I don't see it as a debate so much as a statement of fact about how things work. Its not a denial of an external world, its a denial of objective experience.
All experience of the objective world is subjective. Sure, there are many times when that distinction is unimportant, however, our thoughts and ideas are products of the internal subjective world. Sometimes, it is useful to remember that.
Addictions arn't really about the object of the addiction so much as the personality of the person. Thats been my experience. Take myself as an example. I have noticed my own patterns...
Left to my own devices, I self regulate my addictive substances and whatnot. Sure I go through binges with coffee and pot, and even alcohol sometimes. (of course by binges I mean times of relativly heavy use, not like drinking to the point of alcohol poisoning or drinking for days on end)... but they are rare and I tend to use them just now and again.
Except, if I have an external driver. Work is an external driver for coffee, a little caffine buzz helps me focus and frankly I don't regulate my sleep well and suffer from sleep apnea so sometimes my sleep isn't as restful as it could be... coffee is a natural form of self medication.
for pot, its pothead friends. Its alot harder to come up with a reason to not smoke today, than it is to come up with reasons to not smoke on a daily basis. That "right now" to "every day" connection is a hard one, because one is a single decision, the other is the pattern of those decisions. I think thats one of the fundamental issues with all addictions. Moderation is hard and you have to actually pay attention to it.
however, if my main pothead friend goes away on vacation or we are otherwise separate for a coupld of weeks, my habbit goes way down, in fact, within two weeks I have just about stopped.
Alot of people don't do that. In fact, I have seen a friend who went from addiction to drugs and particularly pot, to replacing that complete lifestyle with religion... and boy did he replace it. Next thing you know... just like before when EVERYTHING was related to smoking weed, now EVERYTHING is related to loving jesus.
Im talking living with people in his church, getting a tattoo of jesus on a cross over his heart, declaring himself a born again virgin etc... total and complete.
I dunno, I agree addiction is generally a symptom of an underlying issue, some people just need something to fill part of their lives and when they find something, fill their lives with it, be it drugs, or religion, or games, or porn.
However its alot easier to say porn or drugs are the problem, than it is to tell a person how to fill in the emptiness in their lives... thats something a person has to find for themselves.
Honestly I think alot of it is that our society is one in which it is very easy to isolate yourself. Easy to interact and be around people all the time without ever really having meaningful relations with them. Easy to get cut out from any social scene.
Just look at craigslist, and the popularity of speed dating sites etc. Theres alot of people looking to fill a void in their lives. Hell I was recnetly bitching at a roomate of mine about how we never seem to do anything, theres no social scene anymore, we stopped throwing parties because the same old people show up, and frankly, as one put it....
"I think if you had told us that the people who show up now to our parties would be the only people left in a few years, (other roomate) and I would have given up years ago"
Another roomate asked his uncle "what did you do when you were our age?"... his reply... they went to bars every night. Funny, we were just complaining that all there is to do during the hours that we can all hang out together is go to bars, and maybe go bowling or play pool. (not counting things we can do in the house of course)
And people wonder why I smoke pot so much. Its like my ex boss told me once when we were having a random chat "I used to smoke pot, it started because I had nothing to do, then smoking pot just became something to do".... gee that sounded fammiliar.
-Steve
Re:Meaning, for those who are curious.
on
Beginning Ubuntu Linux
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Reminds me of Pirsig's rants in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle maintenance about "subject-object duality". Its right in the root of our language. I am me, as seprate from us and them.
I never really exists sepratly from anything else though. What is my keyboard? My finger comes down and intersects a peice of plastic... there is an edge where the keyboard ends and the free space begins...
The keyboard is not the edge, it is not the free space above it, but it never exists as a seprate entity from those things. Everything that is not my keyboard defines my keyboard by providing the contrasts of all of its properties.
Or as one talk in some other book noted (I think it was "the 3 pillars of zen"), everything we see is just the mental representation of visual input. We don't see a chair, our eyes detect the patterns of light bouncing off the chair, and what we experience is a mental composite of that image and our thoughts and ideas about chairs. In essense, what we experience isn't the chair, but our own mental image of a chair. Fundamentally every experience is not external but internal, the chair that we see is actually as much a part of us as our arm or our leg or our thoughts.
Of course, its not usually very useful to think that way... subject-object duality makes a very nice abstraction when you want to convey information.
I had an old laptop that i recently fixed (it just needed to be taken apart and have some connectors reseated). I had been running Debian on it, but I have a new job, and a new work issued laptop...so I didn't need it.
So my sister, who is one of those people who "knows how to use word". Thats right, she could type up a report for school, and browse the web, but that was about it. Complete novice.
So I didn't have a copy of windows to install (though since there was a product key attached to the laptop I technically could have, if I had install media)... anyway... so I installed Ubuntu and said "If you want windows, you have to have it put on, but heres this" (she lives too far away for me to get media and drive out to her). I showed her how to log in and pointed at open office and said "that works like word" then pointed her at firefox and said "heres your web browser".... litterally all of 2 minutes.
She called me 3 days later to tell me how great it was working and ask why she was able to get on the internet last night, but not today... turns out she just randomly had picked up someone elses wireless and got on, never even realised it... whoever it was must turn off their access point when they are not home, she never saw the signal again.
Point is... she never even needed to ask a question beyond that. I have had less problems giving her an ubuntu box, than giving people with similar experience levels windows boxes...she has been usign it and happy with it (I talked to her the other day) for several weeks now.
Man... who ever would have thought Linux on the desktop would really get there for us non-geeks? I always said it would, but I have to admit, I always had some doubt in my mind.
Hell as it is I have completely switched over to ubuntu myself. Its a fresh debian! Yay! Its what i have wanted for years now... a debian stable thats less than 6 months old! (and more often than for 6 months out of every 3 years)
This is true, but, there are issues of interpretation there.
Take the 9th, it specifically states that the people have more rights than the bill of rights can enumerate. Thats why we have to have a court to look over the text, and the arguments surrounding the enacting of those texts, to determine their meaning and how broad or narrow to interpret them.
Its much like my own state (MA) gay marriage issues. The court said that the conventional interptation of the law violated equal protection, and gave the legislature what was it 180 days to fix it or lose it?
a friend of mine is fond of saying that it sucks that the people wont get to vote on it to voice their opinion. However the real reason isn't the courts fault, its that the anti-gay-marriage people tried to get a question on the ballot, and found out that they don't even have the support to do it.
Why? Simply because they disagree with eachother so much that they don't even have a single cohesive opinion that could be put up to a vote. Which, in my mind, seems to vindicate the courts opinion that the ideas of the people have changed and the law should be interpreted that way.
I guess, its really a tough issue, whats legislating and whats interpreting. I could really go either way on some of these issues, even this one that I agree so much with.
There is an old saying "When you have a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail". I think this is part of the issue here.
Actually I think we have a deeper issue than patents here. Look at the company that I work for (which is in the healthcare industry btw). We are incorperated as a non-profit with the specific aim of furthering healthcare.
We are huge, largest non-governmental employer in our state, one of the largest IT departments in the country. Plenty of money, we find funding sources from hospitals and insurance companies. Why? Because we make their lives better. They pay us to develop things and get them adopted, not because we have some great product to sell, but because what we produce really helps them, and yes we do provide services to them.
However the point is, there is no profit motive. Sure everyone is motivated partially by their pay, which is competitive with the industry, but the company overall is motivated and focused on healthcare. Sure there is a bottom line, and we have to keep it in the black as much as we can, like any well run company. However, as long as the outlook is positive, thats all that matters and we can get back to thinking about healthcare.
I really think that these issues stem from the problem of the for profit. When your company exists solely to make profits for investors, it tends to lose sight of other things. Why should a company fight to keep an advantage over others simply for the sake of profits? Isn't that missing the point? Isn't the whole point to provide a service to people and make a living yourself while doing it?
Frankly, I think we would solve alot by changing how corperations incorperate. I think we would all be better served by mostly doing away with the oppertunistic and greedy ways that money is currently invested. Whn you make a company ultimatly beholden to people whose only interest is the bottom line, I really think you do a disservice to the entire world.
As these drug companies have proven. Sure they take in billions, but they tend to spend alot on research thats not really needed. Workalike drug after workalike drug that are often hardly any better than eachother, and sometimes little better than whats currently being used.
They have lost site of the real social need, and are just beholden to stock holders who want them to do whatever increases the bottom line the most.
Im not saying they arn't free to act that way... they are and I would never recomend actually stopping them. Just that, I don't see why the US Government should help them out with patent legislation... which is optional and supposed to be for the public good, not the private good of the patenter... that is merely a bonus granted them to further the public good... if its not doing that, then there is no need to grant it.
You know... this is one of those cases where, I don't really want to get into the whole capitalism/socialism debate but, really, do we want for profit companies doing this research?
I mean, say what you want abotu competition and whatnot, we do have a real economic interest overall in producing medications, but I think that the economic interests of the company actually run contrary to the medical interests of the people.
I think that it makes the most sense for the R&D funding to come from insurance companies and the government taxes. Now now, I am as much against taxes as anyone, but medicine is one of those funny things... its really to everybodies benefit that we develop it.
Its also to insurance companies benefit, since they end up distributing the risk of illness amongst the people, and thus its their coffers where the payments for the drugs come from. Producing more effective treatments is in their economic interest... more effective treatments, mean healthier people, and less treatments down the line. Thus less risk.
The drug companies have no such interest. Sure they are composed of people and people like to help people, and many people who do work at drug companies are motivated by this. However, the institution itself feels economic pressures, and more effecitve treatment and curing disease are not in their best interests!
Frankly, I think we should screw them. Change the patent system. Make it so they can't recoup their costs, and they will have to adapt, and get their funding from the source of the real interest in medicine.... from the people who have an interest in actually curing disease and bringing down overall costs.
Its not like drug research is going to stop, it may slow temporarily, but I would think of it as more a retooling of the industry than killing it. Subject it to the pressures of evolution that serve the peoples needs rather than the self serving ones. Researchers will find new funding sources, and ones that encourage research into where the problems really are.
I mean, I suffer from pretty bad heartburn at times. I don't think we really need new medications for shutting down proton pumps. The ones we have arn't perfect, but the real costs of healthcare are in pallative care. So, maybe we need more R&D in those areas, and we can forgo the next stomac medication for a decade or so.
Of course, thats not where the drug companies want to spend their money, because there isn't as much money for them in it. Why? Simple economics, the patent system gives them ways to make alot more money by researching minor things that they can treat forever. Its not about educing overall costs and overhead in the healthcare system, its about getting a bigger slice of the pie for themselves.
I have seen charitable auctions that basically did this. It was implimented differently but every item had a retail or "full" price set, which was the maximum auctionable price.
If you wanted the item that badly, you could just bid that price and end the bidding. Effectivly, buying it now.
This is not the same as ebays "buy it now", but very similar. I don't know the chronology of ebays buy it now but, I think I may have even seen this before ebay had buy it now.
Of course ebay is not a charitable auction, the charitable auction was just trying to raise money and wasn't interested in maximizing profit. Obviously the ebay auction has an interest in maximizing profit, thats why they take away the buy it now option once bidding starts.
Honestly though, how often does anyone know more than their opinion?
I always agreed with Roe V Wade, but I never read it until maybe 6 months ago. I still agree with it, and even like it. However, before 6 months ago, I couldn't say that I really truly understood it.
That said, I more recently went back and read the dissent. I like the dissent too. I think it brings up some valid points. I think its wrong, but still well reasoned.
Actually, while its true that looking at court decisions has made me quite cynical, seems that they are always ruling in asinine ways, actually reading the text of that decision really gave me a new respect for the intelligence and consideration of the court. They certainly don't take issues lightly and do their homework admirably.
Is it true of all cases? I don't know... but I know I will be trying to actually sit down and read more of their decisions. I mean, its the highest court in the land, and they don't issue that many rulings every year.
I may disagree with some very foundational princibles of our government, but isn't it still our civic duty to watch them?
You know that is an interesting and potentially valid argument about the case. In fact, its probably one of the most informed arguments about roe that I have heard.
however its not really based on math or trimesters, they simply made a distinction as to various stages of pregnancy and how the situation changes over time, that the law may apply differently as the situation changes.
That said, as was much of Justice Rehnquists dissent, they did strike down the enitre law, even though they ruled that the law may apply differently and even be constitutional in the later trimester.
Whats really interesting was that the dissent tried to say that the court had no standing to rule on the earlier trimester, since the case was not brought to the court until after it had passed, thus no plaintif had standing to bring the question of the first trimester. (though I think that the reasoning that allows a case of pregnancy to be ruled on at all is sufficient answer to his objection IMNSHO)
While I may agree with you on these points, I think the majority of it, particularly looking into the debate of such laws over time was quite elucidating. Also I agree wholeheartedly with the application of 4th, 9th, and 14th ammendments.
Its too bad more laws arn't struck down, particularly with the 9th ammendment, its meaning seems so clear when you look at what the framers were trying to do with it.
And btw... as an aside, I highly recomend that anyone who wants to talk about it first READ Roe V Wade, its not a hard read and only a few pages long. Its actually an amazingly good read, very well drafted and well weighted opinion.
It also makes me wonder how being anti-choice can be conservative, since the ruling actually ruled based on the original intent of the law, not the newfangled "moral" interpretation that the right to lifers like to claim has been the case forever.
But in any case, my point is... the supreme court really can take alot into consideration, and they write some pretty interesting arguments sometimes. I guess you don't get appointed to be one of nine out of millions without being able to make an argument that holds some amount of water.
What really irks me, is people who refuse to respect that I want some control over my life.
Shit... I have a friend who used to come over all the fucking time, he never called, and generally i didn't care too much. We have alot of traffic in and out so during alot of the hours our door is unlocked.
One night I had a girl over, she was a friend but we had gone out once or twice, we were playing some PS2, and the game was about to end, and I figured once we hit the end, I would reach over and start giving her a nice back rub.... ya know;)... she never complained about my backrubs in the past, and now that we were actually alone...
Anyway my friend calls...I silence the ringer, he knew who I was hanging out with tonight....
5 minutes later, there is a knock on my bedroom door. It opens...its him. He sees us sitting on the bed playign playstation games, and says hi, immediatly walks over to the computer and starts playing counterstrike (no he doesn't have his own computer).
Of course the girl decides to leave about then.... I walked her out, and when I came back I walked up behind him... fuming!
He turns around "Are you mad dude?"
We had a talk that night. Boy did we have a talk that night. Gotta set bounderies. Sometimes, I am NOT available damnit!
ANythign that covers enough of the area to causes gases to build up and not enough oxygen in will do it. I often can't find the properly fitting lid for my pans, but I can usually find a bigger one that will at least cover it, if not fit well.
Honestly, we are just getting started with it. Its kind of the latest toy.
Right now I have 1 VM running linux that I am playing with. There are other VMs on the box, but I don't know whats being done with them.
The only issue that I have had is the linux clock. It was runnign WAY slow... losing the bettter part of a day every day.
We did a little reading and had to add some kernel boot options: clock=pit acpi=off lacpi=off
and change a vmware parameter (I forget its on the forums, some refresh rate) to fix it. Worked like a charm though. That put the clock skew well within the bounds where ntp could do its job. Not perfect but, we don't need super accurate time anyway for most things... its within a second, and thats close enough.
The main issue is interrupts. The linux kernel wants 1000 interrupts/second to keep the clock running. Without some tweaks, vmware has trouble providing enough interrupts.
You can recompile the kernel to request 100 interupts per second, but, we managed to fix it without doing that. It would be nice if that was a boot parameter. I wouldn't doubt that there is good reason that it can't be.
If thats the worst issue that we find though, I think I can deal. That should get better as things improve. So far, no deal breakers.
So ok, you seem to know a thing or two here, you say you have fought a few.
I posted a few mins ago about my experience with smoke detectors. Namely that they have proven too sensitive in my house. Seriously small amounts of smoke from cooking, not even so much that the food tasted burn mind you, often from making a few grilled cheeses... theres often enough in the air by the 3rd one or so to set off the smoke detectors.
Since our detectors are linked, that means everyone gets woken up if its say... some drunken 3am, god please help us avoid the hangover food. Common in houses full of mid-20s guys.
After we had all lived together maybe 8 or 9 months, we decided to just remove the smoke detectors from the kitchen and the next room over.
Why?
Simple... nobody even got out of bed anymore for them. There were just so many false alarms. Is there anything that can be done about issues like this. I would love to have smoke detectors especially around the kitchen.... what does one do abou tthis?
Actually.... smoke detectors in my exeroeince are way too sensative.
Its the whole false alarm problem. Sure its nice that a little smoke sets em off to let you know with plenty of time to get out of the house...
but in our house the smoke detectors are linked. We had to remove all the ones within 1 room of the kitchen, because every time someone cooked something at night, they would go off and wake everyone up.
Seriously, I am the home owner... I know how bad it is not to have smoke detectors around the kitchen. I know we are going to get in trouble if a fire inspector ever comes (realistically we will know its comming and just reinstall them I guess but still...)
however, what good are they? Nobody gets up and leaves when they go off anyway... because they have gone off for no reason way too many times.
Its a bad situation, but what are you going to do? The detectors don't have a sensitivity setting, and seriously the smallest amount of smoke set them off.
When your a little drunk, it was hard to make a grilled cheese without waking everyone up.
When you live in a hosue of 5 mid-20s guys... that can be a very common problem:)
Well of course theres options. Though, I think we are pretty bought into intel at this point. Which is, of course, the whole point of the discussion... Intel's new tech:)
In any case, I see VMs of one flavor or another being used more and more. As processing power far outstrips the needs of many individual boxes, it makes sense to consolidate. The power savings alone can be worth it, never mind rack space.
Plus these new dual core and eventually multi-core (tho isn't dual also multi?) or "mcore" as the intel rep likes to say, aparently bring some power savings out fo the box.... but when you figure the benefit of having less power supplies, less spindles... thats less power, less heat, less space...
My god, its exactly what we need. Next we need enough wireless bandwidth to make the whole datacenter wireless:) or at least the development lab....
you should see that place man... too many people running cables.... what a godaweful mess. Cat5, Fiber, serial console... all over the place... I should take some pictures.
Ya know, not every box does the same thing. Even without vmware clustering, which looks way cool and I hope we get to play with it, theres other ways to manage it.
Obviously you still need redundancy and things, but frankly theres generally plenty of systems in a data center running unrelated things that can be put on machine with their own VMs.
Then if anything is important enough to need a second vm for redudnacy, or load balancing, well... put it on another physical machine with another set of VMs....
Its the way I see alot of things going. Theres plenty of applications that just don't need their own dedicated hardware, and only get it because, well... theres been little choice.
We are moving towards doing our systems development on VMs, that way we only need discrete hardware for the final phases of testing when we have it all working and want to test and certify on what the production system will be running.
Eventually I would like to see VMs in production too. Oh, and we use the enterprise version. so there:P
ok... I just had the dog and pony show from intel themselves a few days ago at work. Nothing special or anything you can't find online.... just the standard demo.
You are right... however, thats always the way of it.
Build it and they will come. Once the technology exists, somebody is gonna do something way fuckin cool with it, or find some great new use for it, and its gonna get used.
Research computing, number crunching, they will eat this stuff up first, then as it becomes cheaper, it will make the desktop.
Think of it for servers. Sure you don't NEED it... but what about power? Rack space? You have to take these into account.
Sure you don't need more than a pentium 500 to serve your website. However, if you have a few of these puppies, you can serve the website off a virtual linux box under VMWare. Then you can have a database server, and a whole bunch of other virtual machines. All logically seprate... but on one peice of hardware.
Far less power consumption and rack space used to run 10 virtual machines on one multi core multi "socket" (as the intel rep likes to call it) box. Believe it or not, these issues are killer for some companies. Do you know what it costs to setup a new data center?
Any idea what it costs to be upgrading massive UPS units and power distribution units? These are big projects that end up requiring shutdowns, and all manner of work before the big expensive equipment can even be used.
Never mind air conditioning. If you believe the numbers Intel is putting out, this technology could be huge for datacenters that are worried that their cooling units wont be adequet in a few years.
Seriously, when you look at the new tech, you need to realise where it will get used first. Who really does need it. I already know some of this technology (not the hardware level but vmware virtual servers) is already making my job easier.
Intel has been working with companies like vmware to make sure this stuff really works as it should. Why wouldn't they? Its in their interest that this stuff works, or else it will never get past system developers and implimented. (ok, thats a bit of a rosy outlook, in truth it would get deployed and fail and be a real pain and Intel would make money anyway... but it wouldn't be good for them really)
The numbers looked impressive to me when I saw them. I am sure we will be using this stuff.
If I am busy and have things to get done, I just set my away message to something to that effect, and then don't bother replying to people unless its important.
See I have done that... but its usually more like "Hey this is a bad time, is this important?"
Tho not at a movie... I am a firm believer in excusing myself and walking away from whatever social situation while answering the phone.... even in a bar, I prefer to walk all the way outside while answering the phone.
Generally tho... if I am even having a mildly interesting conversation and I have no reason to believe the issue is pressing... the ringer gets silenced.
The reason I rather do that (and put in on vibrate during movies) is I can look at the caller id, and I let people know if I slienced the ringer and they call immediatly back, I will assume its an emergency...
mostly because when someone calls me back immediatly after hitting my voice mail, I usually answer like "Hey, whats the emergency?" then hang up on them if it isn't one.
I dunno... I think cell phones would be alot less annoying if people just exercised a little common courtesy in their use.
Remember landlines? What ever happend to going into the other room to take a call? or saying things like "can I call you back later"?
and I just realised that my productivity has no real impact on my salary. I could sit here and flick my fingers and still make the same money....::flick::::flick::::flick::... There is the sound of increasing shareholder value.
-Steve (but my good friends call me wally)
Re:People don't crack passwords?
on
Sudo vs. Root
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· Score: 1
Aha!
Theres the difference.... your a security consultant.
We come from very different backgrounds. People like me don't even hire people like you.
Why? Because none of the systems that I am responsible for so much as have credit card info on them, much less anything more sensitive (like medical data etc). This is true for most people (well, ok most peoples machines might have their own data on it.... ).
Generally the attacks that I have to worry about are the general worms, and general script kiddie activities. You know, all you really have to do is not give them anything obvious and they don't even give you a second look.
I have said many times, if a dedicated attacker with a reason to come in ever attacked a system that I was responsible for, then I have bigger problems than I am anywhere near prepared to deal with.
Not that I couldn't be, or don't understand whats needed to "get there", just that its not a priority. For my systems, and the systems alot of us work with, that means going well past the point of diminishing returns.
Not even that I wouldn't want to be, without support from management, you can only go so far. If you don't have the mandate to tell the users "tough deal with the inconvinence for security sake" then.... what are you going to do?
This was my problem from the begining with the sudo thing... I understand that it does help a bit. It slows down an attacker (something I know I gloss over in my trojan scenario), and that IS something.
However, its also past the point of diminishing returns for most of us. The loss of functionatliy (esp when coordinating between a number of admins, and operational groups etc) is of much bigger impact than the fairly marginal security benefit.
anyway.... yah alot of things are like that. The config files are just really numerous and look a little intimidating with there terseness.
Actually.... I just thought of another neat way around that without sudo... allow root ssh logins from localhost only (is there even a config option for that? hmmm)
Then just make an alias for "ssh root@localhost"
generate a root rsa key, toss it in roots authorised_keys.... then keep it local or on a keyfob.... and ssh-add it when you need it (could even have aliases for that too)
Its not a perfect solution (a bit slow, and wont work if sshd isn't working, so its not as useful as it could be for fighting fires... but... for day to day stuff...)
Shit you could have your system password for sudo really be used for nothing but root access.... and even then only in real emergencies.
Havn't thought all the way through it... hmmm but I think I like it.
and yah ssh-agent is cool... but if the remote box is compromised, it means they can hijack your ssh-agent session and use your keys for as long as its available... limits yoru exposure and doesn't let them actually get your keys... but still an exposure.
you needed to ask people in IRC when you learned to take notes properly?
I dunno, I always sucked at it actually, luckily I never really needed notes that much.
Yah your right on all counts in my estimation. Tho, I do think it would be an interesting topic of study. I also think the other issue is classroom dynamic.
When my previous employer came up with a no laptops at meetings policy, I thought it was asinine.
Then I found I liked it. I hadn't even realised how isolated I am when in front of a laptop. There is a big screen fo rme to pay attention to, its VERY EASY to get caught up in whats going on there, and not pay attention to the meeting...
Or to pay attention to the meeting, but not participate. There is a big difference between being at a meeting, and participating (admittedly I find that most of the time the former is what tends to be the case anyway but... thats because most meetings are less than relavnt and poorly managed... but thats another issue)
I would bet pints of good beer that if you did a study on classroom participation among students, youw ould find that allowing students to use laptops in class causes participation to plummet.
I dunno... thats just my perception of the issue from my biases. What do I know, I havn't been a student of anything but martial arts in years and I sit in a cube all day in my slippers with my feet up... typign on my laptop.
btw my martial arts class encourages note taking. In fact, at test preps our instructor likes to look through our notebooks. Its weird taking notes on this stuff, and I don't take nearly enough.
I suck even at drawing stick figures. Don't know how I am ever going to capture good notes on some of the forms. Guess I will have to rely on "muscle memory" for most of it.
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I don't see it as a debate so much as a statement of fact about how things work. Its not a denial of an external world, its a denial of objective experience.
All experience of the objective world is subjective. Sure, there are many times when that distinction is unimportant, however, our thoughts and ideas are products of the internal subjective world. Sometimes, it is useful to remember that.
-Steve
Yup...
Addictions arn't really about the object of the addiction so much as the personality of the person. Thats been my experience. Take myself as an example. I have noticed my own patterns...
Left to my own devices, I self regulate my addictive substances and whatnot. Sure I go through binges with coffee and pot, and even alcohol sometimes. (of course by binges I mean times of relativly heavy use, not like drinking to the point of alcohol poisoning or drinking for days on end)... but they are rare and I tend to use them just now and again.
Except, if I have an external driver. Work is an external driver for coffee, a little caffine buzz helps me focus and frankly I don't regulate my sleep well and suffer from sleep apnea so sometimes my sleep isn't as restful as it could be... coffee is a natural form of self medication.
for pot, its pothead friends. Its alot harder to come up with a reason to not smoke today, than it is to come up with reasons to not smoke on a daily basis. That "right now" to "every day" connection is a hard one, because one is a single decision, the other is the pattern of those decisions. I think thats one of the fundamental issues with all addictions. Moderation is hard and you have to actually pay attention to it.
however, if my main pothead friend goes away on vacation or we are otherwise separate for a coupld of weeks, my habbit goes way down, in fact, within two weeks I have just about stopped.
Alot of people don't do that. In fact, I have seen a friend who went from addiction to drugs and particularly pot, to replacing that complete lifestyle with religion... and boy did he replace it. Next thing you know... just like before when EVERYTHING was related to smoking weed, now EVERYTHING is related to loving jesus.
Im talking living with people in his church, getting a tattoo of jesus on a cross over his heart, declaring himself a born again virgin etc... total and complete.
I dunno, I agree addiction is generally a symptom of an underlying issue, some people just need something to fill part of their lives and when they find something, fill their lives with it, be it drugs, or religion, or games, or porn.
However its alot easier to say porn or drugs are the problem, than it is to tell a person how to fill in the emptiness in their lives... thats something a person has to find for themselves.
Honestly I think alot of it is that our society is one in which it is very easy to isolate yourself. Easy to interact and be around people all the time without ever really having meaningful relations with them. Easy to get cut out from any social scene.
Just look at craigslist, and the popularity of speed dating sites etc. Theres alot of people looking to fill a void in their lives. Hell I was recnetly bitching at a roomate of mine about how we never seem to do anything, theres no social scene anymore, we stopped throwing parties because the same old people show up, and frankly, as one put it....
"I think if you had told us that the people who show up now to our parties would be the only people left in a few years, (other roomate) and I would have given up years ago"
Another roomate asked his uncle "what did you do when you were our age?"... his reply... they went to bars every night. Funny, we were just complaining that all there is to do during the hours that we can all hang out together is go to bars, and maybe go bowling or play pool. (not counting things we can do in the house of course)
And people wonder why I smoke pot so much. Its like my ex boss told me once when we were having a random chat "I used to smoke pot, it started because I had nothing to do, then smoking pot just became something to do".... gee that sounded fammiliar.
-Steve
Reminds me of Pirsig's rants in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle maintenance about "subject-object duality". Its right in the root of our language. I am me, as seprate from us and them.
I never really exists sepratly from anything else though. What is my keyboard? My finger comes down and intersects a peice of plastic... there is an edge where the keyboard ends and the free space begins...
The keyboard is not the edge, it is not the free space above it, but it never exists as a seprate entity from those things. Everything that is not my keyboard defines my keyboard by providing the contrasts of all of its properties.
Or as one talk in some other book noted (I think it was "the 3 pillars of zen"), everything we see is just the mental representation of visual input. We don't see a chair, our eyes detect the patterns of light bouncing off the chair, and what we experience is a mental composite of that image and our thoughts and ideas about chairs. In essense, what we experience isn't the chair, but our own mental image of a chair. Fundamentally every experience is not external but internal, the chair that we see is actually as much a part of us as our arm or our leg or our thoughts.
Of course, its not usually very useful to think that way... subject-object duality makes a very nice abstraction when you want to convey information.
-Steve
Not related except as my ubuntu experience.
I had an old laptop that i recently fixed (it just needed to be taken apart and have some connectors reseated). I had been running Debian on it, but I have a new job, and a new work issued laptop...so I didn't need it.
So my sister, who is one of those people who "knows how to use word". Thats right, she could type up a report for school, and browse the web, but that was about it. Complete novice.
So I didn't have a copy of windows to install (though since there was a product key attached to the laptop I technically could have, if I had install media)... anyway... so I installed Ubuntu and said "If you want windows, you have to have it put on, but heres this" (she lives too far away for me to get media and drive out to her). I showed her how to log in and pointed at open office and said "that works like word" then pointed her at firefox and said "heres your web browser".... litterally all of 2 minutes.
She called me 3 days later to tell me how great it was working and ask why she was able to get on the internet last night, but not today... turns out she just randomly had picked up someone elses wireless and got on, never even realised it... whoever it was must turn off their access point when they are not home, she never saw the signal again.
Point is... she never even needed to ask a question beyond that. I have had less problems giving her an ubuntu box, than giving people with similar experience levels windows boxes...she has been usign it and happy with it (I talked to her the other day) for several weeks now.
Man... who ever would have thought Linux on the desktop would really get there for us non-geeks? I always said it would, but I have to admit, I always had some doubt in my mind.
Hell as it is I have completely switched over to ubuntu myself. Its a fresh debian! Yay! Its what i have wanted for years now... a debian stable thats less than 6 months old! (and more often than for 6 months out of every 3 years)
-Steve
This is true, but, there are issues of interpretation there.
Take the 9th, it specifically states that the people have more rights than the bill of rights can enumerate. Thats why we have to have a court to look over the text, and the arguments surrounding the enacting of those texts, to determine their meaning and how broad or narrow to interpret them.
Its much like my own state (MA) gay marriage issues. The court said that the conventional interptation of the law violated equal protection, and gave the legislature what was it 180 days to fix it or lose it?
a friend of mine is fond of saying that it sucks that the people wont get to vote on it to voice their opinion. However the real reason isn't the courts fault, its that the anti-gay-marriage people tried to get a question on the ballot, and found out that they don't even have the support to do it.
Why? Simply because they disagree with eachother so much that they don't even have a single cohesive opinion that could be put up to a vote. Which, in my mind, seems to vindicate the courts opinion that the ideas of the people have changed and the law should be interpreted that way.
I guess, its really a tough issue, whats legislating and whats interpreting. I could really go either way on some of these issues, even this one that I agree so much with.
-Steve
Most definitly
There is an old saying "When you have a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail". I think this is part of the issue here.
Actually I think we have a deeper issue than patents here. Look at the company that I work for (which is in the healthcare industry btw). We are incorperated as a non-profit with the specific aim of furthering healthcare.
We are huge, largest non-governmental employer in our state, one of the largest IT departments in the country. Plenty of money, we find funding sources from hospitals and insurance companies. Why? Because we make their lives better. They pay us to develop things and get them adopted, not because we have some great product to sell, but because what we produce really helps them, and yes we do provide services to them.
However the point is, there is no profit motive. Sure everyone is motivated partially by their pay, which is competitive with the industry, but the company overall is motivated and focused on healthcare. Sure there is a bottom line, and we have to keep it in the black as much as we can, like any well run company. However, as long as the outlook is positive, thats all that matters and we can get back to thinking about healthcare.
I really think that these issues stem from the problem of the for profit. When your company exists solely to make profits for investors, it tends to lose sight of other things. Why should a company fight to keep an advantage over others simply for the sake of profits? Isn't that missing the point? Isn't the whole point to provide a service to people and make a living yourself while doing it?
Frankly, I think we would solve alot by changing how corperations incorperate. I think we would all be better served by mostly doing away with the oppertunistic and greedy ways that money is currently invested. Whn you make a company ultimatly beholden to people whose only interest is the bottom line, I really think you do a disservice to the entire world.
As these drug companies have proven. Sure they take in billions, but they tend to spend alot on research thats not really needed. Workalike drug after workalike drug that are often hardly any better than eachother, and sometimes little better than whats currently being used.
They have lost site of the real social need, and are just beholden to stock holders who want them to do whatever increases the bottom line the most.
Im not saying they arn't free to act that way... they are and I would never recomend actually stopping them. Just that, I don't see why the US Government should help them out with patent legislation... which is optional and supposed to be for the public good, not the private good of the patenter... that is merely a bonus granted them to further the public good... if its not doing that, then there is no need to grant it.
-Steve
You know... this is one of those cases where, I don't really want to get into the whole capitalism/socialism debate but, really, do we want for profit companies doing this research?
I mean, say what you want abotu competition and whatnot, we do have a real economic interest overall in producing medications, but I think that the economic interests of the company actually run contrary to the medical interests of the people.
I think that it makes the most sense for the R&D funding to come from insurance companies and the government taxes. Now now, I am as much against taxes as anyone, but medicine is one of those funny things... its really to everybodies benefit that we develop it.
Its also to insurance companies benefit, since they end up distributing the risk of illness amongst the people, and thus its their coffers where the payments for the drugs come from. Producing more effective treatments is in their economic interest... more effective treatments, mean healthier people, and less treatments down the line. Thus less risk.
The drug companies have no such interest. Sure they are composed of people and people like to help people, and many people who do work at drug companies are motivated by this. However, the institution itself feels economic pressures, and more effecitve treatment and curing disease are not in their best interests!
Frankly, I think we should screw them. Change the patent system. Make it so they can't recoup their costs, and they will have to adapt, and get their funding from the source of the real interest in medicine.... from the people who have an interest in actually curing disease and bringing down overall costs.
Its not like drug research is going to stop, it may slow temporarily, but I would think of it as more a retooling of the industry than killing it. Subject it to the pressures of evolution that serve the peoples needs rather than the self serving ones. Researchers will find new funding sources, and ones that encourage research into where the problems really are.
I mean, I suffer from pretty bad heartburn at times. I don't think we really need new medications for shutting down proton pumps. The ones we have arn't perfect, but the real costs of healthcare are in pallative care. So, maybe we need more R&D in those areas, and we can forgo the next stomac medication for a decade or so.
Of course, thats not where the drug companies want to spend their money, because there isn't as much money for them in it. Why? Simple economics, the patent system gives them ways to make alot more money by researching minor things that they can treat forever. Its not about educing overall costs and overhead in the healthcare system, its about getting a bigger slice of the pie for themselves.
-Steve
Incorrect.
I have seen charitable auctions that basically did this. It was implimented differently but every item had a retail or "full" price set, which was the maximum auctionable price.
If you wanted the item that badly, you could just bid that price and end the bidding. Effectivly, buying it now.
This is not the same as ebays "buy it now", but very similar. I don't know the chronology of ebays buy it now but, I think I may have even seen this before ebay had buy it now.
Of course ebay is not a charitable auction, the charitable auction was just trying to raise money and wasn't interested in maximizing profit. Obviously the ebay auction has an interest in maximizing profit, thats why they take away the buy it now option once bidding starts.
-Steve
Honestly though, how often does anyone know more than their opinion?
I always agreed with Roe V Wade, but I never read it until maybe 6 months ago. I still agree with it, and even like it. However, before 6 months ago, I couldn't say that I really truly understood it.
That said, I more recently went back and read the dissent. I like the dissent too. I think it brings up some valid points. I think its wrong, but still well reasoned.
Actually, while its true that looking at court decisions has made me quite cynical, seems that they are always ruling in asinine ways, actually reading the text of that decision really gave me a new respect for the intelligence and consideration of the court. They certainly don't take issues lightly and do their homework admirably.
Is it true of all cases? I don't know... but I know I will be trying to actually sit down and read more of their decisions. I mean, its the highest court in the land, and they don't issue that many rulings every year.
I may disagree with some very foundational princibles of our government, but isn't it still our civic duty to watch them?
-Steve
You know that is an interesting and potentially valid argument about the case. In fact, its probably one of the most informed arguments about roe that I have heard.
however its not really based on math or trimesters, they simply made a distinction as to various stages of pregnancy and how the situation changes over time, that the law may apply differently as the situation changes.
That said, as was much of Justice Rehnquists dissent, they did strike down the enitre law, even though they ruled that the law may apply differently and even be constitutional in the later trimester.
Whats really interesting was that the dissent tried to say that the court had no standing to rule on the earlier trimester, since the case was not brought to the court until after it had passed, thus no plaintif had standing to bring the question of the first trimester.
(though I think that the reasoning that allows a case of pregnancy to be ruled on at all is sufficient answer to his objection IMNSHO)
While I may agree with you on these points, I think the majority of it, particularly looking into the debate of such laws over time was quite elucidating. Also I agree wholeheartedly with the application of 4th, 9th, and 14th ammendments.
Its too bad more laws arn't struck down, particularly with the 9th ammendment, its meaning seems so clear when you look at what the framers were trying to do with it.
-Steve
huh what does Roe V Wade have to do with this.
And btw... as an aside, I highly recomend that anyone who wants to talk about it first READ Roe V Wade, its not a hard read and only a few pages long. Its actually an amazingly good read, very well drafted and well weighted opinion.
It also makes me wonder how being anti-choice can be conservative, since the ruling actually ruled based on the original intent of the law, not the newfangled "moral" interpretation that the right to lifers like to claim has been the case forever.
But in any case, my point is... the supreme court really can take alot into consideration, and they write some pretty interesting arguments sometimes. I guess you don't get appointed to be one of nine out of millions without being able to make an argument that holds some amount of water.
-Steve
sigh.... you would have to bring that up
:)
Bit of a sore subject with me
See my roomate and I bought this place from his father. We indeed have a microwave with hood above our stove. It is supposed to vent outside.
Aparently sometime after the place was remodeled there was a problem with the microwave and it had to be dismounted...
Thats when it was realised that it was just mounted in front of a hole cut in the wall. It just vented right into the wall.
Sometimes, you just can't win.
-Steve
Yah I know...it irks me so much too.
;)... she never complained about my backrubs in the past, and now that we were actually alone...
What really irks me, is people who refuse to respect that I want some control over my life.
Shit... I have a friend who used to come over all the fucking time, he never called, and generally i didn't care too much. We have alot of traffic in and out so during alot of the hours our door is unlocked.
One night I had a girl over, she was a friend but we had gone out once or twice, we were playing some PS2, and the game was about to end, and I figured once we hit the end, I would reach over and start giving her a nice back rub.... ya know
Anyway my friend calls...I silence the ringer, he knew who I was hanging out with tonight....
5 minutes later, there is a knock on my bedroom door. It opens...its him. He sees us sitting on the bed playign playstation games, and says hi, immediatly walks over to the computer and starts playing counterstrike (no he doesn't have his own computer).
Of course the girl decides to leave about then.... I walked her out, and when I came back I walked up behind him... fuming!
He turns around "Are you mad dude?"
We had a talk that night. Boy did we have a talk that night. Gotta set bounderies. Sometimes, I am NOT available damnit!
-Steve
You hardly need tight fitting.
ANythign that covers enough of the area to causes gases to build up and not enough oxygen in will do it. I often can't find the properly fitting lid for my pans, but I can usually find a bigger one that will at least cover it, if not fit well.
Good enough is all you need.
-Steve
Honestly, we are just getting started with it. Its kind of the latest toy.
Right now I have 1 VM running linux that I am playing with. There are other VMs on the box, but I don't know whats being done with them.
The only issue that I have had is the linux clock. It was runnign WAY slow... losing the bettter part of a day every day.
We did a little reading and had to add some kernel boot options:
clock=pit acpi=off lacpi=off
and change a vmware parameter (I forget its on the forums, some refresh rate) to fix it. Worked like a charm though. That put the clock skew well within the bounds where ntp could do its job. Not perfect but, we don't need super accurate time anyway for most things... its within a second, and thats close enough.
The main issue is interrupts. The linux kernel wants 1000 interrupts/second to keep the clock running. Without some tweaks, vmware has trouble providing enough interrupts.
You can recompile the kernel to request 100 interupts per second, but, we managed to fix it without doing that. It would be nice if that was a boot parameter. I wouldn't doubt that there is good reason that it can't be.
If thats the worst issue that we find though, I think I can deal. That should get better as things improve. So far, no deal breakers.
-Steve
So ok, you seem to know a thing or two here, you say you have fought a few.
I posted a few mins ago about my experience with smoke detectors. Namely that they have proven too sensitive in my house. Seriously small amounts of smoke from cooking, not even so much that the food tasted burn mind you, often from making a few grilled cheeses... theres often enough in the air by the 3rd one or so to set off the smoke detectors.
Since our detectors are linked, that means everyone gets woken up if its say... some drunken 3am, god please help us avoid the hangover food. Common in houses full of mid-20s guys.
After we had all lived together maybe 8 or 9 months, we decided to just remove the smoke detectors from the kitchen and the next room over.
Why?
Simple... nobody even got out of bed anymore for them. There were just so many false alarms. Is there anything that can be done about issues like this. I would love to have smoke detectors especially around the kitchen.... what does one do abou tthis?
-Steve
Actually.... smoke detectors in my exeroeince are way too sensative.
:)
Its the whole false alarm problem. Sure its nice that a little smoke sets em off to let you know with plenty of time to get out of the house...
but in our house the smoke detectors are linked. We had to remove all the ones within 1 room of the kitchen, because every time someone cooked something at night, they would go off and wake everyone up.
Seriously, I am the home owner... I know how bad it is not to have smoke detectors around the kitchen. I know we are going to get in trouble if a fire inspector ever comes (realistically we will know its comming and just reinstall them I guess but still...)
however, what good are they? Nobody gets up and leaves when they go off anyway... because they have gone off for no reason way too many times.
Its a bad situation, but what are you going to do? The detectors don't have a sensitivity setting, and seriously the smallest amount of smoke set them off.
When your a little drunk, it was hard to make a grilled cheese without waking everyone up.
When you live in a hosue of 5 mid-20s guys... that can be a very common problem
-Steve
Well of course theres options. Though, I think we are pretty bought into intel at this point. Which is, of course, the whole point of the discussion... Intel's new tech :)
:)
In any case, I see VMs of one flavor or another being used more and more. As processing power far outstrips the needs of many individual boxes, it makes sense to consolidate. The power savings alone can be worth it, never mind rack space.
Plus these new dual core and eventually multi-core (tho isn't dual also multi?) or "mcore" as the intel rep likes to say, aparently bring some power savings out fo the box.... but when you figure the benefit of having less power supplies, less spindles... thats less power, less heat, less space...
My god, its exactly what we need. Next we need enough wireless bandwidth to make the whole datacenter wireless
or at least the development lab....
you should see that place man... too many people running cables.... what a godaweful mess. Cat5, Fiber, serial console... all over the place... I should take some pictures.
-Steve
Ya know, not every box does the same thing. Even without vmware clustering, which looks way cool and I hope we get to play with it, theres other ways to manage it.
:P
Obviously you still need redundancy and things, but frankly theres generally plenty of systems in a data center running unrelated things that can be put on machine with their own VMs.
Then if anything is important enough to need a second vm for redudnacy, or load balancing, well... put it on another physical machine with another set of VMs....
Its the way I see alot of things going. Theres plenty of applications that just don't need their own dedicated hardware, and only get it because, well... theres been little choice.
We are moving towards doing our systems development on VMs, that way we only need discrete hardware for the final phases of testing when we have it all working and want to test and certify on what the production system will be running.
Eventually I would like to see VMs in production too. Oh, and we use the enterprise version. so there
-Steve
ok... I just had the dog and pony show from intel themselves a few days ago at work. Nothing special or anything you can't find online.... just the standard demo.
You are right... however, thats always the way of it.
Build it and they will come. Once the technology exists, somebody is gonna do something way fuckin cool with it, or find some great new use for it, and its gonna get used.
Research computing, number crunching, they will eat this stuff up first, then as it becomes cheaper, it will make the desktop.
Think of it for servers. Sure you don't NEED it... but what about power? Rack space? You have to take these into account.
Sure you don't need more than a pentium 500 to serve your website. However, if you have a few of these puppies, you can serve the website off a virtual linux box under VMWare.
Then you can have a database server, and a whole bunch of other virtual machines. All logically seprate... but on one peice of hardware.
Far less power consumption and rack space used to run 10 virtual machines on one multi core multi "socket" (as the intel rep likes to call it) box. Believe it or not, these issues are killer for some companies. Do you know what it costs to setup a new data center?
Any idea what it costs to be upgrading massive UPS units and power distribution units? These are big projects that end up requiring shutdowns, and all manner of work before the big expensive equipment can even be used.
Never mind air conditioning. If you believe the numbers Intel is putting out, this technology could be huge for datacenters that are worried that their cooling units wont be adequet in a few years.
Seriously, when you look at the new tech, you need to realise where it will get used first. Who really does need it. I already know some of this technology (not the hardware level but vmware virtual servers) is already making my job easier.
Intel has been working with companies like vmware to make sure this stuff really works as it should. Why wouldn't they? Its in their interest that this stuff works, or else it will never get past system developers and implimented. (ok, thats a bit of a rosy outlook, in truth it would get deployed and fail and be a real pain and Intel would make money anyway... but it wouldn't be good for them really)
The numbers looked impressive to me when I saw them. I am sure we will be using this stuff.
-Steve
I dunno....
If I am busy and have things to get done, I just set my away message to something to that effect, and then don't bother replying to people unless its important.
-Steve
See I have done that... but its usually more like "Hey this is a bad time, is this important?"
Tho not at a movie... I am a firm believer in excusing myself and walking away from whatever social situation while answering the phone.... even in a bar, I prefer to walk all the way outside while answering the phone.
Generally tho... if I am even having a mildly interesting conversation and I have no reason to believe the issue is pressing... the ringer gets silenced.
The reason I rather do that (and put in on vibrate during movies) is I can look at the caller id, and I let people know if I slienced the ringer and they call immediatly back, I will assume its an emergency...
mostly because when someone calls me back immediatly after hitting my voice mail, I usually answer like "Hey, whats the emergency?" then hang up on them if it isn't one.
I dunno... I think cell phones would be alot less annoying if people just exercised a little common courtesy in their use.
Remember landlines? What ever happend to going into the other room to take a call? or saying things like "can I call you back later"?
-Steve
and I just realised that my productivity has no real impact on my salary. I could sit here and flick my fingers and still make the same money.... ::flick:: ::flick:: ::flick:: ...
There is the sound of increasing shareholder value.
-Steve
(but my good friends call me wally)
Aha!
Theres the difference.... your a security consultant.
We come from very different backgrounds. People like me don't even hire people like you.
Why? Because none of the systems that I am responsible for so much as have credit card info on them, much less anything more sensitive (like medical data etc). This is true for most people (well, ok most peoples machines might have their own data on it.... ).
Generally the attacks that I have to worry about are the general worms, and general script kiddie activities. You know, all you really have to do is not give them anything obvious and they don't even give you a second look.
I have said many times, if a dedicated attacker with a reason to come in ever attacked a system that I was responsible for, then I have bigger problems than I am anywhere near prepared to deal with.
Not that I couldn't be, or don't understand whats needed to "get there", just that its not a priority. For my systems, and the systems alot of us work with, that means going well past the point of diminishing returns.
Not even that I wouldn't want to be, without support from management, you can only go so far. If you don't have the mandate to tell the users "tough deal with the inconvinence for security sake" then.... what are you going to do?
This was my problem from the begining with the sudo thing... I understand that it does help a bit. It slows down an attacker (something I know I gloss over in my trojan scenario), and that IS something.
However, its also past the point of diminishing returns for most of us. The loss of functionatliy (esp when coordinating between a number of admins, and operational groups etc) is of much bigger impact than the fairly marginal security benefit.
anyway.... yah alot of things are like that. The config files are just really numerous and look a little intimidating with there terseness.
Actually.... I just thought of another neat way around that without sudo... allow root ssh logins from localhost only (is there even a config option for that? hmmm)
Then just make an alias for "ssh root@localhost"
generate a root rsa key, toss it in roots authorised_keys.... then keep it local or on a keyfob.... and ssh-add it when you need it (could even have aliases for that too)
Its not a perfect solution (a bit slow, and wont work if sshd isn't working, so its not as useful as it could be for fighting fires... but... for day to day stuff...)
Shit you could have your system password for sudo really be used for nothing but root access.... and even then only in real emergencies.
Havn't thought all the way through it... hmmm but I think I like it.
and yah ssh-agent is cool... but if the remote box is compromised, it means they can hijack your ssh-agent session and use your keys for as long as its available... limits yoru exposure and doesn't let them actually get your keys... but still an exposure.
-Steve
you needed to ask people in IRC when you learned to take notes properly?
I dunno, I always sucked at it actually, luckily I never really needed notes that much.
Yah your right on all counts in my estimation. Tho, I do think it would be an interesting topic of study. I also think the other issue is classroom dynamic.
When my previous employer came up with a no laptops at meetings policy, I thought it was asinine.
Then I found I liked it. I hadn't even realised how isolated I am when in front of a laptop. There is a big screen fo rme to pay attention to, its VERY EASY to get caught up in whats going on there, and not pay attention to the meeting...
Or to pay attention to the meeting, but not participate. There is a big difference between being at a meeting, and participating (admittedly I find that most of the time the former is what tends to be the case anyway but... thats because most meetings are less than relavnt and poorly managed... but thats another issue)
I would bet pints of good beer that if you did a study on classroom participation among students, youw ould find that allowing students to use laptops in class causes participation to plummet.
I dunno... thats just my perception of the issue from my biases. What do I know, I havn't been a student of anything but martial arts in years and I sit in a cube all day in my slippers with my feet up... typign on my laptop.
btw my martial arts class encourages note taking. In fact, at test preps our instructor likes to look through our notebooks. Its weird taking notes on this stuff, and I don't take nearly enough.
I suck even at drawing stick figures. Don't know how I am ever going to capture good notes on some of the forms. Guess I will have to rely on "muscle memory" for most of it.
-Steve