I hope everyone on this team has read The Double Helix, so they know just how much imaginative work was done back in the day to figure out what they just confirmed visually. While writing that I also had the amusing thought that I hope James Watson calls them up and tells them to get off his lawn.

I don't know what says more about the change in the average Slashdot reader--the fact that the summary for this story assumes that the reader doesn't know anything at all about BGP, or the fact that this is the first comment to bemoan that.

This.

I would not have the career I have today if it weren't for Slack, _Running Linux_, my 486SX/33, and the friends I was blessed with those fine days.

I remember taking up a row of the 24-hour computer lab at school at 2am or so (to have an available row); I'd clear all the chairs out but one, log in to each PC, and then start downloading--FTP'ing directly to A:--like the carriage in a typewriter. By the time I had started the disk on the rightmost computer, the one on the leftmost machine would be finished downloading. Rollll to the left, repeat! Good memories.

Huh?

sha1sum blah = 5bf1fd927dfb8679496a2e6cf00cbe50c1c87145
sha1sum 5bf1fd927dfb8679496a2e6cf00cbe50c1c87145 = 9dbc5291ce0269baafbf68a6346b5510a1b30860
sha1sum 9dbc5291ce0269baafbf68a6346b5510a1b30860 = caa4e37211fda75d91b9bf3231f9fbeb434d56e8
[...]

Yes?

> There is an awful lot of need for javascript lackies so that real coders can do real work.

If the preceding comments aren't suggesting, "The people who participate in CodeAcademy won't ever amount to anything, unlike *us*," then I guess I need to read with less beer in me.

The above is NOT flamebait, o moderators. I meant it. I've been listening to, and reading, "blah, blah, stupid users never learn anything" since the 90's, and I think these criticisms are disingenuous as hell. Along comes an easy, fun set of lessons on the rudiments of programming, and people are deriding it for: too much media attention, too simple, too popular, et cetera. If your stance is, "I like being a computer geek because it allows me to look down on others," then that's your sad bag, but at least be honest about it. Only good can come from average people coming to realize that this stuff isn't some magic inborn to the 7th son of a rocket scientist; it just takes curiosity and persistence. I am calling bullshit on your defensive insecurity, and I have the Slashdot karma to burn doing it, tyvm.

Elitism: It's what Slashdot's serving for dinner.

Bidden or unbidden, EMF is present.

Eeh, typical Newsie hyperbole. I heard an NPR story this morning about Somali kids from Minneapolis going off to join Al-Shabab that described them as "leaving in droves," then went off to say there were 24 of them. I thought to myself, "That is one drove, max."

No, but I'll bet they're entirely capable of setting one up to run so it could be executed the next time Anon/Lulz did something newsworthy. Great PR on a day Google News searches are running, etc.

They're Justified, and they're Ancient, and they drive an ice cream van....

Linux support at my university is on a "best effort" basis (which usually means you get to talk to me). To be honest, I've never had to address wireless issues, but I can't think of any reason why one couldn't connect--it's as straightforward as WPA2-Enterprise gets, I reckon. iPads and Apples have no problem. At a guess, I'd say the faculty are ~15-20% Mac users and growing all the time.

As a side note--when I got nominated the academic support Linux guy, I was terrified I'd get sneered at by rocket scientists trying to write device drivers for cyclotrons or something. I was--am--super relieved that problems usually turn out to involve things like firewalls and fstabs. :)

Sorry, but I beg to differ--if/when the company is caving under pressure from the U.S. Senate, it becomes a free speech issue. Likewise, if there's a law in any state amounting to "Don't talk about DUI checkpoints" then that is also a free speech issue. I could accept an argument that it's constitutional to outlaw telling a drunk about a checkpoint so s/he may avoid arrest, but such a law would be extraneous at best, since there are already laws forbidding conspiracy and aiding and abetting. But that's just my opinion, of course. I don't necessarily expect anyone to agree with it.

If it was an app to help protesters in Syria avoid the Army, these selfsame senators would be screaming about how Apple is assisting a dictatorial government quash its citizens' natural right to freedom of speech. Make no mistake, this *is* a freedom of speech issue. It is no different than calling all your friends to let them know about a checkpoint.