That'd be fantastic to see an anonymized version of.... if you're checking on your anonymous posts :P

While I wouldn't like to subscribe to your newsletter, would you mind a time-shift of your offer? I'm currently under-employed, but am not just yet seeking full-time employment. I will, however, be doing so within the next six months, and could use a resume audit at that time by someone experienced in hiring in IT (Systems Administration/Infrastructure/Deployment/Windows/Some Linux. I make a great project-monkey, and am in general fanatic about tech. Also a bootloader nerd.)

My email is my slashdot ID at gmail. I do thank you for the generous offer!

I was in a cab with a bunch of drunk people about six years ago, when a phone came up out of the seat we were all asked, "Is this your phone?" Turned out that it didn't belong to any of us. I had never found a lost phone before, but I was sober, and I was also pretty sure I could locate its owner, and as I lived in the area code corresponding to the device's number, would have the easiest time returning it. I took the phone home with me.

I called a few entries in the contact list, most notably, "Mom." Got voicemail, left a message explaining what had happened. "Mom" never called back. I ended up chatting with two different women though by going through the recent calls list and calling some numbers. I came out of that ordeal with two different stories---apparently the guy who used the phone was either a player or a womanizer, I'm not really sure which. The problem I had was that I wasn't sure who the right party to return this phone to was, exactly. So I had an idea...

The phone was tattooed with Verizon logos (I sure as hell don't miss those days... that LG UI that got ported to EVERY PHONE THEY SOLD was so fucking awful), so I called 611 with the phone itself. After explaining the situation to a customer service rep, she very regrettably informed me that even though she had the information right in front of her on her screen, she would not tell me the name of the account holder. Go figure. So I wrack my brain trying to think of ideas when I got a pretty good one.

I asked her, "Can you make three way calls?"

"No, but I can put you on hold and make another call," she replied.

"Okay, take down this phone number," and I give her the number of the woman I most suspect that I should return the phone to. "Now put me on hold and call her, and then can you tell me whether or not that person is the owner of this phone?"

"Oh yes!" she says. "Just wait on hold."

Ten minutes later...

"That person IS the owner of this phone. You can return the phone to her and you'll be all set!"

So I call her one more time and gave her my address, and a car pulled up an hour or two later. The funny thing was that the person who came to the door to pick up the phone wasn't actually the woman I spoke with though... it was her boyfriend, the guy who actually used the phone, and also bore a striking resemblance to the fellow that took all those self-shot photos in the camera roll, modestly covering his junk while staring at a mirror.

A more positive ID might have been possible, but camera phones had such atrocious low-light performance back then....

God damn it... I went to answer a call and I just got slobber all over my iPhone again.

Delete your wallet.dat file.

Sure, you *could* go from there and attempt to brute force those coins' private keys back.... but good luck with that one.

It would be particularly effective if you had a copy of the speech beforehand. That way, you could selectively mute words or phrases to take the speaker out of context in a way that only political advertisements can do now, but in real time!

I could seriously use one of these. I have a boss with a monstrous disability: he is incapable of shutting the f**k up.

Every time I think I've got my head wrapped around the P/NP thing, I get an example that I sort of understand... sort of.

Could you perhaps rephrase an example that matches nerdier things, like brute-forcing a hash or something?

Regarding your sig, I posted in a thread some years back, where someone compared the two options of "having a vast library of movies" is a realistic option by either subscribing to Netflix (this was before instant streaming) or having a massive array of hard drives.

Your sig reminds me of my reply, "I went with the hard drives. I find the seek times on Netflix unacceptable."

I could do the same thing with a bunch of 80 GB hard disks, but I'd rather just buy a 2 TB one and run that instead.

Pardon me, but I was recently fascinated with the idea that something like that might be possible---Stuffing an INT13-reading bootloader, like GRUB4DOS or SYSLINUX, into an archive in the BIOS and then strapping it like any other option ROM.

I was always fascinated with the idea of separating the initial boot program from the hard disk layout and into the board itself. Running a bootloader from the BIOS ROM would technically allow that to happen, I think, and I thought curiously about the idea of embedding a UEFI payload into it (that probably wouldn't fit, but I digress!)... essentially "converting" a board to UEFI by chainloading it from BIOS. Not practical, but I thought it would be pretty neat :P

Any links or info you could provide me on projects like yours?

It's a damn shame too, but it illustrates the greediness of computer manufacturers.

In turn I ask, "What about all of the Vista machines sold with 1 or 2GB of RAM?"

It's worth mentioning that Apple seems to think that Lion can run on 2GB as well.

My boss (sometimes working for the individual I work for can be maddening, but it pays well :P) called Apple, inevitably about his iPhone, and was recommended to upgrade to Lion. While it solved his problem, his computer became nearly unusably slow. Apple tells him that he doesn't have enough RAM. In a Mac Mini. He buys a new computer. Problem solved.

"Minimum" requirements are bullshit, but they're in place so that everyone except the consumer can maximize profits and accomodate a larger customer base. The fact that plentiful RAM amounts are affordable now has reduced this problem in the mid-range market, especially for new machines, but it's my opinion that the age-old practice of a company knowingly advising a consumer to buy a product that isn't good enough for themselves is still alive and well. And even from a company like Apple.... just not from the top down, I suppose.

It's funny looking at it that way. I recently started exercising regularly; and by recently, I started "exercising" by taking daily walks with my girlfriend in October, about a mile or so, but they got longer as time went on. As it gradually grew Too Fucking Cold(TM) to walk outside at any time of day (yay, Ohio!), we began following exercise videos. I'm between 3-4 days a week, but I'm trying to bring myself to 6. My goal is to be in good enough shape to start P90X by March. It's a shitty realization that you're too out of shape for an at-home exercise regimen :D

Nonetheless, while I don't appear to look anywhere near athletic, it really is amazing how much more empowered you feel on a daily basis. Something has metaphorically pricked the back of my neck now that I'm 26. I know that I can still "look good" when I clean myself up, but that really only has do with qualities I know are directly attributable to my age---I won't have a youthful face and dark, thick, curly hair forever. If I don't lose weight, I'll just eventually be the fat guy in a nice suit... that probably needs a haircut.

Sure, it might be insanely trite to sit here and essentially say that my fear is that I'm finally realizing that I could very easily end up with absolutely nothing to give myself a small sense of vanity, but with that comes self-esteem, and with that comes confidence in what you do and how you present yourself. And that, I think, is about as poignant as it probably gets.

I find myself in some sort of agreement with you... but mostly because this looks like a rant without a point.

We all generally dislike trolls and shills, but it's quite interesting to see where the conversation goes when people rebuff a shill; even moreso when you agree with all or part of what the shill has said. As a bit of an MS fanboi, I readily admit that I sometimes find great entertainment in such threads.

That said, I normally like seeing what Ethanol-Fueled posts, even when it's the trolliest of trollings, just because it's usually funny. This journal entry, though, not so much.

Um... dude.... Siskel's been dead for around a decade.

That said, I asked him, and he said he agrees with you, and finds your argument both salient and decidedly poignant! Bravo, good sir!

Nope, nope, sorry.

In Soviet Russia, battery replace YOU!