No, because it's unlikely you'll completely ignore the ad if you mute the TV or ignore the web ad because it still registers in your peripheral vision, sometimes you'll notice it by accident.
It is stealing if you read a magazine where the postman, following your instructions, has used scissors to cut out all the ads from it. That analogy is similar to this case.
That's a fantastic idea! Let's make the postal service relevant again!
So, am I to understand by your very narrow definition, heading to the kitchen to make popcorn, going to the bathroom, or in any way removing ourselves from the vicinity of the television while commercials are on is stealing, correct? Because the advertisers went to all the trouble to create and send us those obnoxious little video clips, helpfully sprinkled throughout video we are actually interested in seeing (and 'stealing' as much as 30% of our time to do so) we are obliged to participate? Fat chance, buddy. As one poster mentions, how long before an obligation to watch becomes an obligation to purchase? Oh, wait, it already is for online advertising, since the customer is footing the delivery bill...
You know what the most common comment from new Netflix users is? How much time they save watching their favourite shows. 20 minutes per half-hour episode, 40 minutes per hour-episode. If we added up all of the time that commercials have wasted out of our lives, I think the average person would be surprised (and probably quite angry) at the result.
especially in giving you tools to estimate project progress
What? I had the classes and passed the test. We didn't talk at all about estimating project progress, much less what tools to use to do so.
Managing scope creep
If the course covered that, that would have been awesome. The last three startups I worked for died because of scope creep. We just couldn't get a product out the door. My PMP certification didn't prepare me at all for how to deal with that. Maybe that is something new that has been added.
Wow, I guess I didn't realize how good the course I took was, then. They covered project documentation, including Scope Change Approval forms, and described thoroughly why they are needed (and need to be signed off on prior to adopting). It may be the one concept that has been most helpful to me since the course, I have a blank sheet and have the requester identify what change is 'required', the justification, and the expected cost or time difference. Then I take it to my project sponsors/stakeholders, and it doesn't go in the project until the sponsors approve (and sign the form saying it's approved). It doesn't stop scope creep (I don't think anything can), but it certainly reduces the "ooh, ooh, we should do this!" requests.
Just making people stop and articulate why 'this' is a good idea sometimes makes them realize that it isn't, really.
HR incorrectly screens people, and thus prefers certifications,...
And thus believes that a PMP cert is a real thing. They are scams. I have never once heard PMP mentioned except in fraud or spam complaints. Companies like projmgtcoursetrainingsprograms.org are complete scams. PMP is a scam.
PMP courses from legitimate companies actually provide great tools for managing project uncertainty and variables. I've taken a level-1 course with a legitimate company, and found it very useful, even when I wasn't the one running the project...at least I could speak the lingo and knew why the PM wanted the data that they were asking for. I didn't go for for the full certification, but am considering it as I get more and more pushed into lead roles on projects.
Of course, if your company always scopes everything perfectly and right down to the nuts before the project proceeds, and everyone on your projects does exactly what the scope calls for in exactly the allotted time, and nobody has any bright ideas after the project has started ("but we really should do THIS while we're doing THAT, we're going to need it later anyway!"), and outside interference (read WEATHER) is not a risk factor...then I want to live in your candyland.
Maybe what's needed is for some sort of external accreditation of PMP courses, like they have for Universities? Sure, I can email for a Bachelor's degree in pretty much anything I want nowadays, but HR knows to check the accreditation status of "University of All Science Stuff" (affectionately known by the vast alumni body as "U-ASS"). Does the email spam devalue my own, actual B.Sc.Eng.? Not to a savvy hiring agent, but where can they go to check the accreditation status of PMP or similar certifications?
Having a solid understanding of what actually needs to go into a project - even if you are not a project manager - is a huge help in making sure that you are doing your part for the project to succeed. That's the flip side of the same coin as the project manager having a fundamental understanding of the development and programming process.
Time - Resources (headcount) - Money -- The three primary legs of a project.
I'm not saying that you need to go all the way and get your full PMP... but taking a couple seminars on the core PMP would definitely be a step that would help you immensely.
How do projects succeed or fail? One day at a time. One day at a time.
FredInIT
This. Actual, true PMP classes are very useful, especially in giving you tools to estimate project progress and (hopefully) see if it's going sideways on you before it actually drops off the rails. Managing scope creep and project delays...it's never easy.
I guess I've been lucky, in that I haven't been subjected to the PMP certification spam that it sounds like others have endured. That's a real shame, since the courses provide very useful information even if you aren't running the project, and the scammers are just make it harder for those people to sift the chaff to find the genuine article...good luck, if you're looking!
But do you mean to tell me that by the 9th grade this kid couldn't play this scenario out in his head before taking the device to school? Kids younger than him are being arrested for poptarts, and that one wasn't even "foreign looking". Whether it was the kid or his father, someone here knew what was going to happen and was being intentionally antagonistic. After having seen their interview this morning I refuse to believe that either one of them is clueless enough to have not seen this coming. 9th grade isn't the place for political protests.
I call bullshit. The kid has an interest in and an aptitude for electronics, brought his project to school to show it off (perfectly natural to take geek-pride in your work), and instead of admiration for his initiative he gets slapped down...hard. I just hope it doesn't dampen his enthusiasm too much, we need more makers in the world!
I suppose next you'd claim that Americans of Chinese ancestry shouldn't expect to be able to use school computers, because it's not only reasonable but likely that someone will assume they're designing a computer virus. Don't try to blame the victim for the prejudices of the morons at the school. And, as another poster noted, anywhere and everywhere is the place for political protest, especially when the 'politics' in this case are so damned stupid.
I can tell you where the wind went, it's all here in Canada due to the upcoming federal election. Just wait until Oct 20th, you'll be good to go, as everyone sighs in relief that it's finally over.
Buncha blowhards...gawd I hate how these things get more and more like a circus every cycle...
The 22 million is folks listed on forms by individuals who applied for a government security clearance. That's employees, contractors and all of their immediate family.
That having been said, nearly 40 million people in the US either work for the government as employees or work for them indirectly under one contract or another.
40 million direct and indirect employees, though...wow. 12.5% of the population. How much are your income taxes again? Not that Canada's doing any better in that regard. I'd be curious to see what the comparative numbers north of the border are...
The most shocking statement in this article, to me, is that there are more than 20 million government employees in the US...that's over half the population of Canada!
It's not 20M current employees.
It's everybody who's worked directly for the government or worked as a contractor who needed regulary access to a government facility or needed a security clearance (probably mostly contractors) since 2000, and maybe before. And people who applied in that period and got as far as the investigation forms and were declined. It's everyone who filled out one of three forms: SF-85 (people in non-sensitive positions), SF-85P (people in "public trust" but not national security positions, and SF-86 (security clearances secret or higher), including all the information from the investigation.
Wow, that is a much wider range than just 'government employees'. 20 million definitely starts to make sense in that context, even if their refusal to deal with the situation doesn't.
Ah, okay then, that makes more sense! Thanks for the clarification!
Just over 4000 people is a lot better than 20 million, but the number of people who apply to government position (the reason, I assume, why they'd want a background investigation?) is still impressive! Or, as a previous poster mentioned, perhaps it simply included a *lot* of historical data.
Whoops, I see another poster mentioned that if you just want to want to work on a government contract, you would need the background investigation through E-QUIP. Now the numbers start to look reasonable, even if their actions are not.
Good luck with this, glad your employer is stepping up for you guys!
The most shocking statement in this article, to me, is that there are more than 20 million government employees in the US...that's over half the population of Canada!
Granted, that's only about 6% of the population of the US, but still...wow...that's a pretty high MER.
You don't have to upload. I kick/ban peers. Seeds are what's important to me. Also those little slices are nothing and get deleted if you don't get the whole block from the same source. So when I kick them they auto delete whatever they got from me.
You're a 'take a penny...what was the rest, again?' kinda guy, aren't you?
In Canadian law as long as you disclose that it's for entertainment purposes only you can get away with a lot more. It's how psychic/erotic phone lines and such get around laws that would otherwise make it illegal.
and Netflix was okay for a little while but eventually i lost interest because of the selections seems to never rotate to different movies, sure they add a few new ones but not a lot and after a while it got to be like HBO, just another premium channel with the same old crap after a while, so i cancelled it and just threw the roku hardware in a old shoe box saving it for my grand yard sale when i finally decide to move to a smaller house
Time to pull it out, dust it off and set it up with Plex...
But you can take a picture of the book and post it online, right? Because you're not scanning the contents of the book, the reason it has value. So why couldn't you post a picture of your food online, no one can eat it online, the reason it has value...
Precisely! The intrinsic value of the food is (or should be) in the taste and to some degree aroma, not in the appearance!
I know presentation is much hyped in the food world these days, but honestly, I would never select a place to eat based on how good its food looked. Most of my favourite places to eat are sharing-dish places (think Thai or Viet-Namese restaurants), where everyone orders a dish that sounds good, and everyone takes a bit of everything on the table. While the food definitely looks good (and smells great!), I'm pretty sure it's just ladled into the bowls and brought to the table with 'maybe' a lemon wedge or two tossed on top.
That being said, I suppose I might avoid going to a place that served three green beans draped over a poached strawberry as a main course, but I wouldn't have to see a photo of the plate to know that I would never eat there, a brief description would do.
A small effect over a very long time will always have a bigger total impact than a large effect over a very short time.
Sooo...once it rains there's no more vapor being generated? I'm not sure how you define water vapor in the atmosphere as short term. Luckily, water vapor also provides it's own negative feedback effect in the form of clouds, increasing the earth's albedo and thereby reducing incident energy at the source.
In my view, the comparison is more akin to tidal vs wave action in respect to ocean levels. Water vapor's broader range of wavelength absorption plus it's greater abundance in the atmosphere vastly overrides CO2's impact, so it can be likened to tidal forces, while CO2 and other greenhouse gasses may contribute to relatively minor local variations, essentially waves on the surface. Reducing the size of the waves will actually have very little effect on average ocean levels.
Seriously. The fact that this *can* be turned off in the enterprise version shows that there is nothing in Windows' archictecture that requires it.
As long as each and every MS Windows installation makes one administrator when one installs it, one can turn all those things off (or de-install them).
When I say "one", I don't mean the "average user" of course. It would take 'em (myself included) months of intense study to figure out how to do that (and they won't have the time, the interest, the aptitude, or the stamina for that). The good news is that they probably won't have to.
For computer-literate people there will probably be utilities / batch files to take care of Microsoft's pre-installed "tattleware" for you.
For complete end-users I also foresee a market for something like an "add-on control panel" that shows every (known) piece of "tattleware" on MS Windows and allows you to switch it off (or even de-install it). A seperate piece of software that works as a Windows "service" can ensure that this user "policy" is enforced every time Windows boots plus, say, at 2-hr intervals.
Precisely.
Windows 8 isn't actually a terrible system to run, if one installs a third-party add on like Classic Shell or Start8 that gets rid of the start screen bullshit and brings back the start menu. I imagine similar software for Windows 10 will be appearing in the wild soon, software that automates control of most of the major privacy holes in the system and (hopefully) gives the user back control of update installation.
The harder they squeeze, the more users will slip through their fingers...
Cams and devices with cams should come with physical switches that cut power to the device and its mic.
Protip: camera can be disabled with a small amount of electrical tape right over the lens. Doesn't work so well for the mic, but it's a pretty much unhackable solution to prevent e-peeping toms...and today's voyeurs don't usually have interest in non-video feeds.
Here's an interesting idea, though...think there'd be a market for camera cases with a flip-up camera shield, front and back? I would definitely be interested...would be tricky to design in some phones so it doesn't foul the proximity sensors, and 'auto-brightness' settings would be useless, but still...
I recent got a new car (well new to me) and one of the things i want to do is get fitted seat covers as the interior is an off white and i am....well a slob
so after looking for a few weeks i havent found anything that fits my needs (fitted, not leather or fake leather, and well made)
well I noticed some ads all of a sudden starting to show up for fitted car seats and eventually i found what i was looking for because of google ads
I will admit it is the first time ive found it useful, but when ads are done right, they are not a bad thing
Much less helpful is when you google for something you need, find it, buy it, then keep getting ads for something you already purchased and have absolutely no need to purchase again...how long after you bought your seat covers did you keep getting ads for them, do you remember? I have friends who bought a new(ish) vehicle over a year ago, yet their displayed ads are still heavily slanted towards local vehicle dealerships...
What would, possibly, make these ads useful (maybe) is if the user could 'x' them out, indicating that they aren't interested in that type of ad or that product. I hate advertising in general, but that might give the user an illusion of choice, at least...
"Some of them don't even have the "X" corner icon."
Or worse, the Close X is slightly off the screen. At this point I have no choice but to abandon the website.
If it actively drives me away from you site by preventing em from going past a certain point, it's not an advertisement. We need a new term for it.
We have one: it's basically a pop-up.
It behaves like one in every way, just the mechanics of how it's displayed is different...so maybe browsers need to dust off their 'pop-up blocker' option code and update it to block these damn things too? The simple fact that pop-ups were annoying enough to enough people that blocking them became a standard feature in browsers should perhaps be a hint to the people who use these things that their days are numbered...
Slashdot Mirror
No, because it's unlikely you'll completely ignore the ad if you mute the TV or ignore the web ad because it still registers in your peripheral vision, sometimes you'll notice it by accident.
It is stealing if you read a magazine where the postman, following your instructions, has used scissors to cut out all the ads from it. That analogy is similar to this case.
That's a fantastic idea! Let's make the postal service relevant again!
So, am I to understand by your very narrow definition, heading to the kitchen to make popcorn, going to the bathroom, or in any way removing ourselves from the vicinity of the television while commercials are on is stealing, correct? Because the advertisers went to all the trouble to create and send us those obnoxious little video clips, helpfully sprinkled throughout video we are actually interested in seeing (and 'stealing' as much as 30% of our time to do so) we are obliged to participate? Fat chance, buddy. As one poster mentions, how long before an obligation to watch becomes an obligation to purchase? Oh, wait, it already is for online advertising, since the customer is footing the delivery bill...
You know what the most common comment from new Netflix users is? How much time they save watching their favourite shows. 20 minutes per half-hour episode, 40 minutes per hour-episode. If we added up all of the time that commercials have wasted out of our lives, I think the average person would be surprised (and probably quite angry) at the result.
We've paid enough. We're taking it back.
especially in giving you tools to estimate project progress
What? I had the classes and passed the test. We didn't talk at all about estimating project progress, much less what tools to use to do so.
Managing scope creep
If the course covered that, that would have been awesome. The last three startups I worked for died because of scope creep. We just couldn't get a product out the door. My PMP certification didn't prepare me at all for how to deal with that. Maybe that is something new that has been added.
Wow, I guess I didn't realize how good the course I took was, then. They covered project documentation, including Scope Change Approval forms, and described thoroughly why they are needed (and need to be signed off on prior to adopting). It may be the one concept that has been most helpful to me since the course, I have a blank sheet and have the requester identify what change is 'required', the justification, and the expected cost or time difference. Then I take it to my project sponsors/stakeholders, and it doesn't go in the project until the sponsors approve (and sign the form saying it's approved). It doesn't stop scope creep (I don't think anything can), but it certainly reduces the "ooh, ooh, we should do this!" requests.
Just making people stop and articulate why 'this' is a good idea sometimes makes them realize that it isn't, really.
HR incorrectly screens people, and thus prefers certifications,...
And thus believes that a PMP cert is a real thing. They are scams. I have never once heard PMP mentioned except in fraud or spam complaints. Companies like projmgtcoursetrainingsprograms.org are complete scams. PMP is a scam.
PMP courses from legitimate companies actually provide great tools for managing project uncertainty and variables. I've taken a level-1 course with a legitimate company, and found it very useful, even when I wasn't the one running the project...at least I could speak the lingo and knew why the PM wanted the data that they were asking for. I didn't go for for the full certification, but am considering it as I get more and more pushed into lead roles on projects.
Of course, if your company always scopes everything perfectly and right down to the nuts before the project proceeds, and everyone on your projects does exactly what the scope calls for in exactly the allotted time, and nobody has any bright ideas after the project has started ("but we really should do THIS while we're doing THAT, we're going to need it later anyway!"), and outside interference (read WEATHER) is not a risk factor...then I want to live in your candyland.
Maybe what's needed is for some sort of external accreditation of PMP courses, like they have for Universities? Sure, I can email for a Bachelor's degree in pretty much anything I want nowadays, but HR knows to check the accreditation status of "University of All Science Stuff" (affectionately known by the vast alumni body as "U-ASS"). Does the email spam devalue my own, actual B.Sc.Eng.? Not to a savvy hiring agent, but where can they go to check the accreditation status of PMP or similar certifications?
Having a solid understanding of what actually needs to go into a project - even if you are not a project manager - is a huge help in making sure that you are doing your part for the project to succeed. That's the flip side of the same coin as the project manager having a fundamental understanding of the development and programming process.
Time - Resources (headcount) - Money -- The three primary legs of a project.
I'm not saying that you need to go all the way and get your full PMP... but taking a couple seminars on the core PMP would definitely be a step that would help you immensely.
How do projects succeed or fail? One day at a time. One day at a time.
FredInIT
This. Actual, true PMP classes are very useful, especially in giving you tools to estimate project progress and (hopefully) see if it's going sideways on you before it actually drops off the rails. Managing scope creep and project delays...it's never easy.
I guess I've been lucky, in that I haven't been subjected to the PMP certification spam that it sounds like others have endured. That's a real shame, since the courses provide very useful information even if you aren't running the project, and the scammers are just make it harder for those people to sift the chaff to find the genuine article...good luck, if you're looking!
But do you mean to tell me that by the 9th grade this kid couldn't play this scenario out in his head before taking the device to school? Kids younger than him are being arrested for poptarts, and that one wasn't even "foreign looking". Whether it was the kid or his father, someone here knew what was going to happen and was being intentionally antagonistic. After having seen their interview this morning I refuse to believe that either one of them is clueless enough to have not seen this coming. 9th grade isn't the place for political protests.
I call bullshit. The kid has an interest in and an aptitude for electronics, brought his project to school to show it off (perfectly natural to take geek-pride in your work), and instead of admiration for his initiative he gets slapped down...hard. I just hope it doesn't dampen his enthusiasm too much, we need more makers in the world!
I suppose next you'd claim that Americans of Chinese ancestry shouldn't expect to be able to use school computers, because it's not only reasonable but likely that someone will assume they're designing a computer virus. Don't try to blame the victim for the prejudices of the morons at the school. And, as another poster noted, anywhere and everywhere is the place for political protest, especially when the 'politics' in this case are so damned stupid.
I can tell you where the wind went, it's all here in Canada due to the upcoming federal election. Just wait until Oct 20th, you'll be good to go, as everyone sighs in relief that it's finally over.
Buncha blowhards...gawd I hate how these things get more and more like a circus every cycle...
That was 4.2 miliion, not 4.2 thousand.
The 22 million is folks listed on forms by individuals who applied for a government security clearance. That's employees, contractors and all of their immediate family.
That having been said, nearly 40 million people in the US either work for the government as employees or work for them indirectly under one contract or another.
https://markstoval.wordpress.c...
Whoops, sorry, reading comprehension fail :)
40 million direct and indirect employees, though...wow. 12.5% of the population. How much are your income taxes again? Not that Canada's doing any better in that regard. I'd be curious to see what the comparative numbers north of the border are...
The most shocking statement in this article, to me, is that there are more than 20 million government employees in the US...that's over half the population of Canada!
It's not 20M current employees.
It's everybody who's worked directly for the government or worked as a contractor who needed regulary access to a government facility or needed a security clearance (probably mostly contractors) since 2000, and maybe before. And people who applied in that period and got as far as the investigation forms and were declined. It's everyone who filled out one of three forms: SF-85 (people in non-sensitive positions), SF-85P (people in "public trust" but not national security positions, and SF-86 (security clearances secret or higher), including all the information from the investigation.
Wow, that is a much wider range than just 'government employees'. 20 million definitely starts to make sense in that context, even if their refusal to deal with the situation doesn't.
Ah, okay then, that makes more sense! Thanks for the clarification!
Just over 4000 people is a lot better than 20 million, but the number of people who apply to government position (the reason, I assume, why they'd want a background investigation?) is still impressive! Or, as a previous poster mentioned, perhaps it simply included a *lot* of historical data.
Whoops, I see another poster mentioned that if you just want to want to work on a government contract, you would need the background investigation through E-QUIP. Now the numbers start to look reasonable, even if their actions are not.
Good luck with this, glad your employer is stepping up for you guys!
The most shocking statement in this article, to me, is that there are more than 20 million government employees in the US...that's over half the population of Canada!
Granted, that's only about 6% of the population of the US, but still...wow...that's a pretty high MER.
What a great opportunity for vendors to bake in spyware, adware, who knows what. Nah, they'd never do that, right?
No, never .
You don't have to upload.
I kick/ban peers. Seeds are what's important to me.
Also those little slices are nothing and get deleted if you don't get the whole block from the same source. So when I kick them they auto delete whatever they got from me.
You're a 'take a penny...what was the rest, again?' kinda guy, aren't you?
Anyone who actually falls for this stuff pretty much deserves to be scammed, we need to breed such people out of the gene pool.
And here's the real success of the bots. They're actually performing a community service here!
Hey My wife Eliza is hot!
How do you really feel about your wife Eliza is hot?
In Canadian law as long as you disclose that it's for entertainment purposes only you can get away with a lot more. It's how psychic/erotic phone lines and such get around laws that would otherwise make it illegal.
Haha, it's 'performance' art!
and Netflix was okay for a little while but eventually i lost interest because of the selections seems to never rotate to different movies, sure they add a few new ones but not a lot and after a while it got to be like HBO, just another premium channel with the same old crap after a while, so i cancelled it and just threw the roku hardware in a old shoe box saving it for my grand yard sale when i finally decide to move to a smaller house
Time to pull it out, dust it off and set it up with Plex...
But you can take a picture of the book and post it online, right? Because you're not scanning the contents of the book, the reason it has value. So why couldn't you post a picture of your food online, no one can eat it online, the reason it has value ...
Precisely! The intrinsic value of the food is (or should be) in the taste and to some degree aroma, not in the appearance!
I know presentation is much hyped in the food world these days, but honestly, I would never select a place to eat based on how good its food looked. Most of my favourite places to eat are sharing-dish places (think Thai or Viet-Namese restaurants), where everyone orders a dish that sounds good, and everyone takes a bit of everything on the table. While the food definitely looks good (and smells great!), I'm pretty sure it's just ladled into the bowls and brought to the table with 'maybe' a lemon wedge or two tossed on top.
That being said, I suppose I might avoid going to a place that served three green beans draped over a poached strawberry as a main course, but I wouldn't have to see a photo of the plate to know that I would never eat there, a brief description would do.
Do we have to ask permission to make a shitty derivative work of the food?
No, only to take photos of said derivative work, which could really cramp some people's lifestyles...
Sorry, one statement in particular just bugs me:
A small effect over a very long time will always have a bigger total impact than a large effect over a very short time.
Sooo...once it rains there's no more vapor being generated? I'm not sure how you define water vapor in the atmosphere as short term. Luckily, water vapor also provides it's own negative feedback effect in the form of clouds, increasing the earth's albedo and thereby reducing incident energy at the source.
In my view, the comparison is more akin to tidal vs wave action in respect to ocean levels. Water vapor's broader range of wavelength absorption plus it's greater abundance in the atmosphere vastly overrides CO2's impact, so it can be likened to tidal forces, while CO2 and other greenhouse gasses may contribute to relatively minor local variations, essentially waves on the surface. Reducing the size of the waves will actually have very little effect on average ocean levels.
He's the fastest man alive! Ain't nobody faster than the Flash!
They lie...
Perhaps amusing, but ultimately counterproductive.
Potentially lucrative, though. Would be nice to hoist the bastards on their own petard for once.
@fizzer06
Or have it turned off for you.
Seriously. The fact that this *can* be turned off in the enterprise version shows that there is nothing in Windows' archictecture that requires it.
As long as each and every MS Windows installation makes one administrator when one installs it, one can turn all those things off (or de-install them).
When I say "one", I don't mean the "average user" of course. It would take 'em (myself included) months of intense study to figure out how to do that (and they won't have the time, the interest, the aptitude, or the stamina for that). The good news is that they probably won't have to.
For computer-literate people there will probably be utilities / batch files to take care of Microsoft's pre-installed "tattleware" for you.
For complete end-users I also foresee a market for something like an "add-on control panel" that shows every (known) piece of "tattleware" on MS Windows and allows you to switch it off (or even de-install it). A seperate piece of software that works as a Windows "service" can ensure that this user "policy" is enforced every time Windows boots plus, say, at 2-hr intervals.
Precisely.
Windows 8 isn't actually a terrible system to run, if one installs a third-party add on like Classic Shell or Start8 that gets rid of the start screen bullshit and brings back the start menu. I imagine similar software for Windows 10 will be appearing in the wild soon, software that automates control of most of the major privacy holes in the system and (hopefully) gives the user back control of update installation.
The harder they squeeze, the more users will slip through their fingers...
Cams and devices with cams should come with physical switches that cut power to the device and its mic.
Protip: camera can be disabled with a small amount of electrical tape right over the lens. Doesn't work so well for the mic, but it's a pretty much unhackable solution to prevent e-peeping toms...and today's voyeurs don't usually have interest in non-video feeds.
Here's an interesting idea, though...think there'd be a market for camera cases with a flip-up camera shield, front and back? I would definitely be interested...would be tricky to design in some phones so it doesn't foul the proximity sensors, and 'auto-brightness' settings would be useless, but still...
thats not entirely true. some ads are welcome
I recent got a new car (well new to me) and one of the things i want to do is get fitted seat covers as the interior is an off white and i am....well a slob
so after looking for a few weeks i havent found anything that fits my needs (fitted, not leather or fake leather, and well made)
well I noticed some ads all of a sudden starting to show up for fitted car seats and eventually i found what i was looking for because of google ads
I will admit it is the first time ive found it useful, but when ads are done right, they are not a bad thing
Much less helpful is when you google for something you need, find it, buy it, then keep getting ads for something you already purchased and have absolutely no need to purchase again...how long after you bought your seat covers did you keep getting ads for them, do you remember? I have friends who bought a new(ish) vehicle over a year ago, yet their displayed ads are still heavily slanted towards local vehicle dealerships...
What would, possibly, make these ads useful (maybe) is if the user could 'x' them out, indicating that they aren't interested in that type of ad or that product. I hate advertising in general, but that might give the user an illusion of choice, at least...
"Some of them don't even have the "X" corner icon."
Or worse, the Close X is slightly off the screen. At this point I have no choice but to abandon the website.
If it actively drives me away from you site by preventing em from going past a certain point, it's not an advertisement. We need a new term for it.
We have one: it's basically a pop-up.
It behaves like one in every way, just the mechanics of how it's displayed is different...so maybe browsers need to dust off their 'pop-up blocker' option code and update it to block these damn things too? The simple fact that pop-ups were annoying enough to enough people that blocking them became a standard feature in browsers should perhaps be a hint to the people who use these things that their days are numbered...