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

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

#201

Post by pphysch » Wed, Jun 10, 2020, 4:08 PM UTC

martythemaniak wrote: post #163

Surely I'm not the only one that thinks very little has changed in 10 years? I hadn't built a PC (nor used windows) between 2005 and 2016. After a few hours of catching up on the newest names (ie, what's the cheapo intel line called? What DDR version do I get? What is the SATA equivalent now?), everything became super familiar. Putting everything together was much easier (mouse cursors in BIOS?!) and looked a bit dif…

There haven't been many experiential leaps in consumer hardware since 3D graphics on 60Hz 1080p displays and touchscreens, wifi became established in the early 2000s.

VR is still firmly in enthusiast space.

NLP/speech recognition has subtly come amazingly far for consumer products but most people don't use it (or just aren't aware of it) due to the social stigma of talking _to_ your phone in public.

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

#202

Post by C1sc0cat » Wed, Jun 10, 2020, 4:09 PM UTC

koheripbal wrote: post #129

masukomi wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 rout…

They did admit to hack scada system in a "clinc" - a some what serious offence that can have lethal side effects.

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

#203

Post by risyachka » Wed, Jun 10, 2020, 4:10 PM UTC

rib3ye wrote: post #184

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…

Think about a time you really messed up. Did it take 10 years to come to the conclusion you were wrong?

If you knew you could hurt others when you intentionally messed up - then probably it is a good idea to lock you up for a few years, because clearly you are very bad at thinking, no matter to what conclusion you will come in 10 minutes. He didn't just slip and hacked medical systems by accident.

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

#204

Post by hota_mazi » Wed, Jun 10, 2020, 4:12 PM UTC

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…

I understand there is some truth to that claim, but how real is it?

Sentences are delivered by judges. There have been prominent examples of judges bribed by prison systems to deliver harsh sentences, but that doesn't seem to be the norm.

Am I naive thinking that most judges deliver the sentence they believe is just, and that if something needs to be reformed, it's their perception of justice and not just the prison system?

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

#205

Post by koolba » Wed, Jun 10, 2020, 4:12 PM UTC

aardvark291 wrote: post #196

koolba wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Classic example is getting more time in jail (and loosing your house) for having a marajuana joint than if you raped someone. Do you have a source for this ever actually happening?

Yes. Brock Turner got six months for rape. Here's a selection of decade+ prison sentences for marijuana: https://www.boulderdefenseattorney.com/top-10-non-violent-ma...

The Brock Turner case, while horrendous, is not representative of how rapes are prosecuted or sentenced.

Skimming through your link, I don’t see anything involving someone with a single joint being incarcerated for anywhere near a rape charge.

Some of those sentences may be out of line on their own, but you also don’t have people being put away for 20 years for being caught smoking a joint.

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

#206

Post by BeetleB » Wed, Jun 10, 2020, 4:13 PM UTC

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…

I'll disagree with many of the commenters and say, "No, it hasn't changed that much."

15 years ago I was saying the same thing, but about SMS and Internet Messengers. Almost 20 years ago I was complaining about how online chat had killed email, and I rarely got emails that were more than 1-2 sentences, and that instant messaging content was very shallow with nothing of substance. I actually stopped using Instant Messaging around 2002 for this very reason.

14-15 years ago a colleague visited S Korea and Japan, and was struck at how the norm was that couples would be sitting at a table staring at their phones and not talking to each other - before the iPhone was launched.

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

#207

Post by rapind » Wed, Jun 10, 2020, 4:14 PM UTC

kelvin0 wrote: post #147

masukomi wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Yes definitely is more about making money than actually helping in reforming the inmates. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2011/08/11/139536686... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal

It's also about "punishing" (as opposed to reforming) the individual. I'd say "reform" comes last on this list.

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

#208

Post by chrisco255 » Wed, Jun 10, 2020, 4:17 PM UTC

hota_mazi wrote: post #204

masukomi wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I understand there is some truth to that claim, but how real is it? Sentences are delivered by judges. There have been prominent examples of judges bribed by prison systems to deliver harsh sentences, but that doesn't seem to be the norm. Am I naive thinking that most judges deliver the sentence they believe is just, and that if something needs to be reformed, it's their perception of justice and not just the prison…

Sentences are basically tightly constrained within some guidelines. The judge has leeway for leniency, but not much. Otherwise there's a preset range for each crime (i.e. 6-12 months) based on offender's history (i.e. first offender's get less time, etc) and population risk, judge can lower that by up to some maximum amount.

So then it really needs legislative reform to adjust those minimum sentences.

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

#209

Post by Frondo » Wed, Jun 10, 2020, 4:20 PM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #139

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…

He hacked central control systems used by utility companies. This could have caused all sorts of disruptions including to traffic lights and hospitals. This was definitely not a "victimless crime".

Did it? did he cause any of the mayhem you're saying did happen?

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

#210

Post by SketchySeaBeast » Wed, Jun 10, 2020, 4:26 PM UTC

discordance wrote: post #192

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got out of school in 2013 and then went to a job that was pretty self isolated, working in proprietary format that wasn't really aware of the rest of industry - at best there was some Python and some .Net work. I took another position a couple of years ago where I got throw into the deep end of the modern material - ASP.NET Core, Node, NPM, React, Typescript, modern ES, the whole kit and kaboodle. I can tell you it…

Do you think for the better? - I don't think so

.Net? Absolutely. Tools? Oh yeah. JavaScript, HTML, and CSS? Probably. The sheer breadth of things you need to know to stay relevant? Not so much - it's just too much.