Posts by Sir Runcible Spoon 5770 publicly visible posts • joined 29 May 2007
"Generally, I only understand it's a joke if it's actually funny."
Really? What about things that are a joke but aren't meant to be funny, like how our government spunks money up the wall on useless brain-dead projects with no earthly value and yet takes money away from people who can't afford to live with schemes like the bedroom tax?
Seriously, our government is a joke, but I'm not laughing. Perhaps you should refine your sense of humour?
When I was at school I burnt the fingerprint off my left index finger by dragging it gently along a wall every day.
It grew back. Not sure if it was exactly the same, but I presume so.
A few months back I also managed to slice a good chunk of the flesh part of my thumb off whilst chopping veg. Again, it's still healing but I can see the fingerprint growing back in and all the lines seem to join up with the undamaged skin.
So yes, we can grow replacement fingerprints, but they are the same as the old ones.
Are the keys stored in memory in a single block?
What about distributing the keys into different segements and use pointers to the various locations to stitch it back together when required? Inefficient I suppose, but then they could always use HSM's.
Or indeed, has already been pointed out, wipe the fucking memory block after using such uber sensitive data.
"but it still wouldn't qualify as being in the national interest "
Even factoring in the financial instability caused by a massive hack of this kind? Do you think all those big bank account holders would just leave their money there for the taking? They run like fuck to someone else, probably taking the bank down with them.
It was inappropriate of you to point out something that most people would agree with, especially on here - it seems to be more and more PC every day, where everything you say get's taken in the worst possible way.
The first time I watched Battle Royale I was occasionally left thinking "didn't that girl get killed a few minutes ago?' - After a dozen watchings I know all their names and could probably pick most of them out of a crowd.
My wife still can't tell them apart, but then she has professor's deafness. It's a cultural thing.
For example, if a Japanese person were to say 'all those Western people all look the same to me' - I wouldn't take offense. I wouldn't consider it racist. I would consider it a lack of exposure to a foreign culture.
When I first started work in a department where international communications were the norm. I had a terrible problem with strong accents, especially when they spoke English at a speed consistent with their native tongue (think Indian/Scottish etc.). These days I have no problem, even over a bad line.
Why are people not allowed to have an opinion anymore without being labelled as something immutable? Don't you realise that perpetuating this thought mode is leading* us all into mental slavery?
*I realise that most people are already there.
Not trolling, not trying to incense or invoke hatred, just expressing an opinion. I have no problem if you don't agree with my opinion, but I will express my right to have one until my dying breath in the New World PC brigade's oubliette.
Sad icon (for the state of the modern mind) -->
I've always suffered from memory problems, especially when a subject isn't particularly interesting from a spiritual point of view - so for my work stuff (network & firewalls) I always had to delve deep into the understanding of how it all hangs together.
This makes initially learning a 'concept' longer, such as a new area of technology that I haven't worked on before, but once you do this you have created a framework within your mind upon which to hang 'information'.
After a time not working on a particular type of device, I can forget a lot of the details, but the infrastructure (i.e. the fundamental understanding) is still there so it can be picked up again in no time at all.
After a few years of this I discovered that the same infrastructure can be employed to learn new kit in a very short time, even under lots of pressure, a very useful skill to have as a consultant with a new job every 6 months or so.
It came as a complete shock to me a few years back when a colleague in a position of trust for a major company, running their firewall estate, didn't know about subnet masks. He said 'that's just the routing stuff' - presumably catagorised under 'someone else's problem' in his head.
He was surprised to learn that his firewalls were routers. Apparently he went on a firewall course to become a firewall engineer - not moving up through the network support path that I thought was ubiquitous - he didn't even know what the 7 layer model was, let alone what they were.
Mind you, I forgot the name of the interface scanning command* on splat in an interview, even though I could recall all the flags to set - still got the job though :) I guess bullshit is a skill too - as long as you can back it up.
*yes, tcpdump
The euphoric effect has more to do with accomplishment than overcoming a poor game mechanic (think Zelda puzzles - especially the obvious one that you've missed and have tried for hours and hours - then you stumble across the solution and you hear that little jingle - in hindsight you wonder how you missed it, but the feeling you get when you hear that little noise is fantastic (especially on the pre-3d Zelda games).
Personally I'd like to know what technology my wife is using to travel all these vast distances whilst seemingly remaining in our domicile ? And if she is using some kind of time-stop insta-travel technology (like Santa Claus uses) then why is she so stuck on Windows?
"And hang, draw, quarter and piss on the graves of the motherf*king w*nkstains who thought that was a great design."
You can add all the arsehole designers who make charger blocks too long above the live pin so that two of them can't face each other on a double-row extension block.
I'm not quite sure what you're driving at here Mage. For sure there are lots of people out there that do a lot worse than catholic priests and nuns.
However that doesn't make what some of these evil bastards have done any better.
Molesting children and systematically covering it up at an instutional level.
Using children as unpaid slaves, stealing their children and selling them to wealthy Americans.
That's just the Irish one's that I've heard about - God knows what the rest of the get up to (at least I hope he does).
After all the shit that catholic priests and nuns have been up to for the last X number of years I think they are probably very highly qualified to judge whether something is evil or not. After all, they have so much experience.
Whenever I read about all the harm they've done over the years, I really, really, really do hope there is a hell waiting for them.
Catholic priests & nuns -> (see icon)
I'm glad you put caveats in your statement, because I know quite a few people who make a good living out of the markets.
The trick is not to compete with the 800lb gorilla's.
The trick is to become an effective tracker, so you can see their footprints. This allows the small investor to predict (with around 50% accuracy) the movements of these gorilla's. Then you lay in wait for where the gorilla's live and pick up their scraps (they don't eat everything).
As long as you have a plan, can stick to it and can hit around 50% of your trades whilst maintaining a 3:1 reward ratio, you will make money.
Most people don't trade with a plan, and they are the ones that drive price into the gorilla's traps.
--> Paris, because one day I will be able to afford her. I wouldn't, but I could :)
Well, you also need some kind of computer and screen to access the internet, perhaps they should be legislating for hardware restrictions being built into these devices that can detect if you are downloading copyright material without permission.
The logic bomb needs to go off in some peoples' heads it seems.
"Power to the right people" - amanfromMars 1
It is my dearest wish to be inspired to invent/manifest a method* of identifying people of sufficient character and discipline that can be trusted (with power) to do what is right**, not what is easy.
I await that day with anticipation of being deemed worthy. In the mean-time I persevere.
*This method might already exist, but it isn't in place anywhere as far as I can tell. I also think making such a thing public would attract a lot of negative interest at high velocity :)
** To clarify, 'right' in this sense is in the 'conscience' sense of right.
If your adversary is giving ground, now is not the time to say 'Why are they giving ground? This must be a trick'.
Now is the time to push the advantage and insist on public oversight of the approvals process whilst applauding the enemy for their timely withdrawal from the fray and saving lives*.
This oversight should have teeth and people in charge who are accountable. Their reputation and freedom should be measured by the performance of those they are monitoring. It is important to set up the correct processes that encourage the actions you desire.
So often these things seem to be set up with 'status-quo' and 'unaccountability' as their core values - time to change that. It's worth a go.
In this particular context the more people praise Obama for this stance, the less likely he is to renege on it. If enough emphasis is placed on these promises he is encouraged (for his own gain i.e. career) to follow through. The more you can hang on it, the more his reputation will suffer if he reneges.
Encourage him to believe that this is a major step forward in personal freedoms and encourage the belief that it is all his idea.
Personally I don't give a monkey's toss who takes credit for us securing personal freedom against the state, as long as it happens. Let historians worry about the why's and wherefore's - I just want the job done and done well. If that means sucking up to the US prez. who thinks this is a PR stunt to quieten the masses then so be it.
Let's all join together and bring these bastards to their knees with good-will and positive publicity - followed up by repeated requests for concrete laws and public oversight with teeth.
Power to the people.
(*metaphorically speaking of course)
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