This happened while I was working as a sys admin at one of the local ISP's in the town where I lived at the time. On my honor, this is a true story....
Request (from Tech Support to Sys Admin): cutomer [sic] would like to request static ip 192.168.169.1 if available, otherwise will take what is available.
Sigh...what's really sad about this one is that it went through our Tech Support before getting to system administration. While a customer might not really understand RFC-1918 IP addressing vs. publicly routable IP addresses, tech support really should have known better. I was tempted to comply with her request, but I just couldn't bring myself to be such a BOFH.:)
Quote: Some people think global warming research is more important
I love it! Causing additional global warming by running a PC (or several PCs) full-throttle 24x7 while crunching numbers for global warming research...
$ make menuconfig && make dep && make clean && make bzImage && make modules && make modules_install
Granted it's all ncurses based (no OpenGL gore in this game), but after carefully winding your way through a seemingly endless array of levels, "wait, is this OHCI or UHCI?", "do I really need SCCP support?", "should I try to build ALSA in the kernel, or install it afterwards?", etc, then you save the config, and wait breathlessly through the compile, "oh, good--no gcc errors this time!" until finally it's done and you reboot...."AAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!! I was this close and got a kernel panic!!!! @#$!!!"
From Planet Obvious comes this newsflash: waiting to see what others are willing to pay for an item, and *then* deciding whether you are willing to pay more is more efficient than lowballing for days beforehand!
Duh!
I don't see how sniping is a "problem" Since e-bay allows you to enter a max bid, but will only raise your bid to the least amount needed to exceed all other max bids, sniping still doesn't guarantee you a win. I've lost a number of auctions--during the last minute--because someone else wanted it more^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hbid more than I did. And sometimes, like an item I just missed yesterday, sniping loses you an auction because when the bid ended, you were away from your computer and missed the chance to bid (*##!!! item went for $12.95, too...I would have paid $35 for it:( -- but that's my own stupid fault, and a chance I willingly took).
Quote: What if the dangerous paedophile actually managed, through hard work and dedication, to get a job on the police force?
It's not a far-fetched scenario. IIRC, a cop here where I live was busted within the last year for having a collection of kiddie-porn on his computer.
My hat is off to the librarian--you did the right thing, for the right reason. Tell the cops you would be glad to assist them with their request...once they have a court order requiring it.
Quote: That is, we're very far from the situation where opening another univeristy will so crowd the market for higher education that the value of an education will decline due to the presence of more of them...
Well, not exactly. Think about it. There was a time in our nation's history where a high-school education was above average. Then, as more people began earning a high-school education, it became the standard, rather than the exception. Now, a four-year degree from college is the norm. How many *good* jobs are available with only a high-school diploma on your resume?
The same thing happened with IT certifications. When too many people began earning MCSE's, Microsoft decided they needed to raise the bar so the MCSE "meant something". Likewise with Cisco and the CCNA.
While the money<-->universities argument may not be entirely accurate, there is some degree of parallel. As a credential becomes more commonplace, it does, in fact, become devalued.
Quote: "You shouldn't be worried about being spied on by your government," said Heal. "These days you can't go anywhere without a camera watching you..."
While I am not particularly concerned about surveillance cameras in public places, Heal's reasoning is frightening in the extreme: "You shouldn't worry about the government watching you because the government is already watching you..." That's called circular reasoning--using your conclusion to prove your premise--and it is faulty logic. Do you think Heal would agree that we shouldn't worry about terrorists blowing things up because terrorists are already blowing things up? Yeah, that's what I thought...
On the contrary...we should instead be concerned about our government watching us exactly because they are already watching us!
If I wrote, performed and recorded the material, then *I alone* (or in partnership with other musicians who contributed to these works) get to decide how the material is to be licensed. If I release something under a creative commons license (as I have), then it is free (as in "speech") for others to use, *PERIOD*.
While I might be willing to sign over rights to my creative works to a publisher so that my works can be distributed, there's no way I would be willing to sign a contract that assigns the rights to my creative works to the broadcaster.
Like the/.'er you replied to, my earlier comment was meant to be funny as well, but the sad truth is that you are exactly right.
On a recent trip to Texas, my wife, daughter (5 y.o.) and I were <sarcasm>fortunate</sarcasm> enough to find out what the "random searches" consist of. For me, it wasn't all that much--a cursory pat down and a check with the wand, but the female TSA bi^H^Hofficer who searched my wife was actually searching under her bra. My wife sarcastically calls it her first lesbian experience. I about came unglued when I found out how the TSA was searching my wife. IMHO, unless you've got probable cause or a search warrant, that's well beyond what's necessary or reasonable.
So, yeah, I'm with you. Either drive or stay home, as often as possible. Screw the airlines and the TSA.
I understand your point, but I'm not completely sure I agree with you. Just because you have the freedom to speak your mind doesn't mean you are free from the consequences of your actions. If I were foolish enough to reveal trade secrets of the company for whom I work on MySpace, or/. or any of the other "public" forums, I could rightfully be terminated for my indiscretion. Likewise, were I stupid enough to 1) be unfaithful to my wife (I'm not, incidentally <grin>) and 2) brag about it on-line, I shouldn't be surprised if my wife were to find out and file for divorce. So, why should it be any different for law enforcement?
While I'm not a big fan of NSA's wiretapping, there is a huge difference between posting comments publicly and the reasonable expectation of privacy I have when making a phone call.
As far as public video surveillance goes...as I understand, and IANAL, but it is completely legal to take photographs of anyone, anytime in a public place, with or without their permission, so I would expect video surveillance to become more common here in the U.S. I may not *like* it, but it's not a violation of any privacy laws of which I am aware.
You joke, but I recently returned from a business trip to Montreal. Guess what was in many--but admittedly, not all--of the public restrooms? You guessed it: *video* surveillance.
Okay, I'm putting on my paranoia hat here, and I'll admit that I am far from an expert on RFID technology, so I *might* just be exposing my ignorance here...
...BUT...
...if you can build a Yagi to let you receive a WiFi signal from distances far in excess of the manufacturers' stated reception range, it seems reasonable to assume that a sufficiently motivated and knowledgeable person could build an RFID reader that would work from a few feet away. Or, at the very least, that it would be possible to read an RFID tag from someone walking down the street next to you, standing next to you on the subway, etc.
Quicken is the *only* reason my wife has admin rights to her Windows machine. After removing yet another virus--and a several page list of spyware--from her computer (which has automated Windows, anti-virus, anti-spyware and firewall updates, thank-you-very-much), I changed her user account from administrator to power user...and Quicken promptly stopped working.
I tried changing permissions, etc., on the Quicken data directory (among other things) to no avail. The only way I was able to get Quicken to run under her account was to give her back admin rights, sigh.
Quote:Actually, with aircraft wings, it has been found that vortexes are beneficial...
I think you probably mean that vortices CAN be (but aren't necessarily) beneficial. It is to minimize the effects of wingtip vortices, and the induced drag associated with wingtip vortices, that Lear Jets, Grumman Gulfstreams and (blush) Falcon XP's have those funny-looking winglets at the end of their wings. It is also wingtip vortices that caused me to crack my head on the ceiling of a Cessna Skyhawk, despite the fact that 1) I was wearing my seatbelt and 2) the 747 I was following into Anchorage Int'l was five miles ahead of me (google "wake turbulence").
Quote: except now we've got to wait 3 weeks for some redundant FISA warrant, then another 3 weeks for an overworked defense employee to decrypt our data...Oh, meanwhile the terrorists have just rented a cropduster in Albany.
Except for the fact that FISA allowed for the government to make a time-sensitive tap *immediately* as long as the government submitted a request for a warrant within three days. Somehow, I just don't see what problem the current warrantless searches are intended to solve.
As a big fan of Slackware, I hate to say this, but the Gentoo laptop I use at work seems to be much happier with 2.6 than the Slackware desktop that I upgraded to 2.6. Two caveats here, however: first, I'm still running Slack 9.1, so perhaps that's the difference between my experience and yours, and second, I had the help of a very experienced Gentoo guy when setting up the work system whereas Google and I upgraded the Slackware host.
Still, XMMS (for example) throws up a lot of kernel errors on the Slack machine but works like a champ on my Gentoo laptop.
Having said all that, I have to admit that Slack with 2.4.31 works extremely well, so I'm content to wait a little longer for 2.6 support in Slackware on the rest of my hosts.
While there are still hurdles to mainstream acceptance (E911 service, must have Internet connectivity to use any kind of VoIP--meaning it won't replace a cell phone for when you are out and about just yet--and so on), VoIP quality is getting pretty good. Since I haven't used any of the major VoIP providers' services, I can't comment on how good Vonage, Skype, etc.'s VoIP implementations are, but I have set up my own VoIP server using Asterisk on a Linux box and the quality of this set up was quite good. Case in point--during a recent trip into Eastern Canada, I was able to call my wife in Anchorage through my VoIP server, and the quality was very nearly as good as the calls I made on my cell phone.
So...is VoIP ready for prime time? Tough call (no pun intended), but if not, then it's getting close. Can a reasonably tech-savvy person build an "internal-use-only" VoIP service to allow low- or no-cost long-distance service that approaches the quality of current l-d telephony? Absolutely.
Quote:
That'd be really bad coz suddenly it [Linux] can't interoperate with all those devices using FAT./Quote
Bingo!
That's what my money says Microsoft *really* intended by this move.
Micro$oft doesn't give a rip about interoperability; they are big enough that they don't *have* to worry if their products work with other software vendors' products, because they know their users will buy M$ anyway.
How many Windows users really think to themselves, "hmmm...I wonder if this Microsoft product will play nicely with my Linux boxen?"
This sounds a lot like what the MAC address used to be: a unique number burned into the chipset of every NIC made...until someone decided "hey, it would be useful to be able to rewrite these."
I suspect this chip will go the same way as the "unique" MAC, and for the same reasons. Despite whatever the tin-foil hat crowd thinks (and there is some "tin-foil hat" in me), products are driven by demand, so as soon as manufacturers see that people want the convenience of being able to associate their "identity" with multiple computers, the ability to do so will be created. At that point, of course, the TPM identifier is no longer unique, and it will be possible to forge someone else's identity...again.
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Sigh...what's really sad about this one is that it went through our Tech Support before getting to system administration. While a customer might not really understand RFC-1918 IP addressing vs. publicly routable IP addresses, tech support really should have known better. I was tempted to comply with her request, but I just couldn't bring myself to be such a BOFH.
Quote: Some people think global warming research is more important
I love it! Causing additional global warming by running a PC (or several PCs) full-throttle 24x7 while crunching numbers for global warming research...
"Isn't it ironic...doncha think?"
Quote: Hey, I just use it for the mail server program because I can't stand sendmail.
So run Postfix--much easier than Sendmail, but powerful enough to be used by ISPs.
...is started like this:
$ make menuconfig && make dep && make clean && make bzImage && make modules && make modules_install
Granted it's all ncurses based (no OpenGL gore in this game), but after carefully winding your way through a seemingly endless array of levels, "wait, is this OHCI or UHCI?", "do I really need SCCP support?", "should I try to build ALSA in the kernel, or install it afterwards?", etc, then you save the config, and wait breathlessly through the compile, "oh, good--no gcc errors this time!" until finally it's done and you reboot...."AAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!! I was this close and got a kernel panic!!!! @#$!!!"
The horror!!!
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From Planet Obvious comes this newsflash: waiting to see what others are willing to pay for an item, and *then* deciding whether you are willing to pay more is more efficient than lowballing for days beforehand!
:( -- but that's my own stupid fault, and a chance I willingly took).
Duh!
I don't see how sniping is a "problem" Since e-bay allows you to enter a max bid, but will only raise your bid to the least amount needed to exceed all other max bids, sniping still doesn't guarantee you a win. I've lost a number of auctions--during the last minute--because someone else wanted it more^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hbid more than I did. And sometimes, like an item I just missed yesterday, sniping loses you an auction because when the bid ended, you were away from your computer and missed the chance to bid (*##!!! item went for $12.95, too...I would have paid $35 for it
Quote: What if the dangerous paedophile actually managed, through hard work and dedication, to get a job on the police force?
It's not a far-fetched scenario. IIRC, a cop here where I live was busted within the last year for having a collection of kiddie-porn on his computer.
My hat is off to the librarian--you did the right thing, for the right reason. Tell the cops you would be glad to assist them with their request...once they have a court order requiring it.
Quote: The really interesting question, however, is: is global warming bad?
F*** no--I live in Alaska!
Quote: That is, we're very far from the situation where opening another univeristy will so crowd the market for higher education that the value of an education will decline due to the presence of more of them...
Well, not exactly. Think about it. There was a time in our nation's history where a high-school education was above average. Then, as more people began earning a high-school education, it became the standard, rather than the exception. Now, a four-year degree from college is the norm. How many *good* jobs are available with only a high-school diploma on your resume?
The same thing happened with IT certifications. When too many people began earning MCSE's, Microsoft decided they needed to raise the bar so the MCSE "meant something". Likewise with Cisco and the CCNA.
While the money<-->universities argument may not be entirely accurate, there is some degree of parallel. As a credential becomes more commonplace, it does, in fact, become devalued.
Quote: "You shouldn't be worried about being spied on by your government," said Heal. "These days you can't go anywhere without a camera watching you..."
While I am not particularly concerned about surveillance cameras in public places, Heal's reasoning is frightening in the extreme: "You shouldn't worry about the government watching you because the government is already watching you..." That's called circular reasoning--using your conclusion to prove your premise--and it is faulty logic. Do you think Heal would agree that we shouldn't worry about terrorists blowing things up because terrorists are already blowing things up? Yeah, that's what I thought...
On the contrary...we should instead be concerned about our government watching us exactly because they are already watching us!
...over my dead body!
If I wrote, performed and recorded the material, then *I alone* (or in partnership with other musicians who contributed to these works) get to decide how the material is to be licensed. If I release something under a creative commons license (as I have), then it is free (as in "speech") for others to use, *PERIOD*.
While I might be willing to sign over rights to my creative works to a publisher so that my works can be distributed, there's no way I would be willing to sign a contract that assigns the rights to my creative works to the broadcaster.
Like the /.'er you replied to, my earlier comment was meant to be funny as well, but the sad truth is that you are exactly right.
On a recent trip to Texas, my wife, daughter (5 y.o.) and I were <sarcasm>fortunate</sarcasm> enough to find out what the "random searches" consist of. For me, it wasn't all that much--a cursory pat down and a check with the wand, but the female TSA bi^H^Hofficer who searched my wife was actually searching under her bra. My wife sarcastically calls it her first lesbian experience. I about came unglued when I found out how the TSA was searching my wife. IMHO, unless you've got probable cause or a search warrant, that's well beyond what's necessary or reasonable.
So, yeah, I'm with you. Either drive or stay home, as often as possible. Screw the airlines and the TSA.
Absolutely! A full body-cavity search is about as close to sex as most /.'ers will ever get :P
I understand your point, but I'm not completely sure I agree with you. Just because you have the freedom to speak your mind doesn't mean you are free from the consequences of your actions. If I were foolish enough to reveal trade secrets of the company for whom I work on MySpace, or /. or any of the other "public" forums, I could rightfully be terminated for my indiscretion. Likewise, were I stupid enough to 1) be unfaithful to my wife (I'm not, incidentally <grin>) and 2) brag about it on-line, I shouldn't be surprised if my wife were to find out and file for divorce. So, why should it be any different for law enforcement?
While I'm not a big fan of NSA's wiretapping, there is a huge difference between posting comments publicly and the reasonable expectation of privacy I have when making a phone call.
As far as public video surveillance goes...as I understand, and IANAL, but it is completely legal to take photographs of anyone, anytime in a public place, with or without their permission, so I would expect video surveillance to become more common here in the U.S. I may not *like* it, but it's not a violation of any privacy laws of which I am aware.
You joke, but I recently returned from a business trip to Montreal. Guess what was in many--but admittedly, not all--of the public restrooms? You guessed it: *video* surveillance.
It was more than just a little creepy...
Hmmm....."Totalitarian States of America"...."TSA"...I don't like where this train of thought is leading :(
<pulls tin-foil hat a little tighter around head>
Not quite everybody...I've set my browser to cache to /dev/null for, among others, this very reason :)
Okay, I'm putting on my paranoia hat here, and I'll admit that I am far from an expert on RFID technology, so I *might* just be exposing my ignorance here...
...BUT...
...if you can build a Yagi to let you receive a WiFi signal from distances far in excess of the manufacturers' stated reception range, it seems reasonable to assume that a sufficiently motivated and knowledgeable person could build an RFID reader that would work from a few feet away. Or, at the very least, that it would be possible to read an RFID tag from someone walking down the street next to you, standing next to you on the subway, etc.
...and Quicken.
Quicken is the *only* reason my wife has admin rights to her Windows machine. After removing yet another virus--and a several page list of spyware--from her computer (which has automated Windows, anti-virus, anti-spyware and firewall updates, thank-you-very-much), I changed her user account from administrator to power user...and Quicken promptly stopped working.
I tried changing permissions, etc., on the Quicken data directory (among other things) to no avail. The only way I was able to get Quicken to run under her account was to give her back admin rights, sigh.
Quote:Actually, with aircraft wings, it has been found that vortexes are beneficial...
I think you probably mean that vortices CAN be (but aren't necessarily) beneficial. It is to minimize the effects of wingtip vortices, and the induced drag associated with wingtip vortices, that Lear Jets, Grumman Gulfstreams and (blush) Falcon XP's have those funny-looking winglets at the end of their wings. It is also wingtip vortices that caused me to crack my head on the ceiling of a Cessna Skyhawk, despite the fact that 1) I was wearing my seatbelt and 2) the 747 I was following into Anchorage Int'l was five miles ahead of me (google "wake turbulence").
Quote: except now we've got to wait 3 weeks for some redundant FISA warrant, then another 3 weeks for an overworked defense employee to decrypt our data...Oh, meanwhile the terrorists have just rented a cropduster in Albany. Except for the fact that FISA allowed for the government to make a time-sensitive tap *immediately* as long as the government submitted a request for a warrant within three days. Somehow, I just don't see what problem the current warrantless searches are intended to solve.
As a big fan of Slackware, I hate to say this, but the Gentoo laptop I use at work seems to be much happier with 2.6 than the Slackware desktop that I upgraded to 2.6. Two caveats here, however: first, I'm still running Slack 9.1, so perhaps that's the difference between my experience and yours, and second, I had the help of a very experienced Gentoo guy when setting up the work system whereas Google and I upgraded the Slackware host.
Still, XMMS (for example) throws up a lot of kernel errors on the Slack machine but works like a champ on my Gentoo laptop.
Having said all that, I have to admit that Slack with 2.4.31 works extremely well, so I'm content to wait a little longer for 2.6 support in Slackware on the rest of my hosts.
While there are still hurdles to mainstream acceptance (E911 service, must have Internet connectivity to use any kind of VoIP--meaning it won't replace a cell phone for when you are out and about just yet--and so on), VoIP quality is getting pretty good. Since I haven't used any of the major VoIP providers' services, I can't comment on how good Vonage, Skype, etc.'s VoIP implementations are, but I have set up my own VoIP server using Asterisk on a Linux box and the quality of this set up was quite good. Case in point--during a recent trip into Eastern Canada, I was able to call my wife in Anchorage through my VoIP server, and the quality was very nearly as good as the calls I made on my cell phone. So...is VoIP ready for prime time? Tough call (no pun intended), but if not, then it's getting close. Can a reasonably tech-savvy person build an "internal-use-only" VoIP service to allow low- or no-cost long-distance service that approaches the quality of current l-d telephony? Absolutely.
Quote: That'd be really bad coz suddenly it [Linux] can't interoperate with all those devices using FAT. /Quote
Bingo!
That's what my money says Microsoft *really* intended by this move.
Micro$oft doesn't give a rip about interoperability; they are big enough that they don't *have* to worry if their products work with other software vendors' products, because they know their users will buy M$ anyway.
How many Windows users really think to themselves, "hmmm...I wonder if this Microsoft product will play nicely with my Linux boxen?"
This sounds a lot like what the MAC address used to be: a unique number burned into the chipset of every NIC made...until someone decided "hey, it would be useful to be able to rewrite these." I suspect this chip will go the same way as the "unique" MAC, and for the same reasons. Despite whatever the tin-foil hat crowd thinks (and there is some "tin-foil hat" in me), products are driven by demand, so as soon as manufacturers see that people want the convenience of being able to associate their "identity" with multiple computers, the ability to do so will be created. At that point, of course, the TPM identifier is no longer unique, and it will be possible to forge someone else's identity...again.