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Tim
Tim
12:08 PM
@Jesse_b Be well.
 
Tim
Tim
12:50 PM
I am wondering what differences and relations are between commander, lieutenant, and general
I have no knowledge and background in millitary
My question arises from byzantine general problem
Time to eat some water. BRB
 
Jesse_b
Jesse_b
1:04 PM
@Tim They are ranks although each branch has somewhat different names for them
Lieutenant is the lowest of the officer ranks (Although not in the navy), commander is somewhat right in the middle, and general is the top
commander is only a rank in the navy, which ironically doesn't have generals. Instead they have "admirals"
 
Tim
Tim
1:52 PM
@Jesse Thanks. The water is yummy
" The Byzantine generals problem •
In the informal statement of the Byzantine generals problem [Lamport et al. 1982], three or more generals are to agree to attack or to retreat. One, the commander, issues the order. The others, lieutenants to the commander, must decide whether to attack or retreat. But one or more of the generals may be ‘treacherous’ – that is, faulty. If the commander is treacherous, he proposes attacking to one general and retreating to another. If a lieutenant is treacherous, he tells one of his peers that the commander told him to attack and another that they are to …
Is "general" a generic term? Can a general be either a commander or a leutenant?
 
Tim
Tim
2:07 PM
Did ancient Turkey have the same military ranking as today's country with the most military budgets in the world?
 
terdon
terdon
There's no such thing as "Ancient Turkey".
You have the Ottoman Empire, but that isn't "ancient".
 
Tim
Tim
as today's most imperialist country in the world?
 
terdon
terdon
 
Tim
Tim
I didn't intend to study military history
 
terdon
terdon
Then I am confused as to why you would ask about it.
 
Tim
Tim
2:14 PM
To understand Byzantine general problem
 
terdon
terdon
The generals are irrelevant to that problem. You could formulate the same thing using any generals, or any army rank, or even dogs. The point is simply to have a situation where you can either attack or retreat. The Byzantine generals were only chosen for simplicity.
 
Tim
Tim
looks like Byzantine was ancient Greece or Italy
 
terdon
terdon
Um. No.
The Byzantine empire is the continuation of the Roman empire after it moved its capital from Rome to Byzantium in 333AD.
330, sorry.
At its height, it stretched over most of the Mediterranean basin.
 
Tim
Tim
the quote gives me an impression that a general can be either a commander or a lieutenant
I might misunderstand it though
 
terdon
terdon
No, a general is a specific rank. Each of those three is a different, specific rank.
What those ranks actually mean changes depending on what army you are talking about, but almost always, "general" is the highest or second highest rank you can achieve in the army. Generally: general > commander > lieutenant.
 
Tim
Tim
2:36 PM
Thanks. Using the knowledge you and Jesse taught, however, I feel mentally challenged when reading
"three or more generals are to agree to attack or to retreat. One, the commander, issues the order. The others, lieutenants to the commander, must decide whether to attack or retreat. But one or more of the generals may be ‘treacherous’ – that is, faulty. If the commander is treacherous, he proposes attacking to one general and retreating to another. If a lieutenant is treacherous, he tells one of his peers that the commander told him to attack and another that they are to retreat."
 
terdon
terdon
I see. The confusion is because the word lieutenant has two meanings. It can either mean the specific military rank of lieutenant, or simply "aide":
> a person who holds an office, civil or military, in subordination to a superior for whom he or she acts: If he can't attend, he will send his lieutenant.
The same for commander. It can be the rank of commander or simply the one who is in command, the one in charge.
 
Jesse_b
Jesse_b
Yeah the lieutenant rank was originally created as an aid to the captain (I believe, maybe colonel) when there was only like two officer ranks
 
terdon
terdon
The only thing you should take from the quote you pasted is that you have three things (here, "generals") and one of those three is the chief (commander) while the other two take orders from the chief (the lieutenants).
 
Jesse_b
Jesse_b
now, in the US military anyway, there are 9 (technically 10)
and general is code for application
 
terdon
terdon
The point is that one of the three commands and the others need to follow that one's orders.
 
Jesse_b
Jesse_b
2:40 PM
also yeah that quote uses all the terms interchangeably so it is unnecessarily confusing.
"There are three generals, one (the lieutenant)"
what?
all generals command, in fact all officers command something so any officer can be referred to as a commander
 
terdon
terdon
@Tim just forget the ranks. All you need to know is that one of the three gives orders and the other two follow orders.
 
Jesse_b
Jesse_b
Sergeants Major are cooler anyway
 
Tim
Tim
Do you want to say yourself cooler?
just saying ...
 
terdon
terdon
@Tim Come on. Nobody is attacking here, why would you say something like that?
Jesse was just making a joke about how Sergeants Major are always shown as the real badasses in all films etc.
 
Tim
Tim
Why did I fail to be humorous
...
No offence intended.
What I mean is that I think Jesse is a Sergeant Major
If I offend any of you, my apology
Also I don't have issue with people having served in US military.
although I feel the military policy of US can be much better
 
Jesse_b
Jesse_b
2:53 PM
I was a corporal, no where near a sergeant major :p
If I had stayed in I likely would have been a terminal staff sergeant
Sergeants major just really are cooler though. I had one, SgtMaj Mckenna that was a legend. People made chuck norris-esk jokes about him. Once he was giving a speech in an auditorium and someone fell asleep like 3 rows back and he jumped over all the rows to double leg drop kick that person in the chest for falling asleep
 
terdon
terdon
Um.
 
Jesse_b
Jesse_b
When he did push ups he didn't push his body up, he pushed the world down
 
terdon
terdon
Your definition of "cool" is very different to mine :)
 
Jesse_b
Jesse_b
one does not simply fall asleep on a sergeant major
 
 
2 hours later…
Kusalananda
Kusalananda
4:37 PM
User exploded and called me a "neckbeard" when I asked about what Unix they were running. Huh. Then they deleted their question. That's a first I think.
I need to Google "neckbeard" now to figure out what that might be.
 
terdon
terdon
@Kusalananda Ha! So did I!
Years ago, an answer of mine was referred to as "neckbeard vomit"
Apparently, that's a good thing.
4
Q: What in the world is "neckbeard vomit"?

terdonA user of U&L posted the following comment in response to somebody's answer: That's some neckbeard vomit right there. Nice. I investigated and discovered that neckbeard, unsurprisingly, means Facial hair that does not exist on the face, but instead on the neck. Almost never well groome...

expressions terminology slang
 
Kusalananda
Kusalananda
:-)
 
terdon
terdon
Ah no, not even my answer :(
But hey. The answers I got should explain it.
 
Kusalananda
Kusalananda
@terdon Main main question is, how did he know? ... I'm in need of a shave.
 
terdon
terdon
To be fair, when discussing UNIX geeks, the chances that the geek be both male and hirsute are quite high.
 
Kusalananda
Kusalananda
4:54 PM
I've know a few female geeks, but they are few and far between.
 
terdon
terdon
5:09 PM
Damn straight, and there are more of them as time goes by.
Exactly as it should be.
But, statistically, it's still very much a male dominated field.
Remember that great story JennyD told us here about that idiot who called for tech support and couldn't believe she was the actual sysadmin?
Dec 1 '15 at 12:35, by Jenny D
@terdon I do have a really funny story about that, from back in the day when I was email sysadmin at an ISP. This was at the point where I'd been there long enough to rebuild the entire system; there was nobody around who knew it better than me. And one day a customer got directed to me from 2nd line support - this was rare, because the support people were good, but he'd insisted enough that they let him speak to the actual sysadmin. And I answered my phone. The conversation went like this:
Dec 1 '15 at 12:37, by Jenny D
"Hello, sysadmin Jenny speaking"
"I want to talk to the sysadmin, not to support!"
"Yes, I'm the sysadmin for the mail servers."
"No, I mean, the person who actually works with them!"
"Yes, that's me."
"No, I mean the technical person, not support or customer service!"
"Yes, that's me."
"NO! I need to talk to the TECH PEOPLE!"
After a while I gave up, muted my phone and called around the office "There's a guy here who doesn't believe I'm actually working with the mail system. Can one of you guys (all of whom were men) please talk to him?"
Dec 1 '15 at 12:38, by Jenny D
My colleague took over the call, and after that I only heard his side, which went:
"I don't know that."
"Sorry, I have no idea."
"Sorry, that's not something I work with."
"No, sorry, no idea."
*incoherent yelling*
"Well, you were on the phone with the right person a while back, but you didn't want to talk to her, and now I don't think she wants to talk with you!"
The customer hung up.
 
Kusalananda
Kusalananda
Yes, I've read that before. It's both funny and sad.
 
terdon
terdon
quite
 
 
2 hours later…
terdon
terdon
6:52 PM
Thanks for the edit @Kusalananda
 
Kusalananda
Kusalananda
@terdon No worries. I was there anyway.
 
 
5 hours later…
Kusalananda
Kusalananda
11:51 PM
@StephenKitt Would you happen to know whether the -Z option to ssh-keygen is a thing specific to RHEL's OpenSSH? I can't find it in the manual on OpenBSD but it also does not complain about it. I can't find anything in the release notes about it either. The option is spotted here: access.redhat.com/documentation/en-us/red_hat_enterprise_linux/…
(an otherwise really nice text, BTW)
 
Michael Homer
Michael Homer
ssh-keygen -Z prints "ssh-keygen: option requires an argument -- Z" on every system I can access (Debian, NetBSD, Windows, macOS) so it is presumably a valid option, but it is also not in the manual anywhere
 

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