It bugged me when I was in school that there wasn't an option for Applied CS in my undergrad program. Then I got into industry and found that the majority of my useful skills were derived from subjects that I taught myself to make me a well-rounded engineer. I felt a little short-changed by my education.
However, as my skills aged, I found that I was leaning more and more and my theoretical skills to supplement my abilities and keep up with the fresh meat that came behind me. As I moved up, practical skills were pushed aside as I made use of concepts to help design and diagnose the systems that I develop.
In short, like most things, the real answer isn't 'either/or' but rather both. You need to give the students a full tool box that works now, works later, and provides a way to make the box bigger quickly and easily. And a student that doesn't want both sets (theory and practice) probably shouldn't attempt either.
I don't know which is more sad: the fact that a joke about a modem over VoIP made me laugh, or the fact that for a second, a brief second, I actually considered doing it.
The only consolation I get is that I know at least 3 moderators did the same thing.
That is completely NOT the reason for suing in this case; money is not the reason. Property damages in this case are pretty much nil. This suit, this action brought by the EFF is not about TAKING from ATT, but rather GIVING ATT a BUSINESS reason for rejecting warrentless FBI/NSA/CIA/HRMGWB(His Royal Majesty) orders. The EFF is looking for eight or nine figure punative damages to raise the cost of just rolling over.
Currently, the accountable cost -- those costs that can be expensed and planned for in actuarial tables -- of allowing the searches is paltry. Fighting it has a real cost, specifically lawyers fees and court costs. The cost of doing nothing will make cooperating an easy choice for ATT executives until the twerps are shown the cost of violating MY rights. I say my rights because I doubt they would acquiesce if it was their phone in the order.
You need to remember that justice is sometime about more than correcting a wrong, but also about prevention.
As cool as this is, I'm still waiting for my spiked dog colar, you know, to complete my goth look.
Think about it: to get your data, all you would do is connect your leash to your computer. How is that different than what we all do any way. At least this way no one has any illusions about your commitment.
Wow! Where do I begin to comment on that? Your first assertion, that companies will calculate the cost of failure versus the cost of prevention, is completely true; that is why and how insurance works. Alternatively, that is why punitive damages tend to be so high in the most egregious court cases; the court is trying to tilt the equation in favor of humanity -- hot cups of coffee not withstanding.
That being said, the value of data has increased exponentially in the past 5 to 10 years and companies have not fully accounted for that rapid shift. I saw a study a few years ago that said at least half (but I seem to recall that it was more like 90%) of all business will go out-of-business within 1 year of a major data loss. That was before the.com boom. That figure has probably only gotten worse. Keep in mind, only than 15 years ago, 'the web' didn't exist. Now, my office virtually halts when e-mail stops or a fileserver crashes. Imagine your day if suddenly all of the computers became unusable. How does your office fair?
As for IT techs being underpaid, that has very little to do with the value of the work you are doing. It has much more to do with the number of you that are doing the work. It is a classic economic supply and demand problem: an abundance of paper technicians (MCSE, A+, etc), 18-year-old 'ub3r g33ks' and other money-driven late-comers to the.com boom has allowed companies to turn system administration and helpdesk support into commodity jobs and consequently also low-skill jobs. Unfortunately, these types often have never been taught proper security practices. This class of worker learns only from experience. It's like expecting the construction workers to calculate the structural soundness of a skyscraper.
But what scares me more than a lack of real investment in security within the private sector, is the lack of investment in security by the public sector. I used to work in 'cyber security' for a major governmental research organization. The department has quite a reputation for the quality of its security infrastructure research, but the department is still only 10 regular employees and about 30 summer interns. And the department's budget was provided by and was a significant portion of the cyber security expenditures for a few of the major US departments. A major cyber security gaff at a blue chip would strain the US economy, but a major cyber security attack on public utilities could cripple North America (Canada, I'm looking in your direction too...).
I'm off my soap box now. Thank you for your attention. You may now resume your hacking activities.
I was, once upon a time, a young developer in the same position. I had a fast computer, dual flat screens, and free reign to do as I pleased. Here is what I found to be most helpful (assuming you are using KDE/Gnome, but should be appropriate to most desktop environments):
* Create key bindings. If you don't go to the mouse as often, not only will you be more productive, but you will also prevent RSI's. I could open a terminal window, browser, maximize both, and move either to another virtual desktop with just two fingers on the left hand.
* speaking of virtual desktops, Use virtual desktops. I like having everything maximized, but I quickly run out of space that way. Normally, I have the terminals on one desktop, the code on another, my reference documents/browser windows on the third, and then the forth for everything else --normally a running version of the project I'm fixing. Figure out what apps you use most, and designate a v.desk to each which makes it easier for the mind to find that information it was looking for.
* Love the terminal window. By making use of aliases, scripts and various other 'hacks,' most tasks can be boiled down to a handful of keystrokes. It is worth the time to learn either shell scripting and/or perl so that more complicated tasks can still be done rapidly with a reduced chance of error.
* Thing about the ergonomics. You are obviously a professional computer jockey, otherwise you wouldn't have dual monitors being driven by linux. Until your computer responds to 'computer,' you're going to need your wrists, so take five minutes to consider how you could improve the layout to minimize the chances of an RSI or other strains and pains -- this includes neck strains which is a very common pain resulting from dual monitors. Although this is not a time saving tip per se, it will add years to your useful geek life.
Well, that is all of the advice I can think of right now. The most important thing you need to consider is ways to eliminate repetition. Anytime I type anything more than 3 times, or click an icon that is more than 2 levels deep, I will consider, if only for a second, alternative means to envoking that task.
The pottery barn rule comes to mind: you break it, it is yours. Or at least that's the way it is when I am tweaking the legacy code.
My boss on the other hand, it's more like the bull in china shop. Heck if I know how he got in there, but I know there is going to be heck to pay in the morning.
NASA was all smiles today as the Opportunity and Spirit mission was declared a fantastic success. After decades of being left untouched by human hands, this project has finally come to an end. Having scoured every square mile of the Martian terrain, NASA officials decided to give the two bots one last task before being collected by astronauts and taken to the Smithsonian. This is an historic picture of the Spirit rover taken by the Opportunity rover. And here is a glimpse of Opportunity brought to you from Spirit.
Following these pictures, NASA scientist, without the approval of NASA administrators, finally did what every boy had been dreaming about since the bots were first launched: Interplanetary demolition derby! And amazingly, neither bot was harmed. This just goes to show that with a good Spirit and a little Opportunity, as long as you live to tell about it, anything is possible.
Have him. He's a total mooch. He uses my computer all night, eats all my food, and keeps demanding stuff 'for school.' Heck, I've read your comments several times; do you want the rest of 'em, too?
and before the flamebait police come out, no I don't really have kids. I'm a 20-something that has been smart enough to avoid them. My parents raised me better than that. They kept telling me that if I really want children, I should go out and buy them -- or, in the case of the parent comment, simply ask for them.
Unless the new recieptionist is named Steve. Then you may wish to just stop checking you e-mail for a while... or perhaps just change e-mail addresses... perhaps you should consider also changing the bit to the right of the at sign.
That is, unless you're a woman. Then, regardless of the sex of recieptionist, you just hit the judicial lottery, baby! Congrats!
[to the company known as microsoft] Who are and what have you done with my ne'er-do-well, soulless big brother?
Really now. An MS two-fer: first they agree to help real networks distribution, and now they're doing the same for yahoo. Now you can't even trust the back-stabber to do his job properly. What's next--is the mob going to start threatening to ruin credit scores if you fail to pay your debts?
their products are too expensive, and that the quality is not as good.
Oooo... I HATE this argument. Of all of the arguments for p2p and music sharing services, and against the RIAA, DMCA, trusted computing, etc., this argument should be the LAST one on the list.
If the quality is poor, find other music. Do you have any idea how many CD's are made daily. If you don't like the pop junk on the radio, go find other artists. I've got some very recent CD's by artists that I found by going to local indie concerts. I listen to internet radio, listening for new artists that I like. When I find an artist/band that I like, I buy the CD to support the artist.
If you think the CD's are expensive, then, well, perhaps you ought to go read a little Adam Smith. I know, the recording industry may be colluding to set the price artificially high(which is a much better argument against the RIAA), but that is no reason for you to break the law also.
There are alternatives if you don't like paying high prices. Listen to the radio more; make your own music; get satellite radio; read more. Yes, it is nice to have control over the music you listen to, but you need to pay for that right. You need to decide how much you like that right.
Now that I've ranted, I would like to say thank you to Ms Anderson.[golf clap] It is about time someone found a lawyer willing to give the RIAA a taste of the same BS they've been shoving down our collective throats for the past few years. Where do I donate to the cause?
You picked the wrong day to post this question. The people reading today are the geeks et al. that gave up on office politics long ago and/or never cared to begin with.
I suspect the good answers will come on Monday. The people that will give you the right answers only read slashdot at work...
Okay, I'm not a know it all, but I'd like to think I know quite a bit in this area. So I'd like to throw some ideas out, because I'm interested in the oft insightful freedback from/..
Okay, first thought: this wouldn't cause a split in the net, just in the Internet's DNS system. Although this would be bad, it isn't the end of the world (wide web). One simple work around, is that consumers could use multiple DNS servers, depending on which root server the intended site is using. Inconvenient, yes; impossible, no.
That being said, my second thought is this: what is keeping the US as the authority? Might I suggest that this is a case of build it and they will come. It seems to me that if some international org. starts an alternative name service, perhaps one that simply augments the data from current root servers, it would be up to the larger ISP's to decide to start using the new augmented service.
So, thoughts? Am I way off base here, is that really that simple? Thanks!
There's a your-mama-is-so-fat-joke just waiting to be written. In fact, your mama's so fat, that I don't even need to write the 'your mama's' joke about defining planets, because even the geeks on slashdot already been there, done that and got the t-shirt. It should be on thinkgeek by tomorrow.
I'm waiting for release 2. Then I'll upgrade to Vista. Just like all other windows editions, I'm sure it will be pretty well useless until then. Think about it: 95-R2, 98-SE, 2k-SP2, Millenium... nevermind.
Plus, I've got to give MS credit for the Acronym stuff here. When the do release the second ed of Vista professional, you can upgrade to Vista Pro Ed R2 (ViPER2). But until then, whe have ViBE and VUE.
But they still have room to learn. I am working as a defense contractor. The military KNOWS acronyms. The typical military man can't speak two consecutive sentences withuout any acronyms. I've been in conversations where there were no nouns ever used.
It has been open-sourced. You remember: "you show me yours and I'll show you mine."
Response 2:
Many people do make a great living in porn. But honestly, there is money to be made from people wanting to keep the porn closed-source. I typically use white envelopes, but people still call it blackmail. I never have figured out why.
No, no, no. That's not it at all. The correct line is:
"I can niether confirm, nor deny the existence of secret computers. However, if they did exist, I'm sure I couldn't tell you what OS they're running. And I'm sure I would have to kill you if I told you how they are assembled."
I'm waiting for the revolution... That's revolution as in wheel, not revolution as in speech.
Heres the road map: US workers are too expensive so US companies outsource jobs to India.
India becomes too expensive, so they outsource to Russia.
Russia becomes too, so they outsource to [another country].
Repeat ad nauseum until...
[Mid. o' Nowhere] becomes too expensive, so they outsource jobs to... the US.
I will call this assertion More's law. I propose that this cycle will double in frequency every 18 months. It will be become so rapid that every country in the chain will only add 1 character, then only 1 bit.
This will continue until no real work will be done. There will be an infinate loop of new contracts circling the globe every few hours. The only way to break the loop is run out of lawyers. The matrix was so close, it was actually lawyers, not robots that envslaved humanity. Now we know, so we can stop it.
Slashdot Mirror
Have you considered work as a traveling salesman?
The Murphy data destruction technique is effective, but your missing the third requirement: the must also be a pressing deadline.
It bugged me when I was in school that there wasn't an option for Applied CS in my undergrad program. Then I got into industry and found that the majority of my useful skills were derived from subjects that I taught myself to make me a well-rounded engineer. I felt a little short-changed by my education. However, as my skills aged, I found that I was leaning more and more and my theoretical skills to supplement my abilities and keep up with the fresh meat that came behind me. As I moved up, practical skills were pushed aside as I made use of concepts to help design and diagnose the systems that I develop. In short, like most things, the real answer isn't 'either/or' but rather both. You need to give the students a full tool box that works now, works later, and provides a way to make the box bigger quickly and easily. And a student that doesn't want both sets (theory and practice) probably shouldn't attempt either.
That reminds me of an old limerick. Sing along if you know it...
Taco,
Burrito,
What's that in your Speedo?
But in this case, it should be...
Jobs,
or Gates,
Who designed your Speedo?
Maybe it doesn't rhyme, but now all of you are thinking of Bill Gates in a thong. Ha.
I don't know which is more sad: the fact that a joke about a modem over VoIP made me laugh, or the fact that for a second, a brief second, I actually considered doing it.
The only consolation I get is that I know at least 3 moderators did the same thing.
That is completely NOT the reason for suing in this case; money is not the reason. Property damages in this case are pretty much nil. This suit, this action brought by the EFF is not about TAKING from ATT, but rather GIVING ATT a BUSINESS reason for rejecting warrentless FBI/NSA/CIA/HRMGWB(His Royal Majesty) orders. The EFF is looking for eight or nine figure punative damages to raise the cost of just rolling over.
Currently, the accountable cost -- those costs that can be expensed and planned for in actuarial tables -- of allowing the searches is paltry. Fighting it has a real cost, specifically lawyers fees and court costs. The cost of doing nothing will make cooperating an easy choice for ATT executives until the twerps are shown the cost of violating MY rights. I say my rights because I doubt they would acquiesce if it was their phone in the order.
You need to remember that justice is sometime about more than correcting a wrong, but also about prevention.
As cool as this is, I'm still waiting for my spiked dog colar, you know, to complete my goth look.
Think about it: to get your data, all you would do is connect your leash to your computer. How is that different than what we all do any way. At least this way no one has any illusions about your commitment.
Wow! Where do I begin to comment on that? Your first assertion, that companies will calculate the cost of failure versus the cost of prevention, is completely true; that is why and how insurance works. Alternatively, that is why punitive damages tend to be so high in the most egregious court cases; the court is trying to tilt the equation in favor of humanity -- hot cups of coffee not withstanding.
.com boom. That figure has probably only gotten worse. Keep in mind, only than 15 years ago, 'the web' didn't exist. Now, my office virtually halts when e-mail stops or a fileserver crashes. Imagine your day if suddenly all of the computers became unusable. How does your office fair?
.com boom has allowed companies to turn system administration and helpdesk support into commodity jobs and consequently also low-skill jobs. Unfortunately, these types often have never been taught proper security practices. This class of worker learns only from experience. It's like expecting the construction workers to calculate the structural soundness of a skyscraper.
That being said, the value of data has increased exponentially in the past 5 to 10 years and companies have not fully accounted for that rapid shift. I saw a study a few years ago that said at least half (but I seem to recall that it was more like 90%) of all business will go out-of-business within 1 year of a major data loss. That was before the
As for IT techs being underpaid, that has very little to do with the value of the work you are doing. It has much more to do with the number of you that are doing the work. It is a classic economic supply and demand problem: an abundance of paper technicians (MCSE, A+, etc), 18-year-old 'ub3r g33ks' and other money-driven late-comers to the
But what scares me more than a lack of real investment in security within the private sector, is the lack of investment in security by the public sector. I used to work in 'cyber security' for a major governmental research organization. The department has quite a reputation for the quality of its security infrastructure research, but the department is still only 10 regular employees and about 30 summer interns. And the department's budget was provided by and was a significant portion of the cyber security expenditures for a few of the major US departments. A major cyber security gaff at a blue chip would strain the US economy, but a major cyber security attack on public utilities could cripple North America (Canada, I'm looking in your direction too...).
I'm off my soap box now. Thank you for your attention. You may now resume your hacking activities.
I was, once upon a time, a young developer in the same position. I had a fast computer, dual flat screens, and free reign to do as I pleased. Here is what I found to be most helpful (assuming you are using KDE/Gnome, but should be appropriate to most desktop environments):
* Create key bindings. If you don't go to the mouse as often, not only will you be more productive, but you will also prevent RSI's. I could open a terminal window, browser, maximize both, and move either to another virtual desktop with just two fingers on the left hand.
* speaking of virtual desktops, Use virtual desktops. I like having everything maximized, but I quickly run out of space that way. Normally, I have the terminals on one desktop, the code on another, my reference documents/browser windows on the third, and then the forth for everything else --normally a running version of the project I'm fixing. Figure out what apps you use most, and designate a v.desk to each which makes it easier for the mind to find that information it was looking for.
* Love the terminal window. By making use of aliases, scripts and various other 'hacks,' most tasks can be boiled down to a handful of keystrokes. It is worth the time to learn either shell scripting and/or perl so that more complicated tasks can still be done rapidly with a reduced chance of error.
* Thing about the ergonomics. You are obviously a professional computer jockey, otherwise you wouldn't have dual monitors being driven by linux. Until your computer responds to 'computer,' you're going to need your wrists, so take five minutes to consider how you could improve the layout to minimize the chances of an RSI or other strains and pains -- this includes neck strains which is a very common pain resulting from dual monitors. Although this is not a time saving tip per se, it will add years to your useful geek life.
Well, that is all of the advice I can think of right now. The most important thing you need to consider is ways to eliminate repetition. Anytime I type anything more than 3 times, or click an icon that is more than 2 levels deep, I will consider, if only for a second, alternative means to envoking that task.
Good luck and good hunting.
The pottery barn rule comes to mind: you break it, it is yours. Or at least that's the way it is when I am tweaking the legacy code.
My boss on the other hand, it's more like the bull in china shop. Heck if I know how he got in there, but I know there is going to be heck to pay in the morning.
[bush] Then the terrorist have won. [/bush]
[news broadcast sometime in the future...]
NASA was all smiles today as the Opportunity and Spirit mission was declared a fantastic success. After decades of being left untouched by human hands, this project has finally come to an end. Having scoured every square mile of the Martian terrain, NASA officials decided to give the two bots one last task before being collected by astronauts and taken to the Smithsonian. This is an historic picture of the Spirit rover taken by the Opportunity rover. And here is a glimpse of Opportunity brought to you from Spirit.
Following these pictures, NASA scientist, without the approval of NASA administrators, finally did what every boy had been dreaming about since the bots were first launched: Interplanetary demolition derby! And amazingly, neither bot was harmed. This just goes to show that with a good Spirit and a little Opportunity, as long as you live to tell about it, anything is possible.
Have him. He's a total mooch. He uses my computer all night, eats all my food, and keeps demanding stuff 'for school.' Heck, I've read your comments several times; do you want the rest of 'em, too?
and before the flamebait police come out, no I don't really have kids. I'm a 20-something that has been smart enough to avoid them. My parents raised me better than that. They kept telling me that if I really want children, I should go out and buy them -- or, in the case of the parent comment, simply ask for them.
I'm having difficulty creating the punchline here, but there are many out there.
Here goes setup one:
So this penguin walks into a barn and asks the cow, "...
And setup two:
Two farmers are sitting on the front stoop when one sees a penguin walking in the barn. He turns to the other farmer and asks, "...
I can't come up with the end of those jokes, but I know that they are leading somplace that is just good clean fun.
But I see everyone is resisting the joke that is on all of our minds, so I'm going to go ahead and do it...
In Soviet Russia, the cow milks the penguin!
Unless the new recieptionist is named Steve. Then you may wish to just stop checking you e-mail for a while... or perhaps just change e-mail addresses... perhaps you should consider also changing the bit to the right of the at sign.
That is, unless you're a woman. Then, regardless of the sex of recieptionist, you just hit the judicial lottery, baby! Congrats!
[to the company known as microsoft] Who are and what have you done with my ne'er-do-well, soulless big brother?
Really now. An MS two-fer: first they agree to help real networks distribution, and now they're doing the same for yahoo. Now you can't even trust the back-stabber to do his job properly. What's next--is the mob going to start threatening to ruin credit scores if you fail to pay your debts?
If the quality is poor, find other music. Do you have any idea how many CD's are made daily. If you don't like the pop junk on the radio, go find other artists. I've got some very recent CD's by artists that I found by going to local indie concerts. I listen to internet radio, listening for new artists that I like. When I find an artist/band that I like, I buy the CD to support the artist.
If you think the CD's are expensive, then, well, perhaps you ought to go read a little Adam Smith. I know, the recording industry may be colluding to set the price artificially high(which is a much better argument against the RIAA), but that is no reason for you to break the law also.
There are alternatives if you don't like paying high prices. Listen to the radio more; make your own music; get satellite radio; read more. Yes, it is nice to have control over the music you listen to, but you need to pay for that right. You need to decide how much you like that right.
Now that I've ranted, I would like to say thank you to Ms Anderson.[golf clap] It is about time someone found a lawyer willing to give the RIAA a taste of the same BS they've been shoving down our collective throats for the past few years. Where do I donate to the cause?
You picked the wrong day to post this question. The people reading today are the geeks et al. that gave up on office politics long ago and/or never cared to begin with.
I suspect the good answers will come on Monday. The people that will give you the right answers only read slashdot at work...
Okay, I'm not a know it all, but I'd like to think I know quite a bit in this area. So I'd like to throw some ideas out, because I'm interested in the oft insightful freedback from /..
Okay, first thought: this wouldn't cause a split in the net, just in the Internet's DNS system. Although this would be bad, it isn't the end of the world (wide web). One simple work around, is that consumers could use multiple DNS servers, depending on which root server the intended site is using. Inconvenient, yes; impossible, no.
That being said, my second thought is this: what is keeping the US as the authority? Might I suggest that this is a case of build it and they will come. It seems to me that if some international org. starts an alternative name service, perhaps one that simply augments the data from current root servers, it would be up to the larger ISP's to decide to start using the new augmented service.
So, thoughts? Am I way off base here, is that really that simple? Thanks!
There's a your-mama-is-so-fat-joke just waiting to be written. In fact, your mama's so fat, that I don't even need to write the 'your mama's' joke about defining planets, because even the geeks on slashdot already been there, done that and got the t-shirt. It should be on thinkgeek by tomorrow.
I'm sorry, when you say 'broken floppy,' do you mean the laptop's, or your own?
Although, I would be willing to over look a few things to find a chick that dug OS/2, or at least knew enough to understand why that was funny.
I'm waiting for release 2. Then I'll upgrade to Vista. Just like all other windows editions, I'm sure it will be pretty well useless until then. Think about it: 95-R2, 98-SE, 2k-SP2, Millenium... nevermind. Plus, I've got to give MS credit for the Acronym stuff here. When the do release the second ed of Vista professional, you can upgrade to Vista Pro Ed R2 (ViPER2). But until then, whe have ViBE and VUE. But they still have room to learn. I am working as a defense contractor. The military KNOWS acronyms. The typical military man can't speak two consecutive sentences withuout any acronyms. I've been in conversations where there were no nouns ever used.
Response 1:
It has been open-sourced. You remember: "you show me yours and I'll show you mine."
Response 2:
Many people do make a great living in porn. But honestly, there is money to be made from people wanting to keep the porn closed-source. I typically use white envelopes, but people still call it blackmail. I never have figured out why.
No, no, no. That's not it at all. The correct line is: "I can niether confirm, nor deny the existence of secret computers. However, if they did exist, I'm sure I couldn't tell you what OS they're running. And I'm sure I would have to kill you if I told you how they are assembled."
I'm waiting for the revolution... That's revolution as in wheel, not revolution as in speech.
Heres the road map:
US workers are too expensive so US companies outsource jobs to India.
India becomes too expensive, so they outsource to Russia.
Russia becomes too, so they outsource to [another country].
Repeat ad nauseum until...
[Mid. o' Nowhere] becomes too expensive, so they outsource jobs to... the US.
I will call this assertion More's law. I propose that this cycle will double in frequency every 18 months. It will be become so rapid that every country in the chain will only add 1 character, then only 1 bit.
This will continue until no real work will be done. There will be an infinate loop of new contracts circling the globe every few hours. The only way to break the loop is run out of lawyers. The matrix was so close, it was actually lawyers, not robots that envslaved humanity. Now we know, so we can stop it.