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Watch Your Butts
Oh Pete, you are really showing your true colors now. I've called you out. You're running away. Poser. Case closed.— January 24, 2010 3 a.m.
Watch Your Butts
SDaniels, you wrote: "#34: I look forward to seeing this happen. My bet's on Pete this time." Betting on Pete knowing what he's talking about proves you also know nothing about the subject. Case closed. Stick to what you know. Pete, it's trivially easy to find lots of stuff by and about me through Google...but you have to know what you're doing. You don't. Yet you claim to be a hacker? This is really pathetic. You can keep digging the hole you're in, but I'll just keep kicking dirt on top of you.— January 24, 2010 2:59 a.m.
Watch Your Butts
Again, Pete, you are obviously full of it. You don't know what you're talking about. You're conflating C, Java, and binary? WTF? No, SDaniels, this isn't about bragging. This is about someone claiming knowledge that he clearly doesn't have. It's offensive. It's hard work, takes time and effort, to actually learn how software and networks operate in the real world. When I see a poser claiming to be a hacker, I have earned the right to call him on it. Pete, you're not even a "script kid". You're just digging yourself deeper with every post. Again...if you can actually do what you claim, go right ahead. What IP address am I using when I'm posting these comments? You don't know. You cannot find out. You're a poser, and it's pathetic. Stick to what you know.— January 24, 2010 2:49 a.m.
Watch Your Butts
One more thing Pete...since you confuse "ISP" with "IP", here's a hint. ISP is Internet Service Provider. This is a company that sells bandwidth to end users, like you. IP is Internet Protocol. It's how packets of information are routed. The header includes things like the originator and destination of the packet of data. My IP address is simply the unique number used with sending and receiving information to and from my computer. Now, do some basic research on computers before you call yourself a hacker. Okay?— January 24, 2010 2:30 a.m.
Watch Your Butts
No Pete. You're just plain wrong, hysterically wrong, in your description of how computers work. I've been in IT/Telco for twenty years. You're full of it. Even your terminology is way off. The fact of the matter is that if you know what you're talking about, you ought to be able to get my IP. And this information is already public, by the way. Again, prove me wrong. You can post my IP address, it does me no harm whatsoever. The Reader CMS admin already has it (and yours too). Do you even know how IP works? SDaniels...stick to something you know. If you want to talk literary theory, fine. But you are absolutely in NO position to have an opinion on IT.— January 24, 2010 2:26 a.m.
Watch Your Butts
Pete, my boy, I think you're full of it. You say that when code is written, it's instantly revealed...and that's just plain wrong, my friend. The source code is compiled into an executable that the machine actually runs. That's the reason the "open source" movement came about, to allow others access to the orignial code so improvements can be made. Once it's been compiled into an executable, you cannot just look inside. If you get something this basic wrong, it casts doubt on the rest of your braggadocio. Buddy, I've been working in IT/Telco for almost twenty years now. Some things can be done, but it's not as easy as you describe, and it's a constantly evolving world of measures and counter-measures. What worked last week may not work this week, and it takes a LOT of time and effort to do it without being detected. But if you are so good as you brag, please feel free to correct me publicly...in this thread, I give you permission to post both my IP address and the physical address where I have written this comment. This can be done. I know how to do it. I'm absolutely positive you don't. Prove me wrong.— January 24, 2010 1:32 a.m.
Coldplay Left Him Cold
Neal Stephenson wrote about this several years back...the example he uses is a tourist walking down Disneyland's mainstreet with a video camera glued to his face. It's a long piece, primarily discussing user interfaces, and the sort of inherent cognitive dissonance of intermediation that the author of this article expresses so well. Just how separated have we all become from genuine experience? How many of you reading this would have any idea how to enter a command on a computer, rather than doing everything through the GUI? And even the command line is not very close to the base level of ones and zeros that are actually used by your computer. Just how "in control" are we of the technology we use? How much are we rather under the control of the technology...going places not to experience them, but to take a picture to prove to everyone that we were there? But the five minute stop on the tour bus wasn't spent being there at all, but angling for the best snapshot...a sort of disembodied pseudoexperience that we substitute for the experience we are willfully NOT having because we're so focused on the pseudoexperience...it gets kinda loopy. I travel a lot. And long ago I stopped using a camera. It tends to get in the way of the experience of BEING someplace. Instead of seeing, hearing and feeling what is going on, you become focused on "capturing" a pretty picture...but the picture is NOT the experience. Nowadays, when I see something I really like, I take out my sketch pad and pencils and draw it. Yet even this is an intermediation...not the thing itself, but a reproduction of it. Have a look at Stephenson's essay. Some bits are outdated, but the phenomenon of pseudoexperience taking the place of experience is so well described that it is still powerful today. You can download it here: http://www.cryptonomicon.com/beginning.html— January 19, 2010 midnight
You Don't Call, You Don't Write...
Casey is correct. It's an issue of ethics. Unfortunately, San Diego only TALKS about ethics...doesn't actually have any in practice. As to the computer system, that's the SAP ERP implimentation that is so fouled up that the contractor is suing the city. It comes down to gross incompetence. Ignoring all professional standards, the city never created a detailed requirements specification before begining the project. Even now the city is trying to hire business analysts to complete this task. So they're trying to implement a system that has not been properly thought out, behind schedule, with little or no documentation of the previous system. Anyone with experience in the IT world knows how this will end. I wouldn't be surprised if the city has found that it's actually impossible to go back and access the old data, compare it to the new data, and issue refund checks. So they're hoping to delay, deny, and deceive until Casey gives up. Dorian, if there's any way to get more information about this SAP implementation, please do. I'll be glad to help you with the technical bits...the real story is human hubris and the SDDPC being run not as a professional entity but a slush fund for politicians like Jim Madaffer. VOSD had links to some documents, including the statement of work, a few months ago, but never followed up. This is a big chunk of money...and it will determine if the city is actually capable of enacting the so-called reforms it's promised the voters. best, fred— January 18, 2010 8 a.m.
A Way with Words
Barb, I think the "helicoptering" of American parents is more damaging to kids than anything else. It makes them weak and incapable of overcoming obstacles. Add religion into the mix, with all the pointless guilt and stories of how they are "born bad" and have to be saved by an invisible friend or the angry sky daddy will burn them forever...well, you get the picture. How in the world is a woman's bare breast seen as somehow harming children? I've been told that as an infant, I was exposed to bare breasts every few hours. Worse, I actually used those breasts to feed myself! Only religion can explain this stupidity. Countries with high rates of atheism, Sweden and the Czech Republic are examples I know from personal experience, have zero problem with bare breasts. Somehow the kids there seem to grow up without any trauma from this exposure. Back to language. How can anyone consider certain combinations of vowels and consonants as inherently bad? Even more funny is how the exact same set of phonemes can be "bad" in one place and good in another. An example is the German, "Kunde", which means customer. The same word in Czech is a "vulgar" word for female genitalia. So it's hilarious when you're in Prague, and you hear a shop assistance say as some German tourists walk in, "Oh, look, it's another "kunde". Another example from Czech is when people say, "fakt yo" to agree with each other. Literally, it means "yes, that's a fact". But the way they pronounce it, "fahk yoh", is disturbing to monolingual English speakers who assume it's directed at them in an insulting manner. :-)— January 18, 2010 7:24 a.m.
I found Bigfoot above the San Diego River headwaters
There I was, minding my own business eating a bean and cheese chimichanga, when who do you think reached right over and took a bite? That's right...BIGFOOT! I was all like, "Yo, dude. That is SOOO not right." He just gives me this toothy grin, strokes his beard, and says, "Whatcha gonna do 'bout it, punk?" Now I'm a peaceful guy and everything, and I don't go around picking fights with mythical creatures from the northwest slumming in San Diego. Besides, I've got PROOF (it was on television news, so I know it's true!) that he can walk in hot lava. Maybe it was the intestinal gas, or maybe the twelve pack of Corona...whatever. I took a swing. You should have seen him. What a total baby! He was all crying and begging, "Please, please, don't hurt me, Fred! I'll make an imprint for you, for reals, man. Just don't hurt me." So I got on the phone with my agent in Los Angeles, and he said he'd call me back. I still haven't heard from him.— January 16, 2010 11:09 p.m.