not necessarily the fault of Slashdot or its editors, but one of those classic guerilla marketing tools is to create publicity (good or bad) around your product, service, etc. It works because it's not always recognizable as marketing, but it ends up being effective as such.
Reminds me of "Stranger in a Strange Land," where there are professional witnesses trained to report only the truth of what they observe.
I posted on-topic and made an analogy that you disagreed with.
You posted two comments that were insulting, off-topic, and failed to address the pertinent issues.
Which one of us is a troll?
Yellowtail is pretty good.
I really like Bogle Cabernet (~$12). I bought a case of it for my wedding this summer, and still have a few bottles in my basement. I had a bottle of 2000 and loved it, but can't find it anymore. The case I bought was 2001 and it's excellent as well.
For really cheap but still enjoyable table red wine, I also buy Inglenook Burgundy. My wife picked up a bottle at Meijer for $3 or $4 on sale... she doesn't usually distinguish between wines and sees it all as a waste of money. It wasn't bad. Of course, she was not happy with my decision to get the case of Bogle.
I can't really drink white wine anymore - had a bad experience with a $30 bottle of white wine, some lobster, and a Japanese teppan-yaki in Okinawa. I doubt I'll ever get over it.