Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

After 10 years in tech isolation, I’m now outsider to things I once had mastered

forklog.media

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 370 posts

Re: After 10 years in tech isolation, I’m now outsider to things I once had mastered

#121

Post by root_axis »

V-2 wrote: post #81
CalRobert wrote: post #26

This bit at the end was the most interesting to me. "For me, I stepped out into an uncertain future. I don’t really see meaningful human interaction anymore. I see a society that is impossibly distracted by likes and selfies, smartphones, and similar technologies, and I often find it frustrating to find my place in the midst of this new interconnected world simply because I was not there to naturally evolve with it."

Has it really changed that much in 10 years, or is part of it just the sense of alienation everyone experiences getting out of jail after a long time? I mean, 10 years ago people lamented over the exact same thing; and before that, and before the before. I can't prove it of course, but I'd bet you might feel that "human interaction" is not quite what you remember it to be if you had only just spent 10 years behind th…

10 years ago, the iPhone had only existed for 3 years... society was much different.

Re: After 10 years in tech isolation, I’m now outsider to things I once had mastered

#122

Post by detaro »

non-entity wrote: post #117
desstap wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are in Asia right? Let’s see China - disappeared for comparing xi jing ping the dictator to Winnie the Pooh, or mention Hong Kong or Taiwan in a postiive light on wechat Singapore - 2 years in jail for selling gum, death penalty for Having drugs Vietnam - 34 years for drug trafficking

> 2 years in jail for selling gum What do they have against gum?

People sticking their used gum in random places, locks etc and breaking stuff with it instead of properly disposing of it.

Re: After 10 years in tech isolation, I’m now outsider to things I once had mastered

#123

Post by TallGuyShort »

risyachka wrote: post #97
throwablePie wrote: post #87

> "Caging me for a decade is not rehabilitating. I may be making excuses for myself, though there is a lesson that could have been learned with the same amount of value for justice if the sentence was 2 years, 3 years, 5 years, even 6 years." From the article at: https://forklog.media/ex-convicted-hacker-ghostexodus-severi... I don't consider myself a bleeding heart lib but I think that a decade in prison is excessiv…

> I was arrested in 2009 for installing botnets and commercial remote access programs on a handful of sensitive clinic systems, which included a critical SCADA system Hacking an online store and a sensitive clinical system should be punished with very different levels of punishment.

That does jive with our sense of justice, yes, but I think the point is what are we achieving. Is it actually disincentivizing the crime? Is it preventing recurrence of the same individual committing future crime? I would argue that US prison statistics point at a massive failure in one, both, or is simply incarcerating people unnecessarily in the first place. This article is touching on the second one specifically.

Re: After 10 years in tech isolation, I’m now outsider to things I once had mastered

#124

Post by n4r9 »

designdesign wrote: post #99
JackFr wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and for what it's worth their punishment has provided nothing for me. That is why it is "The people vs. ..." and not "designdesign vs. ..." > Punishment compounds loss and has provided nothing to me or society. I think you need to convince society of that, rather than speaking for them. I look at a guy like Bernie Madoff, who poses no threat to the public now and is probably not likely to be rehabilitated in any tr…

You're right about convincing society, but American society has conflated vengeance with justice to the point that they may be inseparable concepts.

This is the crux of it. It's not some fundamental human value to want harsh vengeance doled out for crimes. It's peculiar to the US and a few other countries.

Re: After 10 years in tech isolation, I’m now outsider to things I once had mastered

#125

Post by ghaff »

V-2 wrote: post #81
CalRobert wrote: post #26

This bit at the end was the most interesting to me. "For me, I stepped out into an uncertain future. I don’t really see meaningful human interaction anymore. I see a society that is impossibly distracted by likes and selfies, smartphones, and similar technologies, and I often find it frustrating to find my place in the midst of this new interconnected world simply because I was not there to naturally evolve with it."

Has it really changed that much in 10 years, or is part of it just the sense of alienation everyone experiences getting out of jail after a long time? I mean, 10 years ago people lamented over the exact same thing; and before that, and before the before. I can't prove it of course, but I'd bet you might feel that "human interaction" is not quite what you remember it to be if you had only just spent 10 years behind th…

>has it really changed that much in 10 years

Yes (although I'd probably put the real dividing line at more like 12 years). Facebook wasn't available outside of certain institutions until 2006, the same year Twitter dates to. The iPhone was first introduced in 2007 and arguably didn't really take off until the 3GS in 2009.

So, yes, the internet was well-established by the 2000s. But today's always connected world of social media and everything else is only about a decade old.

ADDED: Of course, if you turn back the clock about another ten years, for many people it would be the difference between pre-Internet and a mostly broadband-connected very commercialized internet.

Re: After 10 years in tech isolation, I’m now outsider to things I once had mastered

#126

Post by mikro2nd »

capableweb wrote: post #21
mikro2nd wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gosh, I felt that way about Windows 3.1. It got so bad around Windows 95 that that was when I switched to Linux. I've never used Windows since, so when people ask if I can help them "sort out their PC" the answer is... :)

... "I'd love to help you, but I don't use Windows so might not be able to. But let's take a look, since you're my friend and all and I want you to be happy"?

The truth is I am now actually incompetent to help my Windows-using family and friends. The answer is that I really can't help, no matter how much goodwill applies.

I recently poked at a friend's Windows10 machine that was having networking issues (probably DNS or proxy settings)... couldn't even find the right sort of settings to paly around with. The whole thing is a mystery wrapped in an enigma to me and causes me to break out in a rash when forced to deal with it.

To come back to the GP's original point: Windows assumes a level of control over the hardware (accompanied by a level of ignorance from the user) that I find intolerable. After all, I paid for that hardware; surely I get to control it? ("Not so!" says Windows.)

Re: After 10 years in tech isolation, I’m now outsider to things I once had mastered

#127

Post by nudpiedo »

What I see is also a deep reflection on how the hacking counterculture became the norm but still it sells itself as minority obscure counterculture just to be more popular. The same happens in other areas like social activism which are now the thought of majority and distilling its original thoughts into a fast-food alike consumerism.

Re: After 10 years in tech isolation, I’m now outsider to things I once had mastered

#128

Post by randompwd »

sneak wrote: post #6

> Some people refer to these facilities as “Black Sites” because they are cut off from the media, visitors, and lawyers so that what happens in there, stays in there. Interestingly enough, the Seagoville Federal Correctional Institution was once a Japanese internment camp. > That’s three showers a week. 23/5 confinement to an 8X10 cell without air conditioning, a fan, or adequate ventilation. That summer the temperat…

Please don't post unsubstantive comments to Hacker News.

Also:

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/dostoyevsky-misprisioned...

Re: After 10 years in tech isolation, I’m now outsider to things I once had mastered

#129

Post by koheripbal »

masukomi wrote: post #120
throwablePie wrote: post #87

> "Caging me for a decade is not rehabilitating. I may be making excuses for myself, though there is a lesson that could have been learned with the same amount of value for justice if the sentence was 2 years, 3 years, 5 years, even 6 years." From the article at: https://forklog.media/ex-convicted-hacker-ghostexodus-severi... I don't consider myself a bleeding heart lib but I think that a decade in prison is excessiv…

> I don't consider myself a bleeding heart lib but I think that a decade in prison is excessive for most non-violent crimes. you miss the point. prisons are a massive industry with serious lobbying clout. Putting lots of people in prison for a long time isn't a punishment to the prisoner, it's a gift to the prison system. The "punishment" is just a side effect, and the longer it lasts, the richer the people in power…

10 years of prison time for a single non-violent crime is extremely rare in America.

What can happen in certain states, is that repeat offenders are hit with escalating prison terms each time they are convicted (the classic example are the three-strikes-your-out laws), whereby someone can be sentenced to a life term.

In those cases, sentences don't translate to actual prison terms since non-violent offenders are routinely paroled.

There's still a lot of heavy handedness, and I question the justice of escalating sentencing, but the comments above create a false impression of the US justice system.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-strikes_law

Re: After 10 years in tech isolation, I’m now outsider to things I once had mastered

#130

Post by lebuffon »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #96
jki275 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many crimes do not require intent, they're strict liability. Some do.

That distinction isn't relevant here. She had mens rea -- she knew she was voting . She didn't know she was breaking the law.

Fascinating to me that it is humanly impossible for any individual to remember ALL the laws yet ignorance of the law is not a defence.

:)

Post reply on HN