It's been almost 9 years since I dropped out of an engineering school. I have no degree, but I am a systems admin/programmer making decent money. While I'm not the head of my department, I have been at the company longer than anyone else in IT.
My first foot in the door was working for the school district in my hometown (I was well-known among the teachers for my computer skills) The position I'm in now was recommended by a then employee of the company who also happens to be my wife's cousin.
Neither of these positions even had an interview involved. The first job I was asked to start working immediately (The District Technology Coordinator, who I worked with as a student aide during my senior year, had just resigned, and as the only other person familiar with the systems, as was asked to assist her replacement)
The second I was encouraged to submit a resume. I did and was asked to visit. I was shown around the company and sent on my way. Shortly thereafter, I was asked if I was interested in a web design position until such time as a suitable replacement was found, at which point I was transferred into my current position.
It actually a bit of a paradox. By implementing better obfuscation, the code becomes unreadable, and therefore cannot be certified as being accurate.
Maybe the solution is to take it to a higher level and reinvent the wheel, so to speak.
Design it from the ground up. Special use processors, memory, OS, communications protocols. Redesign everything from scratch. Make it completely unique.
If it doesn't run code that works on ANY other platform, then no one outside the company can write code for it. (Unless there's a leak, and then the redesign process begins again.)
Exactly. It could easily have been the work of a repossessor looking for a little extra profit. It takes all of about 2 seconds for a repo-man's towing device to grab a vehicle.
That all depends on the type of nuclear weapon that is placed on the missile. A uranium or plutonium based fission weapon would leave radioactive fallout, whereas hydrogen based fusion weapons or neutron weapons would not (hydrogen based fusion produces helium, which is an inert gas). I don't think neutron weapons would be a good fit for this application.
In any case, the weapon used would likely be a very small tactical nuke, and at such an altitude, the comparatively small amount of fallout would be distibuted over a large area with only a marginal increase in the radioactivity that is normally present in the soil (unstable uranium is just about everywhere in trace amounts).
If you own a building and hang a sign outside saying "Open to the public" with the doors unlocked, do you need to post someone outside to explicitly tell people they can come in?
If you authorize access to the public either willingly or by ignorance, then you have allowed it to happen. Ignorance is not a defence.
The world is not here to hold your hand. In the real world, it is considered proper etiquette to ask first before doing something. We don't ask people sentenced to death, "Is it okay to kill you now?" Nor do we ask regular prisoners, "Is it okay to lock you up now?"
To use your first analogy, if someone urinates on your face and you consciously decide to do nothing about it, you have expressed your consent.
Just as the idea that anything not expressly denied is allowed is stupid, the idea that anything not expressly allowed is denied is stupid as well.
It is unfortunate that most Wi-Fi devices come configured without security enabled. I don't mean to insinuate that everyone who buys wireless equipment should know how to properly configure it, but they should at least know to contact someone who can, or at least read the manual.
A wireless router isn't going to just suddenly pop up on your network (although if it does, you have other problems to worry about). The act of placing it on your network and leaving it configured for open access is implied consent.
My desired requirements:
1) Korean MMO model
2) Non-browser based (I want a game client designed to utilize the hardware I have rather than catering to the lowest common denominator)
3) Quests/missions
4) Experience and levels
5) Universally acquirable skills
6) Spending real money has a marginal impact on gameplay
And while not necessarily "required", I would prefer the game to be focused on cooperative PvE rather than PvP.
These requirements eliminate all of the listed ones so far: Entropia - does not meet requirements 1, 3, 4, and 6. EVE - does not meet requirements 1, 4, and 6 Ultima Online - Never played, but assumed to not meet 1 and 6 (maybe more) Runescape - Never played, does not meet 2 and 6 (additional areas are only available to subscribers)
An example of a single-player RPG that handles 3, 4, and 5 would be Fable (but I would prefer more skills to be available)
I tried it. Unfortunately, without putting money into it, you won't get very far very fast. You start with no weapons and no money. You cannot fight unarmed, and it's nearly impossible to "gather sweat" without being killed. Even when you do, you have to then find someone who wants to buy it from you as it has no NPC value. After doing this an insane number of times, you'll be able to buy a gun and maybe some bullets. If you get really lucky, you'll be able to kill a creature (before it kills you) that hopefully will net more credits than it cost for the bullets. It never happened for me, so I was back to trying to gather sweat to buy some more bullets.
You can't even cash in on creatively killing creatures (such as leading them to drown) as it won't let you loot a body that you didn't kill.
You own a housing complex (internet connection) and decide to hire a doorman (buy and connect a wireless router).
By default, the behavior for the doorman is to open the door for everyone who wants to enter the building (open Wi-Fi connection)
You can instruct the doorman to only open the door for tenants of the building or for anyone on a specific list of names (access control list)
To further add to the analogy: The housing complex used to be a hotel and still has all of the original signage, thus passers-by would not be aware that it is no longer available for the public. It was the "Linksys Hotel".
For the record: I have a Netgear wireless router. When I set it up, the wireless was disabled by default. In other words, I was forced to configure it rather than just plugging it in.
Part of it, is that magic looks cooler than tech. It is not about guns being a long-range attack (most spells are long-range, as are arrows and throwing stars). A real issue with sci-fi RPGs is that there really isn't a fighter-type class since there are very few melee weapons in a sci-fi universe. They just to be more creative (perhaps even a hybrid).
What I would really like to see, though, is a game that completely eliminates the classes/jobs and provides every skill a la carte (and preferably using the Korean MMO model... free to play with premium real money items). Perhaps one already exists but I just don't know about it yet.
Since my budget does not include "gaming expenses" in it (games are purchased on a "Yay, we've got some extra money" basis), I only play MMO's that are free to play (such as MapleStory, Fly for Fun, and Space Cowboy Online)
Maybe someday I'll prove that the model works by buying something...
The "particular region" I refer to is the area that corresponds to each individual electoral vote.
If you do substitute "state" for "particular region", since there are 50 states, there would be 50 electoral votes, and each state would have an equal say regardless of land area or population.
Since the Senate and the House of Representatives are both part of the United States Congress, and Congressman is a valid term for referring to members of either, calling Ted Stevens a Congressman is a correct statement.
Why not do something logical such as "The winner of the popular vote in a particular region will have the corresponding electoral vote" or even "Each candidate will receive the proportion of votes determined by the popular vote")
Part of the reason the electoral college exists is so that areas of sparse population have as much voice as areas of dense population. The current system used where "The winner of the popular vote in a state gets all of the votes for the state" doesn't always reflect the will of the populace. The current system rewards marginal victories equally to landslide victories. If a candidate wins 60% of the population in a state, that candidate should be awarded 60% of the state's votes.
I'm not saying my proposal is flawless (large population centers could still be overruled by sparsely populated regions), but it would, at least, be better than what occurs now.
If you want to be the President, then you should have to win over the majority of the populace, not "just enough people" in a few key states.
But then again, I'd rather see more drastic changes. The government we need now is not the same as the government we needed in 1787 (when the design was written up).
I'm not saying that a company should not be allowed to restrict the usage of the paying customers, but they should not be allowed to restrict the usage because the other party (who is not directly connected to the company's network, but through their own ISP) because they haven't paid for the privledge of not having the user's requested traffic hindered.
If they were allowed to do this, what would prevent a company like Comcast from making it so that all traffic from Time-Warner Cable, COX, etc. would be reduced to, say... one bit per second? (Oh, it's not blocked. The web page will come up, eventually... snicker, snicker)
*Note: The companies used are only examples and in no way implies that they would actually do something like this.
What if you have audiobooks on your iPod? I can think of quite a few books (as well as music) that would fit in well in a bathroom. They are what you are doing in there... crap!
That is exactly how I would have described it. It is always trivial events. It is especially noticeable when it occurs while I'm at work. The "dream" may have occurred months prior to the actual event, but the people present may have only been with the company for a few days. It's a little odd to remember seeing people in my dreams months prior to actually meeting them.
Here's another interesting anecdote: My father once went to Seattle (and has only been there once). Even though he had never been there before, and was not told anything about what was good in the area or had a map, he knew his way around as well as knowing where specific restaurants were and how good the food was.
Just because we don't know the answers, doesn't mean that they aren't valid questions.
Another odd coincidence I've experienced recently: I started listening to a lot of Pink Floyd right about the time Syd Barrett's health began to fail (and leading to his death). I'm sure it's just a coincidence, but it is certainly strange.
I frequently have a "deja vu" type feeling. I will distinctly remember certain events (either conversations or placement of people/objects) with the memory lasting up to the point that, in the present, I recall the "precognition" My wife, and numerous others, claim to have the same type of experiences.
Additionally, my wife can "read" colors from my mind (i.e. I think of a color and she guesses, with very high accuracy, the correct color. And no, I don't think of simple colors like red, green, or blue, but more complex descriptions like fushia, cerulean, and viridian)
Granted that my comment is pure speculation, but I would imagine that the GPU in the Nintendo 64 (which was made by SGI) did support OpenGL. I would think it incredibly stupid to come up with a new API when you already have one made.
But yes, SGI needs to make something innovative (and highly desired) in order to recover.
On the other hand, if they do fail, wouldn't it be ironic if Cray, Inc. swept SGI's remains up?
Unless it looks like other well-known traffic, wouldn't it be a lot easier to block using a "I can't tell what this is, so just discard the packets"-type filter? The device filtering the traffic will see the session from start to finish, so it's not like it has to figure it out mid-session.
At which point a bellows was brought in to inflate the pig's lungs. The lab assistant pushes on the pig's chest and a sound is made which the head researcher interprets as "to blaive" (Which as we all know means "to bluff"), but his wife charges in proclaiming that the pig said "true love" and starts yelling things about Englebert Humperdinck (or something like that).
Judging by the way this (and related) technology works, wouldn't it be possible to augment a completely healthy adult with a computer? Obviously, this is something that could only be tested on humans. While other animals may be capable of thought, we cannot directly communicate with them enough to instruct them to make a "trivial"# thought repeatedly for a computer to "learn" the signal. We, however, do possess the ability to make a "trivial" thought repeatedly. Perhaps something like this would one day lead to computer-assisted telepathy. So far though, the biggest hurdle is that, at present, the computer interface is mainly read-only.
# A "trivial" thought in this context would be one that does not correspond to a normal physical action by the body. (Such as articulating a second set of arms, or "typing" without a keyboard by thinking of making the letters appear on screen)
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We've already got that covered. The actors don't need to be alive anymore to be in new movies.
It's been almost 9 years since I dropped out of an engineering school. I have no degree, but I am a systems admin/programmer making decent money. While I'm not the head of my department, I have been at the company longer than anyone else in IT.
My first foot in the door was working for the school district in my hometown (I was well-known among the teachers for my computer skills)
The position I'm in now was recommended by a then employee of the company who also happens to be my wife's cousin.
Neither of these positions even had an interview involved. The first job I was asked to start working immediately (The District Technology Coordinator, who I worked with as a student aide during my senior year, had just resigned, and as the only other person familiar with the systems, as was asked to assist her replacement)
The second I was encouraged to submit a resume. I did and was asked to visit. I was shown around the company and sent on my way. Shortly thereafter, I was asked if I was interested in a web design position until such time as a suitable replacement was found, at which point I was transferred into my current position.
It might if it was painted in the form of a mural...
It actually a bit of a paradox. By implementing better obfuscation, the code becomes unreadable, and therefore cannot be certified as being accurate.
Maybe the solution is to take it to a higher level and reinvent the wheel, so to speak.
Design it from the ground up. Special use processors, memory, OS, communications protocols. Redesign everything from scratch. Make it completely unique.
If it doesn't run code that works on ANY other platform, then no one outside the company can write code for it. (Unless there's a leak, and then the redesign process begins again.)
Exactly. It could easily have been the work of a repossessor looking for a little extra profit. It takes all of about 2 seconds for a repo-man's towing device to grab a vehicle.
That all depends on the type of nuclear weapon that is placed on the missile. A uranium or plutonium based fission weapon would leave radioactive fallout, whereas hydrogen based fusion weapons or neutron weapons would not (hydrogen based fusion produces helium, which is an inert gas). I don't think neutron weapons would be a good fit for this application.
In any case, the weapon used would likely be a very small tactical nuke, and at such an altitude, the comparatively small amount of fallout would be distibuted over a large area with only a marginal increase in the radioactivity that is normally present in the soil (unstable uranium is just about everywhere in trace amounts).
If you own a building and hang a sign outside saying "Open to the public" with the doors unlocked, do you need to post someone outside to explicitly tell people they can come in?
If you authorize access to the public either willingly or by ignorance, then you have allowed it to happen. Ignorance is not a defence.
The world is not here to hold your hand. In the real world, it is considered proper etiquette to ask first before doing something. We don't ask people sentenced to death, "Is it okay to kill you now?" Nor do we ask regular prisoners, "Is it okay to lock you up now?"
To use your first analogy, if someone urinates on your face and you consciously decide to do nothing about it, you have expressed your consent.
Just as the idea that anything not expressly denied is allowed is stupid, the idea that anything not expressly allowed is denied is stupid as well.
It is unfortunate that most Wi-Fi devices come configured without security enabled. I don't mean to insinuate that everyone who buys wireless equipment should know how to properly configure it, but they should at least know to contact someone who can, or at least read the manual.
A wireless router isn't going to just suddenly pop up on your network (although if it does, you have other problems to worry about). The act of placing it on your network and leaving it configured for open access is implied consent.
I was specifically referring to MMORPGs:
My desired requirements:
1) Korean MMO model
2) Non-browser based (I want a game client designed to utilize the hardware I have rather than catering to the lowest common denominator)
3) Quests/missions
4) Experience and levels
5) Universally acquirable skills
6) Spending real money has a marginal impact on gameplay
And while not necessarily "required", I would prefer the game to be focused on cooperative PvE rather than PvP.
These requirements eliminate all of the listed ones so far:
Entropia - does not meet requirements 1, 3, 4, and 6.
EVE - does not meet requirements 1, 4, and 6
Ultima Online - Never played, but assumed to not meet 1 and 6 (maybe more)
Runescape - Never played, does not meet 2 and 6 (additional areas are only available to subscribers)
An example of a single-player RPG that handles 3, 4, and 5 would be Fable (but I would prefer more skills to be available)
I tried it. Unfortunately, without putting money into it, you won't get very far very fast. You start with no weapons and no money. You cannot fight unarmed, and it's nearly impossible to "gather sweat" without being killed. Even when you do, you have to then find someone who wants to buy it from you as it has no NPC value. After doing this an insane number of times, you'll be able to buy a gun and maybe some bullets. If you get really lucky, you'll be able to kill a creature (before it kills you) that hopefully will net more credits than it cost for the bullets. It never happened for me, so I was back to trying to gather sweat to buy some more bullets.
You can't even cash in on creatively killing creatures (such as leading them to drown) as it won't let you loot a body that you didn't kill.
I've got an analogy to try:
You own a housing complex (internet connection) and decide to hire a doorman (buy and connect a wireless router).
By default, the behavior for the doorman is to open the door for everyone who wants to enter the building (open Wi-Fi connection)
You can instruct the doorman to only open the door for tenants of the building or for anyone on a specific list of names (access control list)
To further add to the analogy:
The housing complex used to be a hotel and still has all of the original signage, thus passers-by would not be aware that it is no longer available for the public. It was the "Linksys Hotel".
For the record: I have a Netgear wireless router. When I set it up, the wireless was disabled by default. In other words, I was forced to configure it rather than just plugging it in.
Part of it, is that magic looks cooler than tech. It is not about guns being a long-range attack (most spells are long-range, as are arrows and throwing stars). A real issue with sci-fi RPGs is that there really isn't a fighter-type class since there are very few melee weapons in a sci-fi universe. They just to be more creative (perhaps even a hybrid).
What I would really like to see, though, is a game that completely eliminates the classes/jobs and provides every skill a la carte (and preferably using the Korean MMO model... free to play with premium real money items). Perhaps one already exists but I just don't know about it yet.
Since my budget does not include "gaming expenses" in it (games are purchased on a "Yay, we've got some extra money" basis), I only play MMO's that are free to play (such as MapleStory, Fly for Fun, and Space Cowboy Online)
Maybe someday I'll prove that the model works by buying something...
The "particular region" I refer to is the area that corresponds to each individual electoral vote.
If you do substitute "state" for "particular region", since there are 50 states, there would be 50 electoral votes, and each state would have an equal say regardless of land area or population.
Since the Senate and the House of Representatives are both part of the United States Congress, and Congressman is a valid term for referring to members of either, calling Ted Stevens a Congressman is a correct statement.
Why not do something logical such as "The winner of the popular vote in a particular region will have the corresponding electoral vote" or even "Each candidate will receive the proportion of votes determined by the popular vote")
Part of the reason the electoral college exists is so that areas of sparse population have as much voice as areas of dense population. The current system used where "The winner of the popular vote in a state gets all of the votes for the state" doesn't always reflect the will of the populace. The current system rewards marginal victories equally to landslide victories. If a candidate wins 60% of the population in a state, that candidate should be awarded 60% of the state's votes.
I'm not saying my proposal is flawless (large population centers could still be overruled by sparsely populated regions), but it would, at least, be better than what occurs now.
If you want to be the President, then you should have to win over the majority of the populace, not "just enough people" in a few key states.
But then again, I'd rather see more drastic changes. The government we need now is not the same as the government we needed in 1787 (when the design was written up).
I'm not saying that a company should not be allowed to restrict the usage of the paying customers, but they should not be allowed to restrict the usage because the other party (who is not directly connected to the company's network, but through their own ISP) because they haven't paid for the privledge of not having the user's requested traffic hindered.
If they were allowed to do this, what would prevent a company like Comcast from making it so that all traffic from Time-Warner Cable, COX, etc. would be reduced to, say... one bit per second?
(Oh, it's not blocked. The web page will come up, eventually... snicker, snicker)
*Note: The companies used are only examples and in no way implies that they would actually do something like this.
For future reference:
In general, when providing a definition and example, you must use the word you have defined... in the example.
What if you have audiobooks on your iPod? I can think of quite a few books (as well as music) that would fit in well in a bathroom. They are what you are doing in there... crap!
You forgot some of their most popular games:
Pac-man, Pole Position, Galaga, and Dig Dug.
And I'm pretty sure those mainly ran on their own hardware (with coin slots).
That is exactly how I would have described it. It is always trivial events. It is especially noticeable when it occurs while I'm at work. The "dream" may have occurred months prior to the actual event, but the people present may have only been with the company for a few days. It's a little odd to remember seeing people in my dreams months prior to actually meeting them.
Here's another interesting anecdote: My father once went to Seattle (and has only been there once). Even though he had never been there before, and was not told anything about what was good in the area or had a map, he knew his way around as well as knowing where specific restaurants were and how good the food was.
Just because we don't know the answers, doesn't mean that they aren't valid questions.
Another odd coincidence I've experienced recently: I started listening to a lot of Pink Floyd right about the time Syd Barrett's health began to fail (and leading to his death). I'm sure it's just a coincidence, but it is certainly strange.
I frequently have a "deja vu" type feeling. I will distinctly remember certain events (either conversations or placement of people/objects) with the memory lasting up to the point that, in the present, I recall the "precognition" My wife, and numerous others, claim to have the same type of experiences.
Additionally, my wife can "read" colors from my mind (i.e. I think of a color and she guesses, with very high accuracy, the correct color. And no, I don't think of simple colors like red, green, or blue, but more complex descriptions like fushia, cerulean, and viridian)
Granted that my comment is pure speculation, but I would imagine that the GPU in the Nintendo 64 (which was made by SGI) did support OpenGL. I would think it incredibly stupid to come up with a new API when you already have one made.
But yes, SGI needs to make something innovative (and highly desired) in order to recover.
On the other hand, if they do fail, wouldn't it be ironic if Cray, Inc. swept SGI's remains up?
Unless it looks like other well-known traffic, wouldn't it be a lot easier to block using a "I can't tell what this is, so just discard the packets"-type filter? The device filtering the traffic will see the session from start to finish, so it's not like it has to figure it out mid-session.
At which point a bellows was brought in to inflate the pig's lungs. The lab assistant pushes on the pig's chest and a sound is made which the head researcher interprets as "to blaive" (Which as we all know means "to bluff"), but his wife charges in proclaiming that the pig said "true love" and starts yelling things about Englebert Humperdinck (or something like that).
Judging by the way this (and related) technology works, wouldn't it be possible to augment a completely healthy adult with a computer? Obviously, this is something that could only be tested on humans. While other animals may be capable of thought, we cannot directly communicate with them enough to instruct them to make a "trivial"# thought repeatedly for a computer to "learn" the signal. We, however, do possess the ability to make a "trivial" thought repeatedly. Perhaps something like this would one day lead to computer-assisted telepathy. So far though, the biggest hurdle is that, at present, the computer interface is mainly read-only.
# A "trivial" thought in this context would be one that does not correspond to a normal physical action by the body. (Such as articulating a second set of arms, or "typing" without a keyboard by thinking of making the letters appear on screen)