Posts by ITS Retired 334 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Dec 2010
if there was not all this snooping by so many different entities, cluttering up the Internet by snooping on so many people just going about their normal lives.
Yeah I know this is AT&T, but they make heavy use of the Internet for their phone call traffic and their own snooping also.
There is an out here. Some version of Linux (free), or even Apple (kinda expensive up front).
Most people only do the basics, web, e-mail and maybe some word processing anyway.
The major problem is people only know Microsoft and think anything else would be too hard to learn, or having to learn a different/better way to do things on another operating system. Never mind the constant reshuffling in Windows.
Too many people have no idea that humidity has an affect on comfort. It's cool outside, so they open windows in their air conditioned space. Never mind 95% humidity and the fog outside.
Eventually, the ground sourced heat pump gives up because the circulating fluid is the same temperature going into the ground, as coming out. Winter did not remedy the problem, as the A/C didn't last through the spring.
It happened in an office I worked at. Manglement and their unair-conditioned lake cottages was the basic cause..
We have human records painted on cave walls, carved on rocks, clay tablets, various kinds and types of paper, going back many 10's of thousands of years. Writings from 2 to 3 thousands of years ago, compared to what we see today, but are told were written thousands of years ago, that don't agree with the original records. It is fairly easy to figure out sumtom ain't right here. Reliance on magnetic polarization, not so much, without access to the proper computers, hardware and software decades after they have been replaced.
Yet we have already lost valuable information because there are no computers left in existence that can read the data bases. Computers built, used and discarded well within our lifetimes. (Or at least mine)
Upgrade the computers, and/or lose the electricity and poof, our ancestors can never recover that information decades later. There can be said good things about file cabinets for long term storage for critical information.
Too heavy a reliance on computers will bring about the downfall of civilization, when things go pear shaped, as all civilizations have encountered so far.
While the idea of nuclear engines are great, I think we must figure out on how to survive on the moon, with minimal help first. Mars is a bit too far away for any reasonable help to arrive in time.
You want boots on Mars, fine, but with people wearing them, not so fine. So far we have not had a long term isolated, working habitat right here on the ground on this planet. The ISS is regularly supplied, and with personal changes, so it doesn't count.
How much of the software in the newer vehicles is "Because We Can" and not because it is needed, or even actually useful in the real world?
Who actually benefits for the mandatory two way connectivity in todays cars? I can understand some of this in fleet vehicles, but how useful is the same stuff it in a private, paid for vehicle?
I understand much of this connectivity cannot be opt out of without disabling the vehicle.
"And WTF did having an internet connection absolve parents of any responsability. Y'know actual parenting"
Simple, parents aren't parenting the way certain authoritarians think they should be parenting. Keep the children ignorant of certain subjects because children ask questions that are sometime embarrassing for many adults.
That's because our standard of education has fallen so far in the U.S., compared to other countries. Starving public education, which once was the best in the world, to having private, corporate... err... charter schools skimming the cream of the crop students from public schools, starving the public schools even more money. That plus not coming within a mile of teaching critical thinking anymore. That is by design. Those of us that were taught critical thinking are dying off of old age.
There needs to be a limit to what is automated and even removed from the drivers control. Do we even need a touch screen to set the temperature, or roll down the windows? A simple knob, or mechanical button often works better.
The driver messing with what is packed in a touch screen with menus, is better than using a smart phone, how?
Often it seems too much is not enough, because we can. Somewhere in there is, or should be, a optimal level of computer control. Leave the rest to the driver.
When Russia invades a country, it is an "illegal" invasion? But when the United States makes a hobby of invading countries, toppling governments it determines are too free and democratic it somehow is given a pass?
Hypocrisy is looming big in the Ukraine, as the U.S. is again backing Right-wing fanatics. Only this time using someone else troops.
"Anderson argues that this taxonomy of harms reflects the interests of criminal investigators rather than welfare of children."
One solution is a deep look into the private lives of these people that want to pass these laws that allow <u>them</u> to look into the private lives of the rest of us.
Now is the time for a major ad campaign, touting the advantages of other operating systems, that unlike Microsoft, just work... For far less money, updates and all.
Knock MS market share down a couple of pegs, or more. Yeah, I know complacency is hard to overcome, but for each conversion, makes the next a bit easier.
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