indignity

... I played video games religiously from the time I was 2 til I was 10... which I would consider the start of my IT training... when I was 10 my family got a computer and the internet... and I started chatting in mirc... and by 12 I had written several bots/scripts for mirc as well as created my first website. when I was 13 I stocked up on books... unix, tcp/ip, etc, because I wanted to be a hacker =P... got myself into trouble for email fraud... all the things I did and they busted me for email fraud... when I was 14 I got my first job doing web design and writing perl code at 16 I started writing "macros" (... the macros responded to in game events... I prefer the term bot, but nobody knows what you're talking about if you say that) for Asheron's Call... which led to me getting much deeper into programming logic and whatnot... my first 1000+ lines of code scripts were AC macros... the macros are really the reason I'm in the computer science field... I always "liked" coding... but writing what is essentially game AI totally blew my mind... I'd start working on it, then check the clock and 12+ hours had passed started learning C++ and PHP when I was 17 took 8 credits of a computer repair/maintenance class between my junior and senior year, and used the knowledge I gained there to make it to Business Professionals of America national computer network technology tournament took 2 years of pharmacy courses in college before I realized that it was ludicrous for me to not study computers... so here I am studying computer science in college... I show up to my programming class, write whatever program I'm supposed to write, then leave until the teacher assigns a new assignment... and I'm loving my math classes I also just started coding some PHP/MySQL for the same guy I worked for when I was 14, and when he gets any web design jobs I'll be working on them as well... and started helping another guy do network installations and odd-job coding... I'm looking forward to joining some open source projects when I feel more confident with C++/Java, and can't wait to finish my formal education so I can start working (hopefully on games... but by then I might care more about money/free time)

er... actually... I think I was wrong... to get the inverse of a function... replace x's with y's, and y's with x's, and solve for y the inverse of y = x^2 would be y = (plus or minus) sqrt(x) inverses are reflected over the line y = x

the inverse is the opposite reciprocal... -1/f(x)

... with high bandwidth sites like google... high costs (very high costs, by my standards) are involved ... for someone who just needs "a lot" of bandwidth, you can get 5 gb/day from powweb.com for 7.77 a month... any more than 5 gigs a day, and you're going to be paying at least $100 a month, according to everything I've seen (but I haven't exactly been host shopping in the past few months... and I'm sure I haven't checked everything out)

I've been tickled by people I didn't much care for... and it still tickled

that'd be a good way of putting it... for some things, anyway really, both fields are so broad that you can't classify them, except in a very broad sense also, they each train one for such a broad group of tasks that almost any job in the field will require some additional, more specialized training (even if that training takes the form of "just doing the job"... most programmers are more of a burden than a help to their company during their first few months of working, until they get the hang of things)

http://www.whatiam.net I love this *edit* lol, yeah, Washington Post... I read it like a week ago and had forgotten between now and then =P and it wasn't exactly an article... it was a paid "advertisement"... the guy says in there how much he paid to get it published which doesn't matter anyway... it doesn't really appeal to the facts... I just found it to be an enjoyable read

... I suppose that there really weren't many decisions for me to make throughout highschool... I was a bit of a shut-in (which is probably an understatement), and everything just sort of fell into place. Throughout school I didn't do homework because I didn't need to... I spent almost all of my time on a computer wasting time, and really enjoyed it =P When college started, I kind of kept my highschool habits, even though they hurt my grades... and felt more and more guilt each time I sat down to do nothing... but did it anyway, even when I had homework that needed to be done (I'd relate it to how fat people just can't seem to put down that hamburger... which is something else I went through and beat back in highschool). So I really spent 2 years feeling guiltier and guiltier each time I sat down to do nothing... and for some reason, just couldn't talk myself into... not doing nothing... even though it felt so horrible. Now, even though I get all of my homework done, I have really high hopes for myself, and well... feel like I should be doing something productive at all times, like I stated in the first post... now that I've thought a bit deeper into it... my problem really has a lot more to do with feeling guilty about "wasting" free time than making decisions... *edit*... I'm not sure that the quote applies to me. I don't do anything inherently evil with my idle hands... well, nothing I'd consider evil until recently, anyway. Now that I'm doing well in my classes and I realize that it's kind of a big deal to grasp math concepts as easily as I do. I feel obligated to make good use of the gifts I've been given. By not using them I'd be keeping the world from having something it should have... which may sound very egotistical, but even if it isn't true on a grand scale, it's true on a smaller scale (maybe replace the word "world" with "community")

Actually, I think it's a rather good excuse, especially at that age. I didn't fail classes, I made great grades (except in the ones that were homework heavy). I learned all that was put before me. As a highschool student, it really didn't make much sense to say "hey, maybe I should do this homework to develop good study habits" when I was already making A's on all of my tests. I wasn't too lazy to do the homework. If I had needed to do it, I would have... but there was no need... I made good grades on the test anyway. I could read the newspaper by the time I was 3... my babysitter taught me highschool algebra when I was in 3rd grade... I just wish people would have noticed stuff of the sort and encouraged me to go further with it. Instead, I was encouraged to do the hours of homework that wouldn't even help me because I could ace the tests without doing it, then punished for not doing the homework (even though I aced the test). I really just don't see the logic there. now my classes are "too easy" so I work ahead... but seriously, try and find more than 3 highschool students that do that without their teachers or parents encouraging them to do so *edit* and... more than anything I'm talking about math here... I can stand to be behind where I am in history, government, and maybe even English/Science... but I'm pretty upset about where I am in Math, compared to where I could be (which, given, is partially my fault... I've always blamed it on myself... but it recently struck me that the school and maybe even my parents share some blame... I've always loved learning... I feel that I wasn't encouraged enough) also... math teachers never put math forth as something that was "enjoyable"... I loved math when I was a kid... but from junior high on every math teacher was like "welcome to math class, you will hate it here... I know I do." It kind of gets to you, after a while

... but maybe it's the system I should be mad at... all through elementary and in my first year of middle school I did really well... then I started getting bored.. I could learn the material way faster than the teachers were teaching it (in pre-AP classes) I kept taking pre AP, then took the first year of AP classes when I got to highschool... and quit all but math AP classes soon after, because I hated to memorize stuff (and still do... unless it seems like it'd be worth remembering)... really my highschool just didn't challenge anyone to think... they spoon-fed us the information, then had us spit it back out... I started college 2 years ago, and was lazy from doing the bare minimum in highschool for 4 years straight... and now, after 2 years of dropping college classes, I've finally applied my desire to learn to college (always had the desire... just learned things outside of school, rather than in it) ... now I'm the top student in each of my classes (low level classes... calculus I, analytic geometry, intro to programming, freshman comp II)... and have worked way ahead of the class in the programming and math classes... I'm really loving math now... and all of my other subjects... and I really think my highschool teachers' are to blame for me not being challenged more in highschool, thus enjoying it more. I mean, even though I never did my homework in my pre-cal class (or practically any of the math classes before it), I still made 95 or better on every test... why would the teachers not see that and say "hey, this kid is learning faster than we can teach him... we really need to get him somewhere that can challenge him"? I could be so far ahead of where I am now =/... instead, I'm 20 years old, taking basic classes...

I'm pretty sure that quantum computers would primarily be the work of engineers ... as a computer science student you are trained to know tons of logic behind comuter programs... but very little about how computers actually work...

in computer engineering, you're more likely to develop hardware/software development tools than anything else (to the best of my knowledge) with computer science, you're more likely to create software... complex, math heavy software, assuming you use the skills you learn in college I don't know about computer engineering studies... but CS studies are very, very math based... math is the language of science... a CS major is the guy that goes between the scientist and the computer

if these are programs that other people with physical access to your computer are installing... it's not spyware (at least it's not what I think of when I think of spyware)... it's a trojan... what you need is first of all a good virus scanner... and more importantly, a good firewall (and the knowledge to keep it running properly) Also... some of the programs used to spy with are not detected by virus scanners... and if they have physical access to your computer anyway, the firewall might not do you much good... the only real protection you have is to either lock them out of your computer entirely, or set up restrictions to keep them from installing things on your computer

yeah... you call a business... you speak their lingo... you get information you shouldn't be able to get... or you pose as a customer to get stuff you shouldn't be able to get... you notice that a local school got new computers... you call the company they ordered from and claim to be the school, telling them that you need a replacement, because one of them was DOA... have them tell you exactly when the replacement will arrive, and meet them at the door, wearing something that makes you look like the school's "computer guy" (love that term, lol) I mean, the above example may not be tangible... but it's just an example and social engineering... mainly has to do with the system your exploiting... not the people involved... this kid probably "socially engineered" some pizza, because there are plenty of guides how to do it on the internet... and yes, the engineering does belong there... en·gi·neer·ing n. 1. 1. The application of scientific and mathematical principles to practical ends such as the design, manufacture, and operation of efficient and economical structures, machines, processes, and systems. 2. The profession of or the work performed by an engineer. 2. Skillful maneuvering or direction: geopolitical engineering; social engineering.