I've always thought that those randomly generated, but grammatically correct (although nonsensical) messages were intended to detrain your text classifiers.
Just a guess though.
Are you using FuzzyOCR? I've just installed it on my network, and it seems to be working pretty well. It mis-detects many words, but since none of our legit mail contains inline images, an extra point or two doesn't affect the false positive rate.
You bring up an interesting and oft overlooked point.
Another aspect of the US's system that leads me to draw further distinction between it and a democracy (direct or otherwise) is that the term "democracy" implies only that the "majority rules".
I usually use the term "constitutional republic", as it makes clear that there is a document defining the boundries (among other things) of what the electorate can do, expanding the definition to mean, more or less, "majority rules, minority rights".
My story is similar to yours (Above 99.9%th percentile in testing, bored to tears with school and hence didn't bother with it). Unfortunately, I didn't realize what the "answer" to the problem really was until I was much older - It's a maturity issue.
Discipline. If I had been "able" to just buckle down, do the ridiculous, mindless drivel the school system called "homework", and study matters of interest independently (as I later in did in college), I'd have been much better off for it. Also, getting bumped forward to another grade was probably the *worst* thing anyone could have done for me. It only compounded the problem by throwing in social issues (fitting in with older children) that I really didn't need.
Although I suppose I could blame the system for not recognizing my talents and helping me develop them, I'm not going to. The responsibility for that is mine.
The very gifted among us need to be shown from an early age that the real challenges that stimulate and develop your potential can only come from yourself, and only AFTER you've taken care of business by disciplining yourself to do things you don't care to do, but must be done.
LDL, in and of itself, may not be harmful. Oxidized LDL, particularly oxidized Lipoprotein-A, is quite damaging to arterial walls. An amino acid called Homocysteine *may* play a role in this: http://www.homocysteine.com./
Others have asserted that high triglyceride is an independant factor as well. Considering what I've seen in my own family, I'd say it could be any or all of the above.
My father has low LDL, low triglyceride, and high HDL. Low cardiac risk ratio. Has high homocysteine. Has had two bypass operations.
My mother has high Triglyceride, high LDL, low HDL, and normal homocysteine levels. Has had three bypass operations.
My aunt has high LDL, low HDL, and *very* low homocysteine. She's 87 and has never had heart trouble.
I think that in all likelyhood, high LDL levels (that are mostly Lp-A) are probably dangerous alone, and especially so if there's an oxidizing factor present. High HDL definitely looks protective, as long as other factors (high homocysteine) are not present. High homocysteine may be able to cause "low" levels of LDL to clog your arteries.
Certainly, more study is needed that includes factors other than just LDL.
I centainly agree about expectations of the non-IT staff to be conscientious about those things.:)
That is why I don't trust them. My DHCP server serves up a different pool of IPs to mobile computers, which are firewalled from doing anything except connecting to the terminal server.
Granted, this is not practical for everyone, but the concept of "least access required to get the job done" can be utilized in many other ways.
I agree with your assessment of the tribulations of large network administration.
You might have 500 servers and thousands of workstations to manage, but how many gateways to public networks do you have? Substantially less, I'd wager. Would not proper firewalling have prevented this worm from entering the network in the first place? What about DHCP configuration that moves mobile/unknown hosts to an untrusted network, perhaps with carefully filtered VPN only access?
Simple to manage steps can certainly be taken to reduce incidences like this, and provide excellent protection, even on unpatched networks.
Actually, I think this predicts people dying from drinking cheap absynthe.
I've always thought that those randomly generated, but grammatically correct (although nonsensical) messages were intended to detrain your text classifiers. Just a guess though.
Are you using FuzzyOCR? I've just installed it on my network, and it seems to be working pretty well. It mis-detects many words, but since none of our legit mail contains inline images, an extra point or two doesn't affect the false positive rate.
I totally agree - I've had nothing but great experiences from Digikey.
The same can be said of Mouser.
You bring up an interesting and oft overlooked point.
Another aspect of the US's system that leads me to draw further distinction between it and a democracy (direct or otherwise) is that the term "democracy" implies only that the "majority rules".
I usually use the term "constitutional republic", as it makes clear that there is a document defining the boundries (among other things) of what the electorate can do, expanding the definition to mean, more or less, "majority rules, minority rights".
My story is similar to yours (Above 99.9%th percentile in testing, bored to tears with school and hence didn't bother with it). Unfortunately, I didn't realize what the "answer" to the problem really was until I was much older - It's a maturity issue.
Discipline. If I had been "able" to just buckle down, do the ridiculous, mindless drivel the school system called "homework", and study matters of interest independently (as I later in did in college), I'd have been much better off for it. Also, getting bumped forward to another grade was probably the *worst* thing anyone could have done for me. It only compounded the problem by throwing in social issues (fitting in with older children) that I really didn't need.
Although I suppose I could blame the system for not recognizing my talents and helping me develop them, I'm not going to. The responsibility for that is mine.
The very gifted among us need to be shown from an early age that the real challenges that stimulate and develop your potential can only come from yourself, and only AFTER you've taken care of business by disciplining yourself to do things you don't care to do, but must be done.
LDL, in and of itself, may not be harmful. Oxidized LDL, particularly
oxidized Lipoprotein-A, is quite damaging to arterial walls. An amino acid called Homocysteine *may* play a role in this: http://www.homocysteine.com./
Others have asserted that high triglyceride is an independant factor as well. Considering what I've seen in my own family, I'd say it could be any or all of the above.
My father has low LDL, low triglyceride, and high HDL. Low cardiac risk ratio. Has high homocysteine. Has had two bypass operations.
My mother has high Triglyceride, high LDL, low HDL, and normal homocysteine levels. Has had three bypass operations.
My aunt has high LDL, low HDL, and *very* low homocysteine. She's 87 and has never had heart trouble.
I think that in all likelyhood, high LDL levels (that are mostly Lp-A) are probably dangerous alone, and especially so if there's an oxidizing factor present. High HDL definitely looks protective, as long as other factors (high homocysteine) are not present. High homocysteine may be able to cause "low" levels of LDL to clog your arteries.
Certainly, more study is needed that includes factors other than just LDL.
My $0.02.
> or if there are just no professionally trained VAs in America There definitely are. Crispin Freeman springs to mind...
I can relate to your situation. A company I used to work for had a similar climate.
These days, I get to be idealistic because the current administration values security over functionality, so to speak.
I centainly agree about expectations of the non-IT staff to be conscientious about those things. :)
That is why I don't trust them. My DHCP server serves up a different pool of IPs to mobile computers, which are firewalled from doing anything except connecting to the terminal server.
Granted, this is not practical for everyone, but the concept of "least access required to get the job done" can be utilized in many other ways.
Actually, what I've suggested is blocking tcp port 445 to *public* networks, not the lan.
I thought that much was obvious. Guess I was wrong.
Thanks for pointing that out, genius.
I agree with your assessment of the tribulations of large network administration.
You might have 500 servers and thousands of workstations to manage, but how many gateways to public networks do you have? Substantially less, I'd wager. Would not proper firewalling have prevented this worm from entering the network in the first place? What about DHCP configuration that moves mobile/unknown hosts to an untrusted network, perhaps with carefully filtered VPN only access?
Simple to manage steps can certainly be taken to reduce incidences like this, and provide excellent protection, even on unpatched networks.
All patch management issues aside, how hard would it be to simply:
- Firewall your networks, on *both* sides
- Limit access of portable computers
Worm exposure would be greatly mitigated by those things alone.
Throw in mail filtering/scanning/content quarantining, and virus risk is greatly reduced as well.
If you don't secure your networks, regardless of which systems you run, you'll regret it, eventually.