We're not afraid of them, per se, but afraid something will happen to them.
More precisely, we're afraid of the lawyers that come after something happens to them.
If lawsuits weren't nearly as expensive for the defending party, and the chances of winning weren't nearly as great for accidents where it's clearly the student's fault and not the school's, schools wouldn't be nearly so paranoid. Imagine if such frivilous lawsuits not only were thrown out, but the plaintiff had to pay for lawyer fees in every case.
To answer GP's question, the wrong turn came about when emotion trumped common sense. Some people have said that since the '60's, creativity has been stifled with the banning of recreational narcotics, but I think it's the other way around. When we culturally stopped thinking logically and started exclusively thinking with our "feelings" (i.e. doing whatever felt good), that's when things took a wrong turn. That's not to say that emotions should be thrown out the window when making decisions; just that the emotional aspect has to be properly weighed with the logical aspect to produce the best answer.
And to address the point you bring up, sure, the loss of a child is a terrible tragedy. But the loss of a whole generation of children (or the products of their minds at least) is an even greater tragedy.
I haven't read Gatto's writings, but from what I gather is your interpretation, you're saying that he's a crackpot because he says things that are wrong about the state of education in the US, but the state of education elsewhere seems to be functioning fine.
I'm not sure you realize this, but the system of education in other countries is not the same system of education in the US. What works elsewhere probably would work here, if it actually was being used here.
Unfortunately, stuff like free speech that's also freedom of artistic expression also disrupts the corporate overlords running the US government. They'd rather the government use bombs and machine guns, which makes corporations and their major stockholders wealthy.
since they are intelligent enough not only to understand the material but also to understand their audience.
Quite the straw man you've set up there.
You should know that there are several types of intelligence, each combination of which produces aptitude in different sets of skills. Communications relies on a completely different set of intelligences than mathematical problem solving.
Granted, a person intelligent enough should be able to solve the problem of communications, but that solution may ultimately be to leave the communication to somebody better suited for the task.
By your definition, he's stupid. And ignorant. But no less stupid.
Obviously, he didn't even think to look it up using google, wikipedia, or any other plethora of knowledge repositories available on the internet, before asking a question that would be trivial with any understanding of what a hash digest is.
It's ignorant to not know something. I think everybody's guilty of that (I don't subscribe to Socratic epistemology) at one point or another, and will continue to be guilty of it as we live.
It's stupid to not know how to use tools present and freely available to achieve a particular goal--the goal in this case being the answer to the question.
As to answer of the original question:
... MD5... is a... hash function with a 128-bit hash value.
In Hong Kong, people follow directions. So instead of standing around hogging up the whole escalator, people will always stand to one side and keep the other side clear for walking.
Otherwise, everybody else around, even the ones passing by on the other side, gives the offender a very dirty stare. Say what you will about them, but it's peer pressure at its best.
Microsoft always played catch-up. That's always been their game plan.
Embrace Extend Extinguish
The first two steps require catching up to and taking over existing technologies.
Microsoft isn't capable of innovating. It's not in their blood. If they came out with an innovative product, they wouldn't know what to do with it except shelve it. They're never going to advance the industry; they're only ever going to play catch up. They're interested not in building new technologies, but usurping the industry once its built and through dirty tactics, taking it over completely. That's always been their strategy, since they successfully took over the PC industry with their Unix wannabe and then again with their Lotus wannabe.
And until they go through a complete restructuring and overturn the ingrained corporate culture that's present in their upper management, that's all they'll ever do.
Well, there is thinking of the children, and well... thinking of the children (and there's the kind of "thinking" that pedophiles do, but let's not get into that).
In fact, we're always thinking of the children. When the next generation inherits this world, we want it to be a better place, not worse. We want it to be a freer world, not one weighted down with things like excessive copyright and draconian "content protection" measures or other forms of censorship. So though this tired meme gets trot out occasionally in the face of some form of censorship, it's because we're pointing out the irony, that by "thinking of the children," we're merely conveniencing ourselves at their ultimate expense and doing anything but.
Actually, reality probably lies somewhere in between.
Slashdot is an interesting place. It's a gathering of some of the most brilliant and free-thinking minds in the world and all of their groupies. What's more interesting is that both characterizations apply equally to each person here. We're geeks (or geeks-to-be). Our knowledge is specialized, focused, and usually at our level, obscure. Collectively, we know everything about everything, but no individual here could or would dare to make such a claim. So we seek knowledge on things we don't know, we form opinions based on that knowledge, and we make conclusions, whether they ultimately be right or wrong. That source of knowledge is often our peers, who know better than us.
When such a definitive source of knowledge does not exist, we speculate, hypothesize, and ultimately come to our own conclusion. But when the opposite of what we expect happens, there is some point when we stop defending our incorrect conclusions. Just as when Hans Reiser was definitively proven to be his estranged wife's killer, Apple's now shown that they have used their approval process not to protect their users, but to line their own pockets. It shouldn't be surprising that many people are angry at this betrayal of their trust, while others feel vindicated that their line of reasoning was ultimately shown correct.
There are no brainwashed minions on Slashdot. Only people who have knowledge, people who are looking for knowledge, and people who think they already have knowledge.
In all of the computer labs I've been to, the name of the computer is visibly displayed in front somewhere. The names of all teh computers in the lab usually revolve around a common theme, e.g. periodic table of elements, Simpsons characters, HHGTTG characters, etc.
You better hope English never becomes extinct, because an important period in human history would be forever lost.
Anonymous site? As in the presence of anonymous posters, or the site being relatively unknown?
Like slashdot, Fark is relatively old school. It's been supplanted by more communal sites like Digg and Reddit in the same way that Wordpress and Blogger have supplanted Geocities and Angelfire, but it is nowhere near unknown.
Right, it's 14/28 ((7 days * 2 kids * 1 sex) / (7 days * 2 kids * 2 sexes ) or 1/2), but because boy 1 on tuesday and boy 2 on tuesday is counted twice in this instance, you lose one from both numerator and denominator.
Our brains are the same size and of the same stuff as humans 5000 years ago, so it goes to follow that our philosophical and social habits haven't changed at all. But now, there are 6 billion of us.
Which goes to show, we're really no different from any other living organism. Despite all of the posturing by society to make it sound as if we're somehow more "civilized" now than ever before, the only thing we've actually succeeded in doing is scale up our old behaviors.
Not quite. Your employer can order you to do anything. As a human being responsible for your own freedom, you don't have to listen. If you do, it'll be your ass on the line in front of a judge and jury.
On the other hand, your employer probably can't fire you because you disobeyed such an order*. And as a responsible individual, you have a duty to report your employer if you think something immoral or inethical of consequence is happening at your job. I.e. if you know your employer is sacrificing human lives for the sake of profits, then you need to speak up if you're a responsible individual.
*It is a bit different in the context of the military.
Slashdot Mirror
We're not afraid of them, per se, but afraid something will happen to them.
More precisely, we're afraid of the lawyers that come after something happens to them.
If lawsuits weren't nearly as expensive for the defending party, and the chances of winning weren't nearly as great for accidents where it's clearly the student's fault and not the school's, schools wouldn't be nearly so paranoid. Imagine if such frivilous lawsuits not only were thrown out, but the plaintiff had to pay for lawyer fees in every case.
To answer GP's question, the wrong turn came about when emotion trumped common sense. Some people have said that since the '60's, creativity has been stifled with the banning of recreational narcotics, but I think it's the other way around. When we culturally stopped thinking logically and started exclusively thinking with our "feelings" (i.e. doing whatever felt good), that's when things took a wrong turn. That's not to say that emotions should be thrown out the window when making decisions; just that the emotional aspect has to be properly weighed with the logical aspect to produce the best answer.
And to address the point you bring up, sure, the loss of a child is a terrible tragedy. But the loss of a whole generation of children (or the products of their minds at least) is an even greater tragedy.
I think you're missing something here.
I haven't read Gatto's writings, but from what I gather is your interpretation, you're saying that he's a crackpot because he says things that are wrong about the state of education in the US, but the state of education elsewhere seems to be functioning fine.
I'm not sure you realize this, but the system of education in other countries is not the same system of education in the US. What works elsewhere probably would work here, if it actually was being used here.
A space station.
Unfortunately, stuff like free speech that's also freedom of artistic expression also disrupts the corporate overlords running the US government. They'd rather the government use bombs and machine guns, which makes corporations and their major stockholders wealthy.
Sounds like you've never had experience working for a financial company. It applies even to their IT departments.
But then again, those people are also getting compensated appropriately.
be obtuse about it ... Don't try and be obtuse
You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.
But seriously, perhaps the word you're looking for is oblique, obscure, opaque, or my personal suggestion regarding GP's comment: douchy.
I guess it's better than the agencies that constitute the DHS: FEMA, USCIS, CBP, TSA
Or for that matter, DOD, IRS, ATF, and FBI
since they are intelligent enough not only to understand the material but also to understand their audience.
Quite the straw man you've set up there.
You should know that there are several types of intelligence, each combination of which produces aptitude in different sets of skills. Communications relies on a completely different set of intelligences than mathematical problem solving.
Granted, a person intelligent enough should be able to solve the problem of communications, but that solution may ultimately be to leave the communication to somebody better suited for the task.
No, he's ignorant.
By your definition, he's stupid. And ignorant. But no less stupid.
Obviously, he didn't even think to look it up using google, wikipedia, or any other plethora of knowledge repositories available on the internet, before asking a question that would be trivial with any understanding of what a hash digest is.
It's ignorant to not know something. I think everybody's guilty of that (I don't subscribe to Socratic epistemology) at one point or another, and will continue to be guilty of it as we live.
It's stupid to not know how to use tools present and freely available to achieve a particular goal--the goal in this case being the answer to the question.
As to answer of the original question:
... MD5 ... is a ... hash function with a 128-bit hash value.
Source: First line of the wikipedia article on MD5
In Hong Kong, people follow directions. So instead of standing around hogging up the whole escalator, people will always stand to one side and keep the other side clear for walking.
Otherwise, everybody else around, even the ones passing by on the other side, gives the offender a very dirty stare. Say what you will about them, but it's peer pressure at its best.
Microsoft always played catch-up. That's always been their game plan.
Embrace
Extend
Extinguish
The first two steps require catching up to and taking over existing technologies.
Microsoft isn't capable of innovating. It's not in their blood. If they came out with an innovative product, they wouldn't know what to do with it except shelve it. They're never going to advance the industry; they're only ever going to play catch up. They're interested not in building new technologies, but usurping the industry once its built and through dirty tactics, taking it over completely. That's always been their strategy, since they successfully took over the PC industry with their Unix wannabe and then again with their Lotus wannabe.
And until they go through a complete restructuring and overturn the ingrained corporate culture that's present in their upper management, that's all they'll ever do.
Well, there is thinking of the children, and well... thinking of the children (and there's the kind of "thinking" that pedophiles do, but let's not get into that).
In fact, we're always thinking of the children. When the next generation inherits this world, we want it to be a better place, not worse. We want it to be a freer world, not one weighted down with things like excessive copyright and draconian "content protection" measures or other forms of censorship. So though this tired meme gets trot out occasionally in the face of some form of censorship, it's because we're pointing out the irony, that by "thinking of the children," we're merely conveniencing ourselves at their ultimate expense and doing anything but.
Let's play spot the troll!
*points*
Look ma, I found one!
Actually, reality probably lies somewhere in between.
Slashdot is an interesting place. It's a gathering of some of the most brilliant and free-thinking minds in the world and all of their groupies. What's more interesting is that both characterizations apply equally to each person here. We're geeks (or geeks-to-be). Our knowledge is specialized, focused, and usually at our level, obscure. Collectively, we know everything about everything, but no individual here could or would dare to make such a claim. So we seek knowledge on things we don't know, we form opinions based on that knowledge, and we make conclusions, whether they ultimately be right or wrong. That source of knowledge is often our peers, who know better than us.
When such a definitive source of knowledge does not exist, we speculate, hypothesize, and ultimately come to our own conclusion. But when the opposite of what we expect happens, there is some point when we stop defending our incorrect conclusions. Just as when Hans Reiser was definitively proven to be his estranged wife's killer, Apple's now shown that they have used their approval process not to protect their users, but to line their own pockets. It shouldn't be surprising that many people are angry at this betrayal of their trust, while others feel vindicated that their line of reasoning was ultimately shown correct.
There are no brainwashed minions on Slashdot. Only people who have knowledge, people who are looking for knowledge, and people who think they already have knowledge.
I'm having a hard time figuring out how one would explain Special Relativity.
Have you tried using a car analogy?
Only because you're participating.
In all of the computer labs I've been to, the name of the computer is visibly displayed in front somewhere. The names of all teh computers in the lab usually revolve around a common theme, e.g. periodic table of elements, Simpsons characters, HHGTTG characters, etc.
You better hope English never becomes extinct, because an important period in human history would be forever lost.
Anonymous site? As in the presence of anonymous posters, or the site being relatively unknown?
Like slashdot, Fark is relatively old school. It's been supplanted by more communal sites like Digg and Reddit in the same way that Wordpress and Blogger have supplanted Geocities and Angelfire, but it is nowhere near unknown.
If you kept up with the times, you'll notice songs on iTunes vary from around $.79 to $1.29, with $.99 being the middle pricing tier.
Right, it's 14/28 ((7 days * 2 kids * 1 sex) / (7 days * 2 kids * 2 sexes ) or 1/2), but because boy 1 on tuesday and boy 2 on tuesday is counted twice in this instance, you lose one from both numerator and denominator.
Our brains are the same size and of the same stuff as humans 5000 years ago, so it goes to follow that our philosophical and social habits haven't changed at all. But now, there are 6 billion of us.
Which goes to show, we're really no different from any other living organism. Despite all of the posturing by society to make it sound as if we're somehow more "civilized" now than ever before, the only thing we've actually succeeded in doing is scale up our old behaviors.
But are they whole?
Not quite. Your employer can order you to do anything. As a human being responsible for your own freedom, you don't have to listen. If you do, it'll be your ass on the line in front of a judge and jury.
On the other hand, your employer probably can't fire you because you disobeyed such an order*. And as a responsible individual, you have a duty to report your employer if you think something immoral or inethical of consequence is happening at your job. I.e. if you know your employer is sacrificing human lives for the sake of profits, then you need to speak up if you're a responsible individual.
*It is a bit different in the context of the military.
Facist.
They could always just sum the bars from every connected tower and report that number to the end user.
Works fine on the IE6 version.