I got into electrons for fun at age five, no BS. I got into electrons, or got them into me, at age three - one of my earliest clear memories. 1954 - my Dad had to fish a piece of bread out of one of those wonderful Aerodynamic toasters. Next day I poked a fork into the toaster - what a blast.

Two years later I was hooking up my "Rocket Radio" crystal set to my Dad's amplifier - it even worked. By age six I thought up the idea of 100 Rocket Radios in parallell as a free source of electricity, and forced my Dad into filing patent for it (he faked it).

Official trouble - not till age 8. Dad had a signal generator (I think it went to 30 MHz) and QST magazine (School Library) had a simple tube powered RF amp circuit, that our garage had all the parts for. I found nobody would react to my broadcast station - TILL I placed it on top of, or 500 Hz beside a popular AM station.

Spark coill, two nails driven into the hard oak chair the teacher used brought all kinds of attention. The pre-giggling of the class should have warned her, as should the bzzzzzz of a relay turning itself off and on - but no, she planted a cheak on each nail head. Now - Ask Slash Dot - is this a psychology test, a BAD BOY electronic trouble maker, or a very simple IQ test (FOR WHO gets you extra points). ...cm

Turning your wrist to see the hands is a very notable action. I've been in your situation and I find that putting the wach face INSIDE the wrist allows me to consult the time with nothing more than a flick of an eyeball. ...cm

I still use JOE (Joe's Own Editor). ^kh brings up the entire list of commands, and that sill leaves you room to edit - half screen or so. What do I write with Joe?
Scripts - that pipe to scripts.
For-Next
While-Do
If-Then
    The OP mentioned a sloppy disk - *IF* he has a 5.25 we might be able to do business - I just found an OLD copy of the original M$ Flight Simulator - it has a tiny file that loads everything else on the disk which is just a bunch of binary glop. It just struck me that this worked very well on a 80286 / 12 MHz and it would be fun to try on the 125 Watt (what other measure?) CPU I have. ...cm

I was one of three that wrote DEDICATE/32 6 years before PGP 1.0

It seems things are not one bit easier now than then.

We had all the glory in math, actually doing RSA within a year of the Scientific American article, on a 12 MEGA Hertz 8 bit micro.

I think the problem now is house keeping
Janitors need some glory too.
The tools are there, they just need to be glued together (yuk)
so, may I suggest the title of SECURITY PSYCHOLOGIST.

BTW: I was, at the time a 27 y/o HS Dropout. ...cm

I live in Costa Rica, really MORE than 3rd world. The Biggest Video Rental chain in the Central Valley (3/4 of population) rents out ONLY copied DVDs. I (long time ago) wanted to test de-css and could not, all "targets" were "in the clear". Funny thing, I have copied some of the rented movies for time shifting, (I won't eat disk space for movies). EVERY SINGLE DVD has the name of the rental place, and sometimes the name of a technician. SONY etc HAS to know this, this chain is HUGE! "Block Buster.cr" There are street corners in the city I shop in (part of metroplex) where DVDs are sold for 1,000 Colones ($US2). EVERYBODY that watches DVDs knows this - including SONY. I rent movies for a week (2X1 on Wednesdays) and the only objection is that they don't do a great job of printing the labels. Small print blurs. The rental chain - very high class, my customer name is in the computer and they know my face, so no ID, no muss, no fuss, forget to return and they call you. They "reserve" movies they think fit my profile for Wednesdays. AND remember their name, and phones are in the first few bytes of the CD - talk about an easy bust! These are high quality copies with all the features, sub titles on/off, languages, trailers, and NO FBI warning. AND STILL, long lines at the theatres, often sold out - for movies that have been for rent weeks before the "Official Opening" in CR. You see - the rented ones don't come with a girl to sit next to. Just my $0.02 ...cm

What more do you need? (I know, my contributions [lately] have been minimal) Stick to free Beer and Speech - as tangle footed as we have become, it will be an extraction as major as Linux itself. But find something to swear on, and from now on, it is free, or I don't do it. Yeah, difficult. Say Ohhhhm with rms as often as needed. Oh yea, most "free" programmers work at ACME Software Products - gotta feed the kid. But can't you convince the Boss that staying away from lawsuit encumbered software (LSE-tm) will be good for ACME SP, inc? --By a guy *OLDER* than rms ...cm

I hope they open this up to scientists that worked there for first pickings - then High School science classes (teachers and nerds). Then public. There should be a law, or at least a contract, to prevent re-sale of anything. I DO NOT want to see "Cheap Charlie's Parts" getting a million dollars worth for resale at 4-5 million. ...cm

The fact is that with a super computer on your desktop, and the programing languages, compilers, and education - something that hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Americans have now - "Big Content" (Warner, Sony, Disney...) can not block content from you and still keep the blocking simple enough to work on any old consumer gadget. So, in order to block you from "illegally" seeing a cartoon, "THE SYSTEM" is willing to dumb down society. Yea - I'm starting to understand this "Occupy xxx" movement. Mickey Mouse is willing to keep me from studying math, or astronomy, or population statistics - ON MY OWN, in MY way - so that he can protect his billion Dollar year end bonus. EVIL.

They don't want to enforce laws, bust people that steal intellectual property. No, if you want to use a Taliban analogy: Cut the hands off everyone and we won't have thieves.

Unfortunately, "I" can't really make my own computer - "I" soldered an Altair, but without Intel's chip - nothing. So if "Big Content" makes a deal with "Big Chip" - the party is over. Most folks will be happy getting on FaceBook using their i-pad, even think they are "computing" - but they are NOT.

Keep your books on your Kindle, where Amazon has ALREADY taken books back (once, I think). Why take up all that room for a bookshelf?

Keep your data on their cloud. Where THEIR computers can study your journal, book collection, date book, letters. Their "cloud" will be used to generate content. Yes. You don't think the "FBI" wouldn't want to study all that personal data?
NOW I CAN use a real computer to totally encrypt what I put on their cloud.
Try THAT on an "i-dummy" that has been filled with epoxy to, ah, make it more reliable. ...cm

 

I agree - it's all those video cameras. I predict two things: 1). Video cameras (functioning) will be made illegal. 2). OK, we give in - USING video to capture "sources and methods"... Well, gee, that has worked for other federal agencies - why not us in the TSA? Because they are "Thousands Sanding Around" They are NOT COPS. They are as far down the food chain as algae. They are not medical people. They are actors in the "Theatre of Security" - we are the props. Really - WE ARE THE SHAREHOLDERS and should get rid of whatever idiot created this theatre - and hired actors that do not have the medical training to poke around in places, that if *I* did it would get me free room and board at the State B&B. (I speak of congress-critters - we need a new bunch) In KCI I was run through the magnetometer 3 times - did I get wanded? NO! A huge idiot tells me I will be groped. My wife was distracted so she could not see what was going on - NOTE PEOPLE - tell your travel mates to video the testicle (breast) exam and tell anyone that gets in their way to MOVE. What was the problem? Snaps on suspenders! A fast wanding would have discovered this, but I got something just short of a prostate exam. [The TSA with the McJob asked me if I had "anything sensitive" in my genital area.] I told him "only the usual male anatomy". He offered to take me in the "Privacy Room" - I told him I preferred witnesses. That caused McFeel to inform me this was not a joking matter. (Who did this idiot think was joking?) My main witness [wife] was intentionally blocked visually and distracted. Don't let it happen to you! I DO think the "privacy room" is a good idea [Adult Diapers, Colostomy Bags - uhg don't want to think about it - BUT TAKE A WITNESS! This too, will pass - but we have to do it. Occupy the USA!!

"I don't know who exactly, needs to step in and say "YOU DID NOT INVENT REMINDING PEOPLE TO DO STUFF!" " The USPTO (They are in charge of patents). But oh no, if you go to enough "schooling" you can get a license to be a professional lier (did I mean lawyer?). They like to talk of "professional ethics" - but they will use a mouse while writing a patent for a mouse - and the patent examiner will use a mouse while granting the patent. Then the little guy trying to sell a computer with a mouse can pay $5 each for use of "mouse" - or buy himself a better lawyer than (corporation with BIG bucks). I have a VERY OLD GPS that I have set up to beep every time I pass the grocery store, remembering eggs involves a phone call to wife ;-)

Anyone care to pay for a GOOD Open VPN? There are sneaky SOBs that offer free trials on pptp account (requires you run their binaries) (HA- HA-HA) and THEN there are openvpn accounts. They cost a little, and the good ones change your DNS - so your ISP has no IDEA what you are up to. You connect via IP number, and the rest is hidden - all of it. ...cm