In practice, it is far more secure to use a written signature than a 4-digit password that is exposed to eavesdroppers, video cameras, interception devices and a plethora of other attacks. That's secure for the person, you understand: it prevents the bank from saying "you must have lost your pin".
IF you could clearly sign all of those touch-screen signature pads, AND some system actually compared what was input to your signature on file, then maybe. But very few of those are properly positioned or are properly sensitive enough for anyone to sign more than a few squiggly lines. I used to just draw a picture of a cow on them and my signature was always accepted.
Back in my youth I was the young, single, male computer support guy in a large gov't office that was about 80% females. About 50% of those were single divorcees. I was harassed...well, hit on constantly, a lot, and I began to see why females don't like working in a place with a similar reversed gender ratio.
Though I did go on a lot of dates.
And ended up married...To a young temp who is now a divorcee working in a different state office. Wow, I just realized that.
It can be relatively harmless, as with the occasional puff of cannabis, but ultimately it's about escaping reality. And, if you're trying to escape reality, it means you have some problem with reality. Deal with that.
Really?
10 years ago (when I was 40) I had brain surgery and a small, slightly damaged part of my brain was destroyed (intentionally) to keep it from killing me down the road. Unfortunately, it was the part of my brain that tells the rest of my brain to go to sleep.
For 8 years I had to take sleeping pills every night. And the effects of the sleeping pills got less every year, so I was taking either more or different prescription drugs every year.
About two years ago someone introduced me to marijuana as a sleep aid. That night I slept like I hadn't slept in years. It was wonderful. I started doing it just on weekends to help catch up on sleep, but I took the officially prescribed medicine during the week. I got SO MUCH more done on weekends that last year I started smoking just a couple puffs of weed an hour before bedtime during the week. I cut out the prescription pills entirely, except when I travel.
Since then I have slept well nearly every single night and my productivity at work (and home) has doubled, even with screwing around on the Internet like this. My health is better, my blood pressure is lower, my sex life is way better, my stress levels are laughably low and people say I'm much more fun to be around.
So tell me doctor: Is the reality of poor sleep, low productivity, health issues, stress issues, etc. something I should just "deal with" or should I continue my "escape" of smoking a little weed every night?
I've heard through reliable sources in DC that the NSA specifically DOESN'T hire the smartest people. In fact, those who are "too smart" are passed over for promotions, awards, etc.
Smart people tend ot figure out true right and wrong, and the NSA does not want that. The NSA wants loyal drones who will obey. Therefore we can conclude that NSA employees are staggeringly average in their intelligence but have some decent skills.
I work for a semiconductor factory in the US. We have factories in Japan, China, Taiwan and Malaysia as well. Which one actually makes the lowest cost and highest quality parts? The one in the US.
Yes, the average salaries are far lower in most of the other countries. But their quality is crap and we have to fly our engineers over there to supervise their engineers all the time. Innovations and changes only come from the US factory. The rest are content to do it the way they always have and fight us on making any change. It's a cultural thing, really.
If we had been as resistant to change here in the US we would have closed down a decade ago and all our manufacturing would be overseas. But we're pretty dynamic and we change the way we do things fairly regularly to stay efficient.
Folding blades or aligning blades along the center axis takes time. Since this is touted for medevac uses you want something that can get in and out of small spaces quickly. I'm interested to see its flying stability.
Generally it is the rider. I have seen drunk riders pulled over in New Mexico, where horses are used when a driver has their license taken away for DUI. Seriously, I have seen this twice in Taos.
Long ago I determined that having talent was a ticket to poverty.
I know dozens of highly talented musicians, writers, artists, etc. who make jack from their talent. They play lots of gigs, get art shows, get books published but they make very little money from it. All but one have menial jobs to support their dream of someday succeeding with their talents. The only one who doesn't have a real job is very good at marketing her art and builds sculptures for local businesses. But she only makes about $40K/yr doing it and she works far harder than I ever have.
Meanwhile, talentless fucks like myself sit in a comfy office and write lame software for the man ( I admit that I really am a half-ass programmer, and I spend half my day surfing the web) and pull in $120K+/yr doing it.
Even less talented people than me earn far more money than I ever will. So if you have talent, keep it a secret if you want to make money.
Yeah, but those of us with fairly unique names are boned if we have anything bad online, real or manufactured.
This is why I have to have a facebook account, a linked-in account, etc. that I do NOTHING with except maintain a vanilla profile. I don't want someone setting up an account in my name. 15 years ago someone sent a stupid, highly ungrammatical "letter to the editor" of a local paper (which maintains an online presence) using my name as a joke. They printed it in the online edition and the damn thing STILL comes up on the first page of a google search.
So until I'm in the paper for rescuing a batch of orphans from certain death and the story gets picked up by lots of outlets, I have a former co-workers joke returned to anyone who googles my name.
Yes folks, soon you will have computers in EVERYTHING!
Is your coffee cup empty, or nearing empty? The Internet of THINGS will give you a coffee cup with wifi and sensors so you will get a tweet on your smartphone when you are almost finished with your coffee so you can plan to get up and get a new cup!
Is there coffee in the pot? The Internet of THINGS will have wifi and sensors in the coffee pot and let you know when it's time to make more!
Is there coffee in the can? You guessed it! The Internet of THINGS will let you know when you need to buy more coffee!
And this is just ONE (well, three) tiny example of how the Internet of THINGS will make your life easier! Soon mankind will be freed from all the drudgery of having to look in their coffee cup, of not knowing if they will have to wait several minutes for coffee to brew, or even to have to shake the coffee can to find out if there is enough coffee for another pot.
I admit to being VERY lucky. Born white and middle class to parents who valued education (NASA scientist father, teacher mother) and who looked at me disapprovingly if I didn't bring home straight A's. My father also likes to build stuff, my mother loves to travel so I've been building stuff and traveling the world since I was a wee lad. There are few better educational and incentive experiences than visiting the poorer parts of the world when you are young.
So yeah, I had a lot of advantages and I used them. But I also plan to use my retirement to help many less fortunate than myself, as everyone should.
I live in a small house that I built myself on land I bought cheap outside town many years ago. I also bought more of that "cheap" land that is now worth 3x to 5x what I paid for it, so I can sell it later.
Saving and investing about 1/3 of my income. Dumped as much as I could stand into the market after the 2008-2009 crash. Lost some, made far more.
I'm building some alternative income streams now to keep the do-re-mi flowing.
I still travel a lot and spend way too much money on my pets and various hobbies, but I should be able to retire in 5 years and continue my wanton ways. It helps that the wife and I both have good-paying tech jobs.
ANYONE who has ever been a network/sysadmin type can tell you that that position gets you the keys to the kingdom on day 1.
In the first week of my very first sysadmin job with a large gov't agency, in the days where I essentially knew NOTHING, had me sitting in the director's chair, after hours, working on his PC, with his passwords all hand-written on a post-it (by the director himself) in front of me.
Slashdot Mirror
In practice, it is far more secure to use a written signature than a 4-digit password that is exposed to eavesdroppers, video cameras, interception devices and a plethora of other attacks. That's secure for the person, you understand: it prevents the bank from saying "you must have lost your pin".
IF you could clearly sign all of those touch-screen signature pads, AND some system actually compared what was input to your signature on file, then maybe. But very few of those are properly positioned or are properly sensitive enough for anyone to sign more than a few squiggly lines. I used to just draw a picture of a cow on them and my signature was always accepted.
Back in my youth I was the young, single, male computer support guy in a large gov't office that was about 80% females. About 50% of those were single divorcees. I was harassed...well, hit on constantly, a lot, and I began to see why females don't like working in a place with a similar reversed gender ratio.
Though I did go on a lot of dates.
And ended up married...To a young temp who is now a divorcee working in a different state office. Wow, I just realized that.
...housewives don't generally pay for plumbing or electrical work in sexual favors, either...
So I'm wasting my time with my cable repairman correspondence course?
It can be relatively harmless, as with the occasional puff of cannabis, but ultimately it's about escaping reality. And, if you're trying to escape reality, it means you have some problem with reality. Deal with that.
Really?
10 years ago (when I was 40) I had brain surgery and a small, slightly damaged part of my brain was destroyed (intentionally) to keep it from killing me down the road. Unfortunately, it was the part of my brain that tells the rest of my brain to go to sleep.
For 8 years I had to take sleeping pills every night. And the effects of the sleeping pills got less every year, so I was taking either more or different prescription drugs every year.
About two years ago someone introduced me to marijuana as a sleep aid. That night I slept like I hadn't slept in years. It was wonderful. I started doing it just on weekends to help catch up on sleep, but I took the officially prescribed medicine during the week. I got SO MUCH more done on weekends that last year I started smoking just a couple puffs of weed an hour before bedtime during the week. I cut out the prescription pills entirely, except when I travel.
Since then I have slept well nearly every single night and my productivity at work (and home) has doubled, even with screwing around on the Internet like this. My health is better, my blood pressure is lower, my sex life is way better, my stress levels are laughably low and people say I'm much more fun to be around.
So tell me doctor: Is the reality of poor sleep, low productivity, health issues, stress issues, etc. something I should just "deal with" or should I continue my "escape" of smoking a little weed every night?
I've heard through reliable sources in DC that the NSA specifically DOESN'T hire the smartest people. In fact, those who are "too smart" are passed over for promotions, awards, etc.
Smart people tend ot figure out true right and wrong, and the NSA does not want that. The NSA wants loyal drones who will obey. Therefore we can conclude that NSA employees are staggeringly average in their intelligence but have some decent skills.
But is it not a rock, or at a minimum, 'like a rock'?
Be careful there. Chevy will slap you with a copyright suit and impound your rover.
Both China AND India have over 300 million in poverty, that's almost the population of the US.
And the rest of the Indians and Chinese care about them as little as the rest of use Americans care about the 35 million in poverty here.
Or change the smarmy phrase on your geek t-shirt at a whim.
I was going to go with the old Judge Smails quote: "Well, the world needs ditch diggers too."
Jesus? That homo?
Yeah, everyone knows that "Password123" is probably what will get you into most corporate systems.
I've found that voice interactions with devices are generally annoying.
But I have found that I like using with voice interaction when I am drunk or stoned. Then it's fucking hilarious.
I work for a semiconductor factory in the US. We have factories in Japan, China, Taiwan and Malaysia as well.
Which one actually makes the lowest cost and highest quality parts? The one in the US.
Yes, the average salaries are far lower in most of the other countries. But their quality is crap and we have to fly our engineers over there to supervise their engineers all the time. Innovations and changes only come from the US factory. The rest are content to do it the way they always have and fight us on making any change. It's a cultural thing, really.
If we had been as resistant to change here in the US we would have closed down a decade ago and all our manufacturing would be overseas. But we're pretty dynamic and we change the way we do things fairly regularly to stay efficient.
Folding blades or aligning blades along the center axis takes time. Since this is touted for medevac uses you want something that can get in and out of small spaces quickly. I'm interested to see its flying stability.
Generally it is the rider. I have seen drunk riders pulled over in New Mexico, where horses are used when a driver has their license taken away for DUI. Seriously, I have seen this twice in Taos.
Then I guess they get charged with RUI.
Long ago I determined that having talent was a ticket to poverty.
I know dozens of highly talented musicians, writers, artists, etc. who make jack from their talent. They play lots of gigs, get art shows, get books published but they make very little money from it. All but one have menial jobs to support their dream of someday succeeding with their talents. The only one who doesn't have a real job is very good at marketing her art and builds sculptures for local businesses. But she only makes about $40K/yr doing it and she works far harder than I ever have.
Meanwhile, talentless fucks like myself sit in a comfy office and write lame software for the man ( I admit that I really am a half-ass programmer, and I spend half my day surfing the web) and pull in $120K+/yr doing it.
Even less talented people than me earn far more money than I ever will. So if you have talent, keep it a secret if you want to make money.
Yeah, but those of us with fairly unique names are boned if we have anything bad online, real or manufactured.
This is why I have to have a facebook account, a linked-in account, etc. that I do NOTHING with except maintain a vanilla profile. I don't want someone setting up an account in my name. 15 years ago someone sent a stupid, highly ungrammatical "letter to the editor" of a local paper (which maintains an online presence) using my name as a joke. They printed it in the online edition and the damn thing STILL comes up on the first page of a google search.
So until I'm in the paper for rescuing a batch of orphans from certain death and the story gets picked up by lots of outlets, I have a former co-workers joke returned to anyone who googles my name.
Or, you know, just get a dog.
Yes folks, soon you will have computers in EVERYTHING!
Is your coffee cup empty, or nearing empty? The Internet of THINGS will give you a coffee cup with wifi and sensors so you will get a tweet on your smartphone when you are almost finished with your coffee so you can plan to get up and get a new cup!
Is there coffee in the pot? The Internet of THINGS will have wifi and sensors in the coffee pot and let you know when it's time to make more!
Is there coffee in the can? You guessed it! The Internet of THINGS will let you know when you need to buy more coffee!
And this is just ONE (well, three) tiny example of how the Internet of THINGS will make your life easier!
Soon mankind will be freed from all the drudgery of having to look in their coffee cup, of not knowing if they will have to wait several minutes for coffee to brew, or even to have to shake the coffee can to find out if there is enough coffee for another pot.
FREEDOM!
I guess he didn't know it would get cancelled for good in 2013.
Or did it?
I admit to being VERY lucky. Born white and middle class to parents who valued education (NASA scientist father, teacher mother) and who looked at me disapprovingly if I didn't bring home straight A's. My father also likes to build stuff, my mother loves to travel so I've been building stuff and traveling the world since I was a wee lad. There are few better educational and incentive experiences than visiting the poorer parts of the world when you are young.
So yeah, I had a lot of advantages and I used them. But I also plan to use my retirement to help many less fortunate than myself, as everyone should.
How did I do it? Let's see:
I live in a small house that I built myself on land I bought cheap outside town many years ago. I also bought more of that "cheap" land that is now worth 3x to 5x what I paid for it, so I can sell it later.
Saving and investing about 1/3 of my income. Dumped as much as I could stand into the market after the 2008-2009 crash. Lost some, made far more.
I'm building some alternative income streams now to keep the do-re-mi flowing.
I still travel a lot and spend way too much money on my pets and various hobbies, but I should be able to retire in 5 years and continue my wanton ways. It helps that the wife and I both have good-paying tech jobs.
As a 50 year-old man nearing retirement, I can emphatically say "Hell yes!" to all of those questions.
And I'll let Linda know that I'll be wankin' it to much of that aforementioned content. While smoking weed.
ANYONE who has ever been a network/sysadmin type can tell you that that position gets you the keys to the kingdom on day 1.
In the first week of my very first sysadmin job with a large gov't agency, in the days where I essentially knew NOTHING, had me sitting in the director's chair, after hours, working on his PC, with his passwords all hand-written on a post-it (by the director himself) in front of me.
You're right! No harm, no foul. NSA can ONLY collect metadata.
And we know we can trust the NSA! They are the BESTEST agency ever and I WANT TO HAVE THEIR BABIES!
So relax, citizens. You have nothing to fear and we'll keep the evil terrorists out of your living rooms.
Signed,
Not an NSA shill.