... of some of the fantastic conversations I've had with my stepson. At first I was a little put off. But now I'm kinda fascinated by his generations' point of view.
He grew up on nintendo. I grew up on Commodore 64. He thinks AIM is a killer communication app, for me it's IRC (for customers where I work it's email). We had interesting conversations about several things... we had a disagreement on how a Tivo works. I basically said... uh you can make one of those with a linux box, it's a computer that saves video data to a hard disk, and that disk only has so much capacity. When the Nintendo DS came out, he was thrilled about this new "802.11 technology from Broadcom"... I said... like the Linux based Linksys router we have, the one I've customized firmware for? At that point we've had the router for a few years.
The point shouldn't be who's right and who's wrong... or who knows what and who knows "HOW" things work. But we can learn from each other.
At some point, I had to stop and realize... wait, he's just growing up in a different world than I did. So now, it's really cool. Our individual experiences compliment each other. He brought home some C++ homework, and I said... look, you can compile this on linux by changing one line!
I'm an admin for a local internet provider and we do some connections for local colleges. I don't talk to the students there all that often, but when I do, I find it easier now.
You're not better than a younger generation because you understand different things than they do. When you start to understand them, you're better than you were.
I'm a huge fan. I'm currently reading "The Cathedral and the Bazzar" and like it quite a bit. I use Linux solely at home and things like Firefox on my company-enabled laptop. I work for an ISP and pride myself on being a networking/Linux guy. I don't dispise Microsoft, but I do have to support their OS sometimes for work, and usually see windows as a "client" OS, not of my choice.
I'm sure most people appreciate the zeal and fervor in which you declined the offer... in some ways, accepting a job from them would be not only an insult to you, but quite possibly even a demotion. If you're completely happy with what you've accomplished and your goals, fantastic. If you feel you have more work to do, even better. I'd like to think you're doing so for the improvement of our time here on this planet.
But I have to admit, some of us might have taken the job. Take me for example. Sure, I have a pretty nice job, and I'm a Linux geek, but a job offer from any large company would be a dream come true for me. I'm "noone important" that MS would have gone after for pure political reasons, to control or hinder with crazy noncompete clauses or insane contracts.
But a job at MS (or any "large company") at this point would help me out. I feel the same as many of the posters here on slashdot... I agree with your ideas, but in this particular instance, I think you give us a bad name. They're beating you at their game. Please don't let that happen.
Someday maybe I'll take a much better position at a larger place... hopefully it will be a Google or similar and not an MS. Till then, I'll be happy in my current job and keep up to date with the software, the ideas and the literature, as well as the hearts and minds of the people.
...perpetrator in high speed chases have grown increasingly accustomed to driving motorcars instead of their tried and true equine counterparts. Investigators have attempted to gain the advantage with performance enhancing drugs for their enforcer donkeys, but in the end are quoted as saying "It's just a pain in our asses."
This is really a good idea. From TFA:...permit only a single concurrent station to connect to each IAP...
It's a wireless *switch*! Typical wireless deployments are like a hub-- 10, 20, 50 people connecting to the same AP. This is a really cool idea when you think about it. You're bridged solely to your own integrated access point, much like a port is your part on the bridge of a switch.
I say, get 12 WRT54G's at $60/piece, and a used/refurbed Cisco 2912, for about $200, load up the WRTs with OpenWRT, and you could probably do the a similar thing for about $1000. A little configuration and tweaking might be necessary though.
Also, don't know about the overlapping channels thing... that might be a challenge. Like I said, similar, but not identical. Still a neat idea.
I have similar experiences as you do, with programming languages, except I don't manage a large auction site.
One of the things I've been learning lately, is that with Perl, there are ways to optimize it. I'm not second guessing your proficiency with perl, but if I was in your shoes, I have an idea what I would do.
Have you ever thought of open-sourcing your engine? If some of the gurus come by and optimize your code, you would benefit immidiately and learn quite a bit in the process.
Again, I don't know how well of a perl guru you are, but there is "more than one way to do it" and there are some pretty darn good ways to optimize it. LinuxJournal had an article about embedding C code in certain places for perl when performance was needed. Just some ideas, thoughts...
You evil downloaders! When the RIAA blackmails all of us, you will learn! Who will promote artists and handle recordings when they do? Huh? You think artists can just promote themselves, make a name for themselves, cut their own albums, and distribute them via this internet thing!?!! Nooo, sir. When the RIAA goes on strike and you no longer have *any* music to listen to, you'll be sorry! All of you will be sorry!
Let's see... Geico had a fit because one of their competitors "bought" the word Geico as an adword so their ad would show up when they search Geico on Google? Is this correct?
Easy way to fix that, take all references of "Geico" out of Google.
On one hand, I can understand where Geico is coming from, but on the other hand, advertisers use their competitors names' in their ads all the time. Can State Farm sue because Geico says I can save 15% off their price? Where does this end? Are websites that compare prices illegal?
I can see if you're avoiding mentioning someone else's trademark in your ad. But this boarders on dictating what you can and cannot search for.
to this was, if the librarian can't be a network security specialist, sure fire her.
Note the sarcasm in there... the internet is more than just a big reference. This isn't a card catalog with the dewey decimal system.
After reading how they prevent these incidents, it's pretty pathetic. Imagine "Martin" in the article is head of IT instead of head librarian:
The Sun quoted a letter Martin had written to Billingsley in which she explained, "We continually enforce our policy by monitoring all computers. Any suspicious use is immediately checked by accessing the history of the patrons' Web use. In addition, the staff monitors the patrons' use by 'walkthroughs' of the computer areas."
The way I see it, a child (or young-er person) will need a laptop when they constitute the need for a laptop.
How about "when they're mobile"? I have a stepson (I won't say how old he is or what stage of life he's in, it's not necessary.) He's definitely not mobile yet. He spends most of his time in the house here, and he has internet access and a very nice machine.
Now it doesn't matter if he's 8 or 18... he really doesn't need one. If mobility becomes part of his life, he's going places (let's say he were to graduate and go off to college), a laptop might come in handy. Mobility often in this country is coupled with responsibility. You usually are going places (literally) when you have much to do and much responsibility.
When does a child need a car? Or a chainsaw? Well when they need to drive or cut wood. I'm sure each parent can answer the questions differently.
I think the mentality that your child will do better in school because they have a laptop is ridiculous. Sort of like buying them Nike sneakers will make them Micheal Jordan (or whomever). If they need and deserve it, you will know.
By "hackers" I take you to mean "bad people on the internet"... or crackers, or script kiddies or something. I would imagine there's no incentive for them to do that. The answer lies in your question. You asked "why" haven't the bad people on the internet attacked other bad people on the internet? They have no "why" reason.
If "crackers" were to believe terrorists had billions of dollars, or some other resource, and were sloppy at their online activities and an easy target, they just might do so.
Also, terrorists may be (ab)using services out there of innocent people and businesses. They would not deserve to be attacked.
Any investigator can tell you that somtimes the best way you catch your mark, is to wait for them to slip up and make a mistake. And they will. In some aspects, it may end up being easier to catch them online.
I can imagine beating terrorism is all about beating them at their own game. (I don't mean cruel inhumane acts, either). They think they're pretty smart moving to the Internet for secret covert communications, this may be the biggest mistake they've ever made. If we end up being better at it than they are, we can stop them from the inside out.
Slashdot Mirror
...calling up my friends... "Quick channel 2304! Porn virus!"
This means they'll be accepting virtual money, right?
partially by the poem in TFA, and partially by the story itself, I've updated my sig...
Do you want a to be grounded again tommy? Now do your homework and stay off of slashdot.
;o)
... of some of the fantastic conversations I've had with my stepson. At first I was a little put off. But now I'm kinda fascinated by his generations' point of view.
... uh you can make one of those with a linux box, it's a computer that saves video data to a hard disk, and that disk only has so much capacity. When the Nintendo DS came out, he was thrilled about this new "802.11 technology from Broadcom" ... I said ... like the Linux based Linksys router we have, the one I've customized firmware for? At that point we've had the router for a few years.
... or who knows what and who knows "HOW" things work. But we can learn from each other.
... look, you can compile this on linux by changing one line!
He grew up on nintendo. I grew up on Commodore 64. He thinks AIM is a killer communication app, for me it's IRC (for customers where I work it's email). We had interesting conversations about several things... we had a disagreement on how a Tivo works. I basically said
The point shouldn't be who's right and who's wrong
At some point, I had to stop and realize... wait, he's just growing up in a different world than I did. So now, it's really cool. Our individual experiences compliment each other. He brought home some C++ homework, and I said
I'm an admin for a local internet provider and we do some connections for local colleges. I don't talk to the students there all that often, but when I do, I find it easier now.
You're not better than a younger generation because you understand different things than they do. When you start to understand them, you're better than you were.
http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/astronomy/LeapYear .html
...
Oh geez I am dumb. It must be late. Coulda always made it a sub and checked to see if it was >= 1900
Looks nifty in Perl to me:
;)
$answer = ($year % 4) == 0 ? "" :
($year % 100) == 0 ? "n't" :
($year % 400) == 0 ? "" :
"n't";
print "\n$year is$answer a leap year.\n\n";
Oh and you do want it in that order, I assume it was a typo that you had it backwards. Didn't work for values 1000 or less.
...Johnny, and remember if those mean boys on the playground even think of taking your Tonka trucks, make sure to kill them first!
I hope he reads this.
I'm a huge fan. I'm currently reading "The Cathedral and the Bazzar" and like it quite a bit. I use Linux solely at home and things like Firefox on my company-enabled laptop. I work for an ISP and pride myself on being a networking/Linux guy. I don't dispise Microsoft, but I do have to support their OS sometimes for work, and usually see windows as a "client" OS, not of my choice.
I'm sure most people appreciate the zeal and fervor in which you declined the offer... in some ways, accepting a job from them would be not only an insult to you, but quite possibly even a demotion. If you're completely happy with what you've accomplished and your goals, fantastic. If you feel you have more work to do, even better. I'd like to think you're doing so for the improvement of our time here on this planet.
But I have to admit, some of us might have taken the job. Take me for example. Sure, I have a pretty nice job, and I'm a Linux geek, but a job offer from any large company would be a dream come true for me. I'm "noone important" that MS would have gone after for pure political reasons, to control or hinder with crazy noncompete clauses or insane contracts.
But a job at MS (or any "large company") at this point would help me out. I feel the same as many of the posters here on slashdot... I agree with your ideas, but in this particular instance, I think you give us a bad name. They're beating you at their game. Please don't let that happen.
Someday maybe I'll take a much better position at a larger place... hopefully it will be a Google or similar and not an MS. Till then, I'll be happy in my current job and keep up to date with the software, the ideas and the literature, as well as the hearts and minds of the people.
-- FLR (*my* initials)
Hey, I'm available, get me a job!
Ok, no I'm not but a better job would be nice.
Seriously, how many geeks out there would loan them out to police to help investigations?
Especially if it meant getting rid of some of the scum of the earth like crackers, spammers, virus writers, and other resource abusers?
...perpetrator in high speed chases have grown increasingly accustomed to driving motorcars instead of their tried and true equine counterparts. Investigators have attempted to gain the advantage with performance enhancing drugs for their enforcer donkeys, but in the end are quoted as saying "It's just a pain in our asses."
Chinese Websites Used As Launchpads For Cracking
Piracy Not To Blame In Decline of Moviegoers
Another Major Spammer Busted
Who gave those in charge a clue? It seems we're starting to see a paradigm shift... people who really abuse network resources are getting caught!
If I patent the patent procedure, will the universe explode?
Sorry it's not a torrent:
http://geexology.org/dls/quake3-1.32b-source.zip
This is really a good idea. From TFA: ...permit only a single concurrent station to connect to each IAP...
... that might be a challenge. Like I said, similar, but not identical. Still a neat idea.
It's a wireless *switch*! Typical wireless deployments are like a hub-- 10, 20, 50 people connecting to the same AP. This is a really cool idea when you think about it. You're bridged solely to your own integrated access point, much like a port is your part on the bridge of a switch.
I say, get 12 WRT54G's at $60/piece, and a used/refurbed Cisco 2912, for about $200, load up the WRTs with OpenWRT, and you could probably do the a similar thing for about $1000. A little configuration and tweaking might be necessary though.
Also, don't know about the overlapping channels thing
I have similar experiences as you do, with programming languages, except I don't manage a large auction site.
One of the things I've been learning lately, is that with Perl, there are ways to optimize it. I'm not second guessing your proficiency with perl, but if I was in your shoes, I have an idea what I would do.
Have you ever thought of open-sourcing your engine? If some of the gurus come by and optimize your code, you would benefit immidiately and learn quite a bit in the process.
Again, I don't know how well of a perl guru you are, but there is "more than one way to do it" and there are some pretty darn good ways to optimize it. LinuxJournal had an article about embedding C code in certain places for perl when performance was needed. Just some ideas, thoughts...
Umm... to all the naysayers... wonder why netcraft says slashdot.org uses mod_perl? (sarcasm, no need for -5, Obvious).
I for one, welcome our perl-loving overlords. (and the book, too!)
Sorry, can't help myself...
... sounding more and more like a poll ...
We could call it:
Not Dogs
Fakin Bacon
Bogus Burgers
Faux Fish
Fake Steak
You evil downloaders! When the RIAA blackmails all of us, you will learn! Who will promote artists and handle recordings when they do? Huh? You think artists can just promote themselves, make a name for themselves, cut their own albums, and distribute them via this internet thing!?!! Nooo, sir. When the RIAA goes on strike and you no longer have *any* music to listen to, you'll be sorry! All of you will be sorry!
Let's see... Geico had a fit because one of their competitors "bought" the word Geico as an adword so their ad would show up when they search Geico on Google? Is this correct?
Easy way to fix that, take all references of "Geico" out of Google.
On one hand, I can understand where Geico is coming from, but on the other hand, advertisers use their competitors names' in their ads all the time. Can State Farm sue because Geico says I can save 15% off their price? Where does this end? Are websites that compare prices illegal?
I can see if you're avoiding mentioning someone else's trademark in your ad. But this boarders on dictating what you can and cannot search for.
to this was, if the librarian can't be a network security specialist, sure fire her.
Note the sarcasm in there... the internet is more than just a big reference. This isn't a card catalog with the dewey decimal system.
After reading how they prevent these incidents, it's pretty pathetic. Imagine "Martin" in the article is head of IT instead of head librarian:
The Sun quoted a letter Martin had written to Billingsley in which she explained, "We continually enforce our policy by monitoring all computers. Any suspicious use is immediately checked by accessing the history of the patrons' Web use. In addition, the staff monitors the patrons' use by 'walkthroughs' of the computer areas."
Seems pretty sad doesn't it?
The way I see it, a child (or young-er person) will need a laptop when they constitute the need for a laptop.
How about "when they're mobile"? I have a stepson (I won't say how old he is or what stage of life he's in, it's not necessary.) He's definitely not mobile yet. He spends most of his time in the house here, and he has internet access and a very nice machine.
Now it doesn't matter if he's 8 or 18... he really doesn't need one. If mobility becomes part of his life, he's going places (let's say he were to graduate and go off to college), a laptop might come in handy. Mobility often in this country is coupled with responsibility. You usually are going places (literally) when you have much to do and much responsibility.
When does a child need a car? Or a chainsaw? Well when they need to drive or cut wood. I'm sure each parent can answer the questions differently.
I think the mentality that your child will do better in school because they have a laptop is ridiculous. Sort of like buying them Nike sneakers will make them Micheal Jordan (or whomever). If they need and deserve it, you will know.
By "hackers" I take you to mean "bad people on the internet"... or crackers, or script kiddies or something. I would imagine there's no incentive for them to do that. The answer lies in your question. You asked "why" haven't the bad people on the internet attacked other bad people on the internet? They have no "why" reason.
If "crackers" were to believe terrorists had billions of dollars, or some other resource, and were sloppy at their online activities and an easy target, they just might do so.
Also, terrorists may be (ab)using services out there of innocent people and businesses. They would not deserve to be attacked.
Any investigator can tell you that somtimes the best way you catch your mark, is to wait for them to slip up and make a mistake. And they will. In some aspects, it may end up being easier to catch them online.
I can imagine beating terrorism is all about beating them at their own game. (I don't mean cruel inhumane acts, either). They think they're pretty smart moving to the Internet for secret covert communications, this may be the biggest mistake they've ever made. If we end up being better at it than they are, we can stop them from the inside out.
The absence of oxygen consuming organisms at that time is said to have lead to destruction of atmospheric methane which had hitherto warmed the earth.
So if I am generating methane I'm really saving the planet? Will someone explain this to my wife?
It's ok, really it is. Karl Rove gave him the information.