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I had the answer, but I've forgotten it

...why did I load this thread?

I've wondered similarly... and further thought that a better means of retaining some privacy in the modern internet might be providing lots of diverse data randomly in plain sight so that "true" information or signal is obscured by "false" information or noise.

One of the things with programming is that you usually need to interact with way more functions, libraries, and concepts than you can retain or burn into your memory. Your own code almost always falls into this category because you only hung out with the implementation while doing it and so it is not usually part of your embedded knowledge.

I have learned that "clever" code is almost never good long term unless you can implement it behind an interface and the underlying implementation rarely needs to be revisited. Otherwise, you're almost always better off writing transparent code with transparent naming conventions and functions structure whose purpose and behavour and layout are easy to "reoccupy" at a glance.

Your hypothesis is interesting, but I suspect it would be difficult to test with control groups, is the change permanent, how much time need to see an effect, mitigating factors, etc. so we can only offer anecdotal impressions which may not be unbiased. That said...

In my experience, programming is a very specific type of mental activity that requires holding functional goals (what am I trying to achieve in a given function and how does it relate to an overall picture) and logical relationships (how is the division of labour distributed between my code, used libraries, class frameworks, design patterns and so on) in your head as you work away on locally very mundane building blocks. The memory of specific facts is useful at different moments, but usually you have dedicated your memory to how everything works together and you lean heavily on being able to look up the specific facts as needed in terms of function calls and so on. Your access and interaction with your memory is absolutely modified by this emphasis. And, the research on neuroplasticity suggests that this must lead to actualy brain changes if repeated in your life over continual periods of time.

In my experience, I HATE/STRUGGLE EXTREMELY trying to get into the "programmer's mindset" when I am switching from needing/wanting to garden, play sports, and so on; and I HATE/STRUGGLE EXTREMELY trying to get out of "programmer's mindset" when I need to brush up on mathematical background, learning in general, playing music, relaxing, and more analogue style activities. It suggests that we are using our mental resources very differently across different tasks.

This is basically the only website that I use as a resource for info on lenses, as they have no perceptable bias:
http://www.photozone.de/Reviews/194-canon-ef-s-55-250mm-f4-56-is-test-report--review

If your bro-in-law wants some fun, then there's plenty to be had with this little puppy:
http://www.photozone.de/canon-eos/254-peleng-8mm-f35-fisheye-converted-to-eos-mount-test-report--review
(which is available in native EOS mount, I don't know why they had to kludge it)

Does not programming for a while bring your memory back?
You might simply be getting older. My short term memory was never up to much, but as I get older it gets noticeably worse.

hÆ°Æ¡ng vị thịt khi´ng nhiệt

ruin

Nice gear. Thanks for the info. I'm going to pass all that along to my bro-in-law, as he's a Canon man and would really appreciate that lens and photo.

I've frequently had the, "I wonder who wrote this... wait, it was me?!" experience. It's always a bit disconcerting and sometimes, if run across some old code I wrote that happens to be a bit clever, I don't feel pride so much as a sinking sense that I've somehow gotten dumber and less experienced over time.

It's not a question of losing your memory. It's a question of focus. Getting into "the programmer mindset" means you empty your mind of everything else and pull in lots of information around the problem area you're working on. Documentation about function calls, specifics about the problem you're trying to solve, locations of files and bits of code, etc. People who are really good at programming can do this very well, and it helps them visualize the problem area. It's not that you're losing your memory, you're just using it for something else. Humans only have a finite amount of RAM.

It's even worse when you look at something you did 5 years ago. Kind of a What the heck was I thinking when I wrote this crap. type thing.

Does anyone have a link of a feed that doesn't need flash?

... please use other more nefarious methods of tracking me rather than the easily worked-around ones.

Thanks! For reference, it was a Canon EOS 500D (1.6x crop sensor), Canon 55-250mm zoom at 250mm, IIRC stopped down to ~f7.2, 1/60s, image stabilisation on (and worth every penny at that zoom), and is a 100% crop from centre frame (hence no CA!).

I love that zoom lens, it's made me happier than any other camera kit I've ever bought.

I've been fortunate to have eyes that function with somewhat better-than-normal vision (at least until recently (damn you, aging!)), so I'd never given a lot of consideration to the visual-enhancement value a camera can provide. What a nice bonus to have in addition to the preservation of images.

Excellent photo of the moon, by the way. I think it turned out as well, or better, than one I took with a tripod, and furthermore appears (at least at this size) to have little-or-no chromatic aberration. It's said that it's a poor craftsman who blames his tools, but having the right tools, and ones that are of high quality, clearly makes a difference. Agreed, therefore, with your stance on cameraphone safaris. Far better to be immersed in the moment.

"After being continuously inhabited for more than 13 years, it is finally possible to log into Ustream and watch the Earth spinning on its axis in glorious HD."

I heard a rumor that Earth has been inhabited a lot longer than 13 years.

Then there's that other rumor about someone needing an exorcism.

Agree with all the above.

I've been offered one, but I certainly don't want pipedot to undergo any unnecessary expense in these early days, so shall gracefully decline. If Bryan sends me his postal address, I'll happily send him a postcard of where I live as a thank-you!

As someone who disagrees with almost everything that comes out of Netanyahu's mouth, I shocked myself by immediately noticing some wisdom in his outburst.

Regarding the camera thing - to be honest, cameras enhance my experience. I've got horrible astigmatism which turns all distant details into a mess. My camera, with its telephoto lens on, lets me see those things in a way that would otherwise be impossible. (I've never seen this much detail with my naked eye, for example: http://fatphil.org/images/moon.jpg (that was without a tripod, believe it or not, I just managed to wedge myself firmly against something rigid)) However, the full immersion of the experience - the full context and the sounds, and smells, are sometimes a bigger experience than the narrow zoomed-in ones that the camera gives. Shitty cameras? No comparison at all. Anyone wasting time with a camphone on a safari should be fed to the animals.

I'm just happy to be here

Ooh, ah! It's about to go over my house!

I would've thought the same, but a timely comment pointed out the ISS tracking site. FWIW, the ISS is in the light, now, but the image is pretty over-exposed. It's difficult to make much out. Either that, or it's really cloudy...

I was wondering why the video was completely black. The first time I clicked the link, I thought it was just a fubar'd plugin or scripting problem.

Of course by the time I get around to checking this out the ISS is in darkness, so there's nothing to see. Turns out you can track the location of the ISS here .

Ha, that's great, The thing is stuck up there due to some failure, and instead of announcing its broken, they just site that its up their doing "something" for a record amount of time!

Turn an embarrassing failure into a secretive success! Brilliant!

If only they adjusted the exposure a bit...
I would probably spend way too much time watching the show.

Oh, no. I don't think it's entirely scientific. I just don't think its entirely millitary oriented either.

Hey this is nice. Good work here, Bryan!

I think the work you're doing on the pipedot backend is great. I just wish I could contribute to it. I checked your git repository but it's basically empty.

I would really like to see the different groups formed out of Slashdot come together some day, however. I think each group would benefit from it.

Regardless, keep up the good work. Really attractive looking USB stick. Have you thought of making it available for purchase as a form of donation? Food for thought :P

I'm not sure I'm willing to calling 480p HD. 720p would be my minimal limit. Not to say that I'm not loving it, but man I can't wait for the 4k live feed that I can reasonably expect to be on most of the time. At that point, I can see a TV (or projector) being dedicated to it, or at the very least as a live background to my monitor.

It's a bitchy HP Laptop. (I said 'bitchy,' not 'bitching.') I knew it before I even started the project of installing. BSDs and even some Linuxes, actually, are notoriously finicky on laptop hardware; openBSD has less hardware compatibility than other BSDs, etc. But openBSD wanted nothing to do with this laptop, which I suspected before even trying. That's OK because I probably wouldn't want to run it on a laptop anyway; I'd want it on a router or a tower/desktop etc. So no hard feelings.

I suppose if you're using this technology to route around a privacy infringing government, then this doesn't matter since you'll already be breaking the law, and justifiably so.

Now, radio in general can use a variety of frequencies (as the article states), some regulated, some not, and this technology will work with any of these underlying bands in general. But don't try using it with on HAM bands, please. It is certainly not legal to do so in most countries that have HAM licenses, but also it's not ethical, at least within the jurisdiction of countries like the US and Canada. HAM operators pride themselves on operating in the clear, according to string self regulation.

Feel free to use it on unlicensed bands though!

The guys behind OpenBSD certainly deserve a lot of credit and if someone doesn't like their OS, they'll still use OpenSSH for sure. In the future we may even use LibreSSL as well ;) On the desktop it has become a nice alternative to Archlinux since they completely abandoned their BSD userland and where you have the systemd mess attached to everything now.

May I ask what your unsupported hardware is?

OK - interesting, but what's the point of an encrypted MP3 player: so no one knows you like and listen to Miley Cyrus or something? Or are you interested in the video formats: ok, so no one knows you are carrying a pocket device full of pr0n or something? Hardly seems useful to me.

On the other hand, some buddies and I rooted through a colleague's ipod one day when he walked away from his desk, and we've ridiculed him mercilessly ever since about his taste in music. Maybe if it had been encrypted we'd still respect him ...

I haven't been following this issue other than keeping in the back of my mind that it *is* an issue. But it sure seems these guys are taking an aggressive stance in pushing fixes well in advance of their need, so there's sufficient time (no joke intended) to test, patch, and ensure. That's responsible engineering and I'm pretty impressed by it.

I'm also impressed this article didn't immediately become a bitchfest about Theo, the way most openBSD posts on Slashdot used to. Focus on the technology, not the personalities. OpenBSD is damned impressive, even if it doesn't like my hardware :( And to all you guys using it as a desktop out there: you have my respect.

I've seen that before from Debian - they're very tuned in to voting processes and very proactive about making sure the methodology is well-understood. It's working better than the democracies in some Western nations, I betcha.

I love, love, LOVE the idea of blasting out lulzpackets. Unless I'm mistaken, this system is something like alt.anonymous.messages or whatever it's called on Usenet, where you post publicly, but only the right user has the appropriate public key to decipher the message. Or something like that. It's true that one advantage of radio is that it's much, much harder to figure out who is reading/listening to it. On the Internet, all those damned, numbered packets make it too damned easy to figure who is sending what.

Hmm, good point. Let's invite only people who want the site to succeed, or ???? Kidding. Nice posts on this site though - hope it lasts. To be fair though, Soylent is full of people that want that site to succeed too, and there is a lot of posting of little value. I'm a user there too, so this isn't 'ha ha, your site sucks.' Rather, just pointing out a high number of people in favor of a site doesn't necessarily translate into high quality conversation and a good crap-filter. Just sayin.'

Yeah, unfortunate when work gets in the way of life. Unfortunately, life isn't free, so work is a must. PS - I'm really liking this captcha service. Very user-friendly; a first!

There are several relevant XKCD cartoons about this. One is the guy looking at the mountain range, thinking "I should liveblog this" or something. Another is actually about this: one guy taking a photo of a sunset, and another complaining about it, then a third telling the second to basically piss off with his condescension. Good stuff.

Yes, I was about to say, "seems like a good basic set of principles for any group or individual."

This is perhaps off-topic, but I found the description in the linked post of the voting methodology used by the group quite interesting. It's fun to see not just "here's what we've decided" but also "here's how we decided".

I wish I could support the site more. I've submitted a couple of stories, but lately I've been too busy to even comment. Stupid job.

Parent AC here. I'm pretty sure that if this site had a much larger user base, you'd see a garbage posts a lot more, posted anonymously or signed-in. It's the signal to noise ratio, which is very high here because we have nothing but people who want this site to succeed. Give it time to grow and this will change.

First off, kudos to the editor for turning this into a meatier post.

It'd be easy to write off Netanyahu's outburst as the curmudgeonly grousing of an older man who doesn't get modern technology, but perhaps there's some truth in what he said. The reaction, in particular, to the statement

"if you did not take a picture, it's as if you didn't live," or take part, in the occurrence

reminded me of an experience I had a while back. We'd gone to South Africa for a visit and were being taken on a "safari" around Kruger National Park by a really wonderful guide; she'd previously been a grade school teacher and carried over her desire to teach and inform into her new career as a safari guide. At one point she stopped the truck, turned to us and said (paraphrasing), "Now ... I want to encourage you to put down the cameras every so often and record with your eyes - to see things first-hand and not from behind a small screen. The memories you make this way will be far more valuable than any videos or photos."

As a habitual photo-taker, I did not do a particularly good job of heeding her advice. I have lots of photos to document the fact that I went and saw some animals, and I enjoy looking at them and showing them to others, but my memories of the trip are largely of those snapshots and of frowning at the buttons and dials on my camera. What few genuine sense-memories I have are from the times when I left the camera behind or elected not to use it. In my case, taking photos seems to have made me less likely to take part in the occurrence, not more.

Humans love to play show-and-tell and I'm no different. Whenever I see something that interests me, my first inclination will always be to want to show it to someone else, and so I will always be reaching for my pocket to grab my phone. It's good, though, for me to disconnect on occasion, and just record with my eyes. Leave the phone in the pocket. Don't send that "hey, check this out" email/message right that instant. Watch the interesting stuff happen in real life and not from behind a small screen. The other day I saw a crow do a barrel roll ...

So how do they get around triangulation?

No, there are still plenty of points to be debated about anonymity. But it's existence in certain places is certainly important.

I think posting with a name actually opens up more opportunity for abuse. As an AC someone can attack your post, but as a user they can attack you. There's a lot less pressure to fit in to the popular opinions when you won't make any lasting enemies.

Wow - even the ACs are cooler here than on Slashdot :) When is the last time you ever saw an anonymous cow-herd say thanks anywhere? Nice one, AC.

Proof, I suppose, of the other side of the argument about anonymity. There are so many different ways to run forums out there and there is a prevalent train of thought that anonymity leads to abuse and anti-social behavior. That may be true - hell, I've been on Usenet long enough to see it happen there - but some forums that allow anonymity also permit people to contribute who would otherwise be reluctant to do so. That's an interesting observation.

Likewise, forced use of real name (Facebook, G+) was supposed to make people more civil and stand behind their comments on the Internet. But in practice that hasn't happened either. Look at the comments on Youtube these days: even though accounts are tied to G+ accounts now there is still a surprisingly high number of asshat posts out there, despite usage of real name. I conclude that asshats will be asshats, and even anonymous cowards can be forthright and decent contributors.

Does this mean the debate on anonymity in forums has just been rendered null and void?

YES

just so you know, truecrypt won't run on openbsd

This is a very nice move on your part, Bryan. I have an account, but post (and even submitted a story that was accepted) as an AC because I'm at work. Absolutely no resentment that I'm not getting a USB drive, just wanted to let you know that you are a class act.

Keep up the great work. I'll keep contributing.

Nothing ground-breaking on that list: basically, don't be a jerk. I wonder if this is in response to some unpleasant events, or is a preemptive move so that future asshattery can be swatted down with a "you're not complying with the code" kind of a thing.

Debian does a good job, I think, of being a well-run democratic kind of administration, not an easy thing with so many diverse expectations and personalities, and the need to balance transparency/fairness with getting things done. Lean too far in the direction of democracy and you get mediocrity and "design by committee." Lean too far in the opposite direction and you get dictatorship and complaints of heavy-handedness a la openBSD.

It almost seems too bad to have to put together a code of ethics like this, but sooner or later most teams find it necessary. Then they all make fun of how obvious/stupid it is. I manage a 10 person team and we put together a team charter that essentially came up with these same tenets. Then we occasionally forget and do mean things to each other.

Humans are tough to manage!