News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

greatfog

Re:Rob Pike: Notes on Programming in C on Thursday November 11, 2010 @07:00PM (#1895905)
The yyyTimeStamp form could be useful if the program also dealt with postage stamps, rubber stamps, and food stamps.
Re:Ask HN: Besides HN, What Sites/Blogs Do You Visit Daily? on Thursday October 14, 2010 @04:43PM (#1792505)
The Register [http://www.theregister.co.uk/]

discussion by recovered and recovering sysadmins [alt.sysadmin.recovery]

Re:Ask HN: What would you do if there was no Internet? on Tuesday September 14, 2010 @03:02PM (#1691812)
If there were no internet, I would subscribe to magazines and visit the library.
Re:Ask HN: What's your favorite scientific paper? on Monday January 18, 2010 @01:39PM (#1060531)
Lucas Kovar, Electron Band Structure In Germanium, My Ass

[http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~kovar/hall.html]

Abstract: The exponential dependence of resistivity on temperature in germanium is found to be a great big lie. My careful theoretical modeling and painstaking experimentation reveal 1) that my equipment is crap, as are all the available texts on the subject and 2) that this whole exercise was a complete waste of my time.

Re:Ask HN: How many tabs do you currently have open? on Thursday December 17, 2009 @09:00AM (#1001002)
I have 5 tabs open, including this one.
Re:Ask HN: What do you think of the University of Waterloo? on Saturday September 26, 2009 @09:35PM (#846377)
You ask me what I think of the University of Waterloo? WATFOR?
Re:French Internet piracy law defeated in parliament on Thursday April 09, 2009 @04:26PM (#555082)
Le jour de gloire est arrivé !
Re:Ask HN: Does system administration dumb down the brain? on Wednesday April 08, 2009 @12:36PM (#552949)
From alt.sysadmin.recovery FAQ v1.799999999999999998... [http://www.faqs.org/faqs/sysadmin-recovery/]

  Perhaps Abby Franquemont summarized the life of a sysadmin the best, when she described us as:

  "disgruntled, disenchanted with things we used to really get a kick out of,
  foul tempered, hard-drinking, heavy-smoking, overworked, with no real social
  life to speak of."

  Or perhaps she was being optimistic.
I have not had responsibility for the operation of a large computer and communication system since the dinosaur era, but I found the work so repetitive and tedious that it motivated me to go back to college and get an EE degree.

Over a decade of lurking on asr shows that some sysadmins preserve sharp perceptions, wide-ranging interests, and pointed communication skills.

Re:FBI Defends Disruptive Raids on Texas Data Centers on Tuesday April 07, 2009 @09:39PM (#552117)
[attitude=prudent]

I do not want my company's communications disrupted by an FBI raid on a service firm that turned out to be a criminal enterprise. I had best look for a service provider that has been _pre-investigated_ by the government. After all, I have a responsibility to my company's shareholders and customers.

[/attitude]

Re:Almost Perfect - The Rise and Fall of WordPerfect on Sunday April 05, 2009 @01:46PM (#547536)
"the gold standard" -- Amen. WordPerfect 5.1 fulfilled every one of my (modest) document needs. If I buggered something up, the View Codes mode allowed me to find and fix the embuggerance. I bought Microsoft Office only because response to job postings required resumes in Word .doc format.
Re:FBI seizes entire data center, won't say why on Saturday April 04, 2009 @10:52AM (#546337)
Report Shows Alleged Fraud Against AT&T, Verizon [http://cbs11tv.com/technology/Core.IP.Networks.2.975776.html]
Re:The Right Size on Wednesday March 25, 2009 @09:34AM (#531784)
"One day soon there will be car companies that have 200 employees."

And they will all be filling out forms to assure the government that their cars have automatic restraint systems, automatic braking, automatic collision avoidance, automatic position reporting, automatic speed reporting, and police-operated remote shutdown.

Re:Traffic calming on Wednesday March 11, 2009 @02:45PM (#512227)
Most things are calmer after you strangle them.
But see "TCHunt - Quickly Search Drives For TrueCrypt Files" (http://16systems.com/TCHunt/).