Re: CAPTCHA are evil
screw captchas
127 publicly visible posts • joined 17 Jan 2019
"a total ban on ransom payments is one suggestion that has been thrown about" I keep posting the death penalty suggestion but have yet to hear back from law enforcement. Meantime, if any execs at the affected companies had a track record of hamstringing their IT depts.- lots of jail time. Ditto to shitty coding "programmers". Hate to feed the SOBs while they're incarcerated, though.
As of this date, I'm 77 years old. The society I grew up in had no cell phones, no computers, no biometrics, not much TV and thankfully, no facebork et al. Everything worked just fine and businesses prospered. So, WTF is all this shit now?
Granted, computers (when used properly) were a great boon. In fact, I installed the first computer system in the company I worked for (DEC). But, large percentages of this "newfangled" crap are prime examples of "just because you CAN do it doesn't mean you SHOULD do it."
It'll be hard to convince me that 99% of these businesses actually NEED biometrics. So, if they f up fine the shit out of them.
You don't want to be burning fuel when stationary. But, when the thing stumbles if you need to take off in a hurry to avoid getting hit (or carjacked) you're f**ked. Rare? Yes. SO it's down to the numbers game again. A couple of unfortunate or serious events per year against the fuel savings. I have to admit though, at least all the lazy people going through the Starbucks and Burger King drive throughs aren't sh*tting crap into the air while they wait to parade through.
This is similar to how I tested my database forms many years ago. I, along with some soon to be users, would randomly bounce through text boxes typing incorrect information or gibberish (sort of how I still type today) and hitting the enter key randomly. We were waiting for a crash or unexpected result that wasn’t properly error handled which I would then go back and fix. It worked very well and roll outs went smoothly.
Tech as a tool argument aside, this is another case of “just because you CAN do it doesn’t mean you SHOULD do it”- unless the consequences have been well thought out. No one is going to convince me that, especially in the dark ages we are living in, the possible stalking abilities of the air tag (or other devices like this) weren’t considered before they went to market. They knew they might get into some trouble but, like most of the s**t foisted on the public today, it was going to be too expensive to figure out in time for product launch. So, out the door it went and they thought they’d deal with it later. As usual, the dollar amount of the lawsuit(s) will be a fraction of Apple’s bottom line and it’s just considered the cost of doing business. It’s similar to the cost/benefit ratio appliance manufacturers face as they weigh the cost of extra safety vs. how many people will be killed using their appliances resulting in lawsuits and raised insurance premiums.
By happenstance I just had to install two different mesh systems for a client in two different buildings, one (Deco) specified by me and the other (Eero) purchased by one of his employees because he uses it at his house. They both require an account and “apps” which totally sucks and probably makes it impossible to do any deep troubleshooting compared to traditional access points. I chose mesh because unlike consumer Access points, it implements the fast roaming handoff scheme whose 802.11 standard designation I don’t remember. I chose Deco because it offered Poe which seems to still be somewhat rare as of this writing and because Eero was borged by Amazon. Both backbones are hard wired. The Deco (5 units) was very easy to set up and works great. The Eero was much more difficult to set up and somewhat finicky requiring several reboots of one unit before it behaved. It seems to work ok but, as might be expected, the app is cluttered with Amazon ads.
“Tailored to my interests” I must repeat to these ad slingers again: If you’re going to show me ads, don’t keep showing me the same old s**t. How many cordless drills do you think I’ll buy? Show me different s**t, you idiots.
Back in the day, while I was washing up in the restroom, our company’s VP of marketing came in with one of his out of town sales guys. “How did you like the meeting”, Bud said. “It was great” says the sales guy, “I’ve reviewed my action items and see a clear path forward!” As I left I said “Bud, if anything like that ever comes out of my mouth, just shoot me”
Forget the manual. Sounds like you were not paying attention. The sad fact is that due to lack of “real” driver’s ed. at least 80% of drivers should actually be passengers. But, that ship has sailed. Driver’s ed is being replaced by this (soon to be AI generated?) crap. One more reason (besides price) to never buy a new car. If I want to hit the brakes, I’ll do it myself.
I clicked on the Edge icon the other day out of curiosity. Its default is MSN.com (naturally). What a hoot! It’s like the National Enquirer of the digital age (my favorite headline from them years past was "woman cuts off nose to spite face"). Other than an occasional article from a reputable sports feed it’s splashed with fluffy, empty, non news items from dozens of ??? “news” sources. Quite entertaining for a few minutes, actually.
I have never understood why anyone would write code for an application that depended on a browser (or worse, a certain version of a browser whereupon the program would crash or refuse to install if a newer version was on the machine).
I never did, and lived to tell about it.
When I went to school, all we had were books. We could buy them new or used at the bookstore. Is that cheaper overall than computers? Who knows, it worked for me and I received an excellent education. To paraphrase the real estate mantra perhaps it was actually the “teachers,teachers,teachers”.
P.S. If you acted like an a**hole in class, you’d get a bonk on the head. None of this “can’t touch a student or it’s child abuse” nonsense. Class was always more productive when everyone behaved.
I’ve been a Dish subscriber for 30 years. Their hardware is reliable, the remote is easy to use, the on screen menu is well thought out and picture quality is excellent. They’ve always been the “little guy” in the satellite dish wars so I hope they rebound and continue to prosper. Just hope my email address hasn’t been slurped up (again, I’m sure). But, it all goes to spam and I forward it to Micros~1.
“It also has "taken a number of steps" to boost its network security in light of the breach” Why do all these companies wait until the horse is out of the barn to try and close the door? You’d think EVERY company would have installed extra locks and a few good watchmen by now. O yeah, that costs $$$$
At least the system of measurement for surveying in the US is decimal feet. As I slowly converted an architectural drawing from feet/inches to decimal feet to do a building layout, my crusty old boss groused that “the only people who deal in inches are whores and carpenters”.
Adverts in space were foreshadowed long ago. As a child in the 50s, I was a voracious Science Fiction reader. I’ve forgotten ALL the details of a long ago story but I believe the gist of the ending was that they (early NASA?), trying to drum up public support for space projects, were going to send a rocket to the moon and it was going to shoot off a dazzling display that could be seen through a telescope on earth. Well, someone infiltrated the project on behalf of a well known corporation and the resulting display was the two word name of its flagship product. The author was very discrete as he remarked that the Cs in the script were a little wobbly and the L near the end was somewhat deformed but all in all it was quite legible.
With a splash of dark Koloa rum, it makes for a tasty drink.
Can’t wait to try it and see if it works ‘good enough’ for me. I design, build and troubleshoot (not my designs, of course) control systems for machinery. So, I frequently wind up in the field whether literally outside or in a cramped room somewhere. It’s a total PITA to try and tape up a drawing in the wind or try to prop up a laptop somewhere with a PDF blown up to 200% scrolling around trying to locate wires and components. I’ve often longed for some kind of heads up display where I could see the drawings in front of me. Even if I would have to lift the glasses up or hang them from my neck to see the actual work and go back and forth I’d bet it would be better than what I’m doing now.