I wrote advisories on that more than 10 years ago, so please go ahead and lecture me.

Your home network should not allow a request with an IP that doesn't belong to it out. If I'm the router that connects 1.2.3.0/24 to the Internet, I shouldn't put a packet that claims it originates from 5.6.7.8 on the wire.

The only places where a package that isn't part of my network should be routed through is when my network is a transit network.

I know from my own experience how right you are, but that, exactly, is the problem. This "it didn't crash in 10 minutes, ship it" approach is utterly horrible. It's become industry standard instead of being taken out back to be shot, and that is a really serious problem.

People shouldn't be used to computers crashing - they should demand that they don't do so.

Absolutely.

Where I work now there are 4 classifications of employees, progressing in pay level, but all assigned to the same software development services efforts.

My jaw hit the floor when my boss told me that anyone at level 4 is expected to perform project management duties.

So now I have a couple of rock solid level-3 developers that are on track to move into a true software architecture style role. I look at these fine developers and think, you know, it would be great if I could put together a training plan for them to really take their design approach to the next level and put goals together around their technical skill set, technical leadership, and continuing education with a prize at the end of the road of a nice shiny new title and pay bump.

But nope. If I want to promote these guys, I have to send them to project management 101. They need to go back and learn a whole new skillset, change over from dealing with code to dealing with people, and take on a whole new style of work.

What sense does that make? It's like someone is running an experiment to see if the Peter Principle is real.

-Rick

"Again, we're talking about a Democrat who said something racist."

Incorrect. Someone made a ridiculous statement: "EVERYONE WHO SAYS ANYTHING RACIST IS A REPUBLICAN."

Which I rebutted. Pointing out that it was not correct.

"about how Republicans are "statistically more likely to be racist." (You're lying about that by the way.)"

And you're creating an argument where there isn't one. I never said "Republicans are statistically more likely to be racist". What you did there was take my statement, out of context, and wrapped it in your own straw man. This would be what we laymen call "lying". Now, you may disagree with me over the statistics, and that's fine. But to call me a liar because you constructed your own argument to take apart is intellectually dishonest.

"One of the biggest pushers of the second idea in the Democratic Party is Al Sharpton"

In the same way that one of the biggest pushers of the 2nd idea in the GOP is Rush Limbaugh.

In either case, the existence of Rush and Al do not refute my statistic. As individuals, they are accounted for in the minority/majority of each quantification.

"You're lying about the contents of the Furugson study. "

Seeing as how I didn't say ANYTHING about the context of the Furugson study, it's kinda hard to imagine how I would be lying about it.

Also, are you sure you read the links you posted? Including these snippets:

"Hodson and Busseri (2012) found in a correlational study that lower intelligence in childhood is predictive of greater racism in adulthood, with this effect being mediated (partially explained) through conservative ideology."

"Taken together, what do these studies suggest? Excessive exposure to news coverage could be toxic as is avoidance of open-minded attitudes and ideals."

" Low-intelligence adults tend to gravitate toward socially conservative ideologies, the study found."

The reason I didn't bother linking to specific news articles about these two studies is because they are so contentious. You can find the summaries of them on Huffpo or Breitbart. LiveScience or Christian Monitor. CNN or FOX. Each with significantly different spins as they attempt to describe the studies in ways that either flatters or infuriates their viewers. So yeah, I recommend reading the articles instead of some ad man's rendition of it looking for some eye bleeding headlines to drive his click-bait.

Seriously though, you are calling me a liar though you've offered no proof. You've built straw men that you have excellently destroyed. You have attempted to switch the topic, and I'm actually expecting a goal post maneuver next.

So, if you would like to debate, lets debate. If you want to parrot talking points you learnt from reading Breitbart, I'll be moving along and you can enjoy the echo chamber.

-Rick

"It's ridiculous that we have to have a conversation premised on "ZOMG Republicans are racist" every time there's a news story about Democrats saying something racist, but I guess we're in to this."

Actually, we weren't, at least, not until you decided to have this conversation.

The only thing I said was that there is a correlation between racism and conservatism. That doesn't mean that every Republican is racist, or that any specific Democrats isn't racist. That means that if you take a random sampling of people who identify as having conservative ideologies, they will be statistically more likely to also hold racist beliefs.

"Thanks to Ben Shapiro at Breitbart.com, whose list of "crazy shit Sharpton has said" I have cribbed from liberally. You can find his original piece here."

Seriously, Ben Shapiro and Breitbart are your best sources? That's like deciding what college to go to based on National Lampoons movies.

If you would like some actual scientific reading on the association between ideology, intelligence, and race views, might I recommend:

Furguson, M.J. & Hassin, R.R. (2007). On the automatic association between American and aggression for news watchers. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33, 1632-1647.

And

Hodson, G. & Busseri, M.A. (2012). Bright minds and dark attitudes: Lower cognitive ability predicts greater prejudice through right-wing ideology and low intergroup contact. Psychological Science, 23, 187-195.

-Rick

"But you also know that when you're in a MS shop you end up--because of support and tools such a VS--end up being a 100% MS shop. It just happens"

Actually, I don't know that. I have worked in 100% MS shops. And I have worked in blended shops. And seeing as how you point out that you haven't worked in a MS shop for over a decade, I'd wager that YOU don't know that either.

"I doubt MSDN is going to give you oodles of pointers on how to configure .NET and solve esoteric problems on Postgres, MySQL or Oracle."

True, If I go to the MSDN I will find information on connecting TO Postgre, MySQL, and Oracle, but I won't find information on solving esoteric problems within those platforms. Just as I wouldn't go to the Oracle knowledge base expecting to find details on the SQL Server query optimizer.

"So, bottom line, the decision to become an MS shop is a higher cost point "

That's a neat statement for which you have offered no proof. VS Pro is more expensive than MEB, but MEB has an annual license where as VS Pro is a 1-time purchase. VS Pro also includes many tools that allow for more rapid development (Entity Framework + LINQ destroys Hibernate for development speed). If using VS saves me even just a handful of hours in a year, it is the cheaper option. Similarly, if you compare the Oracle and SQL Server licensing, it is easy to see that the vast majority of LOB scenarios will have a lower cost using SQL Server's license structure than Oracles, especially with the advent of multiple-core VMs.

That isn't a MS trumps all endorsement, for just as I can point out numerous actual real world examples where MS is cheaper, I can also point out numerous real-world examples where .Net/SQL Server are NOT the best tool for the job.

"fewer and fewer shops are choosing that"

You realize that this statement is factually incorrect, right? I can show you code repository scans, job indexes, market index, education trends, etc... that all show the same thing: .Net has been gaining popularity consistently over the last 14 years while Java has been losing popularity consistently.

"The last product I worked professionally on that came from Microsoft was VB6 and it constantly fucked up."

So you're justifying your choice in cool aide based on a 17 year old platform that has been deprecated for a decade. I hate to break it to you, but 17 years ago Java was just as fucked up. Heck, even just 10 years ago it was incredibly painful to use. Not to mention the half dozen different 'varieties' to navigate.

Listen, Java is a solid platform. But it isn't the end-all-be-all solution. I would seriously recommend spending some time doing some fun projects in C# (there are plenty of open source C# opportunities out there!) with the FREE edition of Visual Studio. It will take some time to learn, and it will take even longer to learn all of the powers that the IDE presents you with, but you will likely walk away from it as a more well informed developer.

-Rick

Forgive me, but aren't there 12648430 solutions to "build your program without a browser"?

No, it proves that the network you are connected to is braindead because it still allows IP spoofing.

It used to be really easy to knock someone off the Internet. It's not so easy anymore. For some of the really big targets, being able to muster the bandwidth alone would be an impressive demonstration of power. Keeping them offline for more than a few seconds while their Anti-DDoS countermeasures deploy would be something that few players smaller than a nation state level can pull off.

Not really. I hate them as much as most people with three working brain cells, but they've both done quite a lot about security. It's just not enough and - like every company - they make decisions to not invest in some security measures because the ROI simply isn't there.

Nonsense. On their gaming systems you are unlikely to find any data that the companies would consider valuable. And 10+ years of experience show that "oops, we leaked customer data" isn't really a game-changer.

But cries from customers can be. Denying them the joy of their freshly gifted gaming console can be very powerful. It's not the nice way, definitely not, but it makes headlines.

I doubt it's going to change anything, because customers are too used to computers not working. That is the real damage that 30 years of Microsoft dominance have done to the world.

If I didn't know that, I'd give back my nerd credentials.

But there's a difference between making a prequel movie and a story that is set before. The Hobbit tried too hard to get as much from the LOTR movies into it as possible. For example, WTF is Legolas doing in the movie? He's not even mentioned in the book.

I wouldn't be offended if someone said Happy Hanukkah to me. I'm not Jewish, but not everything's about me and my feelings. An expression of goodwill from someone is about their feelings.

I would take it as it was meant; as someone who's Jewish who's expressing to me warm wishes in their way of doing it. That's not being divisive or exclusionary; I shouldn't have to take 5 minutes to express happy holidays in all the major ways, like a voter guide printed in umpteen million languages.

Nor should we need to templatize it. I don't want to Mad Lib all my user interactions with people, I want them to re-learn how to put themselves in another's shoes for just a second, and reject the hair-trigger offense reaction the Left has trained us to have.

So please, fill in what applies to you (and hopefully, in the spirit of the season it's something positive and not Happy There's No God Day or something like that!).

Perhaps you can measure things on a scope, but that doesn't mean the difference is perceptible. It's not my money, so I don't really care what audiophiles do with it - but they also seem to expect me to be impressed, which I am not. I politely nod but honestly think they are just burning their money. I can't take someone seriously who thinks that oxygen makes a perceptible difference in audio, and then think nothing of using stranded wire vs. solid. Even with an oscilloscope, the stranded vs. solid will be a much bigger difference than the 97% vs 99.99% copper. And by "much bigger", I mean "still not perceptible".

I know a guy who does installs. He tells many stories, but I like this one: He ran out of super-expensive speaker wire specified by one customer. He temporarily finished the job with landscaping wire, of all things. It was the proper gauge and everything, but cheap stuff that he uses for outdoor installs (which unbelievable people insist on having fancy cable for! Shut those birds up, would you?). He came back later (when the specified wire came in) and told the customer what he needed to do. They guy, completely oblivious to the "problem", was horrified. Just horrified! He had been quite happy with the new system, but now noted that certain things do indeed sound wrong... the brain is an amazing machine.

If the game itself is open-source and written by an international body. Having Olympics based on a proprietary game would just be insane. Just as insane as saying that swimming is owned by a company.

ALL of that audiophile stuff sounds good (pun intended).

You can take away my political speech as long as you leave my nudity alone!