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“Subject: Urgent Warning”

daniel.haxx.se

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Re: “Subject: Urgent Warning”

#131

Post by rasz_pl »

jordigh wrote: post #53
JoshTriplett wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Anyway. When you have a conversation with an idiot, nobody watching can tell which one of you is the idiot. A friend of mine who works as a college professor has a fun approach to deal with the kinds of random cranks who contact him out of the blue seeking someone to validate their wild Time-Cube-style theories and "research": he responds to each one by providing an introduction to the previous one. Apparently, he…

That seems a bit... I want to say cruel, but maybe it's not? I'm sure most of these mathematical cranks have various kinds of mental illnesses. Perhaps referring them to each other is creating an ad-hoc support group, or perhaps it's just ridiculing them.

"In the late 1950s, three men who identified as the Son of God were forced to live together in a mental hospital."

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/201...

doesnt end well

Re: “Subject: Urgent Warning”

#132

Post by pconner »

mhurron wrote: post #129
pconner wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not "self-censorship," it's understanding that the generally-accepted definition of a word is different from it's obscure jargon meaning. The word "hacker" has meant "someone who maliciously breaks into computer systems" since at least the 1980's (thirty years ago, before some HN readers were even born). Languages are fluid.

Yes languages are fluid but words also have various meanings. If we have to prevent ourselves from using some word because others may find it offensive, that is self-censoring. OP tried to get around that by trying to say that when you could be heard by 'them' you shouldn't use those words, but this is the public internet. You are always communicating in the presence of those that will be offended.

This isn't a matter of anyone being "offended," though. No one finds the word "hacker" offensive, they just might have a completely different definition of it depending on what their experiences are. You might as well use a word that's unambiguous.

Likewise, editing a paper to remove grammatical errors is also not "self-censorship." It's improving the clarity of your message.

Re: “Subject: Urgent Warning”

#133

Post by kelvin0 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #123
kelvin0 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. However, at some point in time remember Galileo was also called a crank. Be careful in that respect.

Indeed. He was totally a crank, and also an asshole (which is what got him under house arrest). He was rightfully rejected by contemporary scientific community for pushing a model that didn't even agree with empirical data about planetary motions they've accumulated so far, as opposed to the commonly accepted models. Yes, be careful in that respect, because the story of Galileo is one of the common historical misconc…

Could you please give me some citations, papers or any reference? Was he not an advocate of the Heliocentric model accepted today, that almost got him killed? Please correct my historical misconceptions.

Re: “Subject: Urgent Warning”

#134

Post by vitd »

It's not exactly the same, but it reminds me of something I heard a few years ago. I knew someone who worked at a small non-profit. Once a year they'd do a particular fund drive that involved calling their previous donors and either talking with them or leaving a message asking them to please donate again. And every year, they'd get a message back on their machine saying only, "Please take me off your list!" They had no idea who the caller was, and she never answered the phone when they called her, so they could never take her off the list!

Re: “Subject: Urgent Warning”

#135

Post by jordigh »

kelvin0 wrote: post #117
jordigh wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems a bit... I want to say cruel, but maybe it's not? I'm sure most of these mathematical cranks have various kinds of mental illnesses. Perhaps referring them to each other is creating an ad-hoc support group, or perhaps it's just ridiculing them.

Agreed. However, at some point in time remember Galileo was also called a crank. Be careful in that respect.

I agree that some crank-looking people end up being Ramanujan, but the vast majority are not. When you look at the lunacy that most cranks put out, you start to see that there is a sea of weirdness out there, and doubtlessly a lot of mental illness. The old http://crank.net still seems to be up (hah! "powered by GNU m4"), so take a stroll to get a sample of the common thing that maths and physics profs have to wade through in their inboxes.

Re: “Subject: Urgent Warning”

#136

Post by onetwotree »

david-given wrote: post #127
onetwotree wrote: post #121

So there's a lot of "LOL LOOK AT THIS DUMB PERSON I AM SO MUCH SMARTER THAN HER!" going on here, especially in the reply that he seems to have sent her. Here's what's going on. Her IG account may, in fact have been hacked. This happens. She's obviously afraid and angry. She is the kind of person who thinks she can solve all of her own problems, and found the licenses section of the app, which included something with…

Yes, absolutely. The whole episode is actually pretty sad and using it for laughs makes me uncomfortable. ... As a tangent, you say: > 2 ) Acknowledge that haxx.se sounds kind of shady. Explain why he chose the domain. Self deprecating humor would be great here. I work in a big multicultural office --- I'm the only UK person in my team. We occasionally have these tedious courses on defusing disputes. One of the thing…

That's not something I'd thought about. I work in a multicultural office too, but we were all raised by the internet, so internet flavored humor is generally universally understood.

Re: “Subject: Urgent Warning”

#137

Post by stephengillie »

vitd wrote: post #134

It's not exactly the same, but it reminds me of something I heard a few years ago. I knew someone who worked at a small non-profit. Once a year they'd do a particular fund drive that involved calling their previous donors and either talking with them or leaving a message asking them to please donate again. And every year, they'd get a message back on their machine saying only, "Please take me off your list!" They had…

Having worked for a Real Estate webhost who provided email campaigns as a service, we got those all the time. Someone who wasn't subscribed in the system, but was receiving our spam nonetheless. These were usually due to an email distribution list being subscribed and that person being on that DL. Unfortunately some of these were distribution lists of distribution lists, so we couldn't see the original DL address to unsubscribe it, or help at all.

Re: “Subject: Urgent Warning”

#138

Post by FredFredrickson »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #46
madaxe_again wrote: post #24

Ah, this sort of thing is as old as the moon. We run an eCommerce platform, have a variety of clients using it, they have a number of customers. At least once a week we get an accusation either from a client or an end-user of some outlandish nefarious behaviour, usually due to some complete lack of understanding of the nature of technology. Way back when, we responded, tried to help, tried to explain, but it tends to…

> Anyway. When you have a conversation with an idiot, nobody watching can tell which one of you is the idiot. A friend of mine who works as a college professor has a fun approach to deal with the kinds of random cranks who contact him out of the blue seeking someone to validate their wild Time-Cube-style theories and "research": he responds to each one by providing an introduction to the previous one. Apparently, he…

This is both ingenious and hilarious. The best kind of solution, in my opinion.

Re: “Subject: Urgent Warning”

#139

Post by oldmanjay »

mwcampbell wrote: post #73
elthran wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, from http://daniel.haxx.se/blog/about/ >I’m Daniel Stenberg, a network hacker working for Mozilla. Sigh. Why does everyone have to be a hacking rockstar ninja? What's wrong with not using a word that has negative connotations to the rest of the world, and just calling yourself a developer/engineer?

Why all the downvotes for this comment? I think the point is reasonable. It's fine for us to use the word "hacker" in the non-criminal sense among ourselves (for example, the title of this site), but not where the general public is likely to see it and misunderstand it.

I don't care that some ignoramuses will take my self-identification as a hacker the wrong way, and I refuse to stop because you and others don't think it's "fine" for me to do it. It's my choice, and trying to convince me otherwise will get a downarrow click in return.

Re: “Subject: Urgent Warning”

#140

Post by kelvin0 »

jordigh wrote: post #135
kelvin0 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. However, at some point in time remember Galileo was also called a crank. Be careful in that respect.

I agree that some crank-looking people end up being Ramanujan, but the vast majority are not. When you look at the lunacy that most cranks put out, you start to see that there is a sea of weirdness out there, and doubtlessly a lot of mental illness. The old http://crank.net still seems to be up (hah! "powered by GNU m4"), so take a stroll to get a sample of the common thing that maths and physics profs have to wade t…

I have no doubt the signal to noise ratio is disconcerting. Not all shells contain precious perls...
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