He's saying everyone under 25 (including me) can't comprehend the level at which he can multitask... because he can fix a phone line. Who does this guy think he is?
The problem is the hard disk platters used, you would think they'd be sensitive to a thump even with lots of padding etc.
Then again perhaps they're using solid state memory, but then data recovery is harder (data can be retrieved off tape that has been submerged and damaged etc, this would be much harder with on-chip memory).
Then again.. perhaps these aren't meant to be used in black boxes, and are just for recording data for maintenance etc.
I wouldn't focus on the degree necessarily, it's not critical depending on what you want to do. It's hard to say where you go to in the IT industry without any coding abilities, someone else in the thread mentioned system administrator, but how the hell are you going to get a job as a sysadmin with "light" coding abilities?
I'd say do some open source coding in your spare time, write some cool things that you can show off, but at least learn how to code.
I mean.. what is an IT career if it doesn't involve coding? I literally can't think of anything..
This myth has to die; I use XP (used to be Linux, but my morally anti-MS university requires I use Word+Excel+IE), and it usually goes for 3-4 weeks without a reboot, and even then it's only to install updates.
I remember back when I was using Ubuntu I had to reboot about as often because of kernel updates.
Some of us that are 40 and under (and I imagine 45 and under) grew up building this tech and are very effective multitaskers to level of competence that this 25 and under (Generation nexters) aren't able to comprehend.
I can rewire a home for phone service. I imagine that most./ers can too. I understood how the telephone worked at around 10 years old and was hacking calls with just a speaker and 2 wires ripped from a taple player to call my friends when I had no phone in my room, only a jack. There was a time when I memorized all the Bell codes (in my area) for redial, dictate phone number, delay dial, etc... all before this caller ID crap.
My nephew is 17. I had him accompany me to rewire my mother's condo for 2 lines of phone service. The telco only wired one jack and put a splitter on it.
I was rather shocked when he stood in amazement watching me remove the plate from the wall and rewire the wires. Up to that point, the phone is simplay just a magic box that communicates to another magic box (phone) to him.
Something so simple that you can pulse dial with a speaker and 2 wires and get a connection for simple communication was such a mystery to him that I had to rethink what todays youth is into. He can turn on a cell phone, IM, use all the features but if you ask him how many volts his cell phone battery supplies, he's quite lost.
These Generation Nexters will be able to multitask with the tech presented to them but how many will know how to fix the tech?
Hurrah for sweeping generalizations..
I'm 19, and a month or two ago one of my parents cut a wire without realizing that the phone line ran through it. Did my parents (from your generation) whip out their phone line diagnostic kit and get to work? No, they called me.
I didn't have any trouble going up into the attic, identifying+cutting+stripping the cable, checking which wires were which using my voltmeter, rewiring it, fastening it, and testing it with my beige box.
It's not rocket science or a lost art, it's just plain easy. If you're proud of being able to rewire phone lines you need to get over yourself.
You also skip over the fact that the tech around today is much more complicated. You allude to this when you comment "all before this caller ID crap." What's so crap about it? Is it that you don't understand it and can't fix it? Can't you see the hypocrisy here?
Understanding how the POTS works is something anyone can do. As you said yourself it's essentially just a speaker connecting to the phone line.
Comparing this to understanding how a cell network works, understanding the microprocessor rich cell phone internals, and how voice is digitally encoded in a cell phone, is ridiculous. Try wiring a speaker directly up to an antenna and see if you can connect to a cell network.
Don't expect your nephew to understand a PDA because you understood a paper notepad. Don't think that you're some sort of guru from an era gone by because you understand a simple, obsolete technology.
What are we supposed to get out of this? Who cares what nationality this guy was?
Isn't it insulting to say "I know what you're thinking, but Indians aren't stupid! They're as smart as we are! Look at all this stuff they've done!" ?
Or maybe it's "Look at all these great Indians! I'm an Indian just like them, therefore I'm one of them!" Except being a good mathematician has nothing to do with your race, there's just not that big of a difference between races.
If this guy had a beard would you post all the famous accomplishments of bearded mathematicians? It's just as arbitrary.
Why are posts like these rising to the surface? Where is the post giving me an idea of what these theta functions are or what they do? At least something that isn't completely irrelevant?
You should tell them that you are evolving to preferring to hang out with non-idiots.
I don't think it's too smart to use evolve as a synonym for change.
Re:Bad month ends up with a good product.
on
A Bad Month for Firefox
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I don't know where people get the idea that closed source apps are invulnerable to hackers checking them for holes. With a firm grasp of tools like IDA pro you can easily analyze closed source apps.
I like and use Firefox too, but I don't think security is a good reason to like Firefox. The great plugins are what puts it head+shoulders above anything else, imho. And with NoScript, AdBlock, etc, it makes it much easier to avoid malicious sites.
Anyway, It's not right to be so complacent, when a hole is found in MS software it's terrible, but when holes are found day after day in Firefox it's progress. It's the same with Apple and MS; the double standards some posters have can make/. look pretty hypocritical sometimes..
CSS would be a great standard, but it leaves too much to the people who implement it; is this a block type or inline? What should the default for this nonstandard tag be? etc, etc.
If they spelled everything out without any ambiguity it would make a better standard.. but then it would be another "600 page long" standard with is what he seems to be against in the first place.
The number system we use is actually originally derived from Hindu numerals. They were the first to use the number '0' to create a positional number system, which is what put it head and shoulders above the Roman one.. But that's besides the point.
I'm not saying Muslim nations weren't, in many respects (especially maths and astronomy), the most advanced nations around at the time. What I am saying is that it's a bit of a leap from "they used this shape" to "they knew all the advanced mathematics that can be derived from studying this shape."
Well the tiles are just.. tiles. Just because someone uses a curvy shaped dome on top of their mosque doesn't mean they knew how to calculate its surface area or volume using integration.
Maybe they just thought it was a pretty shape?
What I want to know is where do you draw the line when it comes to taking down child molesters?
Whenever a politician wants to push some privacy invading law he has only to utter the magic words "kiddie porn" and there's no rebuttal. If a hacker invades your privacy and reads your e-mail that's terrible; unless he suspects you're a child molester, in which case he's a "hero".
One of the funniest, most well adjusted people I know was molested at six; it doesn't scar you for life, a savage beating from bullies just might though. Why do we practically encourage bullying but go to any lengths to stop child molesters?
Obviously here I have to clarify my stance, or people will start taking out their pitchforks.. Child molestation and kiddie porn is revolting, but what about getting stabbed? What about being forced to take addictive drugs and prostitute yourself to earn them? What about privacy?
No-one in power has the guts to say "we're going too far", because then they'll be labeled as a sympathizer.
What about the child prostitutes that everyone knows about, but won't donate money to build good orphanages to put them in? We go to any lengths to stop the abuse of children, unless it costs us money. If Brett is such a anti-child molester hero why not get a job, and donate money to take kids off the streets?
Because Brett just wants an excuse to get a rush from "hacking" (ie installing a trojan on gullible users computers, the nirvana of incredible hacks). He's just like loads of other "hacktivists"; working and donating money just isn't as exciting.
I'm not saying the evidence shouldn't be counted, but I do think calling Brett a "hero" for reading thousands of peoples e-mails for years on end is absurd.
Out of those thousands of people were any of them not child molesters? I'm guessing the majority weren't, since he has only a couple of arrests attributed to him. Would you call Brett a hero if you were one of the people he had been monitoring for years? Personally I'd want to lodge the end of my boot up his asshole.
Recently gaim-2.0.0-beta5 started crashing constantly, so I checked out MSN Live Messenger. I couldn't believe that people actually use it for an extended period of time.
There are these incredibly irritating ads that are always about what some celebrity has done (as if anyone cares) or some American football game. Then there's the window's skin, which is blue and shiny and stands out from everything else; if you thought GTK+ on Windows would look bad and out of place compared to something MS comes up with, you're in for a pleasant surprise.
Also I looked and I don't think you can even give people aliases! All the people you had aliased to "Tom" become "No other feeling could compare, let your body take you there, just close your eye's if you dare!! United in Hardcore till we die!" or "+!/\/\|-0 - [lots of rainbows and emoticons here]"
Luckily beta6 came out, and it seems stable so far, but tbh I would put up with the crashes anyway to not have to use Live Messenger.
Researchers have recently discovered that 2x10^6 TB of RAM is the optimal amount of memory for Vista 64-bit.
The researchers looked at the recent news that 4GB was the optimal "sweet spot" for Vista 32-bit and theorized that if the maximum amount of RAM for a 32-bit machine offered optimal 32-bit performance, perhaps the maximum amount of RAM for a 64-bit machine would offer optimal 64-bit performance.
"We were actually rather shocked, we expected a more reasonable 1GB to perform better. How can MS expect users which don't have money for exabytes of RAM to get the most out of Vista?"
Apple enthusiasts were quick to seize upon this new breakthrough:
"Score again for Apple. Macs perform at their very best with 1GB of RAM, any more RAM than that and performance rapidly decreases, as one would expect. When you use a Mac you know you are getting the optimal solution."
Researchers have tentatively proposed that perhaps having 16 execution cores in a Vista machine would increase performance beyond having 1 execution core.
"I wouldn't have believed that better hardware meant better performance, but these recent reports are a paradigm shift in the way we think about the computer hardware - performance relationship."
They're not stupid; they'll look at which apps you open most frequently, which apps need random access to memory most often, how much memory you have, etc, etc, and make sure that memory is utilized the most effectively.
It's basic Intro to Operating Systems 101 stuff, not rocket science; they're not literally copying everything app on disk into VM.
How about, actually try and fix it? The government isn't beyond the control of the average person; Bush's administration f&@ked up in Iraq, and now he's certainly not coming back next time.
Raise awareness, and if people care they'll vote someone in who wants to put an end to this. Even if that person doesn't get in the main parties will see that they can get more votes if they appeal to those concerned about privacy.
The noble grandma you talk about probably never considered moving to Canada, did she?
I'm a PHP enthusiast with a few servers running PHP apps, and I say bring it on. If such a small team can look for and find so many bugs I doubt a determined attacker would have much problem anyway.
I'm sure that after the dust has settled PHP will be more secure than it was, and that can only be a good thing.
If Autism is caused by mercury why has a gene recently been found that correlates highly? Why does a vaccine "transform" one child (anecdotally) but not affect anyone else in the class?
How many other growth trends have been occurring while the rates of autism have been growing? Global warming? The strength of the Japanese economy? The price of oil?
Leave the "A mother's story: We must fight against the growth of the Japanese economy for my special little autistic Suzy" stories to geocities please, and leave medicine to the pharmacologists (who recently discovered a key genetic link).
Muscles are attractive, but these days muscles aren't more likely to increase the survival of your children, so how long might it take until they're no longer found attractive? You could argue that they might even be an unnecessary waste of resources, so might their attractiveness diminish?
"Refusing to accept what the rest of the world wants" eh? Not accepting what the rest of the world wants must be why it's the default desktop environment in the majority of Linux distros.
GNOME isn't perfect but it's hardly out of touch with what the average user wants. The average user, upon first using Linux, doesn't say "Hey! How can I set window focus to occur on mouse over instead of click? What is this rubbish?". They might say "Where the hell is modem configuration wizard?" though.
Maybe Linus doesn't know what the rest of the world wants?
(Just for good measure: shit moron fuck idiot stfu ttyl)
Slashdot Mirror
He's saying everyone under 25 (including me) can't comprehend the level at which he can multitask... because he can fix a phone line. Who does this guy think he is?
The problem is the hard disk platters used, you would think they'd be sensitive to a thump even with lots of padding etc.
Then again perhaps they're using solid state memory, but then data recovery is harder (data can be retrieved off tape that has been submerged and damaged etc, this would be much harder with on-chip memory).
Then again.. perhaps these aren't meant to be used in black boxes, and are just for recording data for maintenance etc.
I wouldn't focus on the degree necessarily, it's not critical depending on what you want to do. It's hard to say where you go to in the IT industry without any coding abilities, someone else in the thread mentioned system administrator, but how the hell are you going to get a job as a sysadmin with "light" coding abilities?
I'd say do some open source coding in your spare time, write some cool things that you can show off, but at least learn how to code.
I mean.. what is an IT career if it doesn't involve coding? I literally can't think of anything..
This myth has to die; I use XP (used to be Linux, but my morally anti-MS university requires I use Word+Excel+IE), and it usually goes for 3-4 weeks without a reboot, and even then it's only to install updates.
I remember back when I was using Ubuntu I had to reboot about as often because of kernel updates.
I'm 19, and a month or two ago one of my parents cut a wire without realizing that the phone line ran through it. Did my parents (from your generation) whip out their phone line diagnostic kit and get to work? No, they called me.
I didn't have any trouble going up into the attic, identifying+cutting+stripping the cable, checking which wires were which using my voltmeter, rewiring it, fastening it, and testing it with my beige box.
It's not rocket science or a lost art, it's just plain easy. If you're proud of being able to rewire phone lines you need to get over yourself.
You also skip over the fact that the tech around today is much more complicated. You allude to this when you comment "all before this caller ID crap." What's so crap about it? Is it that you don't understand it and can't fix it? Can't you see the hypocrisy here?
Understanding how the POTS works is something anyone can do. As you said yourself it's essentially just a speaker connecting to the phone line.
Comparing this to understanding how a cell network works, understanding the microprocessor rich cell phone internals, and how voice is digitally encoded in a cell phone, is ridiculous. Try wiring a speaker directly up to an antenna and see if you can connect to a cell network.
Don't expect your nephew to understand a PDA because you understood a paper notepad. Don't think that you're some sort of guru from an era gone by because you understand a simple, obsolete technology.
What are we supposed to get out of this? Who cares what nationality this guy was?
Isn't it insulting to say "I know what you're thinking, but Indians aren't stupid! They're as smart as we are! Look at all this stuff they've done!" ?
Or maybe it's "Look at all these great Indians! I'm an Indian just like them, therefore I'm one of them!" Except being a good mathematician has nothing to do with your race, there's just not that big of a difference between races.
If this guy had a beard would you post all the famous accomplishments of bearded mathematicians? It's just as arbitrary.
Why are posts like these rising to the surface? Where is the post giving me an idea of what these theta functions are or what they do? At least something that isn't completely irrelevant?
I don't know where people get the idea that closed source apps are invulnerable to hackers checking them for holes. With a firm grasp of tools like IDA pro you can easily analyze closed source apps.
/. look pretty hypocritical sometimes..
I like and use Firefox too, but I don't think security is a good reason to like Firefox. The great plugins are what puts it head+shoulders above anything else, imho. And with NoScript, AdBlock, etc, it makes it much easier to avoid malicious sites.
Anyway, It's not right to be so complacent, when a hole is found in MS software it's terrible, but when holes are found day after day in Firefox it's progress. It's the same with Apple and MS; the double standards some posters have can make
CSS would be a great standard, but it leaves too much to the people who implement it; is this a block type or inline? What should the default for this nonstandard tag be? etc, etc.
If they spelled everything out without any ambiguity it would make a better standard.. but then it would be another "600 page long" standard with is what he seems to be against in the first place.
Zero as a numerical quantity is no big deal. The Romans and Europeans understood the concept of zero. I have zero gold, you have zero apples, etc.
What we do think first appeared first in India, and call the Hindu numeral system, used a zero positionally so that 10 means 1x ten, and 0x 1s.
Remember they offer a free trial until April 30th. I wonder if they're counting businesses that are using the free trial.
The number system we use is actually originally derived from Hindu numerals. They were the first to use the number '0' to create a positional number system, which is what put it head and shoulders above the Roman one.. But that's besides the point.
I'm not saying Muslim nations weren't, in many respects (especially maths and astronomy), the most advanced nations around at the time. What I am saying is that it's a bit of a leap from "they used this shape" to "they knew all the advanced mathematics that can be derived from studying this shape."
Well the tiles are just.. tiles. Just because someone uses a curvy shaped dome on top of their mosque doesn't mean they knew how to calculate its surface area or volume using integration.
Maybe they just thought it was a pretty shape?
With IPv6 we probably have enough IPs to address billions of people on every planet in the galaxy.. Soo I'm not too worried. :)
What I want to know is where do you draw the line when it comes to taking down child molesters?
Whenever a politician wants to push some privacy invading law he has only to utter the magic words "kiddie porn" and there's no rebuttal. If a hacker invades your privacy and reads your e-mail that's terrible; unless he suspects you're a child molester, in which case he's a "hero".
One of the funniest, most well adjusted people I know was molested at six; it doesn't scar you for life, a savage beating from bullies just might though. Why do we practically encourage bullying but go to any lengths to stop child molesters?
Obviously here I have to clarify my stance, or people will start taking out their pitchforks.. Child molestation and kiddie porn is revolting, but what about getting stabbed? What about being forced to take addictive drugs and prostitute yourself to earn them? What about privacy?
No-one in power has the guts to say "we're going too far", because then they'll be labeled as a sympathizer.
What about the child prostitutes that everyone knows about, but won't donate money to build good orphanages to put them in? We go to any lengths to stop the abuse of children, unless it costs us money. If Brett is such a anti-child molester hero why not get a job, and donate money to take kids off the streets?
Because Brett just wants an excuse to get a rush from "hacking" (ie installing a trojan on gullible users computers, the nirvana of incredible hacks). He's just like loads of other "hacktivists"; working and donating money just isn't as exciting.
I'm not saying the evidence shouldn't be counted, but I do think calling Brett a "hero" for reading thousands of peoples e-mails for years on end is absurd.
Out of those thousands of people were any of them not child molesters? I'm guessing the majority weren't, since he has only a couple of arrests attributed to him. Would you call Brett a hero if you were one of the people he had been monitoring for years? Personally I'd want to lodge the end of my boot up his asshole.
Recently gaim-2.0.0-beta5 started crashing constantly, so I checked out MSN Live Messenger. I couldn't believe that people actually use it for an extended period of time.
There are these incredibly irritating ads that are always about what some celebrity has done (as if anyone cares) or some American football game. Then there's the window's skin, which is blue and shiny and stands out from everything else; if you thought GTK+ on Windows would look bad and out of place compared to something MS comes up with, you're in for a pleasant surprise.
Also I looked and I don't think you can even give people aliases! All the people you had aliased to "Tom" become "No other feeling could compare, let your body take you there, just close your eye's if you dare!! United in Hardcore till we die!" or "+!/\/\|-0 - [lots of rainbows and emoticons here]"
Luckily beta6 came out, and it seems stable so far, but tbh I would put up with the crashes anyway to not have to use Live Messenger.
They're not stupid; they'll look at which apps you open most frequently, which apps need random access to memory most often, how much memory you have, etc, etc, and make sure that memory is utilized the most effectively.
It's basic Intro to Operating Systems 101 stuff, not rocket science; they're not literally copying everything app on disk into VM.
How about, actually try and fix it? The government isn't beyond the control of the average person; Bush's administration f&@ked up in Iraq, and now he's certainly not coming back next time.
Raise awareness, and if people care they'll vote someone in who wants to put an end to this. Even if that person doesn't get in the main parties will see that they can get more votes if they appeal to those concerned about privacy.
The noble grandma you talk about probably never considered moving to Canada, did she?
I'm a PHP enthusiast with a few servers running PHP apps, and I say bring it on. If such a small team can look for and find so many bugs I doubt a determined attacker would have much problem anyway.
I'm sure that after the dust has settled PHP will be more secure than it was, and that can only be a good thing.
If Autism is caused by mercury why has a gene recently been found that correlates highly? Why does a vaccine "transform" one child (anecdotally) but not affect anyone else in the class?
How many other growth trends have been occurring while the rates of autism have been growing? Global warming? The strength of the Japanese economy? The price of oil?
Leave the "A mother's story: We must fight against the growth of the Japanese economy for my special little autistic Suzy" stories to geocities please, and leave medicine to the pharmacologists (who recently discovered a key genetic link).
Muscles are attractive, but these days muscles aren't more likely to increase the survival of your children, so how long might it take until they're no longer found attractive? You could argue that they might even be an unnecessary waste of resources, so might their attractiveness diminish?
/. jokes..)
(Cue the
A real hacker wouldn't have participated, but let's not get into a "definition of hacker" debate..
I heard, from a second hand but reliable source, that evidence destruction goes all the way up to Steve Ballmer.
He's mostly just in charge of the destruction of chair evidence though.
"Refusing to accept what the rest of the world wants" eh? Not accepting what the rest of the world wants must be why it's the default desktop environment in the majority of Linux distros.
GNOME isn't perfect but it's hardly out of touch with what the average user wants. The average user, upon first using Linux, doesn't say "Hey! How can I set window focus to occur on mouse over instead of click? What is this rubbish?". They might say "Where the hell is modem configuration wizard?" though.
Maybe Linus doesn't know what the rest of the world wants?
(Just for good measure: shit moron fuck idiot stfu ttyl)