Actually.... a FOAF got a job as a cop here (yes Boston area). On her first day out driving she was approaching a light behind another car. It turned yellow and she stepped on the gas... completely forgetting that she was in a police cruiser, a fact which was apparently not missed by the person in front of her who dutifully stepped on his breaks and came to a stop at the light..... whoops.
Congradulations, you just invented the "delayed green". You should patent it, before the guy who has been setting intersections around here up like that for years does. We have them all over the place. Also.... I really wish that articles like this would get beyond things like "see we can do it". I would love to see what it is that predicts these actions, and see if it says anything about whats going on.
Cuz in the end, its not about catching people who run lights. Enforcing the law is not an end in and of itself, its supposed to be a means to an end. Who cares if we can "catch" more people? It may feel good and let someone justify their job with some metrics but, it doesn't solve the original problem of risks and dangers....not in anything even approaching a realistic way.
Like the delayed green... I would think that a very slight delay would cause any such accidents to drop off. In fact, as I said, we have lights timed like this all over the place, and while I have seen a few accidents, the only "red light running" one I know of involved a drunk guy blowing through a light that was just plain red, not even green and turning.... I don't think anything is going to solve that one, there will always be a few true idiots.
I so don't have the energy to be a sociopath. The few I have met...they fucking put work in man. Not really useful work to anyone else... but maintaining their overall persona, developing the air of usefulness, while avoiding real work and angling at an even better situation (promotions etc)... its actually impressive. I lived with one for a while, and when he moved out man.... I felt like I got one put over on me by a pro. I was out like 3 grand and I wasn't even pissed, in some ways, I felt like I got off easy, and like the lesson was maybe worth it.
I mean.... this guy man.... he was good. He was claiming to be a student in a law school, and even knew the courses in the schools curriculum for that year, could tell you what classes he was supposedly taking.... even though the school had never heard of him. Hell it turns out even the bar that he worked nights at as a bouncer had paid him a $3k advance before he skipped.
Yup, I can't disagree.... there does seem to be a bit of a catch 22.... if you have time to work on automation, its probably because you don't need it. You are increasing your capacity when you are already over capacity. Maybe you need it down the road and know it now....which is good, but... maybe you are wasting your time, but, is it a waste if you don't have much else to do? (actually, there is some good reason to not have admins too overloaded, because if they are always at capacity, you can't deal with new situations as they arise without dropping things).
Thats not a real problem though.... the real problem is the obverse situation, those who really need automation don't have the time to implement it.
Partially agreed but...at the same time... who knows what doesn't mean it wont work...or will result in problems later, just that we don't fully know...and I might argue, can't fully know until we try.
That said, I think it has a real chance of working, mostly because of how drastic of an effect this could have by shifting the reproductive cycle in such a way as to massively overpopulate males vs females. If this works for the first few generations, it could quickly put a hurting on their numbers. This leaves a couple of possibilities.
Actually.... this reminds me of some of the talk of cancer evolution....in fact, its probably a good model here. To go from being a human cell to a cancer cell generally takes not just one, but several evolutionary steps. At each of those steps, a cell line could die off (either via chance or via a cleaning mechanism designed to take out mutated cells). Chances are, if you have cancer, your body came close to cancer several times before one cell finally finds the right mutated configuration.
So the chance of developing cancer actually is dependent on the number of steps required to become cancerous, down all of the paths that it can. This is an identical situation here.... it comes down to how close the populations genetic makeup is to being able to circumvent this. If it only takes one or two mutations to make females who avoid GM males, or to produce something which compensates for the change, then.... this is unlikely to work. Similarly, if they already have the genes required to make females that are not susceptible, then this will simply make sure that they dominate.
That said, if there are no coping mechanisms already in their population, and if developing them is more than a few mutations away.... it could come damned close to eradicating them. Once their numbers are vastly smaller, it would also slow the rate of total mutations in their population, making them less likely to make it over the hurdles.
It could work.... but... what that will mean in the long term is unclear.
Yes but.... just because they don't want it now, doesn't mean that they wont get a taste for it later. I see no reason to deny them that taste if they want it.
Hypercard was pretty cool. I only ever used the ][GS version, but it worked, it was neat. It wouldn't be my first choice for apps today (even if it was still around) but, if someone without experience wanted to play around or make a quick app to do something specific, I would totally recommend it.
What people want is irrelevant. Ask anyone over the age of 30 if they are doing now what they thought they wanted to be doing 10 or 15 years ago, and well... I don't know many who could honestly answer in the affirmative. Give them the tools, give them a path, and some will walk down it. The easier the path, the more who will try.
spreadsheets are interesting as a solution because.... they are totally the wrong tool for just about every application that they get used for. However, they are often a great solution just because they are so fast and simple to setup, and many office workers already know how to use them.
This reminds me of a debate that a previous cow-orker and I used to have about the break even point for automation. How much automation actually makes sense for a given job actually depends on a number of things, not the least of which is, how often its needed. If I build a new server once a year...who cares if it takes a whole day or even two? However, if I do it every week.... then a day or two is 20-40% of my time! If I do it every day.... then its 100% or just impossible as I fall behind....and we now need another employee.... and thats if we assume I am willing to stay at a job where I just do server builds every day, all day. (admittedly, if that were the case, i could be replaced by an intern or junior admin, but thats besides the point... how long is that guy going to stay?)
Now before the break even point, there may still be reasons to automate, but, automation takes time, it takes testing, which also takes time. If I spend 2 weeks automating a process.... and that automation saves 6 hours every time.... but we only do it twice a year (yes a pathological case) then, its going to take almost a decade to pay off in time, and thats assuming we never need to make any changes. (unlikely).
Now, you do get something out of automation besides time savings, you get consistency.... which can save time elsewhere. However.... all in all.... yes, spreadsheets are probably great for many things that they get used for.... just because they avoid all of this design and testing, in service of getting the job done.... its just a matter of making sure that you stop and do things "right" before the simple solution gets too out of hand.
Isn't this exactly the sort of reason that the is (used to be? Its been forever since I saw it) metamoderation. It was supposed to be a check and balance sort of situation. In fact, I think metamoderation is a great solution to this, or provides a great tool for it.
First, from your own allegations, I think any old posts receiving moderation should get a higher priority for metamod and should get in front of more eyeballs.
Second, it would be great to make sure that each moderated article gets its unique moderation points evaluated multiple times, and higher priority with the greater number of mods (so someone slamming your post with 50 downvotes would quickly cause it to be metamodded).
So... is metamod still around? If so....I obviously think bringing it back and making it even better is a good answer here.
I didn't say he WAS a badass ninja, I said he had some people in management convinced that he was. I never said they understood what a badass ninja really looked like, in fact, exactly the opposite.
Well it is a fictionaly story based on observations of actual stories. Clearly it represents an exaggerated world, but one that is so believable when we look at our own. Oceania wasn't just a place with cameras and torture with rats. Look at Wilson's own job, sitting at a desk, taking in little scraps of paper, processing them, and then disposing of them. It was very much about control of information flow, control of the historical record.
The masses knew the official story was BS, people know it today. And by know it today, I don't just mean Fox News. I mean the official story. Many comments on the embassy cables that were released basically just confirmed what everybody already knew. Sure, a lot of specifics came out, and some of those were significant and made a difference. However, was anybody shocked at the kinds of things that were found? Nobody that I have heard comment on them. Hell a lot of people believe much wilder and crazier versions of reality than all that! Some even believe fox news.... scary.... and some people really did love Big Brother.
Going back though, I think it has always been true. There were not genuine supports of BB or even masses knowing they were lied to in 1984 because Orwell just dreamed it up from his imagination, this is how it always is.
ROTFL I might have said the same thing a few years back but.... believe it or not, a lot of admins get by without ever having to know how to setup their own DHCP or NFS servers. Also, the job of "wipe all these machines" is the kind of work you give to your most junior guy, or even an intern. I wouldn't expect a junior admin or intern to be able to have a machine built and setup as a DHCP server with working NFS in a couple of hours. I would expect that of a mid level or senior admin, but.... I wouldn't hand them such a menial task either.
Actually, one way people end up in this situation is promotions. I know a bunch of guys who came up from help desk work and have some gaps in their knowledge. Particularly in networking since they have worked their entire careers at a place where there is a networking group that handles all DHCP/DNS/routing etc.
Also, there have been a few articles about how the latest crop of linux admins isn;t as up to snuff as the previous generations, for whom this stuff was bread and butter.
Unless the perception is that the 'C' Player is an 'A' Player and the 'B' player is actually an 'F' because he "never does anything".
I knew a few 'D' Players who were treated like they were some sort of bad ass ninjas, just because nobody in charge had any clue how to evaluate them or their work... and the few people who did realize it were less visible and thus got totally ignored.
Ever met a sociopath? You would be shocked at how far just a little charm will take you, especially in the eyes of non-technical people who can't call you on your BS.
I would look at FAI or kickstart. For FAI a pretty early hook to backup and wipe.... for kickstart a %pre script.
Of course, if you are working alone, and don't know how to configure DHCP/NFS etc.... it may take you a couple of days just to get the basic setup going, as they can be very finicky, but the quickstart guides out there should generally be able to get you going. If all goes well, you could be working on your scripting in a couple of hours, if not..... well....I hate troubleshooting NFS.. (and don't forget to check your IPTables setup if you are having trouble getting it working...amazing how much better NFS works when its packets are not being dropped.
Overall, I like FAI better than kickstart, but thats probably because I have used it less and those early stages (DHCP/NFS mount) are hard to troubleshoot with kickstart since stage2 (and thus a shell with which to troubleshoot) isn't available until that works.... though.... you probably don't have the same constraints I do and can just switch USB keys and boot off a fully functional system to test poke around.
Yes absolutely....if you just totally ignore that they need to get funding, and rely on the ability to recruit people and keep their network together.
When you factor in the actual realities of their situation and goals, I just don't see how you would imagine that this would actually be seen as furthering their goals.
It would be unpredictable, uncontrollable, and make them global pariahs, losing what little support they do have, and making it nearly impossible to recruit. I think you vastly underestimate the real cost to them.
Terrorism is, at its heart, a campaign of publicity stunts, aimed at getting more funding and support. Its hard to see how this would accomplish those real goals.
Yes but.... ask any soldier in any non-conscript army whether he is willing to "sacrifice his life to accomplish their goals" and what answer would you expect? I mean, perhaps nobody would answer it like that but, if you replaced goals with the appropriate concepts, you will get nothing but resounding affirmations.
Even if they believed that they would themselves die in the process, and that muslims would be killed in equal percentages to westerners, they would still likely use it, on the (correct) theory that 50% casualties would be far more damaging to industrialized nations than to their own.
Actually.... I doubt it. Yes, on the surface, thats true. We could make an analogy to chess and sacrificing ones queen to level the positional field. However, thats only a very crude look at their real goals and situations.
Firstly, they have to be able to capitalize on it. If it ever became known who did it... they would be shunned universally. Its not just a matter of hurting us more... believe it or not, for all the rhetoric, we are not their great enemy... they pick on us because we are supporting many of the people that they would like to overthrow.
All in all, nobody but an actual crazy would do such a thing, since its can't really be controlled, and release effectively ensures worldwide spread. Real terrorists are not crazy, what they do makes perfect sense in a matter of looking at it. They are no more going to use such an agent than the US and USSR were actually going to start nuking eachother. Everyone knew it was a doomsday scenario, nobody actually wanted that.... both sides, however, acted like the other was going to do it....and boy was that stupid pissing match expensive.
Expensive...and pointless.... because neither side actually was going to do anything, except in the other sides simulations.
Lol so true in so many ways. Though, lately, I get all my games via Steam because either my wife or I see a game package for sale and it goes something like this: "Baby they have the entire X Series for $15, I am getting it" "Oooh get it for me too" "ok"
The last game I "pirated" was one that I had purchased a copy of, but used some silly DRM and.... lo and behold... the company went out of business. Luckily someone released a DRM-free full version for download (JFK Reloaded btw).
I think thats part of it right there...I can afford games. So I buy them usually. Wasn't there a study a while back that found.... people who can afford to buy things do, and only people who can't really afford them pirate? Hmmm... so that 95%, who as you say probably only play for an hour (I think thats true of most players with most games...theres tons of games I played for a short time and never returned to)? Most of them probably couldn't afford to buy lots of games anyway....
so thats 95% loss of.... um... what? The vast majority of them were never going to buy it in the first place.
I fully understand what YOU are saying.... the problem is, you don't speak for um... Standford. Stanford says they want to offer those classes. What part of this do YOU not understand?
So it denigrates Stanford's name that they are willing to offer lower level courses to teach people who don't have the background for higher level courses? That is probably the most asinine thing I have read this morning.
Universities have many programs, aimed at people of different backgrounds. Their mission is to teach, not to "look good". Offering low level courses, that bring people in slower are not a substitute for high level courses. It is to their credit that they offer such courses, rather than sticking their nose up in the air and saying "call us when you get done with community college".
I actually agree.... but... I think this is a great first step. This is new territory for them, and putting normal lectures to video is an easy way to start, that costs almost nothing.
It is slow, I get you. I have been watching some of their "continuing ed" classes, Quantum Entanglements and Quantum Mechanics. Great stuff, but its even slower than normal undergrad.
Anyway, yah, taped lectures kinda suck, but, at least there is pause, forward, rewind, and can be rewatched later, and can be watched on my schedule. Hell, I can marathon through 2 of them if I have time and energy for it... or just do half and come back later....
I don't know about any class interface or any of that, not looking for a degree or anything, so I have just been watching on youtube.
There is no way smugglers or illicit dealers can compete with legal drugs. Legalization will result in exactly the situation that you describe.
Or do you really think that there are people out there who, given the choice between legal, cheap and pure vs illicit, expensive, and unknown, will choose the to the latter?
> If it's just as hard to cookup meth with this stuff as it is to cook up meth with other stuff that's legal, or if you just can't figure out how to cook up meth with this > stuff at all, then let this old guy have his iodine.
The problem really is that they go and do it in the mountains, leave their mess behind, and someone has to clean it up. Plus meth labs suck. They can't legally get rid of most of their waste, and some of it is nasty shit.
Well no, thats the current "issue". The real problem is that prohibition is a stupid strategy, especially when "beavis and butthead types" can find this shit on the Internet, and maybe succeed. Prohibition works great...on stuff people don't want, or is too hard to make. The prohibition on having nuclear weapons works great for this reason.... almost nobody really wants one, and they are far too difficult to make anyway.
So the real problem is the government's inability to realize that a plan is failing.
Really? You think acetone is particularly hazardous? Or Sulfuric Acid? Man, its in car batteries, they sell batteries with the acid separate, you pour it in. I mean really... just because you have to handle it carefully, doesn't make it "particularly hazardous".
Or sassafras oil. Yes... oh that stuff.... oh so hazardous. Lol!
What did they do? Took a bunch of addicts and gave them a way to buy heroin, with a safe place to use it (to prevent diversion obviously), at what they projected would be a fair market value (which is much cheaper than street prices).
What did they find? A reported 90% reduction in their income from criminal activities (obviously stopping dealing, stealing etc). Not only that, but an increase in their ability to hold down jobs.
In my state its around 20% in jail for just drug crimes...and another 20% for petty drug related crimes. This category of crime is almost entirely caused by the excessive prices of the most addictive drugs. Heroin costs no more to make than aspirin. The current street price is an absolute travesty. People who use it all the time are genuinely sick. They need treatment, support, therapy, or just to be treated like normal people.
And it infuriates me when people say jail is just for the dealers. Well... where do they think they get their drugs? I mean seriously.... most "dealers" started to support their habit, and few see any real profits, and just end up using for "free", or rather, for the risk of excessive jail sentences.
Its just a travesty in every way.
Then on top of it all, just in the past few days I have read stories, police raid the wrong house. Police raid a house, kill a mother and dog, injur her toddler. Why? Because a raid is an intense and chaotic situation, and a very very dangerous place to be. Yet, we are willing to subject people to it? Why? For what?
The criminal gangs were created by prohibition. The dealers, the prices, the crime? Prohibition? Potential "collateral damage"? All of us. How is this the least bit sane?
However, I don't see why any of that should be his problem.
The real collateral damage here is in our freedoms. I mean fuck....I can't buy iodine anymore? Seriously? Iodine.
And for what? Because of some silly crusade that is self-righteously justified, and thus is allowed to creep into every area of life. Every time they ban something, someone finds something else. Its a stupid game of whack-a-mole, with no end in sight, and every day inflicting more and more of this "Collateral Damage"
How many stories have we heard where people died because police went to the wrong house? How many families are we going to let them destroy over human appetite? The existence of the DEA, and the criminal gangs that have risen in response to them, are worst than the drugs alone ever were.
This drug war should end the way WWII did... with trials for its perpetrators.
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Actually.... a FOAF got a job as a cop here (yes Boston area). On her first day out driving she was approaching a light behind another car. It turned yellow and she stepped on the gas... completely forgetting that she was in a police cruiser, a fact which was apparently not missed by the person in front of her who dutifully stepped on his breaks and came to a stop at the light..... whoops.
Congradulations, you just invented the "delayed green". You should patent it, before the guy who has been setting intersections around here up like that for years does. We have them all over the place. Also.... I really wish that articles like this would get beyond things like "see we can do it". I would love to see what it is that predicts these actions, and see if it says anything about whats going on.
Cuz in the end, its not about catching people who run lights. Enforcing the law is not an end in and of itself, its supposed to be a means to an end. Who cares if we can "catch" more people? It may feel good and let someone justify their job with some metrics but, it doesn't solve the original problem of risks and dangers....not in anything even approaching a realistic way.
Like the delayed green... I would think that a very slight delay would cause any such accidents to drop off. In fact, as I said, we have lights timed like this all over the place, and while I have seen a few accidents, the only "red light running" one I know of involved a drunk guy blowing through a light that was just plain red, not even green and turning.... I don't think anything is going to solve that one, there will always be a few true idiots.
I so don't have the energy to be a sociopath. The few I have met...they fucking put work in man. Not really useful work to anyone else... but maintaining their overall persona, developing the air of usefulness, while avoiding real work and angling at an even better situation (promotions etc)... its actually impressive. I lived with one for a while, and when he moved out man.... I felt like I got one put over on me by a pro. I was out like 3 grand and I wasn't even pissed, in some ways, I felt like I got off easy, and like the lesson was maybe worth it.
I mean.... this guy man.... he was good. He was claiming to be a student in a law school, and even knew the courses in the schools curriculum for that year, could tell you what classes he was supposedly taking.... even though the school had never heard of him. Hell it turns out even the bar that he worked nights at as a bouncer had paid him a $3k advance before he skipped.
Seriously....I so don't have that kind of energy.
Yup, I can't disagree.... there does seem to be a bit of a catch 22.... if you have time to work on automation, its probably because you don't need it. You are increasing your capacity when you are already over capacity. Maybe you need it down the road and know it now....which is good, but... maybe you are wasting your time, but, is it a waste if you don't have much else to do? (actually, there is some good reason to not have admins too overloaded, because if they are always at capacity, you can't deal with new situations as they arise without dropping things).
Thats not a real problem though.... the real problem is the obverse situation, those who really need automation don't have the time to implement it.
Partially agreed but...at the same time... who knows what doesn't mean it wont work...or will result in problems later, just that we don't fully know...and I might argue, can't fully know until we try.
That said, I think it has a real chance of working, mostly because of how drastic of an effect this could have by shifting the reproductive cycle in such a way as to massively overpopulate males vs females. If this works for the first few generations, it could quickly put a hurting on their numbers. This leaves a couple of possibilities.
Actually.... this reminds me of some of the talk of cancer evolution....in fact, its probably a good model here. To go from being a human cell to a cancer cell generally takes not just one, but several evolutionary steps. At each of those steps, a cell line could die off (either via chance or via a cleaning mechanism designed to take out mutated cells). Chances are, if you have cancer, your body came close to cancer several times before one cell finally finds the right mutated configuration.
So the chance of developing cancer actually is dependent on the number of steps required to become cancerous, down all of the paths that it can. This is an identical situation here.... it comes down to how close the populations genetic makeup is to being able to circumvent this. If it only takes one or two mutations to make females who avoid GM males, or to produce something which compensates for the change, then.... this is unlikely to work. Similarly, if they already have the genes required to make females that are not susceptible, then this will simply make sure that they dominate.
That said, if there are no coping mechanisms already in their population, and if developing them is more than a few mutations away.... it could come damned close to eradicating them. Once their numbers are vastly smaller, it would also slow the rate of total mutations in their population, making them less likely to make it over the hurdles.
It could work.... but... what that will mean in the long term is unclear.
Yes but.... just because they don't want it now, doesn't mean that they wont get a taste for it later. I see no reason to deny them that taste if they want it.
Hypercard was pretty cool. I only ever used the ][GS version, but it worked, it was neat. It wouldn't be my first choice for apps today (even if it was still around) but, if someone without experience wanted to play around or make a quick app to do something specific, I would totally recommend it.
What people want is irrelevant. Ask anyone over the age of 30 if they are doing now what they thought they wanted to be doing 10 or 15 years ago, and well... I don't know many who could honestly answer in the affirmative. Give them the tools, give them a path, and some will walk down it. The easier the path, the more who will try.
I hate to say it but...yah.
spreadsheets are interesting as a solution because.... they are totally the wrong tool for just about every application that they get used for. However, they are often a great solution just because they are so fast and simple to setup, and many office workers already know how to use them.
This reminds me of a debate that a previous cow-orker and I used to have about the break even point for automation. How much automation actually makes sense for a given job actually depends on a number of things, not the least of which is, how often its needed. If I build a new server once a year...who cares if it takes a whole day or even two? However, if I do it every week.... then a day or two is 20-40% of my time! If I do it every day.... then its 100% or just impossible as I fall behind....and we now need another employee.... and thats if we assume I am willing to stay at a job where I just do server builds every day, all day. (admittedly, if that were the case, i could be replaced by an intern or junior admin, but thats besides the point... how long is that guy going to stay?)
Now before the break even point, there may still be reasons to automate, but, automation takes time, it takes testing, which also takes time. If I spend 2 weeks automating a process.... and that automation saves 6 hours every time.... but we only do it twice a year (yes a pathological case) then, its going to take almost a decade to pay off in time, and thats assuming we never need to make any changes. (unlikely).
Now, you do get something out of automation besides time savings, you get consistency.... which can save time elsewhere. However.... all in all.... yes, spreadsheets are probably great for many things that they get used for.... just because they avoid all of this design and testing, in service of getting the job done.... its just a matter of making sure that you stop and do things "right" before the simple solution gets too out of hand.
Isn't this exactly the sort of reason that the is (used to be? Its been forever since I saw it) metamoderation. It was supposed to be a check and balance sort of situation. In fact, I think metamoderation is a great solution to this, or provides a great tool for it.
First, from your own allegations, I think any old posts receiving moderation should get a higher priority for metamod and should get in front of more eyeballs.
Second, it would be great to make sure that each moderated article gets its unique moderation points evaluated multiple times, and higher priority with the greater number of mods (so someone slamming your post with 50 downvotes would quickly cause it to be metamodded).
So... is metamod still around? If so....I obviously think bringing it back and making it even better is a good answer here.
I didn't say he WAS a badass ninja, I said he had some people in management convinced that he was. I never said they understood what a badass ninja really looked like, in fact, exactly the opposite.
> What are the savings for going digital? (Without a doubt, they exist; if not, we'd still all be filling out forms in triplicate at work.)
Will save a lot of time for people looking to leak documents to wikileaks. On those grounds alone, this is my favorite Obama decision to date.
Finally we may see some real freedom of information acting.
Well it is a fictionaly story based on observations of actual stories. Clearly it represents an exaggerated world, but one that is so believable when we look at our own. Oceania wasn't just a place with cameras and torture with rats. Look at Wilson's own job, sitting at a desk, taking in little scraps of paper, processing them, and then disposing of them. It was very much about control of information flow, control of the historical record.
The masses knew the official story was BS, people know it today. And by know it today, I don't just mean Fox News. I mean the official story. Many comments on the embassy cables that were released basically just confirmed what everybody already knew. Sure, a lot of specifics came out, and some of those were significant and made a difference. However, was anybody shocked at the kinds of things that were found? Nobody that I have heard comment on them. Hell a lot of people believe much wilder and crazier versions of reality than all that! Some even believe fox news.... scary.... and some people really did love Big Brother.
Going back though, I think it has always been true. There were not genuine supports of BB or even masses knowing they were lied to in 1984 because Orwell just dreamed it up from his imagination, this is how it always is.
ROTFL I might have said the same thing a few years back but.... believe it or not, a lot of admins get by without ever having to know how to setup their own DHCP or NFS servers. Also, the job of "wipe all these machines" is the kind of work you give to your most junior guy, or even an intern. I wouldn't expect a junior admin or intern to be able to have a machine built and setup as a DHCP server with working NFS in a couple of hours. I would expect that of a mid level or senior admin, but.... I wouldn't hand them such a menial task either.
Actually, one way people end up in this situation is promotions. I know a bunch of guys who came up from help desk work and have some gaps in their knowledge. Particularly in networking since they have worked their entire careers at a place where there is a networking group that handles all DHCP/DNS/routing etc.
Also, there have been a few articles about how the latest crop of linux admins isn;t as up to snuff as the previous generations, for whom this stuff was bread and butter.
Unless the perception is that the 'C' Player is an 'A' Player and the 'B' player is actually an 'F' because he "never does anything".
I knew a few 'D' Players who were treated like they were some sort of bad ass ninjas, just because nobody in charge had any clue how to evaluate them or their work... and the few people who did realize it were less visible and thus got totally ignored.
Ever met a sociopath? You would be shocked at how far just a little charm will take you, especially in the eyes of non-technical people who can't call you on your BS.
I would look at FAI or kickstart. For FAI a pretty early hook to backup and wipe.... for kickstart a %pre script.
Of course, if you are working alone, and don't know how to configure DHCP/NFS etc.... it may take you a couple of days just to get the basic setup going, as they can be very finicky, but the quickstart guides out there should generally be able to get you going. If all goes well, you could be working on your scripting in a couple of hours, if not..... well....I hate troubleshooting NFS.. (and don't forget to check your IPTables setup if you are having trouble getting it working...amazing how much better NFS works when its packets are not being dropped.
Overall, I like FAI better than kickstart, but thats probably because I have used it less and those early stages (DHCP/NFS mount) are hard to troubleshoot with kickstart since stage2 (and thus a shell with which to troubleshoot) isn't available until that works.... though.... you probably don't have the same constraints I do and can just switch USB keys and boot off a fully functional system to test poke around.
Yes absolutely....if you just totally ignore that they need to get funding, and rely on the ability to recruit people and keep their network together.
When you factor in the actual realities of their situation and goals, I just don't see how you would imagine that this would actually be seen as furthering their goals.
It would be unpredictable, uncontrollable, and make them global pariahs, losing what little support they do have, and making it nearly impossible to recruit. I think you vastly underestimate the real cost to them.
Terrorism is, at its heart, a campaign of publicity stunts, aimed at getting more funding and support. Its hard to see how this would accomplish those real goals.
Yes but.... ask any soldier in any non-conscript army whether he is willing to "sacrifice his life to accomplish their goals" and what answer would you expect? I mean, perhaps nobody would answer it like that but, if you replaced goals with the appropriate concepts, you will get nothing but resounding affirmations.
Actually.... I doubt it. Yes, on the surface, thats true. We could make an analogy to chess and sacrificing ones queen to level the positional field. However, thats only a very crude look at their real goals and situations.
Firstly, they have to be able to capitalize on it. If it ever became known who did it... they would be shunned universally. Its not just a matter of hurting us more... believe it or not, for all the rhetoric, we are not their great enemy... they pick on us because we are supporting many of the people that they would like to overthrow.
All in all, nobody but an actual crazy would do such a thing, since its can't really be controlled, and release effectively ensures worldwide spread.
Real terrorists are not crazy, what they do makes perfect sense in a matter of looking at it. They are no more going to use such an agent than the US and USSR were actually going to start nuking eachother. Everyone knew it was a doomsday scenario, nobody actually wanted that.... both sides, however, acted like the other was going to do it....and boy was that stupid pissing match expensive.
Expensive...and pointless.... because neither side actually was going to do anything, except in the other sides simulations.
Lol so true in so many ways. Though, lately, I get all my games via Steam because either my wife or I see a game package for sale and it goes something like this:
"Baby they have the entire X Series for $15, I am getting it"
"Oooh get it for me too"
"ok"
The last game I "pirated" was one that I had purchased a copy of, but used some silly DRM and.... lo and behold... the company went out of business. Luckily someone released a DRM-free full version for download (JFK Reloaded btw).
I think thats part of it right there...I can afford games. So I buy them usually. Wasn't there a study a while back that found.... people who can afford to buy things do, and only people who can't really afford them pirate? Hmmm... so that 95%, who as you say probably only play for an hour (I think thats true of most players with most games...theres tons of games I played for a short time and never returned to)? Most of them probably couldn't afford to buy lots of games anyway....
so thats 95% loss of.... um... what? The vast majority of them were never going to buy it in the first place.
I fully understand what YOU are saying.... the problem is, you don't speak for um... Standford. Stanford says they want to offer those classes. What part of this do YOU not understand?
So it denigrates Stanford's name that they are willing to offer lower level courses to teach people who don't have the background for higher level courses? That is probably the most asinine thing I have read this morning.
Universities have many programs, aimed at people of different backgrounds. Their mission is to teach, not to "look good". Offering low level courses, that bring people in slower are not a substitute for high level courses. It is to their credit that they offer such courses, rather than sticking their nose up in the air and saying "call us when you get done with community college".
I actually agree.... but... I think this is a great first step. This is new territory for them, and putting normal lectures to video is an easy way to start, that costs almost nothing.
It is slow, I get you. I have been watching some of their "continuing ed" classes, Quantum Entanglements and Quantum Mechanics. Great stuff, but its even slower than normal undergrad.
Anyway, yah, taped lectures kinda suck, but, at least there is pause, forward, rewind, and can be rewatched later, and can be watched on my schedule. Hell, I can marathon through 2 of them if I have time and energy for it... or just do half and come back later....
I don't know about any class interface or any of that, not looking for a degree or anything, so I have just been watching on youtube.
Um.... why bother?
There is no way smugglers or illicit dealers can compete with legal drugs. Legalization will result in exactly the situation that you describe.
Or do you really think that there are people out there who, given the choice between legal, cheap and pure vs illicit, expensive, and unknown, will choose the to the latter?
What are you smoking?
> If it's just as hard to cookup meth with this stuff as it is to cook up meth with other stuff that's legal, or if you just can't figure out how to cook up meth with this
> stuff at all, then let this old guy have his iodine.
The problem really is that they go and do it in the mountains, leave their mess behind, and someone has to clean it up. Plus meth labs suck. They can't legally get rid of most of their waste, and some of it is nasty shit.
Well no, thats the current "issue". The real problem is that prohibition is a stupid strategy, especially when "beavis and butthead types" can find this shit on the Internet, and maybe succeed. Prohibition works great...on stuff people don't want, or is too hard to make. The prohibition on having nuclear weapons works great for this reason.... almost nobody really wants one, and they are far too difficult to make anyway.
So the real problem is the government's inability to realize that a plan is failing.
Really? You think acetone is particularly hazardous? Or Sulfuric Acid? Man, its in car batteries, they sell batteries with the acid separate, you pour it in. I mean really... just because you have to handle it carefully, doesn't make it "particularly hazardous".
Or sassafras oil. Yes... oh that stuff.... oh so hazardous. Lol!
However.... look at the swiss heroin study.
What did they do? Took a bunch of addicts and gave them a way to buy heroin, with a safe place to use it (to prevent diversion obviously), at what they projected would be a fair market value (which is much cheaper than street prices).
What did they find? A reported 90% reduction in their income from criminal activities (obviously stopping dealing, stealing etc). Not only that, but an increase in their ability to hold down jobs.
In my state its around 20% in jail for just drug crimes...and another 20% for petty drug related crimes. This category of crime is almost entirely caused by the excessive prices of the most addictive drugs. Heroin costs no more to make than aspirin. The current street price is an absolute travesty. People who use it all the time are genuinely sick. They need treatment, support, therapy, or just to be treated like normal people.
And it infuriates me when people say jail is just for the dealers. Well... where do they think they get their drugs? I mean seriously.... most "dealers" started to support their habit, and few see any real profits, and just end up using for "free", or rather, for the risk of excessive jail sentences.
Its just a travesty in every way.
Then on top of it all, just in the past few days I have read stories, police raid the wrong house. Police raid a house, kill a mother and dog, injur her toddler. Why? Because a raid is an intense and chaotic situation, and a very very dangerous place to be. Yet, we are willing to subject people to it? Why? For what?
The criminal gangs were created by prohibition. The dealers, the prices, the crime? Prohibition? Potential "collateral damage"? All of us. How is this the least bit sane?
However, I don't see why any of that should be his problem.
The real collateral damage here is in our freedoms. I mean fuck....I can't buy iodine anymore? Seriously? Iodine.
And for what? Because of some silly crusade that is self-righteously justified, and thus is allowed to creep into every area of life. Every time they ban something, someone finds something else. Its a stupid game of whack-a-mole, with no end in sight, and every day inflicting more and more of this "Collateral Damage"
How many stories have we heard where people died because police went to the wrong house? How many families are we going to let them destroy over human appetite? The existence of the DEA, and the criminal gangs that have risen in response to them, are worst than the drugs alone ever were.
This drug war should end the way WWII did... with trials for its perpetrators.