Basically, if you are not considered "Perfect" based on some arbitrary set of standards, then you must be autistic.
No, that's not the how the test you linked works (I can't say anything about the pamphlet you were given, of course).
In the linked test, you are rated on a scale of 1-4 in 15 different areas. A score of 30+ indicates a mild to moderate degree of autistic behaviour.
You are not going to get a score of 30 by having mild symptoms in 1 or 2 (or even 10) areas. You'd need either mild symptoms over a broad range of developmental areas, or a smaller number of more severe symptoms.
Is the test perfect? No. It relies on the judgement of the person doing the evaluation, which can be effected by any number of factors. If you don't feel it's right, get a second opinion. Your local school district (since you're in the US) is required to provide testing.
One thing to consider - regardless of whether or not your son is autistic, it probably indicates that the public school system will not be a good place for him. Of course, this could be said for the vast majority of the population, but is likely to be especially true for those who are labeled because they are not average and the school district does not know any better way to deal with them. This is not a negative reflection on your son, but on the school system.
Actually, I'm not trying to get a job with the certificates as my only source of legitimacy:) I phrased the question in a more general way than it applied to my particular situation.
My specific problem is that I'm apply to a place with a rather out of date application. It asks about a lot of stuff that just isn't all that relevant anymore (I know the technological level of this organization...it isn't because they don't have new technology available, it's because their HR department designed the application 8 years ago or so and doesn't realize it needs to be updated:), and doesn't ask about the more recent technology which I do have experience with. This application is then presumably evaluated on some quantitative basis, and I get tossed because my quantifiable knowledge doesn't add up to some score.
So the certifications would basically just be something quantifiable to put on the application to hopefully get my foot in the door. I have no illusions that they're going to help if I don't actually have the skills. But I feel that, if I could get an interview, I'd be able to show that I do know what I'm doing. I just need a chance to get that far.
Actually, most of my friends fit into group 3, which is the group that is responsible for cleaning up after other people's incompetent-ness.
That still has a lot to do with the sysadmin - they don't have to work there. They could try to move to a more acceptable environment. But from what I see, it's a fairly widespread problem and not necessarily an easy one to avoid.
Of course, it isn't something you'll necessarily be able to avoid by changing profession, either:)
This is exactly why I'm questioning a career in the computer industry. Sure, it pays well. Sure, I love working with computers. But most people I know in IT, particularly those in system administration (my main interest), are completely tied to their jobs. They work 100 hour weeks, rarely get a full night's sleep because of calls at 2 am, and can't get away for a weekend vacation because some emergency comes up at work.
My time is worth more to me than that.
I'm just glad I have other interests to fall back on if/when I get tired of the masochism that is IT.
The COPPA doesn't actually disallow access to these services by children under 13. It simply doesn't allow personal information to be collected without parental permission obtained through a verifiable source. ICQ probably considers it easier to just not allow access. OTOH, because AOL (in theory, at least) requires adult intervention for a child to get an account, it would not be subject to the same restrictions. IANAL. That's simply my interpretation of it.
COPPA applies to websites or online services. I thought I might be able to avoid it through that loophole as well, until I read more about it:)
As for the commercial services part, I'm not sure if this is true or not. I saw something to that effect on one website about it, but I don't remember seeing it in the full text of the document (located at http://www.ftc.gov/os/1999/9910/64fr598 88.htm). It would make sense, since the main focus of this law seems to be people collecting and selling marketing information about children. However, having this information publically available on a non-commercial service is really just as dangerous to children, since the evil marketing agencies can still gather information that way, and individuals can use it to track down the child as well.
No, it doesn't *deserve* to be punished. But the provider doesn't have much choice if they want to be in line with the law. Get sued, or screw your users who are under 13? What a choice. Complain to the makers of the law who make it exceedingly difficult to provide a service to users under the age of 13, not to the people trying to provide the service.
I run a MOO which attracts a fair number of users under 13, so I'm dealing with this issue myself right now. Chat rooms are classified as a high risk activity, since the child can choose to publically disclose information about themselves, so we basically can't allow 13 year olds to join without verifiable parental consent. And seeing as this is being run completely by volunteers out of our own pockets, we really can't provide any such service. This law is designed for commercial services and should have the resources, but screws the people who run similar services non-commercially.
So, are we going to block users under 13, or risk being sued and/or shut down? (No Ansible users who may be reading this who are under 13, this isn't a threat. We'll work something out. It's just a pain).
And on the Mac side? We can't require people to use something that they'll need in order to work effectivly without making it available for all major platforms, and we still have a large number of Mac users.
See above for comments about putty. I would assume that the same legal restrictions apply to all implementations (ie. TerraTerm and any other ssh client that is distributed on a non-US server), though TT doesn't specifically state them on their webpage as PuTTY and Nifty Telnet do.
PuTTY and PSCP employ RSA public-key encryption without the use of the RSAREF library (since it was developed outside the USA). My understanding of USA patent law is that non-government use of them within the USA infringes RSA Data Security's software patent on the RSA algorithm. I understand that this patent will expire in September 2000.
From the NiftyTelnet website:
Important note: Due to a patent conflict on the RSA public-key encryption algorithm this software cannot be used in United States. Affected users may want to try the commercial F-Secure SSH from Data Fellows, Inc instead.
Believe it or not, I've actually looked into this matter before, and I'm not just saying that there is a lack of free and legal (heck, even legal. We'd be willing to pay for a site license if possible) Mac/Win clients for the fun of it. I've used both clients, and agree that they work well. Especially NiftyTelnet, which is my favorite of all the Mac/Windows clients that I've tried. But they aren't legal for use within the US, and therefor the University can't encourage their use. And trust me, come September chances are we will start recommending SSH clients right and left. Unfortunatly, September is too late for us to get one onto our internet software distribution disk for the year in replacement of the plain telnet client we include now.
Perhaps these are actually legal for University use within the US, since Universities are allowed to use ssh freely. However, the lack of a site license available from VanDyke/Datafellows for educational institutes doesn't lend in credence to that theory. Can one of the many not-lawyers around here clarify this?
I've heard all the horror stories about Packard Bell, including from a friend who worked for PB tech support.
But I have to say that I *love* Packard Bell keyboards.
The one I have now is ancient and filthy, but I wouldn't give it up for the world. It's perfect (well, except for the enter key and spacebar with tend to stick every so often). I can use other keyboards, but none I've tried feel as comfortable as this Packard Bell.
Though I did find a black Packard Bell keyboard lying around the house a while ago, and may consider seeing if that one is equally wonderful if someone doesn't claim it soon (My house seems to be on the other side of some hardware black hole. Hardware just magically appears from time to time. The odd part of this is that my two roommates aren't really geeks. If they were, the random hardware would be entirely understandable. But they aren't, so it's just odd).
My second computer was a Packard Bell, and I loved it. It was terribly reliable, and I never had any trouble installing new components (though I never actually tried to upgrade it - got it secondhand). Then again, the computer I had before it was a truly hideous POS - I left the cover off of it because half the time it wouldn't start up until I went and massaged the motherboard a bit to get some connection or other back into place. So it wasn't a terribly good comparison.
This is exactly the problem at my university. All the main servers accessible by university affiliates are accessible via both ssh and telnet. It would be great to go ssh only, but the client side issues are a pain in the neck because of the stupid RSA patent.
Take SecureCRT, for example. We currently have a site license for plain old non-encrypted CRT, which means we can distribute it freely to everyone affiliated with the university. However, it is impossible for us to get a site license for SecureCRT, because Van Dyke has to pay a royalty for each copy sold, and therefor can't distribute an unspecified number of copies. This a. Makes the price of SecureCRT prohibitive and b. Limits our methods of distribution.
Yes, there are free implementations, and many people use them. But these aren't legal in the US so we can't distribute them, or even really endorse them (a public university encouraging people to break the law is usually frowned upon).
I'll be extremely happy when the patent expires in September.
Heh, there's undoubtedly at least as many students who would have made it through college had they not been able to MUD:)
I read about this yesterday, and the title is extremely misleading. They aren't talking about banning the telnet and ftp *protocols*...they're talking about not running those *servers* on campus computers and replacing them with secure alternatives.
If the software was really intelligent, it would take change over time into account. I wouldn't think that it would be all that difficult to implement something that allowed for gradual change - especially gradual change in an expected manner (such as an increase in typing speed/accuracy).
In fact, expecting some amount of deviation from the baseline would improve the security of the system, as you wouldn't be able to simply record the keystrokes and play them back at a later time.
The problem with the argument that people have been fighting in wars for thousands of years without these symptoms is that we haven't had the same technology for thousands of years. There could very easily be some chemical (or combination of chemicals, or vaccine, or whatever) used at some point in the Persian Gulf War that had not been used in a war before, and therefor would not have caused symptoms in the people fighting those wars.
I'm not going to argue for or against the reality of GWS. However, arguments like yours do absolutly nothing to further your point, since you're basically comparing apples and oranges.
The really sad thing about this "virus" is that I've recieved it at least 10 times from different sources - and I haven't recieved any copies of the original ILOVEYOU virus (or any variants).
Seriously, at the university where I work, we lost basically a full day of productivity due to the idiotic thing. That's a day worth of salaries being payed so that people can email back and forth telling other people the latest developments and not to open anything with ILOVEYOU in the subject instead of getting their usual work done.
And then there's everything that everyone else said, too.
Re:Orson Scott Card's politics...
on
New Ender Sequel
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· Score: 1
Yes, I read the interview. I wasn't terribly impressed. She admits from the start that she is not an impartial interview, and it felt to me that the interviewer was projecting onto him to a very unprofessional extent ("You were an abused child, too! Therefor this is how you think! You're in denial about your abuse!"). And she seems to put a very negative spin on anything she even slightly disagreed with. So, I'm taking that interview with a grain of salt.
I'm not saying that I agree with him. Yes, he's anti-gay-lifestyle. And I've read other things from him which show this. However, this does not mean he is a homophobe.
Re:Orson Scott Card's politics...
on
New Ender Sequel
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· Score: 1
I personally think it's something of a stretch to call Card homophobic. Not being supportive of the gay lifestyle is not the same as homophobia, at least not in the true sense of the word.
In at least two of his works (Songmaster and the Homecoming series) he portrays gay characters sympathetically, and homosexual relationships as loving relationships, not as abominations or whatever.
Not that he's pro-gay, either. There's a definite anti-gay-lifestyle theme in both stories, and he seems to prescribe to the Mormon belief that homosexuals can be happy in a straight relationship.
But I agree with you that it's a far cry from classifying him up there with the KKK or something.
Uh, did you actually *read* the first five chapters?
Unless he's changed them since I read them a few weeks ago, the POV varies between characters - Some from Petra, some from Bean, some from Achilles, and probably another character or two thrown in there as well that I'm not remembering.
Last year, I was talking with some of the IT people at my university. They were discussing implementing a laptop-for-everyone program. This program would give all incoming students a laptop, which would be replaced after two years and which they could keep after graduation, for an additional $700 a year. I asked what would happen with the many students who already have a hard time affording college. He said that financial aid would be increased to cover the additional cost.
But where does the money come from? I seriously doubt they're going to suddenly find that the amount of financial aid available is going to just suddenly increase. So, either less financial aid is going to be given per individual, or less individuals are going to recieve financial aid.
Either way, its going to lead to further stratification between those who can afford it and those who can't.
Portsentry does this. The monitoring/blocking portion, anyways - when it detects a portscan, it adds the hosts to hosts.deny and sets a firewall rule to deny all further packets from that host. And, IIRC, you can set it up to take some action (such as notifying the administrator), as well as logging everything, though that may be in conjunction with one of their other products, logcheck.
I'm not vegan or vegetarian, nor have I done much research into the matter, so I don't know how true this is. But I've heard that after not eating meat for a period of time, they actually lose the ability to digest it as easily, and it can make them sick, even in small amounts.
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No, that's not the how the test you linked works (I can't say anything about the pamphlet you were given, of course).
In the linked test, you are rated on a scale of 1-4 in 15 different areas. A score of 30+ indicates a mild to moderate degree of autistic behaviour.
You are not going to get a score of 30 by having mild symptoms in 1 or 2 (or even 10) areas. You'd need either mild symptoms over a broad range of developmental areas, or a smaller number of more severe symptoms.
Is the test perfect? No. It relies on the judgement of the person doing the evaluation, which can be effected by any number of factors. If you don't feel it's right, get a second opinion. Your local school district (since you're in the US) is required to provide testing.
One thing to consider - regardless of whether or not your son is autistic, it probably indicates that the public school system will not be a good place for him. Of course, this could be said for the vast majority of the population, but is likely to be especially true for those who are labeled because they are not average and the school district does not know any better way to deal with them. This is not a negative reflection on your son, but on the school system.
My specific problem is that I'm apply to a place with a rather out of date application. It asks about a lot of stuff that just isn't all that relevant anymore (I know the technological level of this organization...it isn't because they don't have new technology available, it's because their HR department designed the application 8 years ago or so and doesn't realize it needs to be updated :), and doesn't ask about the more recent technology which I do have experience with. This application is then presumably evaluated on some quantitative basis, and I get tossed because my quantifiable knowledge doesn't add up to some score.
So the certifications would basically just be something quantifiable to put on the application to hopefully get my foot in the door. I have no illusions that they're going to help if I don't actually have the skills. But I feel that, if I could get an interview, I'd be able to show that I do know what I'm doing. I just need a chance to get that far.
That still has a lot to do with the sysadmin - they don't have to work there. They could try to move to a more acceptable environment. But from what I see, it's a fairly widespread problem and not necessarily an easy one to avoid.
Of course, it isn't something you'll necessarily be able to avoid by changing profession, either :)
My time is worth more to me than that.
I'm just glad I have other interests to fall back on if/when I get tired of the masochism that is IT.
The COPPA doesn't actually disallow access to these services by children under 13. It simply doesn't allow personal information to be collected without parental permission obtained through a verifiable source. ICQ probably considers it easier to just not allow access. OTOH, because AOL (in theory, at least) requires adult intervention for a child to get an account, it would not be subject to the same restrictions. IANAL. That's simply my interpretation of it.
As for the commercial services part, I'm not sure if this is true or not. I saw something to that effect on one website about it, but I don't remember seeing it in the full text of the document (located at http://www.ftc.gov/os/1999/9910/64fr598 88.htm). It would make sense, since the main focus of this law seems to be people collecting and selling marketing information about children. However, having this information publically available on a non-commercial service is really just as dangerous to children, since the evil marketing agencies can still gather information that way, and individuals can use it to track down the child as well.
I run a MOO which attracts a fair number of users under 13, so I'm dealing with this issue myself right now. Chat rooms are classified as a high risk activity, since the child can choose to publically disclose information about themselves, so we basically can't allow 13 year olds to join without verifiable parental consent. And seeing as this is being run completely by volunteers out of our own pockets, we really can't provide any such service. This law is designed for commercial services and should have the resources, but screws the people who run similar services non-commercially.
So, are we going to block users under 13, or risk being sued and/or shut down? (No Ansible users who may be reading this who are under 13, this isn't a threat. We'll work something out. It's just a pain).
See above for comments about putty. I would assume that the same legal restrictions apply to all implementations (ie. TerraTerm and any other ssh client that is distributed on a non-US server), though TT doesn't specifically state them on their webpage as PuTTY and Nifty Telnet do.
PuTTY and PSCP employ RSA public-key encryption without the use of the RSAREF library (since it was developed outside the USA). My understanding of USA patent law is that non-government use of them within the USA infringes RSA Data Security's software patent on the RSA algorithm. I understand that this patent will expire in September 2000.
From the NiftyTelnet website:
Important note: Due to a patent conflict on the RSA public-key encryption algorithm this software cannot be used in United States. Affected users may want to try the commercial F-Secure SSH from Data Fellows, Inc instead.
Believe it or not, I've actually looked into this matter before, and I'm not just saying that there is a lack of free and legal (heck, even legal. We'd be willing to pay for a site license if possible) Mac/Win clients for the fun of it. I've used both clients, and agree that they work well. Especially NiftyTelnet, which is my favorite of all the Mac/Windows clients that I've tried. But they aren't legal for use within the US, and therefor the University can't encourage their use. And trust me, come September chances are we will start recommending SSH clients right and left. Unfortunatly, September is too late for us to get one onto our internet software distribution disk for the year in replacement of the plain telnet client we include now.
Perhaps these are actually legal for University use within the US, since Universities are allowed to use ssh freely. However, the lack of a site license available from VanDyke/Datafellows for educational institutes doesn't lend in credence to that theory. Can one of the many not-lawyers around here clarify this?
But I have to say that I *love* Packard Bell keyboards.
The one I have now is ancient and filthy, but I wouldn't give it up for the world. It's perfect (well, except for the enter key and spacebar with tend to stick every so often). I can use other keyboards, but none I've tried feel as comfortable as this Packard Bell.
Though I did find a black Packard Bell keyboard lying around the house a while ago, and may consider seeing if that one is equally wonderful if someone doesn't claim it soon (My house seems to be on the other side of some hardware black hole. Hardware just magically appears from time to time. The odd part of this is that my two roommates aren't really geeks. If they were, the random hardware would be entirely understandable. But they aren't, so it's just odd).
My second computer was a Packard Bell, and I loved it. It was terribly reliable, and I never had any trouble installing new components (though I never actually tried to upgrade it - got it secondhand). Then again, the computer I had before it was a truly hideous POS - I left the cover off of it because half the time it wouldn't start up until I went and massaged the motherboard a bit to get some connection or other back into place. So it wasn't a terribly good comparison.
That's a good solution for Unix, but the real problem is the lack of free/legal clients for Mac and Windows.
Take SecureCRT, for example. We currently have a site license for plain old non-encrypted CRT, which means we can distribute it freely to everyone affiliated with the university. However, it is impossible for us to get a site license for SecureCRT, because Van Dyke has to pay a royalty for each copy sold, and therefor can't distribute an unspecified number of copies. This a. Makes the price of SecureCRT prohibitive and b. Limits our methods of distribution.
Yes, there are free implementations, and many people use them. But these aren't legal in the US so we can't distribute them, or even really endorse them (a public university encouraging people to break the law is usually frowned upon).
I'll be extremely happy when the patent expires in September.
I read about this yesterday, and the title is extremely misleading. They aren't talking about banning the telnet and ftp *protocols*...they're talking about not running those *servers* on campus computers and replacing them with secure alternatives.
In fact, expecting some amount of deviation from the baseline would improve the security of the system, as you wouldn't be able to simply record the keystrokes and play them back at a later time.
Yes, its true. Though it is far from a new thing - it's been around for about a year now.
I'm not going to argue for or against the reality of GWS. However, arguments like yours do absolutly nothing to further your point, since you're basically comparing apples and oranges.
The really sad thing about this "virus" is that I've recieved it at least 10 times from different sources - and I haven't recieved any copies of the original ILOVEYOU virus (or any variants).
--$time;
}
$money == $time;
Seriously, at the university where I work, we lost basically a full day of productivity due to the idiotic thing. That's a day worth of salaries being payed so that people can email back and forth telling other people the latest developments and not to open anything with ILOVEYOU in the subject instead of getting their usual work done.
And then there's everything that everyone else said, too.
I'm not saying that I agree with him. Yes, he's anti-gay-lifestyle. And I've read other things from him which show this. However, this does not mean he is a homophobe.
In at least two of his works (Songmaster and the Homecoming series) he portrays gay characters sympathetically, and homosexual relationships as loving relationships, not as abominations or whatever.
Not that he's pro-gay, either. There's a definite anti-gay-lifestyle theme in both stories, and he seems to prescribe to the Mormon belief that homosexuals can be happy in a straight relationship.
But I agree with you that it's a far cry from classifying him up there with the KKK or something.
Unless he's changed them since I read them a few weeks ago, the POV varies between characters - Some from Petra, some from Bean, some from Achilles, and probably another character or two thrown in there as well that I'm not remembering.
But where does the money come from? I seriously doubt they're going to suddenly find that the amount of financial aid available is going to just suddenly increase. So, either less financial aid is going to be given per individual, or less individuals are going to recieve financial aid.
Either way, its going to lead to further stratification between those who can afford it and those who can't.
Portsentry does this. The monitoring/blocking portion, anyways - when it detects a portscan, it adds the hosts to hosts.deny and sets a firewall rule to deny all further packets from that host. And, IIRC, you can set it up to take some action (such as notifying the administrator), as well as logging everything, though that may be in conjunction with one of their other products, logcheck.
Can any veggy-people confirm?
When someone uses DoS attacks to take out 100% of a large university's bandwidth over a frigging IRC channel, there's a serious problem.