Passwords do need to be written down, and stored in "escrow". I put the list of passwords in an envelope, lick seal it, sign and date the seam, and then seal it again with clear packing tape. Give it to the boss to put in his safe.
Just posted the same piece of advice earlier in the thread. It IS good policy.
Something I found to be VERY good policy that was implemented at my former position (as Network Admin) was to hand to the boss (CEO, CIO or whatever) a sealed envelope with EVERY relevant password (most importantly the admin password:) ), to be held in the company's vaults (if your company has such a thing of course, or similar).
Whenever an important password was changed, I would hand over the new envelope:)
But if the Japanese made a car called Nigger-Mobile which they may be fine with and decide to sell it over in the US do you not think that is a bit silly?
Actually, Mitsubishi did something of the sort over here (South America). They sold a Mitsubishi SUV with a name that meant "jerkoff" in the local (Argentinean/Uruguayan) Spanish dialect (the Mitsubishi Pajero). They had to change it's name over here.
god forbid there's any dot matrix or thermal printers...)
Almost every business over here (Uruguay, South America) still relies on dot matrix printers for billing.
Small wonder that those businesses that do purchase Windows don't migrate, most of them since Windows 2000 or before, those set up after stay at XP and won't touch Vista with a ten foot pole.
not to mention the Microsoft tax is VERY expensive, after we got pricing from Microsoft of Server 2008 and the CALs the department head was joking about migrating to Linux - not that it is likely to happen, with our core business app being windows-only.
Craigslist any 2+ ghz P4 1gb system for ~$100 and you should be able to play City of Heroes
2Ghz 1GB is in no way useful... it's my own desktop's specs. (Well, 1.9Ghz to be exact.)
Even without Heroes, day to day operations are slow on XP SP2 (even 2.0 versions of firefox run very slowly, let alone play running are very ).
Eh? I have a 2 GHz AMD Sempron with 1 GB of RAM at home, and it works smoothly. Not sure what you're trying to do, but I surf the web, do some occasional programming and play Magic Online (nothing 3D).
I suspect it would be slow for 3D games, but not for everyday stuff (and I open a TON of tabs on Firefox 3).
My newer phones have all been stolen:( - I've been mugged for a bad camera/mp3 phone over here, it's pathetic, so I refuse to buy a new one.
I thought I was safe carrying this old phone, now it might be even more of a target than a new phone, how ironic (though this kind of stuff is not happening here in Uruguay - we're still 5-10 years behind Europe as always).
They also have ca. 10x the write performance and ca. 2x the read performance of the no-name one I picked up in a supermarket for the same price, as well, so I'd also have to agree that USB drives are not yet an "undifferentiated commodity".
As the owner of a cheap memory, yes, they're far slower writing that brand name ones. I still haven't bothered to spend on a better one, though.
A simple solution : print an access code on tickets you receive when buying some food. Should only be unique and valid for a couple of minutes. Access code expired ? Buy more stuff or get the hell out ! Solved.
That's what they do in Argentina, though it's only valid for onsite PC's, not wireless.
So is your good friend a giant hypocrite? If it is so terrible that she won't eat it, why is she willing to inflict it on the rest of us?
There are lots of people like that. A (house) painter I know used to work at a noodle factory... he refuses to eat noodles. Same for people who know the insides of certain kitchens, etc.
If they are allowed to lie, then I'm allowed to lie too. That makes it an even playing field in the adversarial legal system, where virtually anything goes.
Sounds like you guys (US) are "losing" in the prisoner's dilemma-style social life:(
An US-trained teacher once exemplified the difference between US culture and ours by saying that you (US people) expect to cooperate, and are more willing to sacrifice in exchange for higher rewards, while we over here (Uruguay, South America) are more content with mediocrity.
Has it never been that way, or has it changed recently?
A recent study found many accesses that were probably unauthorized. As far as they can tell, a significant portion of local police will think nothing of using the system to look up famous people's information. Of course, that's only been identified by looking for searches on famous names. An ex-girlfriend, Wife's new boyfriend, etc, there is no telling.
-Steve
As someone who had access to lots of confidential information (much like any sysadmin), I can say that the temptation to snoop on public figures and personal relations is indeed great.
For this level of invasion of privacy (cameras are even greater invasions of privacy IMO than financial records), there should be a very good justification, which I think there isn't, else the abuses will easily overwhelm the benefits (perceived or otherwise).
Basically: Given the choice I would almost rather be imprisoned/watched by an entity with an agenda rather than a decentralized, inept morass of bureaucracy. I fear that is what we are moving toward, however. See Red Light Cameras as an example.
Hmm... I'm really not sure (I'd prefer neither), but I think Frank Herbert would have chosen the former... do we need a Bureau of Sabotage now? Paging Jorj X. McKie:)
Yes, that is a dumb question. Most city buses have a rack for bikes. European countries also have racks on their trains. Time to get out of your little slice of suburbia, no?
There are Slashdot readers outside the US and Europe (like myself). I've never seen a bike rack in South America (that would be urban Buenos Aires, Montevideo and Porto Alegre that don't have bike racks) - there are some trains that do allow bikes in Argentina, and I've seen them in Vienna, Austria but that's it.
By the way, thanks for the answers, I do appreciate them.
I don't have experience with so many countries as you (I would say about 10 in my case). But my conclusions were different.
Spain, for example: nice country, great people... but few (right now probably none) jobs and insane housing pricing (compared to the typical income).
My oldest brother lived in Barcelona. It's a great city, but as you say, housing costs are insane, and there are no jobs right now (Spain is doing very badly). I said I'd have no problem fitting in Spain, not that it would be a good idea to move there:) . Actually I wouldn't move to any of the countries on my list right now due to the economic crisis.
Netherlands: interesting country overall, friendly people, nice cities... but too crowded, too boring, too many weird foreigners, uninteresting food.
I only stayed for a day in Amsterdam, so I can't say, but it probably is too crowded and weird.
Canada: it depends on the city, but overall there's material comfort and it's easier to maintain oneself (IF you're a canadian, I mean) and that's it. But I've felt people there as disturbingly superficial and materialistic.
The same brother that lived in Barcelona is now living in Toronto, and he'd really like to move back to Europe, he feels much as you do, that there's no culture in Canada (even though it's better than the US). But I'm strongly considering doing the paperwork to move there... just as with Spain, I probably won't due to the crisis, but I could probably make 4x as much as I'm doing right now.
My knowlege on Uruguay is quite limited, but my perception is that's a OK and stable country. It's a place I would give some thought had I an opportunity there (and I'm doing fine where I am).
I'm obviously biased, but IMO Uruguay is the best place in South America to live, as long as you can earn a decent wage, since it's also one of the most expensive - for example, cars are the most expensive IN THE WORLD, and rent is half what you'd pay in a 1st world country, with average salaries not being one-fourth of what you make in a 1st world country, so the actual cost of living is tremendous. Add to that the new "income tax", and it doesn't make much sense. I earn about U$ 2.000 pre-tax (and retirement & health compulsory "savings"), and I get U$ 1.000 after taxes and all that, which isn't nearly enough for anything: a decent rent is U$ 400 which for a third world country is insane, a new car is U$ 13.000 upwards and it's not realistic to finance due to the high risk of a collapse of the local currency, etc, etc. OTOH actually buying a house would be cheap.
That's why I was asking about the UAE: a couple of years in the Emirates while saving could probably buy me a house and opening my own company (which is a fine idea, but I really can't at the moment). I don't have family or a girlfriend or anything so I wouldn't have that much of a problem leaving. I do have a good (for the country) job, though.
Whoa whoa whoa... Please do not use "South America" as if it were some kind of homogeneous zone, because it is not.
Have you some experience abroad? There's a little thing about cultural differences. Depending of the country you're going to, language barrier may be your least concern.
BTW which country are you from?
I'm from Uruguay, which isn't much like the rest of South America... but most people wouldn't know, in my experience the rest of the world DOES lump South (or Latin) America together
I've visited about 40 countries (though most of them are the small European countries so they do not count), about all of Europe and quite a bit of the Americas. I've lived for a few months in Vienna, Austria (and I liked it), and been in Canada for a few months (and liked it, a little less than Austria, but it had the huge advantage of no language barrier).
I don't think I'd have any problem fitting in the US, Australia or Canada, and probably not on the UK or Spain either... a little less comfortably on Germany or Austria, and I'd have more cultural differences elsewhere.
He's still right. What you're saying is basically akin to saying that the air in a car is "recycled" because it's not moving 100% of the air mass at all times. (snip)
When people speak of "recycled air" on an airplane they seem to think that aircraft are like submarines, completely airtight, and the only air is that which you had when you took off from the runway.
I guess either I misunderstood, or you did, but I wasn't thinking of "recycled air" in the submarine sense.
The OP spoke about getting infected from recycled air. Zippthorne said it was a myth. My answer quotes two articles which address the fear of contagion, and they seem to take for granted that the possibility exists:
All planes use HEPA (High Efficiency
Particle Air) filters to remove dust, bacteria, and viruses As the proportion of recirculated air provided for ventilation
is increased, energy savings can be experienced at the
same time as health risks raised.
of particular
concern in this setting is the increased risk of disease transmission... if any of the passengers should happen
to be ill with a disease which is communicable via air
(HOLLAND, 1996; SEXTON, 1993.
Recirculated air is usually filtered before being mixed
with outside air for return to the passenger cabin. However,
the efficiency of the filters used for this purpose varies with
airline policy from 90% for 0.5 μm particles (European
Union (EU) 9 classification) to 99.97% for 0.3 μm diameter
particles (EU 13, or high efficiency particulate air â" HEPA â"
filters))
According to the quoted articles, the filters should help stop propagation of viruses due to recirculation (as long as they're HEPA compliant or better), but the threat exists (mostly thanks to being an enclosed space with lots of people, not due to the recirculation).
Then pack the fuck up and leave. Nobody is stopping you.
The United Arab Emirates have a 0% tax rate; perhaps you should consider immigrating there.
Do they? Really? Would they accept qualified programmers from South America?
By the way, I'm not just kidding - I'm actually interested. I'd rather live on my country than on the UAE, but I don't like being taxed to death (and I'm actually trying to do something about it aka being involved in politics)
If English is acceptable as a working language I could manage... I don't know a word of Arab, so if that's necessary then I'm screwed.
It looks like something out of MIT's Technology Review (far-off sensationalist, yet plausible in a sci-fi sort of way)... but this is the kind of article I'd enjoy seeing more often here on Slashdot
Props to the submitter.
By the way, if this is even one-tenth as good as it looks in the article, it'll be awesome. For example, from the article:
One example is the recovery of a nearly blind sixteen-year-old girl, Macie Morse, who recently got her learnerâ(TM)s permit and started driving.
She came to one of our hospitals for treatment in July 2006, with 20/4,000 vision in one eye and only light perception in the other due to optic nerve hypoplasia.
After treatment, Macie now has 20/80 vision in one eye and 20/400-plus in the other!
That's unlikely to work, at least in anything like bittorrent's current form, because these users don't own their own computers and network connections.
It is true that there are a lot more net cafés over here (here = Uruguay, South America) than in the US on average, but at least over here, 1/3rd of the population owns a computer (that includes children and elderly), though a lot of those are OLPCs.
"Broadband" (if it can be called that) would collapse, though, we're already quite strained as it is.
Whatever happened to the multicast idea?
BTW I saw a mention of SopCast somewhere in this thread, I second the idea...
Most everyone else I work with has a background in software development, not finance. They need to have simple things like "if you issue a floater off of a fixed rate pool, you need to also issue an inverse floater" explained to them. To me that's just common sense.
I've been saying that pure software development should give way to a domain specific training + software development for ages.
It's what happens in practice anyways: you either start as a developer and acquire domain-specific knowledge (in my case, insurance and finance sector) or you start with the domain-specific knowledge and learn to hack your way through Excel and Access:) - plenty of agronomers (agronomics?) I know are going that way, they spend more time in front of Excel than on the field:)
A forward thinking IT professional knows to leave some slack in the cables, otherwise plate tectonics makes fools of us all.
I guess it depends on where you live - haven't had an earthquake here in the last millennium or so (though leaving some slack is probably always a good idea)
Slashdot Mirror
Passwords do need to be written down, and stored in "escrow". I put the list of passwords in an envelope, lick seal it, sign and date the seam, and then seal it again with clear packing tape. Give it to the boss to put in his safe.
Just posted the same piece of advice earlier in the thread. It IS good policy.
Something I found to be VERY good policy that was implemented at my former position (as Network Admin) was to hand to the boss (CEO, CIO or whatever) a sealed envelope with EVERY relevant password (most importantly the admin password :) ), to be held in the company's vaults (if your company has such a thing of course, or similar).
:)
Whenever an important password was changed, I would hand over the new envelope
But if the Japanese made a car called Nigger-Mobile which they may be fine with and decide to sell it over in the US do you not think that is a bit silly?
Actually, Mitsubishi did something of the sort over here (South America). They sold a Mitsubishi SUV with a name that meant "jerkoff" in the local (Argentinean/Uruguayan) Spanish dialect (the Mitsubishi Pajero). They had to change it's name over here.
god forbid there's any dot matrix or thermal printers...)
Almost every business over here (Uruguay, South America) still relies on dot matrix printers for billing.
Small wonder that those businesses that do purchase Windows don't migrate, most of them since Windows 2000 or before, those set up after stay at XP and won't touch Vista with a ten foot pole.
not to mention the Microsoft tax is VERY expensive, after we got pricing from Microsoft of Server 2008 and the CALs the department head was joking about migrating to Linux - not that it is likely to happen, with our core business app being windows-only.
2Ghz 1GB is in no way useful... it's my own desktop's specs. (Well, 1.9Ghz to be exact.)
Even without Heroes, day to day operations are slow on XP SP2 (even 2.0 versions of firefox run very slowly, let alone play running are very ).
Eh? I have a 2 GHz AMD Sempron with 1 GB of RAM at home, and it works smoothly. Not sure what you're trying to do, but I surf the web, do some occasional programming and play Magic Online (nothing 3D).
I suspect it would be slow for 3D games, but not for everyday stuff (and I open a TON of tabs on Firefox 3).
Is this one particular factory in China, by some chance?
No, if you happened to read the article you'd find out it was the Bochum, Germany factory.
LOL I have one too.
:( - I've been mugged for a bad camera/mp3 phone over here, it's pathetic, so I refuse to buy a new one.
My newer phones have all been stolen
I thought I was safe carrying this old phone, now it might be even more of a target than a new phone, how ironic (though this kind of stuff is not happening here in Uruguay - we're still 5-10 years behind Europe as always).
They also have ca. 10x the write performance and ca. 2x the read performance of the no-name one I picked up in a supermarket for the same price, as well, so I'd also have to agree that USB drives are not yet an "undifferentiated commodity".
As the owner of a cheap memory, yes, they're far slower writing that brand name ones. I still haven't bothered to spend on a better one, though.
A simple solution : print an access code on tickets you receive when buying some food. Should only be unique and valid for a couple of minutes. Access code expired ? Buy more stuff or get the hell out ! Solved.
That's what they do in Argentina, though it's only valid for onsite PC's, not wireless.
So is your good friend a giant hypocrite? If it is so terrible that she won't eat it, why is she willing to inflict it on the rest of us?
There are lots of people like that. A (house) painter I know used to work at a noodle factory... he refuses to eat noodles. Same for people who know the insides of certain kitchens, etc.
If they are allowed to lie, then I'm allowed to lie too. That makes it an even playing field in the adversarial legal system, where virtually anything goes.
Sounds like you guys (US) are "losing" in the prisoner's dilemma-style social life :(
An US-trained teacher once exemplified the difference between US culture and ours by saying that you (US people) expect to cooperate, and are more willing to sacrifice in exchange for higher rewards, while we over here (Uruguay, South America) are more content with mediocrity.
Has it never been that way, or has it changed recently?
A recent study found many accesses that were probably unauthorized. As far as they can tell, a significant portion of local police will think nothing of using the system to look up famous people's information. Of course, that's only been identified by looking for searches on famous names. An ex-girlfriend, Wife's new boyfriend, etc, there is no telling.
-Steve
As someone who had access to lots of confidential information (much like any sysadmin), I can say that the temptation to snoop on public figures and personal relations is indeed great.
For this level of invasion of privacy (cameras are even greater invasions of privacy IMO than financial records), there should be a very good justification, which I think there isn't, else the abuses will easily overwhelm the benefits (perceived or otherwise).
Basically: Given the choice I would almost rather be imprisoned/watched by an entity with an agenda rather than a decentralized, inept morass of bureaucracy. I fear that is what we are moving toward, however. See Red Light Cameras as an example.
Hmm... I'm really not sure (I'd prefer neither), but I think Frank Herbert would have chosen the former... do we need a Bureau of Sabotage now? Paging Jorj X. McKie :)
You can build a very small house in Montevideo (Uruguay) for that money (you need to have the land first, though).
:P ), so 250 square foot would be an improvement :)
And, for the record, I live in an 170 square foot apartment (makes your mother's basement look roomy
Yes, that is a dumb question. Most city buses have a rack for bikes. European countries also have racks on their trains. Time to get out of your little slice of suburbia, no?
There are Slashdot readers outside the US and Europe (like myself). I've never seen a bike rack in South America (that would be urban Buenos Aires, Montevideo and Porto Alegre that don't have bike racks) - there are some trains that do allow bikes in Argentina, and I've seen them in Vienna, Austria but that's it.
I don't have experience with so many countries as you (I would say about 10 in my case). But my conclusions were different.
Spain, for example: nice country, great people... but few (right now probably none) jobs and insane housing pricing (compared to the typical income).
My oldest brother lived in Barcelona. It's a great city, but as you say, housing costs are insane, and there are no jobs right now (Spain is doing very badly). I said I'd have no problem fitting in Spain, not that it would be a good idea to move there :) . Actually I wouldn't move to any of the countries on my list right now due to the economic crisis.
Netherlands: interesting country overall, friendly people, nice cities... but too crowded, too boring, too many weird foreigners, uninteresting food.
I only stayed for a day in Amsterdam, so I can't say, but it probably is too crowded and weird.
Canada: it depends on the city, but overall there's material comfort and it's easier to maintain oneself (IF you're a canadian, I mean) and that's it. But I've felt people there as disturbingly superficial and materialistic.
The same brother that lived in Barcelona is now living in Toronto, and he'd really like to move back to Europe, he feels much as you do, that there's no culture in Canada (even though it's better than the US). But I'm strongly considering doing the paperwork to move there... just as with Spain, I probably won't due to the crisis, but I could probably make 4x as much as I'm doing right now.
My knowlege on Uruguay is quite limited, but my perception is that's a OK and stable country. It's a place I would give some thought had I an opportunity there (and I'm doing fine where I am).
I'm obviously biased, but IMO Uruguay is the best place in South America to live, as long as you can earn a decent wage, since it's also one of the most expensive - for example, cars are the most expensive IN THE WORLD, and rent is half what you'd pay in a 1st world country, with average salaries not being one-fourth of what you make in a 1st world country, so the actual cost of living is tremendous. Add to that the new "income tax", and it doesn't make much sense. I earn about U$ 2.000 pre-tax (and retirement & health compulsory "savings"), and I get U$ 1.000 after taxes and all that, which isn't nearly enough for anything: a decent rent is U$ 400 which for a third world country is insane, a new car is U$ 13.000 upwards and it's not realistic to finance due to the high risk of a collapse of the local currency, etc, etc. OTOH actually buying a house would be cheap.
That's why I was asking about the UAE: a couple of years in the Emirates while saving could probably buy me a house and opening my own company (which is a fine idea, but I really can't at the moment). I don't have family or a girlfriend or anything so I wouldn't have that much of a problem leaving. I do have a good (for the country) job, though.
Whoa whoa whoa... Please do not use "South America" as if it were some kind of homogeneous zone, because it is not.
Have you some experience abroad? There's a little thing about cultural differences. Depending of the country you're going to, language barrier may be your least concern.
BTW which country are you from?
I'm from Uruguay, which isn't much like the rest of South America... but most people wouldn't know, in my experience the rest of the world DOES lump South (or Latin) America together
I've visited about 40 countries (though most of them are the small European countries so they do not count), about all of Europe and quite a bit of the Americas. I've lived for a few months in Vienna, Austria (and I liked it), and been in Canada for a few months (and liked it, a little less than Austria, but it had the huge advantage of no language barrier).
I don't think I'd have any problem fitting in the US, Australia or Canada, and probably not on the UK or Spain either... a little less comfortably on Germany or Austria, and I'd have more cultural differences elsewhere.
He's still right. What you're saying is basically akin to saying that the air in a car is "recycled" because it's not moving 100% of the air mass at all times. (snip)
When people speak of "recycled air" on an airplane they seem to think that aircraft are like submarines, completely airtight, and the only air is that which you had when you took off from the runway.
I guess either I misunderstood, or you did, but I wasn't thinking of "recycled air" in the submarine sense.
The OP spoke about getting infected from recycled air. Zippthorne said it was a myth. My answer quotes two articles which address the fear of contagion, and they seem to take for granted that the possibility exists:
All planes use HEPA (High Efficiency Particle Air) filters to remove dust, bacteria, and viruses
As the proportion of recirculated air provided for ventilation is increased, energy savings can be experienced at the same time as health risks raised.
of particular concern in this setting is the increased risk of disease transmission... if any of the passengers should happen to be ill with a disease which is communicable via air (HOLLAND, 1996; SEXTON, 1993.
Recirculated air is usually filtered before being mixed with outside air for return to the passenger cabin. However, the efficiency of the filters used for this purpose varies with airline policy from 90% for 0.5 μm particles (European Union (EU) 9 classification) to 99.97% for 0.3 μm diameter particles (EU 13, or high efficiency particulate air â" HEPA â" filters))
According to the quoted articles, the filters should help stop propagation of viruses due to recirculation (as long as they're HEPA compliant or better), but the threat exists (mostly thanks to being an enclosed space with lots of people, not due to the recirculation).
Then pack the fuck up and leave. Nobody is stopping you.
The United Arab Emirates have a 0% tax rate; perhaps you should consider immigrating there.
Do they? Really? Would they accept qualified programmers from South America?
By the way, I'm not just kidding - I'm actually interested. I'd rather live on my country than on the UAE, but I don't like being taxed to death (and I'm actually trying to do something about it aka being involved in politics)
If English is acceptable as a working language I could manage... I don't know a word of Arab, so if that's necessary then I'm screwed.
Ok, we need to put a stop to this myth like thirty years ago.
THE AIR ON PLANES ISN'T RECYCLED.
It seems your information is outdated. Once again, Google to the rescue:
http://www.scientificjournals.com/sj/espr/Pdf/aId/2518
Quoting:
Today some 50% of commercial passen- ger aircraft use recirculated air for ventilation of the passenger cabin
also here: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/travel/air/handbook/part3/section-3.html
Newer airplanes recirculate part of the cabin air (up to 50%) to save fuel, in contrast with older planes, which use all fresh air ventilation.
and a small article here:
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Health/story?id=1213901&page=1
Using that logic the Nazi's had balls too.
Other than Godwin-ing the thread... you think they didn't?
What they didn't have was ethics (or morals).
Props to the submitter.
By the way, if this is even one-tenth as good as it looks in the article, it'll be awesome. For example, from the article:
One example is the recovery of a nearly blind sixteen-year-old girl, Macie Morse, who recently got her learnerâ(TM)s permit and started driving.
She came to one of our hospitals for treatment in July 2006, with 20/4,000 vision in one eye and only light perception in the other due to optic nerve hypoplasia.
After treatment, Macie now has 20/80 vision in one eye and 20/400-plus in the other!
That's unlikely to work, at least in anything like bittorrent's current form, because these users don't own their own computers and network connections.
It is true that there are a lot more net cafés over here (here = Uruguay, South America) than in the US on average, but at least over here, 1/3rd of the population owns a computer (that includes children and elderly), though a lot of those are OLPCs.
"Broadband" (if it can be called that) would collapse, though, we're already quite strained as it is.
Whatever happened to the multicast idea?
BTW I saw a mention of SopCast somewhere in this thread, I second the idea...
Most everyone else I work with has a background in software development, not finance. They need to have simple things like "if you issue a floater off of a fixed rate pool, you need to also issue an inverse floater" explained to them. To me that's just common sense.
I've been saying that pure software development should give way to a domain specific training + software development for ages.
:) - plenty of agronomers (agronomics?) I know are going that way, they spend more time in front of Excel than on the field :)
It's what happens in practice anyways: you either start as a developer and acquire domain-specific knowledge (in my case, insurance and finance sector) or you start with the domain-specific knowledge and learn to hack your way through Excel and Access
A forward thinking IT professional knows to leave some slack in the cables, otherwise plate tectonics makes fools of us all.
I guess it depends on where you live - haven't had an earthquake here in the last millennium or so (though leaving some slack is probably always a good idea)