Hacker News: DonGateley

New comment by DonGateley in "Personal Statement of a CIA Analyst"

DonGateley — Mon, 08 Oct 2018 04:09:03 +0000

P.S. I am awfully glad that in those 51 years I was never again put in a polygraph situation such as an investigation. I just know I'd fuck it up.

New comment by DonGateley in "Personal Statement of a CIA Analyst"

DonGateley — Mon, 08 Oct 2018 02:01:39 +0000

In 1967, as a soon to be graduate from a university in what is today called computer science, I applied to the NSA and nothing about that interview was nice. I failed the polygraph on two consecutive days and that's all she wrote. What tripped me up was the question "have you had any homosexual activity." The pen almost went off the graph when I truthfully said, "no."

Where and when I grew up that was about the worst thing that could be said of a young male. On the trip to the interview my magic magnifying mind had wondered about whether sensitivity to a question alone could cause truth to appear to be a lie. Of course the question that popped into my mind which I anticipated was the question on homosexual activity. Well, having thought about it beforehand, sure enough I reacted strongly. It was just as well because the overall interview had shown me that I didn't want to work there anyway but it was still traumatic to be accused of lying and about that in particular at that time.

For a short period of time I questioned my sexuality but can say that in the intervening 51 years there has not been one moment when I considered homosexual behavior. This is not to say anything negative about homosexuality, just how one's fear of responding to a question can cause one to respond negatively even with a truthful answer.

Times were different then and my attitude was too. I doubt I'd fear the question today given that my accepting attitude toward homosexuality in general has been normalized.

New comment by DonGateley in "Vim Clutch – A hardware pedal for improved text editing (2012)"

DonGateley — Mon, 12 Mar 2018 00:20:39 +0000

Actually I did think of the desirability of exactly this somewhere around 1984 or thereabouts. It didn't go further than a wish though because the only access to the Unix system that I'd installed for use by the group I managed was via dumb terminals and the DIY arena was nowhere near as rich as it is now. Especially in a building in a corn field somewhere between Rockford, IL and Belvidere, IL:-)

If wishes were fishes we'd all swim in riches. Really nice job moving beyond that!

New comment by DonGateley in "Keep your Identity Small (2009)"

DonGateley — Sat, 24 Feb 2018 22:58:17 +0000

If you believe your argument then you must find scientific study and discovery an exercise in making one dumber.

I'm afraid I find your argument to be a defense of ignorance.

New comment by DonGateley in "Bitcoin 'creator' backs out of Satoshi coin move 'proof'"

DonGateley — Sat, 07 May 2016 04:45:22 +0000

Perhaps he was simply clued to some seriously bad consequence of proving his ownership of the Satoshi hoard.

New comment by DonGateley in "My Take on FBI's “Alternative” Method"

DonGateley — Wed, 23 Mar 2016 06:07:11 +0000

One thing I think we can count on is that now that there has been a retreat we will never hear another word about this from FBI or NSA. And probably from Apple.

What ISIS Really Wants

DonGateley — Tue, 17 Nov 2015 06:32:15 +0000

Article URL: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/what-isis-really-wants/384980?single_page=true

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10579493

Points: 2

# Comments: 1

New comment by DonGateley in "Was Rasputin murdered by MI6? (2014)"

DonGateley — Mon, 14 Sep 2015 08:15:54 +0000

Nonetheless interesting. I had not heard of him or his website and just spent a couple of hours there. Thanks to the O.P. for the heads up.

New comment by DonGateley in "Ants are as Effective as Pesticides"

DonGateley — Wed, 02 Sep 2015 02:59:59 +0000

I'd bet it depends on the kind of ant and the kind of termite. I'm in Northern Ca and haven't seen trace of a termite since I stopped killing the ant colonies.

New comment by DonGateley in "Ants are as Effective as Pesticides"

DonGateley — Wed, 02 Sep 2015 01:56:19 +0000

I think they are just as attracted to the termites themselves. They love the eggs.

New comment by DonGateley in "Ants are as Effective as Pesticides"

DonGateley — Wed, 02 Sep 2015 01:50:49 +0000

I ceased killing invasive ants with borax, a substance taken back to the hive to destroy it, when during one such defense I saw them divert from the track I was poisoning to attack newly hatched termites that were emerging from under an appliance. They were incredibly effective. They also raid termite colonies and carry away the eggs. I switched to a lemon oil based repellent applied locally as needed.

New comment by DonGateley in "Mr. Wizard, Television's Original Science Guy"

DonGateley — Thu, 27 Aug 2015 08:28:34 +0000

There is no question in my mind but that Don Herbert propelled me into engineering. My fascination with the show started in 1951 when I was 7 and came to an end with my entrance into E.E. at the University of Illinois in 1962 strictly because there was no way my fraternity brothers in the TV room would stand for it.

I loved my career and have Don to thank for it. I'll bet there are a whole lot of us who owe our careers to his wonderful influence.

New comment by DonGateley in "WebExtensions FAQ"

DonGateley — Wed, 26 Aug 2015 04:59:26 +0000

As could be expected this has poked a hornets nest of opposition because of its implications regarding backward compatibility of extensions we use. Many of us are hoping for a fork based on the current release that will continue to evolve and be maintained and which values backward compatibility first and foremost.

Users can snapshot the current 40.0 release by copying the installation directory and creating a cloned profile for it with updates disabled. Personally I find the 42.0a2 development channel release to be backwards compatible with all extensions and to have superior memory management.

New comment by DonGateley in "A new Stephen Hawking presentation about black holes"

DonGateley — Wed, 26 Aug 2015 04:44:04 +0000

That is correct. From the point of view of the infalling object, however, nothing changes as he crosses it except his position in space.

I say who gives a shit about the point of view of the infalling object. :-)

New comment by DonGateley in "A new Stephen Hawking presentation about black holes"

DonGateley — Wed, 26 Aug 2015 04:38:08 +0000

An amplitude is not a complex number. It is the real number one gets taking the root of the sum of the squares of the real and imaginary part of a complex number. In QM they will be between 0 and 1 and are probabilities.

New comment by DonGateley in "Photos at Microsoft Corp (1979)"

DonGateley — Tue, 25 Aug 2015 06:02:23 +0000

Sorry man, but that's not even close to what happened.

New comment by DonGateley in "Photos at Microsoft Corp (1979)"

DonGateley — Tue, 25 Aug 2015 05:59:03 +0000

I was the one on the other side of that bet (not under this name.) It was multiprocessing. I said OS/2 would be there first and he said NT would. I'm not sure who won but we were pissed off at each other enough by the end of it, with some weird threats having been made, that dinner was pretty much out of the question.

Odd that you would remember that. I thought I was probably the only one who did.

New comment by DonGateley in "Photos at Microsoft Corp (1979)"

DonGateley — Tue, 25 Aug 2015 05:50:20 +0000

He'd mop the floor with them. Systems, languages, environments, etc., etc., were trivial then compared to today. I worked back then in a few "labs" that looked a lot like that.

New comment by DonGateley in "Watch: Richard Feynman on why he can't tell you how magnets work"

DonGateley — Mon, 10 Aug 2015 07:24:44 +0000

The importance of his answer and the care with which he framed it comes at the very end of the clip. Without specifying a context he cannot answer the question. Leading up to that one is made to understand that without limiting the question to a particular context, an infinite regress is unavoidable. Brilliant, well articulated point that most people don't think about.

New comment by DonGateley in "Ursula K. Le Guin: By the Book"

DonGateley — Mon, 10 Aug 2015 07:05:55 +0000

Good god that was uninteresting.