Get rid of manufacturing jobs and we'll all be working the fields, just like ancient Sumeria.
Ancient Sumeria had extensive clergy, politicians, breweries, architects, construction workers, shop keepers, Lawyers, boat builders, caravaneers, etc. Learn something about history before making these absurd statements.
1. Being offended that Christians exist 2. Mocking that Christians are concerned about pornography 3. Defending that pronography never has harmful effects 4. Being armchair parents and pontificating about what they would do if they were ever able to procreate 5. Blasting religion in general and categorizing those who follow any form of it as less intelligent/sophisticated as themselves even if the religous people do get more chances at procreation
That no one has offered any helpful advice on this technical problem. Does no one realize that the appropriate solution would be to roll your own proxy server. No one mentioned Squid or its various plugins that can help parents have a solid control on the situation complete with auditing and alerting. The fact is there are people who want children to experiance the world with just a bit of a safety net. Let's move off their religous beliefs and start offering ways technology can help them achieve their goals.
Actually this has long been decided by the Supreme Court (you know the ones who are actually responsible for interpreting the 1st amendment). Profane and Obscene speech are not protected forms of speech. If you agree with regulation or not the argument that it is unconstitutional is incorrect.
For the record here is Dr. Franklin's description in a letter to the Royal Society. It is quite a bit different than the popular story of his being struck by lightning. It is quoted in the PDF above.
"Make a small cross of two light strips of cedar, the arms so long as to reach to the four corners of a large thin silk handkerchief when extended; tie the corners of the handkerchief to the extremities of the cross, so you have the body of a kite; which, being properly accommodated with a tail, loop, and string, will rise in the air, like those made of paper; but this being silk is fitter to bear the wet and wind of a thunder-gust without tearing. To the top of the upright stick of the cross is to be fixed a very sharp-pointed wire, rising a foot or more above the wood. To the end of the twine, next the hand, is to be tied a silk ribbon, and where the silk and twine join, a key may be fastened. This kite is to be raised when a thunder-gust appears to be coming on, and the person who holds the string must stand within a door or window, or under some cover, so that the silk ribbon may not be wet; and care must be taken that the twine does not touch the frame of the door or window. As soon as any of the thunder-clouds come over the kite, the pointed wire will draw the electric fire from them, and the kite, with all the twine, will be electrified, and the loose filaments of the twine will stand out every way, and be attracted by an approaching finger. And when the rain has wetted the kite and twine, so that it can conduct the electric fire freely, you will find it stream out plentifully from the key on the approach of your knuckle. At this key the phial may be charged; and from electric fire thus obtained spirits may be kindled, and all the other electric experiments be performed which are usually done by the help of a rubbed glass globe or tube, and thereby the sameness of the electric matter with that of lightning completely demonstrated."
From the link above also:
I. Bernard Cohen, in Benjamin Franklin's Science, pp 100-109 discusses the work of Jacques de Romas, who carried out extensive kite experiments with atmospheric electricity, as well as Franklin's friend Ebenezer Kinnersley, and John Lining. Abbé Beccaria used a kite to discover that there are electrical effects even in fair weather. Pieter van Musschenbroek of Leyden jar fame also flew kites to investigate atmospheric electrification.
Schiffer, Draw the Lightning Down, (2003, University of California Press) pp. 166-171, describes kite investigations by Bertholon, Cuthbertson and Cavallo. The latter reported hundreds of experiments, and noted that the worst experience was a shock to his arms.
I am glad we have mythbusters to determine the truthfulness of historical accounts. Has it not entered your mind that just maybe Dr. Franklin was a bit more clever that a pop tv show crew.
The Philidelphia Experiment (as it was called) has been duplicated many times. Here is an account from Joseph Priestly in 1775:
"The kite being raised, a considerable time elapsed before there was any appearance of its being electrified. One very promising cloud had passed over it without any effect; when, at length, just as he was beginning to despair of his contrivance, he observed some loose threads of the hempen string to stand erect, and to avoid one another, just as if they had been suspended on a common conductor. Struck with this promising appearance, he immediately presented his knucle to the key, and (let the reader judge of the exquisite pleasure he must have felt at that moment) the discovery was complete. He perceived a very evident electric spark. Others succeeded, even before the string was wet, so as to put the matter past all dispute, and when the rain had wetted the string, he collected electric fire very copiously. This happened in June 1752, a month after the electricians in France had verified the same theory, but before he had heard of any thing that they had done."
No serious historian disputes the account and no there is no dispute that the experiment was conducted sucessfully many times afterward. It's too bad that scientists in the eighteenth century were more skilled at experiments than Mythbusters.
I am sorry but a scientist should not try to be a historian unless they are trained in history. The arugment is very weak. Franklin never clains to have been struck by lightening. Collecting atmospheric current is the same principle used in the lightning rods Franklin invented. The story was confirmed in later years by Franklin's son. And most importantly the experiment has been repeated sucessfully many, many times. Here is a rebuttal to that book by a legitimate historian http://hnn.us/articles/1770.html. Saying Franklin's experiment was a hoax is nothing more than sensationalism focused on selling more copies of books.
but the real pedaphiles and terrorists of the world don't do regular google searches for "how to build a bomb" and "kiddie porn" from the computers in their homes.
Actually, as someone who has worked with law enforcement a few times and caught pedaphiles, I can tell you they really are this stupid. They use AIM and hang out on MySpace. They use P2P and webmail. They are generally not technically savvy (at least not more so than ordinary internet users). Even if they are rather sharp, the victims and other perps they wish to interface with are not and so they really are quite possible to track in most cases. What's more is unchecked desires make them take foolish risks.
Do Not Attack Me! I do not support this proposed law. I just do understand that this type of data would legitimately be very useful to find the offenders because they are ordinary people who no more understand how this interweb thingy works than does my boss:) I do not believe however that the tradeoff of loosing privacy is worth the gains, here's why:
Has anyone thought what weight this would hold in court. Its a log file! A bunch of ASCII text with an IP address. How do we know it is not forged. How do we know it is not full of errors. How do we know who was at the computer. Log files are easily torn down and thrown out in court. They are generally considered hearsay evidence. And it's not the best way to catch these guys anyway. Child porn is way down these days. It used to be in the 90's you could search any of the popular engines and find hundreds of web pages with kiddie porn. Now these have almost all been shut down. Newsgroups and IRC have been majorly cleaned up compared with what they used to be and child porn has retreated to the dark corners of the net. How did this happen? Law enforcement infiltrated the groups sharing the porn, they talked to the victims, they set up sting operations, they got warrants and made arrests. We do not currently have a problem prosecuting child porn/molestation without this evidence!! We do not have any greater problem finding the offenders than with other serious crimes. We are arresting and sucessfully prosecuting people left and right through traditional means. This is because this is still a crime that centers on people interacting with other people in the real world. As long as this is the case law enforcement will still be able to go undercover and collect information, they will be able to follow the victims to find the perp, to pose as a perp to find other perps, etc.
So this is a really long post to simply say that this was nothing more than a Lovejoy gambit. What is really wanted is control and documented evidence on everybody.
Hey if you can also get it to filter statements that are likely to land you in trouble, translate responses into something more sensitive, and translate back to you what she really means based on what she says, then I think you have the technology of the future. Maybe then slashdotters can get chicks. I would be an early adopter.
I have actually used a wiki for this type of thing. It takes a bit more technically savvy set of editors but the markup is easy, versioning is tracked and everything instantly indexed, searchable and cross linked. Works really nice for documentation. If you want your docs written in word format though go with Sharepoint. You will not find a good GPL system for Word format. Subversion, and others like it will treat it like a binary file and just record new copies. No way to see diffs, etc.
Actually I am pretty sure this is a normal thing. If I read it right they are not asking that he be held accountable for the fees from suing Apple if they lose the Apple case, but instead they are asking that he be held accountable for their fees defending themselves against his suit should they be found not liable. This is normal. If someone sues you and you whish to defend, you would normally state that if you sucessfully defend yourself you should be reembursed for the attorney fees you paid out to do so. I am pretty sure the slashdot article has it wrong. (Shocking!) So basically he sued two attorney firms, they hired defense. This is normal. They moved to strike the case. This is a normal thing to try. If the case is totally without merit they might succeed. They ask that if the case is stricken (struck?) they get paid for thier time. I really do feel for the poor guy. One way or another he has gotten himself into a horrible mess. He does seem to be trying to stay very honest in his letter. I do not think he is entirely lilly white in this matter. He did entertain some conversation with these guys. They probably overstepped their bounds. And where was his laywer when he was being deposed? I still think justice will prevail. It will take time but if he is as innocent as he claims he should be awarded damages that will more than cover his expense.
Anyone who does not jump off the cliff is a lemmming. You don't want to be a lemming...DO YOU?!! It's time to start challenging the status quo, just because everyone is rethinking the whole operating system thing doesn't mean you need to do it too. We shouldn't mindlessly march off with something just because its the best system.
I have actually had people use this same logic and almost these exact words when I suggested we should apply security patches to our systems. They were serious. Scary.
Graham has engineers disease: he believes that being an accomplished engineer makes him qualified to speak authoritatively on art, law, science, film... He probably caught it from ESR.
And here I thought that being a voting citizen was all the authority required in order to voice your opinion on matters of law in the US. Let me introduce you to this little speech by Abe Lincoln...
I think you have an unrealisticly high opinion of what it takes to get an insightful post on slashdot. But this guy is a bit of a troll. Have I ever told you about how I perfected cold fusion when I was ten. When I was 12 I had memorized the value of Pi to 300 significant digits. When I was 14 I was inducted into the CIA to secret undercover work that eventually led to the fall of the Soviet Union. But I really don't think I am special. Outside of the money glamour and endless supply of women I am just a normal slashdotter who enjoys coding remarkably useful webapps that redefine how we think about data models and secretly harbor a need to one up a 17 yr old.
Actually, I just hear a bunch of idiots trying to take a fable from 2 thousand years ago and use it to explain things in place of modern science.
Well, first its a myth not a fable. The concept of fables was a much later literary development. and second, it's much older than 2000 years. I mean that would put it only back as far the time of the second temple (or time of Christ). Tradition holds Moses penned it almost 4000 years ago. Of course the text itself implies it occurred about 6,000 years ago. Most textual critics would relate portions of the creation story (there are actually two creations stories back to back with significant contradictions between them. Second story starts about Genesis 2:2) as being of a very ancient origin. We have significant parent sources from mesopotamia relgions dating back to nearly 4,000 BCE.
Like it or not its part of the literary and cultural heritage that makes us who we are as much as these single celled organisms are a part of who we are. I think you should embrace it and be proud of it rather than trying to marginalize it or think you are above being connected to it or you are a hypocrite.
but with all the religious nuts out there these comments just seem normal coming from the "religious".
You know I can't really recall any significant religous figure that uses language like that. Never heard most of those words or that general idea from Jesus, Budda, the Pope, Mormon prophets, or even TV evangelists. Not even Mohammad was even close to that harsh. Maybe comments like this only come from people who are religious but not very good at it. You know kind of like listening to an MCSE explain security best practices or something. Maybe there should be a certification for inept religious people so we can separate them from people who actually have some clue about the proper methodologies of pleasing Diety.
I agree. As St Paul said: Prove all things and hold fast to that which is true. 1 Thessalonians 5:21
That is the foundation of both science and any religion worth believing in. Any world view that shackles God from revealing more information about who we are and where we came from is incapable of surviving in our modern world and will attract only the most zealous and irrational elements until it sputters out. Religion has been forced to reinvent itself to cope with the knowledge that science brings. If a religion is true, new knowledge should be welcomed as a new supplement to revealed truth. Apparent contradictions should be attributed to mans inability to understand the knowledge previously given. I for one am glad we live in this time when so much knowledge is available rather than those primitive times when the creation stories of Genesis were first formed. Perhaps faith was simpler then when people could comfortably think of God molding man from clay and did not have fossil records to trouble his mind, but they miss the incredible wonder we can feel today as we realize just how complex the process really was and what remarkable creatures we really are.
I know you are joking but I have actually had a boss that used this to reason why many security enhancements (like encrypting passwords on the network) were not worth implementing. It is a silly analogy that many people people believe.
Network based attack are far more common that physical attacks for a lot of good reasons. The main ones are: 1. Need for proximity is often removed 2. There is anonimity (much of the time) 3. There are less legal consquenses 4. Culpability is harder to prove (Log files don't stand up as well as DNA) 5. It involves mental rather than physical skill 6. For many people it is an easier moral justification 7. Ability to attack thousands of targets at once 8. Low impact for jobs that don't pan out as expected 9. No messy cleanup.
In the world of data security you cannot draw good comparisons to physical secuirty. Often in the physical world you just need to make sure your car is harder to steal than the one parked next to it but in cyberspace a single car thief can attack a whole parking lot, drive away with all of them at once, not show up on any security cameras and even put a remote control device in your car to take over at their whim later. What's best is he can do this from a wheelchair, from a distant city, can be any age, sex, social position or race so profiling doesn't work to narrow suspects. A lot of time there is no motive (not even a finacnial one) other than just the trill of seeing if you can do it. The analogy of relating cyber security threats to real world examples does great injustice to understanding the real problem. But humans need something concrete within their own experiance to relate the problem to and so everyone ties the cyber world to the physical and many bad decisions result.
Sorry, but I have heard the "they can beat my password out of me easier" a few too many times in complete seriousness to let this pass without comment.
As for traditional social engineering, it is often quite easy to get someone to tell you their password but it is much more complicated to fool someone into telling you their 2048 bit private key.
The best music is often the tunes that address social injustice and protest against oppression. Other music extolls the beauties of nature, love and mankind in general. This has always been so.
If this woman just likes to bop to the beat without a thought for the struggles of the human race, with no concern over the protection of the future of the art, then maybe you should question if she even "gets" the music she is recommending.
Maybe you should find someone with a bit more heart than a mindless primate that simply likes to bounce to a thumping bass or gaze at a shiny object.
Personally, I am glad my wife both understands and is passionate about social issues. It's the same passion that bleeds over into everything she does and keeps our marriage strong.
Disclaimer: I speak only to the description in your post. I do not know your fiance, who may have plenty of other positive traits.
I don't think Jesus would approve of you language or message, Christian. Maybe you should work on that whole turning the other cheek and praying for them that despitefully use you and persecute you thing. Maybe you should write "love thy neighbor" 1000 times after sunday school. (Of course since you post to slashdot you probably know how to speed this up using a perl script.)
Slashdot Mirror
Get rid of manufacturing jobs and we'll all be working the fields, just like ancient Sumeria.
Ancient Sumeria had extensive clergy, politicians, breweries, architects, construction workers, shop keepers, Lawyers, boat builders, caravaneers, etc. Learn something about history before making these absurd statements.
It is sad that everyone at slashdot is so busy
1. Being offended that Christians exist
2. Mocking that Christians are concerned about pornography
3. Defending that pronography never has harmful effects
4. Being armchair parents and pontificating about what they would do if they were ever able to procreate
5. Blasting religion in general and categorizing those who follow any form of it as less intelligent/sophisticated as themselves even if the religous people do get more chances at procreation
That no one has offered any helpful advice on this technical problem. Does no one realize that the appropriate solution would be to roll your own proxy server. No one mentioned Squid or its various plugins that can help parents have a solid control on the situation complete with auditing and alerting. The fact is there are people who want children to experiance the world with just a bit of a safety net. Let's move off their religous beliefs and start offering ways technology can help them achieve their goals.
I am saddened by the recent decline of slashdot.
Then in 1956 (Thanks, McCarthy), it became a motto of the USA.
Sorry
"And this be out Motto: In God is our trust."
National Anthem - Francis Scott Key 1814
I believe the phrase is even older and Mr. Key just worked it into his poem.
"calculations on qubits"
Qubits?? What, are you stuck in the days of Noah? We live in the modern world now. All calulations are done in feet and inches. Get with the times.
I would be nice if only bad people were killed in war.
Perhaps that is why most people especially Israelis are sick of war.
How is inserting extra words and syllables lazy???
Oh no!! I've been sucked into posting to a grammar thread! Just kill me now!
Actually this has long been decided by the Supreme Court (you know the ones who are actually responsible for interpreting the 1st amendment). Profane and Obscene speech are not protected forms of speech. If you agree with regulation or not the argument that it is unconstitutional is incorrect.
Ask and ye shall receive.
_ morse_04/08_Franklin_Lab_Part_VIII.pdf
I posted this link already:
http://www.tufts.edu/as/wright_center/fellows/bob
For the record here is Dr. Franklin's description in a letter to the Royal Society. It is quite a bit different than the popular story of his being struck by lightning. It is quoted in the PDF above.
"Make a small cross of two light strips of cedar, the arms so long as to reach to the four corners of a large thin silk handkerchief when extended; tie the corners of the handkerchief to the extremities of the cross, so you have the body of a kite; which, being properly accommodated with a tail, loop, and string, will rise in the air, like those made of paper; but this being silk is fitter to bear the wet and wind of a thunder-gust without tearing. To the top of the upright stick of the cross is to be fixed a very sharp-pointed wire, rising a foot or more above the wood. To the end of the twine, next the hand, is to be tied a silk ribbon, and where the silk and twine join, a key may be fastened. This kite is to be raised when a thunder-gust appears to be coming on, and the person who holds the string must stand within a door or window, or under some cover, so that the silk ribbon may not be wet; and care must be taken that the twine does not touch the frame of the door or window. As soon as any of the thunder-clouds come over the kite, the pointed wire will draw the electric fire from them, and the kite, with all the twine, will be electrified, and the loose filaments of the twine will stand out every way, and be attracted by an approaching finger. And when the rain has wetted the kite and twine, so that it can conduct the electric fire freely, you will find it stream out plentifully from the key on the approach of your knuckle. At this key the phial may be charged; and from electric fire thus obtained spirits may be kindled, and all the other electric experiments be performed which are usually done by the help of a rubbed glass globe or tube, and thereby the sameness of the electric matter with that of lightning completely demonstrated."
From the link above also:
I. Bernard Cohen, in Benjamin Franklin's Science, pp 100-109 discusses the work of Jacques de Romas, who
carried out extensive kite experiments with atmospheric electricity, as well as Franklin's friend Ebenezer
Kinnersley, and John Lining. Abbé Beccaria used a kite to discover that there are electrical effects even in fair
weather. Pieter van Musschenbroek of Leyden jar fame also flew kites to investigate atmospheric electrification.
Schiffer, Draw the Lightning Down, (2003, University of California Press) pp. 166-171, describes kite investigations
by Bertholon, Cuthbertson and Cavallo. The latter reported hundreds of experiments, and noted that the worst
experience was a shock to his arms.
I am glad we have mythbusters to determine the truthfulness of historical accounts. Has it not entered your mind that just maybe Dr. Franklin was a bit more clever that a pop tv show crew.
_ morse_04/08_Franklin_Lab_Part_VIII.pdf
The Philidelphia Experiment (as it was called) has been duplicated many times. Here is an account from Joseph Priestly in 1775:
"The kite being raised, a considerable time elapsed before there was any appearance of its
being electrified. One very promising cloud had passed over it without any effect; when, at
length, just as he was beginning to despair of his contrivance, he observed some loose threads of
the hempen string to stand erect, and to avoid one another, just as if they had been suspended on
a common conductor. Struck with this promising appearance, he immediately presented his
knucle to the key, and (let the reader judge of the exquisite pleasure he must have felt at that
moment) the discovery was complete. He perceived a very evident electric spark. Others
succeeded, even before the string was wet, so as to put the matter past all dispute, and when the
rain had wetted the string, he collected electric fire very copiously. This happened in June 1752,
a month after the electricians in France had verified the same theory, but before he had heard of
any thing that they had done."
No serious historian disputes the account and no there is no dispute that the experiment was conducted sucessfully many times afterward. It's too bad that scientists in the eighteenth century were more skilled at experiments than Mythbusters.
If you want original sources see: http://www.tufts.edu/as/wright_center/fellows/bob
I am sorry but a scientist should not try to be a historian unless they are trained in history. The arugment is very weak. Franklin never clains to have been struck by lightening. Collecting atmospheric current is the same principle used in the lightning rods Franklin invented. The story was confirmed in later years by Franklin's son. And most importantly the experiment has been repeated sucessfully many, many times.
Here is a rebuttal to that book by a legitimate historian http://hnn.us/articles/1770.html.
Saying Franklin's experiment was a hoax is nothing more than sensationalism focused on selling more copies of books.
but the real pedaphiles and terrorists of the world don't do regular google searches for "how to build a bomb" and "kiddie porn" from the computers in their homes.
:) I do not believe however that the tradeoff of loosing privacy is worth the gains, here's why:
Actually, as someone who has worked with law enforcement a few times and caught pedaphiles, I can tell you they really are this stupid. They use AIM and hang out on MySpace. They use P2P and webmail. They are generally not technically savvy (at least not more so than ordinary internet users). Even if they are rather sharp, the victims and other perps they wish to interface with are not and so they really are quite possible to track in most cases. What's more is unchecked desires make them take foolish risks.
Do Not Attack Me! I do not support this proposed law. I just do understand that this type of data would legitimately be very useful to find the offenders because they are ordinary people who no more understand how this interweb thingy works than does my boss
Has anyone thought what weight this would hold in court. Its a log file! A bunch of ASCII text with an IP address. How do we know it is not forged. How do we know it is not full of errors. How do we know who was at the computer. Log files are easily torn down and thrown out in court. They are generally considered hearsay evidence. And it's not the best way to catch these guys anyway.
Child porn is way down these days. It used to be in the 90's you could search any of the popular engines and find hundreds of web pages with kiddie porn. Now these have almost all been shut down. Newsgroups and IRC have been majorly cleaned up compared with what they used to be and child porn has retreated to the dark corners of the net. How did this happen? Law enforcement infiltrated the groups sharing the porn, they talked to the victims, they set up sting operations, they got warrants and made arrests. We do not currently have a problem prosecuting child porn/molestation without this evidence!! We do not have any greater problem finding the offenders than with other serious crimes. We are arresting and sucessfully prosecuting people left and right through traditional means. This is because this is still a crime that centers on people interacting with other people in the real world. As long as this is the case law enforcement will still be able to go undercover and collect information, they will be able to follow the victims to find the perp, to pose as a perp to find other perps, etc.
So this is a really long post to simply say that this was nothing more than a Lovejoy gambit. What is really wanted is control and documented evidence on everybody.
Meaning, if I want to talk to my girlfriend ...
Hey if you can also get it to filter statements that are likely to land you in trouble, translate responses into something more sensitive, and translate back to you what she really means based on what she says, then I think you have the technology of the future. Maybe then slashdotters can get chicks. I would be an early adopter.
I have actually used a wiki for this type of thing. It takes a bit more technically savvy set of editors but the markup is easy, versioning is tracked and everything instantly indexed, searchable and cross linked. Works really nice for documentation. If you want your docs written in word format though go with Sharepoint. You will not find a good GPL system for Word format. Subversion, and others like it will treat it like a binary file and just record new copies. No way to see diffs, etc.
Actually I am pretty sure this is a normal thing. If I read it right they are not asking that he be held accountable for the fees from suing Apple if they lose the Apple case, but instead they are asking that he be held accountable for their fees defending themselves against his suit should they be found not liable. This is normal. If someone sues you and you whish to defend, you would normally state that if you sucessfully defend yourself you should be reembursed for the attorney fees you paid out to do so. I am pretty sure the slashdot article has it wrong. (Shocking!)
So basically he sued two attorney firms, they hired defense. This is normal. They moved to strike the case. This is a normal thing to try. If the case is totally without merit they might succeed. They ask that if the case is stricken (struck?) they get paid for thier time.
I really do feel for the poor guy. One way or another he has gotten himself into a horrible mess. He does seem to be trying to stay very honest in his letter. I do not think he is entirely lilly white in this matter. He did entertain some conversation with these guys. They probably overstepped their bounds. And where was his laywer when he was being deposed? I still think justice will prevail. It will take time but if he is as innocent as he claims he should be awarded damages that will more than cover his expense.
Anyone who does not jump off the cliff is a lemmming. You don't want to be a lemming...DO YOU?!! It's time to start challenging the status quo, just because everyone is rethinking the whole operating system thing doesn't mean you need to do it too. We shouldn't mindlessly march off with something just because its the best system.
I have actually had people use this same logic and almost these exact words when I suggested we should apply security patches to our systems. They were serious. Scary.
Graham has engineers disease: he believes that being an accomplished engineer makes him qualified to speak authoritatively on art, law, science, film... He probably caught it from ESR.
...
And here I thought that being a voting citizen was all the authority required in order to voice your opinion on matters of law in the US. Let me introduce you to this little speech by Abe Lincoln
Yes but in the US all we need to look for is proper spelling and grammar to tell Bush didn't write it.
I think you have an unrealisticly high opinion of what it takes to get an insightful post on slashdot. But this guy is a bit of a troll. Have I ever told you about how I perfected cold fusion when I was ten. When I was 12 I had memorized the value of Pi to 300 significant digits. When I was 14 I was inducted into the CIA to secret undercover work that eventually led to the fall of the Soviet Union. But I really don't think I am special. Outside of the money glamour and endless supply of women I am just a normal slashdotter who enjoys coding remarkably useful webapps that redefine how we think about data models and secretly harbor a need to one up a 17 yr old.
This is because he only reads his own posts :)
Actually, I just hear a bunch of idiots trying to take a fable from 2 thousand years ago and use it to explain things in place of modern science.
Well, first its a myth not a fable. The concept of fables was a much later literary development. and second, it's much older than 2000 years. I mean that would put it only back as far the time of the second temple (or time of Christ). Tradition holds Moses penned it almost 4000 years ago. Of course the text itself implies it occurred about 6,000 years ago. Most textual critics would relate portions of the creation story (there are actually two creations stories back to back with significant contradictions between them. Second story starts about Genesis 2:2) as being of a very ancient origin. We have significant parent sources from mesopotamia relgions dating back to nearly 4,000 BCE.
Like it or not its part of the literary and cultural heritage that makes us who we are as much as these single celled organisms are a part of who we are. I think you should embrace it and be proud of it rather than trying to marginalize it or think you are above being connected to it or you are a hypocrite.
but with all the religious nuts out there these comments just seem normal coming from the "religious".
You know I can't really recall any significant religous figure that uses language like that. Never heard most of those words or that general idea from Jesus, Budda, the Pope, Mormon prophets, or even TV evangelists. Not even Mohammad was even close to that harsh. Maybe comments like this only come from people who are religious but not very good at it. You know kind of like listening to an MCSE explain security best practices or something. Maybe there should be a certification for inept religious people so we can separate them from people who actually have some clue about the proper methodologies of pleasing Diety.
I agree. As St Paul said:
Prove all things and hold fast to that which is true.
1 Thessalonians 5:21
That is the foundation of both science and any religion worth believing in. Any world view that shackles God from revealing more information about who we are and where we came from is incapable of surviving in our modern world and will attract only the most zealous and irrational elements until it sputters out. Religion has been forced to reinvent itself to cope with the knowledge that science brings. If a religion is true, new knowledge should be welcomed as a new supplement to revealed truth. Apparent contradictions should be attributed to mans inability to understand the knowledge previously given. I for one am glad we live in this time when so much knowledge is available rather than those primitive times when the creation stories of Genesis were first formed. Perhaps faith was simpler then when people could comfortably think of God molding man from clay and did not have fossil records to trouble his mind, but they miss the incredible wonder we can feel today as we realize just how complex the process really was and what remarkable creatures we really are.
I know you are joking but I have actually had a boss that used this to reason why many security enhancements (like encrypting passwords on the network) were not worth implementing. It is a silly analogy that many people people believe.
Network based attack are far more common that physical attacks for a lot of good reasons. The main ones are:
1. Need for proximity is often removed
2. There is anonimity (much of the time)
3. There are less legal consquenses
4. Culpability is harder to prove (Log files don't stand up as well as DNA)
5. It involves mental rather than physical skill
6. For many people it is an easier moral justification
7. Ability to attack thousands of targets at once
8. Low impact for jobs that don't pan out as expected
9. No messy cleanup.
In the world of data security you cannot draw good comparisons to physical secuirty. Often in the physical world you just need to make sure your car is harder to steal than the one parked next to it but in cyberspace a single car thief can attack a whole parking lot, drive away with all of them at once, not show up on any security cameras and even put a remote control device in your car to take over at their whim later. What's best is he can do this from a wheelchair, from a distant city, can be any age, sex, social position or race so profiling doesn't work to narrow suspects. A lot of time there is no motive (not even a finacnial one) other than just the trill of seeing if you can do it. The analogy of relating cyber security threats to real world examples does great injustice to understanding the real problem. But humans need something concrete within their own experiance to relate the problem to and so everyone ties the cyber world to the physical and many bad decisions result.
Sorry, but I have heard the "they can beat my password out of me easier" a few too many times in complete seriousness to let this pass without comment.
As for traditional social engineering, it is often quite easy to get someone to tell you their password but it is much more complicated to fool someone into telling you their 2048 bit private key.
The best music is often the tunes that address social injustice and protest against oppression. Other music extolls the beauties of nature, love and mankind in general. This has always been so.
If this woman just likes to bop to the beat without a thought for the struggles of the human race, with no concern over the protection of the future of the art, then maybe you should question if she even "gets" the music she is recommending.
Maybe you should find someone with a bit more heart than a mindless primate that simply likes to bounce to a thumping bass or gaze at a shiny object.
Personally, I am glad my wife both understands and is passionate about social issues. It's the same passion that bleeds over into everything she does and keeps our marriage strong.
Disclaimer: I speak only to the description in your post. I do not know your fiance, who may have plenty of other positive traits.
I don't think Jesus would approve of you language or message, Christian. Maybe you should work on that whole turning the other cheek and praying for them that despitefully use you and persecute you thing. Maybe you should write "love thy neighbor" 1000 times after sunday school. (Of course since you post to slashdot you probably know how to speed this up using a perl script.)