I wonder if the person they give rights to "delegate" their account must actually be a Facebook user themselves. If so, it seems they have stumbled unto a way to slightly prevent user decline (in a sicko sort of way).
I see no mention of whether the person has or does not have a landline or VOIP phone, but here is a possible solution:
http://www.vtechphones.com/pro...
It is a phone that can be programmed to have hotbuttons. Some of the buttons can even have pictures inserted behind the button so an ailing parent or small child can simply push a button and the phone then dials the corresponding number. That number can be 911, a parent, etc... It also has a panic button dongle that can be worn and used in case of emergency.
Good luck. That is a tough situation.
I think the whole driving while "distracted" issue boils down to the type of distraction. My two cents...
ACTIVE
A phone call is an active engagement. You talk. The other person then talks. You are expecting feedback, so part of your brain is tuning in to receive that potential incoming response, therefore causing some people to not focus on other activities (such as driving).
Another example would be texting. You get a text. You actively look at it, then respond back.
PASSIVE
A horrible song comes on the radio. You slightly lean forward and turn a physical knob or physical button to change the channel. You are not expecting further input form the radio. You just want it off of what is on there now.
Another example would be turning the heater on/off. You just lean over, grab a dial, and turn it down. You are not expecting feedback from the heater other than for it to get hotter/colder. No unexpected feedback.
Another example would be eating a hamburger. You have the hamburger in one hand and driving with the other. No need to look down at the hamburger or listen to the hamburger, it just is passively being eaten.
Talking to another person IN THE SAME CAR could also be seen as passive. You are not trying to dial someone. You are not trying to hit a button to respond. You are just opening your mouth and talking. Those same systems that allow you to talk are not tied up with hand-eye coordination of driving. To counter that, if you have two kids in the back seat and they are fighting causing you to look up into the mirror while you talk, then that would switch to active and not passive.
Even with this breach, I still think their mandatory MOBILE phone number requirement to get a Yahoo account is BS. Just one more data point floating in the revenue stream...
How in the hell are they going to handle large scale enterprise or educational software deployments? Hand out an org's login and password? Set a licensing server?
FU Adobe. FU good.
People from my work bring various kinds of pies from home and we have a sampling at 3:14 in the afternoon. Corny, but tasty! My favorite are the small fried apple pies. Yuuuummmmmmm.
My problem is that I liked being able to dump all of my feeds into Google Reader as sort of a central storage, then use various iOS apps to read them later on.
I do not have time to read them during the day, so a desktop application or web reader is useless to me. I just want a central convenient storage area for my feeds and a good mobile app to read them later that night.
I will have to hold off moving my Google Reader feeds until I see where Reeder may be going with their app development.
It has been many a month since a comment made me laugh out loud and scare my coworkers across the hall. I damn near snorted out Coke after reading that one. Congrats to you sir or madam!
This post hits close to home...
A year or so ago (pre-Unity), I decided to try an experiment around the office. We had some desktop users who were claiming to need a notebook for things (travel, presentations, etc...). We have tons of old notebooks that we cannot donate or trash yet due to the specifics of the funding they were purchased with. I took a couple of the old notebooks and prepped them with Ubuntu then themed it to resemble Windows (was not going for a 100% duplication). "My Computer", "My Documents", etc... Put appropriate shortcuts on the desktop and handed it over to a couple of users to try out. Now keep in mind the office had not yet switched to Windows 7. With the exception of the IT group the rest of the office was XP.
Fast forward a couple of weeks and I had scheduled a "check up" to see how things were going. I was getting worried because I had not heard anything out of most of them. My guess was they freaked out and just did not use the notebooks.
Instead I found out that they really like their "new, fast computers". They especially liked the non-Ribbon interface of Open Office over what they had seen from Office 2010.
Now a few things to point out... These were typical “worker drone” users here. No special software like AutoCad, Photoshop, etc is needed in their daily work. Give them a web browser and “Office” and they have what they need. I did have a problem getting the notebooks to print to a networked Ricoh copier/scanner/kitchensink device, but the Ricoh was brand new at the time so that might not be an issue if it was a little older.
All in all the experiment worked out much better than I expected. All except one of the users wanted to keep their notebooks around, so since they were working ok we let them until it came time for us to change out the dept’s computers to Win 7. When we changed over, they received notebooks with docking stations instead of desktops so there was no need for the linux notebooks.
This might be an anomaly instead of the rule, but considering the target users, it all worked out better than I expected. I have not tried a similar experiment since Unity came around. I think that would cause a much more "alien" feel to it than the older version of Ubuntu did. Not that users can't get used to it, but if one of the goals is to minimize distraction and alienation, then I don't think Unity will help matters much.
I can see this being aimed at tech-dumb parents/grandparents. Might be huge for my "business-smart but tech-dumb" bro-in-law who doesn't mind paying a fortune for a mobile data plan. I don't see how this gives any halfway tech-literate person anything better than what they can do on their own with a good ripper and a NAS.
If they also provided a local DRM-Free file for home/traveling non-streamed viewing when you take your disc in, I could see it being more popular, but as is, I am not interested in the slightest.
I only include this because Lumley takes more of a scientific explanation of the Wamphyr and not a supernatural one. Alien race of vampires infecting our world through a "wormhole" under a old soviet science base being fought off by a hitech squad of vamp hunters led by a guy capable of mathmatic teleportation. Sounds sci-fi enough to me!
The first 8 or so books of the Necroscope line are one of my all time favorite series, but they don't seem to get much publicity in this day of "sparkly vamps".
http://www.brianlumley.com/necroscope/http://www.amazon.com/Necroscope-Brian-Lumley/dp/0812521374/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1331128761&sr=8-1
I also thought that new comers to the series would think the first book was a 6th sense ripoff and be turned off, but it was actually around long before that movie.
Agent K said it best: "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." Sometimes you need the dumb panicky ones to get the herd moving. Of course those sames ones can cause the herd to run right into a pack of meat-eaters. So, flip the coin and take your chances.
No matter how good LibreOffice gets, if no one knows it exists, it will not catch on. They really need to invest in some proper marketing some people other than geeks will know they even exist.
The lack of Amazon Prime Video has bugged me too. WD passes the buck to Amazon, who promptly passes the buck to WD. It makes me think Amazon has intentionally put a monkey wrench into the works while they engineer their own "Amazon Media Box".
Yeah, I don't have too much faith in a media box lineup that doesn't include a newer WDTV. WDTV was one of the first "prime time" media boxes. Very odd to see it left off the list.
Here is an odd question that may come up more in the future with cases similar to this...
With surveillance drone tech becoming cheaper and more prevalent, at what height from the ground does something become "on the property" and therefore guilty of trespassing? 30ft? 300ft? At some vertical point in space above the ground, you will need to establish when a floating/flying object is considered "on your property".
Long ago Adobe's applications went from having an actual "splash screen" to a "loading screen" that we have to sit and watch. To hear this guy talk about it, this sounds like more of Adobe wanting to lock users into their Adobe subscription model than actually worrying about start times. Anything that would connect to "instance in the cloud" would have even more ties into logging how the user access their programs and give Adobe even more control.
This has come up twice so far. Both times have been to require all full time employees (49% or less are exempt, as well as intermittent are exempt) to create a Facebook and Twitter account using their real names (if they do not already have one), provide real company contact information, and follow/join corporate groups. We have been very lucky that it has been shot down each time it has been brought up. I fear that it is only a matter of time before a VP decides to push the issue himself and then will be pushed through. Half the group didn't blink an eye about it, the other half are deeply entrenched against it. I fall on the side of completely against forcing an employee to join a public social network with their real identity.
"Easy enough to avoid government dots; just don't buy printers from Canon, Brother, Casio, HP, Konica, Minolta, Mita, Ricoh, Sharp, or Xerox."
Hehehehe, you are being facetious by that right? Looks like I will have to stick with clay tablets.:(
I have had to deal with digital data collection of deceased loved ones, but I have not thought about having to divide digital files up between people. The collection was very difficult in its own right, and I imagine the dividing/duplicating could get quite tricky also because you are having to have multiple inputs from people into the problem. Damn. Good luck to you.
In reading the article I could not see whether numbers were pulled from doctors that were in public or private practices. Private practice I can see them getting away with it, however not in public practice. This may be hard for those in metropolitan areas to understand, but many small towns and communities may only one doctor office (and a pure pediatric clinic can be around even less!). If the only pediatrician office is a public office and they turn kids away, I would think the ambulance chasing lawyers would be smacking their lips to get a piece of that action.
I do believe most vaccinations are a worthwhile endeavor, but I just do not like the idea of doctors turning away a kid because of the decisions the parent makes.
Correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't Microsoft use a "points" system to purchase games, DLC, and features instead of charging an exact dollar price? Example: I want to download a copy of a new Batman skin and it will cost me 575 "points" instead of say "$1.25". I don't like artificial currencies.
I would like to see them go with free online access, bluray drive (since believe it or not, everyone does not have access to broadband for digital distribution), don't force updates on people who just want to play single player games (online ones sure, but if I want to play single player and deal with any bugs then let me do it since it will be my own fault if I choose to not update), and clean up the hardware design a bit.
Slashdot Mirror
Hmmmmm, but is it fully Handbrake compatible?
So they get a slap on the wrist. Especially since they are only agreeing to SOFTWARE audits with no mention of a hardware audit.
I wonder if the person they give rights to "delegate" their account must actually be a Facebook user themselves. If so, it seems they have stumbled unto a way to slightly prevent user decline (in a sicko sort of way).
I see no mention of whether the person has or does not have a landline or VOIP phone, but here is a possible solution: http://www.vtechphones.com/pro... It is a phone that can be programmed to have hotbuttons. Some of the buttons can even have pictures inserted behind the button so an ailing parent or small child can simply push a button and the phone then dials the corresponding number. That number can be 911, a parent, etc... It also has a panic button dongle that can be worn and used in case of emergency. Good luck. That is a tough situation.
I think the whole driving while "distracted" issue boils down to the type of distraction. My two cents... ACTIVE A phone call is an active engagement. You talk. The other person then talks. You are expecting feedback, so part of your brain is tuning in to receive that potential incoming response, therefore causing some people to not focus on other activities (such as driving). Another example would be texting. You get a text. You actively look at it, then respond back. PASSIVE A horrible song comes on the radio. You slightly lean forward and turn a physical knob or physical button to change the channel. You are not expecting further input form the radio. You just want it off of what is on there now. Another example would be turning the heater on/off. You just lean over, grab a dial, and turn it down. You are not expecting feedback from the heater other than for it to get hotter/colder. No unexpected feedback. Another example would be eating a hamburger. You have the hamburger in one hand and driving with the other. No need to look down at the hamburger or listen to the hamburger, it just is passively being eaten. Talking to another person IN THE SAME CAR could also be seen as passive. You are not trying to dial someone. You are not trying to hit a button to respond. You are just opening your mouth and talking. Those same systems that allow you to talk are not tied up with hand-eye coordination of driving. To counter that, if you have two kids in the back seat and they are fighting causing you to look up into the mirror while you talk, then that would switch to active and not passive.
Even with this breach, I still think their mandatory MOBILE phone number requirement to get a Yahoo account is BS. Just one more data point floating in the revenue stream...
How in the hell are they going to handle large scale enterprise or educational software deployments? Hand out an org's login and password? Set a licensing server? FU Adobe. FU good.
People from my work bring various kinds of pies from home and we have a sampling at 3:14 in the afternoon. Corny, but tasty! My favorite are the small fried apple pies. Yuuuummmmmmm.
My problem is that I liked being able to dump all of my feeds into Google Reader as sort of a central storage, then use various iOS apps to read them later on. I do not have time to read them during the day, so a desktop application or web reader is useless to me. I just want a central convenient storage area for my feeds and a good mobile app to read them later that night. I will have to hold off moving my Google Reader feeds until I see where Reeder may be going with their app development.
It has been many a month since a comment made me laugh out loud and scare my coworkers across the hall. I damn near snorted out Coke after reading that one. Congrats to you sir or madam!
This post hits close to home... A year or so ago (pre-Unity), I decided to try an experiment around the office. We had some desktop users who were claiming to need a notebook for things (travel, presentations, etc...). We have tons of old notebooks that we cannot donate or trash yet due to the specifics of the funding they were purchased with. I took a couple of the old notebooks and prepped them with Ubuntu then themed it to resemble Windows (was not going for a 100% duplication). "My Computer", "My Documents", etc... Put appropriate shortcuts on the desktop and handed it over to a couple of users to try out. Now keep in mind the office had not yet switched to Windows 7. With the exception of the IT group the rest of the office was XP. Fast forward a couple of weeks and I had scheduled a "check up" to see how things were going. I was getting worried because I had not heard anything out of most of them. My guess was they freaked out and just did not use the notebooks. Instead I found out that they really like their "new, fast computers". They especially liked the non-Ribbon interface of Open Office over what they had seen from Office 2010. Now a few things to point out... These were typical “worker drone” users here. No special software like AutoCad, Photoshop, etc is needed in their daily work. Give them a web browser and “Office” and they have what they need. I did have a problem getting the notebooks to print to a networked Ricoh copier/scanner/kitchensink device, but the Ricoh was brand new at the time so that might not be an issue if it was a little older. All in all the experiment worked out much better than I expected. All except one of the users wanted to keep their notebooks around, so since they were working ok we let them until it came time for us to change out the dept’s computers to Win 7. When we changed over, they received notebooks with docking stations instead of desktops so there was no need for the linux notebooks. This might be an anomaly instead of the rule, but considering the target users, it all worked out better than I expected. I have not tried a similar experiment since Unity came around. I think that would cause a much more "alien" feel to it than the older version of Ubuntu did. Not that users can't get used to it, but if one of the goals is to minimize distraction and alienation, then I don't think Unity will help matters much.
I can see this being aimed at tech-dumb parents/grandparents. Might be huge for my "business-smart but tech-dumb" bro-in-law who doesn't mind paying a fortune for a mobile data plan. I don't see how this gives any halfway tech-literate person anything better than what they can do on their own with a good ripper and a NAS. If they also provided a local DRM-Free file for home/traveling non-streamed viewing when you take your disc in, I could see it being more popular, but as is, I am not interested in the slightest.
I only include this because Lumley takes more of a scientific explanation of the Wamphyr and not a supernatural one. Alien race of vampires infecting our world through a "wormhole" under a old soviet science base being fought off by a hitech squad of vamp hunters led by a guy capable of mathmatic teleportation. Sounds sci-fi enough to me! The first 8 or so books of the Necroscope line are one of my all time favorite series, but they don't seem to get much publicity in this day of "sparkly vamps". http://www.brianlumley.com/necroscope/ http://www.amazon.com/Necroscope-Brian-Lumley/dp/0812521374/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1331128761&sr=8-1 I also thought that new comers to the series would think the first book was a 6th sense ripoff and be turned off, but it was actually around long before that movie.
Agent K said it best: "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." Sometimes you need the dumb panicky ones to get the herd moving. Of course those sames ones can cause the herd to run right into a pack of meat-eaters. So, flip the coin and take your chances.
No matter how good LibreOffice gets, if no one knows it exists, it will not catch on. They really need to invest in some proper marketing some people other than geeks will know they even exist.
The lack of Amazon Prime Video has bugged me too. WD passes the buck to Amazon, who promptly passes the buck to WD. It makes me think Amazon has intentionally put a monkey wrench into the works while they engineer their own "Amazon Media Box".
Yeah, I don't have too much faith in a media box lineup that doesn't include a newer WDTV. WDTV was one of the first "prime time" media boxes. Very odd to see it left off the list.
Here is an odd question that may come up more in the future with cases similar to this... With surveillance drone tech becoming cheaper and more prevalent, at what height from the ground does something become "on the property" and therefore guilty of trespassing? 30ft? 300ft? At some vertical point in space above the ground, you will need to establish when a floating/flying object is considered "on your property".
Long ago Adobe's applications went from having an actual "splash screen" to a "loading screen" that we have to sit and watch. To hear this guy talk about it, this sounds like more of Adobe wanting to lock users into their Adobe subscription model than actually worrying about start times. Anything that would connect to "instance in the cloud" would have even more ties into logging how the user access their programs and give Adobe even more control.
This has come up twice so far. Both times have been to require all full time employees (49% or less are exempt, as well as intermittent are exempt) to create a Facebook and Twitter account using their real names (if they do not already have one), provide real company contact information, and follow/join corporate groups. We have been very lucky that it has been shot down each time it has been brought up. I fear that it is only a matter of time before a VP decides to push the issue himself and then will be pushed through. Half the group didn't blink an eye about it, the other half are deeply entrenched against it. I fall on the side of completely against forcing an employee to join a public social network with their real identity.
"Easy enough to avoid government dots; just don't buy printers from Canon, Brother, Casio, HP, Konica, Minolta, Mita, Ricoh, Sharp, or Xerox." Hehehehe, you are being facetious by that right? Looks like I will have to stick with clay tablets. :(
I have had to deal with digital data collection of deceased loved ones, but I have not thought about having to divide digital files up between people. The collection was very difficult in its own right, and I imagine the dividing/duplicating could get quite tricky also because you are having to have multiple inputs from people into the problem. Damn. Good luck to you.
In reading the article I could not see whether numbers were pulled from doctors that were in public or private practices. Private practice I can see them getting away with it, however not in public practice. This may be hard for those in metropolitan areas to understand, but many small towns and communities may only one doctor office (and a pure pediatric clinic can be around even less!). If the only pediatrician office is a public office and they turn kids away, I would think the ambulance chasing lawyers would be smacking their lips to get a piece of that action. I do believe most vaccinations are a worthwhile endeavor, but I just do not like the idea of doctors turning away a kid because of the decisions the parent makes.
They took a shot at a populist win and ran with it. I can't fault them for that.
Correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't Microsoft use a "points" system to purchase games, DLC, and features instead of charging an exact dollar price? Example: I want to download a copy of a new Batman skin and it will cost me 575 "points" instead of say "$1.25". I don't like artificial currencies. I would like to see them go with free online access, bluray drive (since believe it or not, everyone does not have access to broadband for digital distribution), don't force updates on people who just want to play single player games (online ones sure, but if I want to play single player and deal with any bugs then let me do it since it will be my own fault if I choose to not update), and clean up the hardware design a bit.