Nothing wrong with tossing a question like this out to Slashdot. Someone might bring up the name of a company of which the OP is unaware, and post other information about what to look for in such a company.
Actually, that second bit has already happened.
I have found that even some of the most "stupid" questions posted on Slashdot can generate some interesting discussion. Isn't that the point?
Have you thought about a career in computer forensics?
It is a field that brings a lot of new challenges on a regular basis. People are always trying to find ways to cover their tracks on computers; you get to do the opposite.
There are specialized schools that you can go to for this kind of training. You'll likely end up working for a law enforcement agency, or for a company that specializes in forensics (which will in turn be hired by law enforcement or lawyers).
There's worse things in life that you could do with a CS degree. (o:
I have a very simple, small site that I run that allows small comments. It was fine until the spam bots found it. Anyways, I just added a simple question about the background color of the site, which must be correct in order for the comment to be posted. I haven't had a single issue since (except for the occasional troll, but what can you do about that).
The nice thing about something like this, a handmade thing, is that the spammers won't bother 'breaking' it. As the parent mentions, the spammers are attacking the common solutions - so a little home grown bit will work wonders.
I looked over the Wikipedia article for Ext4, and it mentioned that Ext4 uses an H Tree for directory indexing. I looked over the H Tree article, but it is sparse, and I wasn't sure how it differs from a balanced B Tree. Could someone more mathematically inclined explain, or point me to some better information?
Savage 2 looks interesting, but Wikipedia incorrectly notes it as "the first RTS/FPS game". Natural Selection 1.0, a modification for Half-Life, was released a year earlier, with betas released far before that. I would change the article, but likely some WikiNazi will come along and revert my "vandalism". do:
I have found the script writing to be alright, but good acting? Rarely - which is really strange considering that a lot of the folks across the ocean have acting schools with hundreds of years of history behind them.
Don't get me wrong - I'm not impressed with the 'actors' here in America either. I just heard a good spot on NPR today about how the American producers are importing actors, especially from England and Ireland. Good actors are few and far between - and they rarely end up at the BBC. Why go there when you can make real money elsewhere? Or, if you're truly interested in the art of acting, you're not going on the BBC either. You're going to be doing Shakespeare, et al.
That aside, although a lack of budget doesn't make a difference in theory, it does in practice. A really cheap set with nasty lighting and poor sound can turn an otherwise great production into one that is very mediocre. I'm not talking special effects here either - just the basics.
That, and the BBC still carries with it a very dry, sterile feeling that a lot>/i> of shows from the BBC have. Some people like that I guess, but it really doesn't work for me.
While Shazam would be silly (I honestly don't know a thing about the comic itself, but the name alone makes me wince), ElfQuest has some potential. There's a lot of story to follow. It could be a LotR-style production. That said, Comic Book -> Movie conversions are generally craptacular, so...
What I would like to see brought to the Silver Screen is The Invisibles. I have been reading through the books lately and it is absolutely fantastic. A good mix of plot, philosophy, action, fantasy, and characters. From what I understand, The Invisibles was part of the inspirational material for The Matrix.
It would be interesting to see The Sandman produced as well - just not by the BBC. They completely butchered Neverwhere, turning a fantastic novel into a complete piece of crap (as they often do).
I had never heard of Positech or their games, but since this developer was being pretty cool with the piracy responses, I downloaded the demo of Democracy 2. Fun game. Bought it.
Maybe when Bush is gone, and the FBI and Justice Department get some decent management, we'll see some action in this area.
Yeah, because I'm sure that the priority of every president is credit card fraud.
I know that it's popular to blame Bush for all the ills of the world, but it is short sighted and unrealistic. If you want to bash him over things for which he is truly responsible, feel free. There's lots of material. Blaming him for this, though, is just lame.
I agree 100%. I do not see the point of a touch screen for home or business use. The screen will quickly get smudged up and look gross and nasty and require constant cleaning. Of course, I suppose you could wear gloves, but how silly would it be to have to put on The Computer Gloves every time you wanted to look at something? More chances to scratch the display as well, and don't get too excited - you may push your computer right over.
If you want to go this route, then Steganography would be better. There are quite a few free utilities out there that will hide your information inside of.wav files,.mp3s, pictures of various formats, etc., and the files still operate correctly even after the extra data has been added.
My father is in the entertainment business and he travels out of the country on a regular basis. He always brings his laptop with him. Not once has he ever mentioned having his laptop - much less his baggage - searched at the border coming into the US.
That said, he HAS had quite a few searches going into Germany. They're always paranoid that he's hiding something in his artificial leg - but even they have not once turned on his laptop.
I'm all for taking reasonable steps to ensure privacy, but I think some people have paranoia issues.
Why not just buy a 1995 Oldsmobile Cutlass Cierra?
I bought a used one back in 2002. The gas mileage was 33mpg on the highway, and since 95% of my driving is highway, it worked out very well (until some jackass slammed into the side of it, anyways). Powerful engine, smooth ride, the most reliable vehicle I ever owned, and I was surrounded by metal instead of a plastic bubble.
I don't understand these car producers that brag about gas mileage that was accomplished over a decade ago. You'd think that we would have progressed a bit since then.
I work for a portal company that has Google search at the top of the portal. We keep records of all of the searches for analysis. The most popular searches are domain names, or something close to it: "yahoo" and "yahoo.com" are both prime examples of this. They are almost always in the top ten search terms for any given month. People search for "yahoo.com" and click the first link.
I swear that I remember a Slashdot article about a year ago that was precisely this: Printing data in a compressed format, which could later be scanned in and converted. What was found is that there were a lot of cool things that they could do to put a lot of data into a small space: Different shapes (square, circle, triangle, circle with a dot in the center) and different colors, mainly. It was very cool stuff and at the time they were able to store quite a lot of data on a single sheet of paper.
I'll leave the exercise of searching for the article up to you, but I did run into this on SourceForge the other day:
Nope. I started off working in the office five days a week. They allowed me to work from home three of them as part of a deal to keep me from going to a new job. Even when I was there all week, I would get hounded constantly.
There is one thing that helped keep them off my back, though. I started carrying a little notebook around, and I would keep track of what happened and when. So when I started writing code at, say, 9:30, I would write down "9:30 - Writing code for foo". When someone would stop by and start talking about the hockey game (I'm in Buffalo, these people are obsessed with hockey) I would write down, "9:35 - Mr. X started talking about Hockey"
They would ask what I was doing, and I would tell them that my boss wanted me to keep track of my day. Some of the people eventually started to go away.
Where I work, we do peer review of all the code that has been written before it can even be committed into our source control. When we find an error in someone else's code, we don't "haughtily" tell them. We just say, "Hey, check line Foo again, it doesn't look quite right."
There's no need to be a dick when pointing out mistakes. There are lots of ways to go about doing so, and explaining the consequences of those mistakes, without being a jerk.
One of the last things you want to be known as around the office is "that asshole that jumps on other people all the time." It will impede your ability to effectively enforce security policies (Oh, he's a jerk, I don't care what he says), which means you won't be able to do your job as effectively.
I'm not saying that there is never a time to bitch at someone - but that should be saved as a last resort measure. Otherwise it loses its effectiveness. (Oh, he's yelling like he always does, whatever)
Besides - if there are set security policies, and someone is consistently not following them, then your argument isn't with that person. It is with that person's boss.
Maybe, but China's history of human rights abuses speaks for itself.
If its history we're talking about, then what about America's history of human rights abuse (slave trade anyone?), or the UK (slaves again, plus that whole empire thing, and navvies).
Yeah. But that's the thing. It is history. We stopped what we were doing, because we realized that it was wrong. In America, we spilled a lot of blood over the issue. China continues to do some pretty nasty things.
And you're right - China isn't the only place where a lot of bad things happen. That doesn't mean we shouldn't point it out, though.
"I'm not the only one, so it is okay!" isn't a good excuse.
When I am at home, co-workers can't waddle by my desk and start talking about the weather, or a football game, or what they're going to do that weekend, or some other thing that is wasting my time. And let's not get started with the pointless meetings.
I grew up with a good work ethic; I suppose that I'm lucky. I work from home three days a week. Those are the three days that I actually get things done. I can start working, get into a groove, and pump out large amounts of good code, or get testing done, or debug problems.
The two days in the office are a complete waste for me.
Slashdot Mirror
Nothing wrong with tossing a question like this out to Slashdot. Someone might bring up the name of a company of which the OP is unaware, and post other information about what to look for in such a company.
Actually, that second bit has already happened.
I have found that even some of the most "stupid" questions posted on Slashdot can generate some interesting discussion. Isn't that the point?
Have you thought about a career in computer forensics?
It is a field that brings a lot of new challenges on a regular basis. People are always trying to find ways to cover their tracks on computers; you get to do the opposite.
There are specialized schools that you can go to for this kind of training. You'll likely end up working for a law enforcement agency, or for a company that specializes in forensics (which will in turn be hired by law enforcement or lawyers).
There's worse things in life that you could do with a CS degree. (o:
Funny that you mention it, but I am red-green color blind myself.
Perhaps the background of the site is white - which everyone should be able to see, hm? (o;
Which is true - a specialized attack will succeed - but for smaller, personal sites, the spammers won't bother.
I have a very simple, small site that I run that allows small comments. It was fine until the spam bots found it. Anyways, I just added a simple question about the background color of the site, which must be correct in order for the comment to be posted. I haven't had a single issue since (except for the occasional troll, but what can you do about that).
The nice thing about something like this, a handmade thing, is that the spammers won't bother 'breaking' it. As the parent mentions, the spammers are attacking the common solutions - so a little home grown bit will work wonders.
I looked over the Wikipedia article for Ext4, and it mentioned that Ext4 uses an H Tree for directory indexing. I looked over the H Tree article, but it is sparse, and I wasn't sure how it differs from a balanced B Tree. Could someone more mathematically inclined explain, or point me to some better information?
Thanks in Advance. (o:
Savage 2 looks interesting, but Wikipedia incorrectly notes it as "the first RTS/FPS game". Natural Selection 1.0, a modification for Half-Life, was released a year earlier, with betas released far before that. I would change the article, but likely some WikiNazi will come along and revert my "vandalism". do:
I read your posts and found them to be very interesting and informative. I'd like to see more, when you have the time to write them. Thanks.
For those who don't know, the above comment is in reference to the programming language Brainfuck.
I have found the script writing to be alright, but good acting? Rarely - which is really strange considering that a lot of the folks across the ocean have acting schools with hundreds of years of history behind them.
Don't get me wrong - I'm not impressed with the 'actors' here in America either. I just heard a good spot on NPR today about how the American producers are importing actors, especially from England and Ireland. Good actors are few and far between - and they rarely end up at the BBC. Why go there when you can make real money elsewhere? Or, if you're truly interested in the art of acting, you're not going on the BBC either. You're going to be doing Shakespeare, et al.
That aside, although a lack of budget doesn't make a difference in theory, it does in practice. A really cheap set with nasty lighting and poor sound can turn an otherwise great production into one that is very mediocre. I'm not talking special effects here either - just the basics.
That, and the BBC still carries with it a very dry, sterile feeling that a lot>/i> of shows from the BBC have. Some people like that I guess, but it really doesn't work for me.
I stand corrected. That still doesn't change the fact that the BBC makes crap productions - which is very unfortunate.
While Shazam would be silly (I honestly don't know a thing about the comic itself, but the name alone makes me wince), ElfQuest has some potential. There's a lot of story to follow. It could be a LotR-style production. That said, Comic Book -> Movie conversions are generally craptacular, so...
What I would like to see brought to the Silver Screen is The Invisibles. I have been reading through the books lately and it is absolutely fantastic. A good mix of plot, philosophy, action, fantasy, and characters. From what I understand, The Invisibles was part of the inspirational material for The Matrix.
It would be interesting to see The Sandman produced as well - just not by the BBC. They completely butchered Neverwhere, turning a fantastic novel into a complete piece of crap (as they often do).
I did the same thing a while ago when the author of Democracy 2 was featured on Slashdot when he asked the gaming community about why they pirate.
I had never heard of Positech or their games, but since this developer was being pretty cool with the piracy responses, I downloaded the demo of Democracy 2. Fun game. Bought it.
Maybe when Bush is gone, and the FBI and Justice Department get some decent management, we'll see some action in this area.
Yeah, because I'm sure that the priority of every president is credit card fraud.
I know that it's popular to blame Bush for all the ills of the world, but it is short sighted and unrealistic. If you want to bash him over things for which he is truly responsible, feel free. There's lots of material. Blaming him for this, though, is just lame.
I agree 100%. I do not see the point of a touch screen for home or business use. The screen will quickly get smudged up and look gross and nasty and require constant cleaning. Of course, I suppose you could wear gloves, but how silly would it be to have to put on The Computer Gloves every time you wanted to look at something? More chances to scratch the display as well, and don't get too excited - you may push your computer right over.
If you want to go this route, then Steganography would be better. There are quite a few free utilities out there that will hide your information inside of .wav files, .mp3s, pictures of various formats, etc., and the files still operate correctly even after the extra data has been added.
My father is in the entertainment business and he travels out of the country on a regular basis. He always brings his laptop with him. Not once has he ever mentioned having his laptop - much less his baggage - searched at the border coming into the US.
That said, he HAS had quite a few searches going into Germany. They're always paranoid that he's hiding something in his artificial leg - but even they have not once turned on his laptop.
I'm all for taking reasonable steps to ensure privacy, but I think some people have paranoia issues.
I dunno. I just click "Okay" until the windows go away and I can see the website.
Why not just buy a 1995 Oldsmobile Cutlass Cierra?
I bought a used one back in 2002. The gas mileage was 33mpg on the highway, and since 95% of my driving is highway, it worked out very well (until some jackass slammed into the side of it, anyways). Powerful engine, smooth ride, the most reliable vehicle I ever owned, and I was surrounded by metal instead of a plastic bubble.
I don't understand these car producers that brag about gas mileage that was accomplished over a decade ago. You'd think that we would have progressed a bit since then.
I can attest to the truth of this.
I work for a portal company that has Google search at the top of the portal. We keep records of all of the searches for analysis. The most popular searches are domain names, or something close to it: "yahoo" and "yahoo.com" are both prime examples of this. They are almost always in the top ten search terms for any given month. People search for "yahoo.com" and click the first link.
Crazy, eh?
I swear that I remember a Slashdot article about a year ago that was precisely this: Printing data in a compressed format, which could later be scanned in and converted. What was found is that there were a lot of cool things that they could do to put a lot of data into a small space: Different shapes (square, circle, triangle, circle with a dot in the center) and different colors, mainly. It was very cool stuff and at the time they were able to store quite a lot of data on a single sheet of paper.
I'll leave the exercise of searching for the article up to you, but I did run into this on SourceForge the other day:
http://arss.sourceforge.net/
It turns sound waves into picutres and back again. Similar concept, very fun stuff.
Nope. I started off working in the office five days a week. They allowed me to work from home three of them as part of a deal to keep me from going to a new job. Even when I was there all week, I would get hounded constantly.
There is one thing that helped keep them off my back, though. I started carrying a little notebook around, and I would keep track of what happened and when. So when I started writing code at, say, 9:30, I would write down "9:30 - Writing code for foo". When someone would stop by and start talking about the hockey game (I'm in Buffalo, these people are obsessed with hockey) I would write down, "9:35 - Mr. X started talking about Hockey"
They would ask what I was doing, and I would tell them that my boss wanted me to keep track of my day. Some of the people eventually started to go away.
I thought about that bit as well.
Where I work, we do peer review of all the code that has been written before it can even be committed into our source control. When we find an error in someone else's code, we don't "haughtily" tell them. We just say, "Hey, check line Foo again, it doesn't look quite right."
There's no need to be a dick when pointing out mistakes. There are lots of ways to go about doing so, and explaining the consequences of those mistakes, without being a jerk.
One of the last things you want to be known as around the office is "that asshole that jumps on other people all the time." It will impede your ability to effectively enforce security policies (Oh, he's a jerk, I don't care what he says), which means you won't be able to do your job as effectively.
I'm not saying that there is never a time to bitch at someone - but that should be saved as a last resort measure. Otherwise it loses its effectiveness. (Oh, he's yelling like he always does, whatever)
Besides - if there are set security policies, and someone is consistently not following them, then your argument isn't with that person. It is with that person's boss.
Maybe, but China's history of human rights abuses speaks for itself.
If its history we're talking about, then what about America's history of human rights abuse (slave trade anyone?), or the UK (slaves again, plus that whole empire thing, and navvies).
Yeah. But that's the thing. It is history. We stopped what we were doing, because we realized that it was wrong. In America, we spilled a lot of blood over the issue. China continues to do some pretty nasty things.
And you're right - China isn't the only place where a lot of bad things happen. That doesn't mean we shouldn't point it out, though.
"I'm not the only one, so it is okay!" isn't a good excuse.
I'm the exact opposite.
When I am at home, co-workers can't waddle by my desk and start talking about the weather, or a football game, or what they're going to do that weekend, or some other thing that is wasting my time. And let's not get started with the pointless meetings.
I grew up with a good work ethic; I suppose that I'm lucky. I work from home three days a week. Those are the three days that I actually get things done. I can start working, get into a groove, and pump out large amounts of good code, or get testing done, or debug problems.
The two days in the office are a complete waste for me.