Why don't they take the Iraqi stance?
You know, create a printer that doesn't print at all, just in case the user tries to print some copyrighted material.
2242 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Jun 2007
Dunno about "Unintended Consequences", this is something else.
If you create an environment where anyone, whoever that may be, is blamed for the sake of blaming anyone, you're going to see a change in behaviour where everyone is going to cover their arse - at any cost.
Seen this happen in a corporate environment where everyone was looking over their shoulders and not actually doing any work.
"including the ease at which students could be distracted by surfing the internet"
Taking away their capability to use Facebook, Instagram, Gmail, IM apps and similar timewasters, creates a surprising increase in productivity.
Not just for school graders either - their middle aged parents seem to be more productive at their jobs too.
Australia now has a fully-non-signature credit card purchase system, and if you use paywave or simlar (NFC) *and* for less that AU$100 purchases, PINs are exempt.
Although this has changed the usage patterns of credit card thieves (fraudulent purchases are now only <$100) If I had to present a 12-digit PIN for *all* purchases, (most are sub-$100) I'd be rightly annoyed.
"Depends on whether you have a life at home or not."
We were told on a Friday afternoon, that we were to fly out that Saturday morning to the other side of the country (6-7 hour flight one way with a changeover inbetween).
Then again, nether of us had a life at the time, and it was too late in the day to formulate an excuse...
I don't think smartphone have reached peak yet. More that they've been underutilised, so other factors like cost become an issue.
It's kinda like buying a modern-day PC and the vast majority use is playing Solitare, or worse, Chess, the game that's rather mature to the point where very low end processors have done a respectable task at beating us at the easiest level...
Way back in another era, I used to have a regular dumb phone (what was available in the day), and palm pilot. With each of their IR communications ability, and the right sofware, I had what one would call a smart phone, just not in one case. I was thrilled to bits even at the time, and was pleasantly surprised the market eventually saw the reasoning and created the then first smartphones.
As above, cost is only an issue if you underutilise your gear. I'm not say you should use your phone for things that don't help you, but there's a multitude of software out there that can make your life easier on the road, don't be afraid to use it.
"https://www.bankofamerica.com/privacy/accounts-cards/shopsafe.go"
From that website:
"Please note that ShopSafe requires you to have Adobe Flash installed on your computer."
I have to give it to them. They have the testicles to mention "Safe" and "Adobe Flash" in the same sentence...
...Compared to my bloody Samsung watch that went for a year before the battery fail.
Only batteries available from fleabay were still priced beyond economical repair.
So I went back to my Casio which has been through one battery change in the million years of life so far.
Sure, it lacks a few features, but going on purchase price along with regular battery replacements, fuck that for a joke.
This is for profit making and nothing else. The fact they get some "good" PR out of it is merely a side attraction.
They get the phones for free, the resulting material minus the extraction process costs, equals profit.
Also, beware of recycled plastics. There's a reason they're not widely used, the quality of recycled plastic is by far less, and less strong than the native first-use raw material. So you're limited in where you can use it.
Saving the earth my arse. Unless of course you count the money you made in the process...
"I'm with this. Why should plugging in a USB stick be dangerous?"
Autorun. An oldie but a goodie. and it only took Microsoft a few decades to realise it was actually a monumentally bad idea.
Meanwhile, Joe Bloggs still has it enabled because they want their CDs to do something when you plug them in. (They'll never EVER let go of that feature)
Till they learn, that is.
"All you need is a good file name such as "Cutest Kitten Vid" or "owner contact info.exe" and you would probably increase the folly."
Agreed. We spoke about this with some friends who were arguing about how one would get an executable into someone else's computer.
I said you don't have to. Just attach a file called "BigBoobs.exe" to an incoming email, and they're guaranteed to click on it. You don't even have to obscure it.
"Then there's the often suggested threat to park a cruise ship"
L. Ron Hubbard tried that. Complete with child-boy-servants. You don't have to pay your deciples either, heck, to climb the hierarchy they pay YOU. And you're registered as a religion. Tax haven. Would make the profit margins very attractive. Bonus.
"So the app of brevity is hooked up to the sport with the biggest ratio of inactivity to action there is. 60 minutes of an American Football game contains on average 11 minutes of actual play, and can take up to 3.5 hours to complete."
Good thing then that Twitter got the feed "on a discount". And they still paid too much.
"you then have the faff of re-patching stuff when people change desks (nobody with any sense will go to the expense of having enough LAN ports to patch every floor port, after all)."
We did. We had to. The department managers kept moving their people every two bloody weeks. Sometimes just shuffling four guys in a four spot booth.
We weren't to ask why, but just to do our bloody job.
Incedently, WiFi was entirely out of the question due to security reasons, we had millions of dollars sunk in IP apparently, and they were uneasy with it floating around the building, secured or not.
"Taking advantage of someones stupidity may be immoral, but it's not necessarily illegal."
It's only legal if you don't get caught. Ahem.
Monies obtained via illegal means usually doesn't hang around for long. I'm surprised they didn't sic the IRS on them. They don't care if proceeds are still around.
"When you start having robotic arms, the cost of the drive starts being irrelevant, the backup device starts getting really expensive."
Back in the old days, when DAT was king, you would get cartridge compatible drives, where the plastic cartridge would hang off the edge of the desk while the DAT tapes are stacked vertically.
It would start from the top, shift the cartridge up one slot and take the next tape till done, all automagically and cost a reasonable amount. They weren't always reliable (not suitable for a dozen tapes over a weekend).
Last LTO drive I saw had a number of slots for 6 tapes, and it would internally pick the next one. Worked well.
Holy crap was it expensive.
When your data exceeds one tape, things get stupid.
"If your stuff is important, then the onus is on you to make sure it is available"
That's nice, but many people who DO care, rely on technology they know nothing about, ending up with solutions touting buzzwords like "Military Safe" or some such bull crap.
Is the onus on them to suddenly become data security experts? Because that's what you're expecting...