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Comment Re:A Smart man once said... (Score 1) 207

I agree with this. It's silly to look up the fact that 2+2=4, those things can be easily memorized. But leaving the tomes and tomes of information to the books or the internet in my opinion frees you to assess the situation, have a fairly good idea of what or how you want to do, and then go look up how to do it. That's why I don't memorize Oracle manuals and database initalization parameters - if I need to correct syntax, I'll look it up, but I know vaguely what types of things are available.

Now, if I can ever figure out why my head latches on to movie quotes and pop trivia items like a rare earth magnet to an I-beam, we'll be talking. I can't get those things outta my head for nothing!

Mitch: You know, um, something strange happened to me this morning...
Chris Knight: Was it a dream where you see yourself standing in sort of sun-god robes on a pyramid with a thousand naked women screaming and throwing little pickles at you?
Mitch: No...
Chris Knight: Why am I the only one who has that dream?

Comment I really am old... (Score 1) 325

When I first read the write-up I was thinking it was a huge farm of wind-up clock-like devices that when needed could be "started" and the potential energy in their huge spring coils powered a generator. When depleted, they were wound back up by power from the grid.

(sigh)

I guess I really am old...

Comment Re:I've cracked it! (Score 2) 466

Since he has been using the encryption since he was a boy, I'm thinking it's not a very complicated scheme. I'm betting it had something to do with the area he grew up in - for instance knowing what streets intersect with each other, and coming up with a cipher from that.

If this is the case, you can throw statistical analysis and standard cryptanalysis out the window, as it won't make sense in this context.

The only way they're going to get this solved is to get into his mind. Go back to where it all started. Look around. Talk to his friends about any "sayings" or "pledges" he might have used with them (think secret phrase to enter a fort). Someone somewhere has the answer.

(waves to nice FBI agents who I know are reading all these responses.... :) )

Comment Oh c'mon common sense, chime in here please? (Score 2, Insightful) 368

The first thing wrong is that Facebook doesn't have any liability to YOU to keep the information you uploaded online and/or archived. And YOU, expecting Facebook to keep a backup is just moronic. If you upload a photo directly from your cell phone to Facebook, YOU as a Facebook user can't have any reasonable expectation that the photo will stay there, be backed up, or basically anything. It can stay there, it can be taken down, it can disappear without any notice, and if it's published to the public you can't have any expectation that the photo will not be used/copied/shared/drooled on by others that you don't want to have access. The only one responsible for the well being of that photo is YOU, and if you don't save it elsewhere on your own, then you really shouldn't own a cell phone that can take pictures anyhow.

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