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Comment: with real internet, you don't GO anywhere (Score 1) 38

by jinchoung (#46432819) Attached to: New VR Game Makes You a "Hollywood Hacker"

i think this is the most misleading thing about cyberpunk and hollywood hacking tropes... that there is a cyberspace that actually exists in some allegorical way and that a user's avatar can actually "travel" from point to point looking upon and travel to floating pyramids of information. that analogy is totally wrong.

the far more accurate analogy is simply making telephone calls. if you are anywhere at all, you are right smack dab, ass down in chair in front of your computer. and your computer itself doesn't ever travel anywhere. all it is doing is sending and receiving messages. sure, you're getting messages from different nodes but that's just like receiving lots of phone calls from different people.

you can surreptitiously send messages that cause unexpected behavior or make a call under an assumed identity... but ultimately, all hacking is about sending and receiving messages...

and it's amusing how far hollywood and narrative fiction has to go to make that seem dramatically interesting.

Comment: bitcoin is not independent and that's a problem (Score 1) 631

by jinchoung (#46352863) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Do You Still Trust Bitcoin?

its value is pegged to "real" money.

if it never or rarely converted to government backed cash, then it is viable. goods and services for bitcoins. that's a closed loop system that can be completely independent of all the players its purporting to avoid.

but since people are buying into and cashing out and even SPECULATING with real currency, then you have an achilles heel.

the point at which conversion happens IS regulated and guarded by government players and is actually and IDEAL place for governments to actually sabotage the entire endeavor if they wanted to.

so until bitcoins slash any and all ties with real currencies and certainly until it loses all DEPENDENCE on them, they are just a new forex player that is highly unstable and insecure.

Comment: re: birthday problem (Score 1) 166

by jinchoung (#46274341) Attached to: Why Improbable Things Really Aren't

one thing to remember about the birthday problem is that in a given classroom or other populated gathering, it's very likely that two people will have the same birthday... BUT... it says nothing about the possibility of any two people having any PARTICULAR birthday. so as long as you don't care what the date is, yes, two people will more than likely have one in common. but the odds that anyone will have a particular one or one that is the same as yours - those are still pretty big odds against.

Comment: happily, this is almost as true of govs & spy (Score 1) 299

by jinchoung (#46207477) Attached to: Online, You're Being Watched At All Times; Act Accordingly.

thanks to the likes of snowden and wikileaks...

actually, it's long been historically understood that secrets have a short shelf life and have a tendency to proliferate sooner or later. moreso in the internetted era.

ellsberg wasn't the first and snowden won't be the last. govs have their asses blowing in the wind too and that provides a nice little incentive to keep their goddamn motherfucking noses clean. it's nice that they've been recently reminded of that.

the fact of gov activity as well as the work product is more or less guaranteed to be wide-banded at some point can serve as a protection where civil rights fail us. as in the cold war, the thing that keeps us safe is MAD... mutually assured destruction... sure you COULD use the breadth and depth to spy on kate upton's auto erotic escapades but that just means that at some point, that fact and the titillating surveillance itself will fall into the public some day. if you have a system composed of human beings, you're gonna have leaks.

eventually, it will be that stalemate that saves us... the fact that gov or private citizen, anyone can spy on anyone else but the fact that all activity and all resulting data will be public information at some point will enforce restraint.

actually, i think that MAD is the only thing that really works in this world. mexican stand-offs for all. because human beings are fucking dicks and the only thing keeping us from ass raping others is a gigantic, barbed wired cock poise at our own back doors.


Comment: mystifying... why? (Score 4, Insightful) 249

by jinchoung (#46181263) Attached to: Wozniak To Apple: Consider Building an Android Phone

android provides two things:

- free, ready to go OS
- app ecosystem





Comment: Re:More garbage (Score 2) 353

by jinchoung (#45972097) Attached to: Programmer Privilege

not just societal bias... but luck and fate in general.

you have NOT earned ANYTHING you have fair and square. you owe EVERYTHING to a fate and destiny that you had NOTHING to do with:

- health (mental, physical, deformities, etc)
- race
- intelligence
- height
- beauty
- constitution and the very ability to work hard
- place of birth

only the delusional think they'd be in the same place they are now if they were retarded, with no limbs, cancer ridden and born in botswana.

your very ability to pursue your own good are byproducts from essential factors that you are blessed with.

it's not insulting because nothing you have is rightfully "earned" in the way you mean it.

Comment: Re:More garbage (Score 1) 353

by jinchoung (#45972055) Attached to: Programmer Privilege

people aren't that complex. you can study them and their behaviors like you could study monkeys or whales.

people who are tall and/or good looking get TREMENDOUS advantages and opportunities that people who are not don't enjoy.

sure, weasel over there may be rainman great at accurately counting toothpicks but that doesn't account for much in the social world we live in.

when all is said and done, we have "earned" nothing on our own merit. every single thing that we have is due to advantage that we did not control.

- health (mental, physical, deformities, etc)
- race
- intelligence
- height
- beauty
- constitution and the very ability to work hard
- place of birth

all of these things are crap shoots that we did not earn. few people who are beneficiaries of good luck admit it as such. glad that this professor guo has the ability to do it. but the people who are the bad side of it can see it as clear as they can see their misshapen hand in front of their face and its veracity is unequivocal.

to admit that the race is not fair is simply to be rational.
