Comment Re:Payroll cop fubar (Score 1) 166
then one day, one of the techs woke up dead.
I've seen a certain amount of bloodlust in a pissed-off sysadmin before, but this is the first time I've heard of sysadmins out for BRAAIINNNSS.
Comment Re:Lumping these guys with actual programmers (Score 2, Informative) 166
"Engineers work to develop economic and safe solutions to practical problems, by applying mathematics, scientific knowledge and ingenuity while considering technical constraints."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineer
Software engineers fit this definition just as well as any ME/CE/EE (I'm an EE, personally).
Comment Re:I fix code written by offshore Indian developer (Score 2, Insightful) 166
My observations show roughly the same thing.
My observations also show that roughly the same pattern applies to American developers, a fact that most (not necessarily you) tend to forget.
Comment Re:dead zones (Score 2, Insightful) 419
I don't know about you, but I live very near a road, I work very near a road, and the vast majority of the places I want to go are very near a road.
Comment Re:Insanity (Score 1) 383
Comment Re:BASIC is irrelevant (Score 1) 548
Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. CS140, CS150 sequence uses C++.
Comment Re:A novel idea: be a better teacher (Score 3, Informative) 664
Professors are not teachers.
I don't understand this mentality. Professors ARE teachers. They may not be kindergarten teachers, but the idea is the same - their job is to get ideas into your head. If that means they have to try to make things more interesting, that shouldn't be a problem. Yes, students should be paying attention. However, if professors and lecturers truly want their students to be paying attention, they need to be giving them a reason to pay attention.
Comment Re:magnets? (Score 1) 379
What's that rushing air sound?
Comment Re:Does not contradict itself (Score 1) 379
Appropriate sig :)
Submission + - The Physical Hacks at DefCon (physorg.com)
eldavojohn writes: "As we all know, DefCon is occurring in Vegas this weekend but Saturday held a room that focused on possibly the oldest form of hacking — lockpicking. That's right, as software security becomes better and better, the focus may instead shift towards simple hacking tips like looking over someone's shoulder for their password, faking employment or just picking the locks to gain access to the building where machines are left on overnight. This is nothing to sneeze at, "Medeco deadbolt locks relied on worldwide at embassies, banks and other tempting targets for thieves, spies or terrorists can be opened in seconds with a strip of metal and a thin screw driver, Marc Tobias of Security.org demonstrated for AFP ... Tobias says he refuses to publish details of 'defeating' the locks because they are used in places ranging from homes, banks and jewelers to the White House and the Pentagon. He asked AFP not to disclose how it is done." I'm sure all Slashdot readers are savvy enough to use firewall(s) but do you know and trust what locks 'physically' protect your data from hacks like these?"
Submission + - Senate website withholding wiretap law roll call (pressesc.com)
amigoro writes: "The US Senate website is not publishing the roll call of votes by Senators on the bill to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act making President George W. Bush's illegal wiretapping order retroactively legal."
