That happens. I've heard stories from way back, where some mechanics would be baffled by cars that they think have no engine, not realizing that the engines were in the back (like VW Bugs).
darin
@darin
Best posts made by darin
Latest posts made by darin
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RE: Watch out for the Kernel Trap
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RE: Oh noes, my microchipses!
[quote user="versatilia"]
What these guys are apparently doing is interrupting the CPU frequently while they know it's running an RSA algorithm, and looking at what state it's in - ie. if you know the algorithm and you know what state the machine is in, the only unknown is the algorithm's parameters, including the key.
[/quote]
If you can interrupt the CPU and query its state, and you know the algorithm, why not just read the private RSA key bits directly? If they calculation is being done on a smartcard, then interrupting the state of the computer's CPU won't help (you want the state of the branch prediction on the smartcard, not the state on the local computer's CPU). I'd much rather reproduce a key from deciphering the registers than by deciphering taken/not-taken branch trace.
So what am I missing?
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RE: The interviewee from the crypt
[quote user="kuroshin"]
The interview panel is ready and our candidate has come ahead on time. (Warning signal: this man seems to have all the time in the world to troop around the city)
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Warning?? Job candidates are very often out of a job, and when they aren't they may still very often have light job duties (company slow down, etc). Being able to show up ahead of time should be a good thing!
[quote user="kuroshin"]
VP: So, how long has it been since you've graduated ?Candidate: 3 months....
VP: What were doing in these 3 months ?
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Probably looking for a job, duh.
I don't know why people seem to think that if you don't get a job instantly that you must be slacking off. I had one person interview me who said, essentially, "you've got all the skills and talent we need, but it looks like you've been job hunting for about 8 months now, so there must be something wrong with you we haven't discovered."
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RE: Redesigning Paste
[quote user="Quinnum"]
Personally, I like the auto-formatting.
Allows me to actually write code, instead of spending precious time making sure everything is aligned manually in a stupid text editor.
[/quote]
I may have to grudgingly agree here. I don't use such tools, Emacs and vi do quite nicely. But I've run across too many people that just can not absolutely to save their lives indent code. I've seen people check out code, paste three lines ink, and check in the code, all within 5 seconds (they'd have been faster but they took their time because I was watching). If the brainless editor of choice for these people has added auto indenting, it can only be a good thing (though I can you choose between any of the 17 most popular formatting styles?).
Even with auto indenting, I still take the time to look code over and make sure it's correct. I just can't understand people who are willing to put their name on poorly formatted code. It's just unprofessional. My home may be slovenly and unkempt, but my code is always readable.
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RE: Defragment your disk before data falls off!
This explains things. The other day my hard drive was making a funny noise, and then something flew out and smacked me in the face. Further checking showed that my 2002 tax return was missing. This was the heaviest file on my system, and I can only conclude it must reached the edge of the disk and achieved terminal velocity.
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RE: Java "loop unrolling"
[quote user="RevEng"]
Oh My God.
No wonder he can't figure out how to combine some multicast chat client with his game; looks like a monkey punched away on a typewriter!
[/quote]
I see no need to gratuitously insult monkeys.
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RE: But Did It Really Succeed?
Gah! I've seen the same sort of logic used with "errno" also. The point of those variables/macros is to to give further information on an error already discovered.
I'd have had two if statements, the one for real errors, and another that closed the socket correctly before grudgingly doing unneeded error handling.
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RE: Oh for farks sake
[quote user="VGR"]
And I can't think of a single thing you can do about it, other than find employment elsewhere.
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Is the emulator even in the same building? Just head over in the evening and use it then is one suggestion. They can't possibly be using it continually. Or ask them when you can use it for an hour. If they can spare the time to download your code and report the results, they can spare the time to have you use the machine for awhile.
This is seriously something your boss needs to work out. You can't have one project borrow equipment from another without asking, and any decent manager should be concerned when employees can't get work done because stuff wanders off. If several projects or departments are all sharing the same piece of equipment, maybe more should be purchased.
We occasionally have similar issues in getting access to prototype boards and parts, which is understandable. But we always manage to share lab time.
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RE: On the proper use of XML
There's just so much wrong here, it's hard to know here to start.
I've seem people so in love with XML that they can't operate without it. But I've never seen someone so far gone that they'd use it to store a list of lines. Usually they use XML to replace the "key=value" stuff, because that's just too hard to parse correctly and you've have to add half a page of code when linking in a 200K library would be faster. Maybe this person didn't know what XML really was, except that it was a buzzword that other projects used, and you could store and retrieve data with it.
Then there's the fact that this ProjectHead didn't know what the heck a file was in the first place. I mean anyone who's ever used a file knows that you can read the file sequentially. The lines don't show up in a random order. And since it's extremely hard to learn any programming language without using files, this guy basically has no useful experience with programming. It's also unclear if ProjectHead understood that the XML would have been stored in a file, which required reading it back in sequential order...
It's understandable that he would say "software from svn and cvs can be a bitch to make". I'm pretty sure he finds most tasks on a computer to be difficult.
To be fair, if this project is going to be cross-platform as claimed, then shell scripts are the wrong way to go, and even just being able to execute an arbitrary command doesn't help much (too many command incompatibilities, file and directory naming conventions, PATH issues, etc). Making something cross-platform is not a task for a novice.
I suspect that this ProjectHead just picked up on something he thought there should be a tool for, and started the project without first getting the competence or experience to do so. People still learning to program (and who only know one language) can sometimes be useful open source contributors, but a project head needs more battle scars.