For shopping, I've found it a LOT more useful for reordering things than buying them the first time. Trash bags, paper towels, toilet paper, etc, have all become as simple to restock as "Alexa, reorder ".
Buying things the first time with Alexa seems...suboptimal.
I'll take mpd tyvm. Headless, can stream to icecast, great cataloging, controllable through various cli, gui, or other plugin based clients (irssi and firefox come to mind).
foobar is nice though...just not what I'd go with for usefulness over mpd
A transaction history isn't as useful as it necessarily sounds. I use a $20 to buy scratch tickets at a convenience store, someone else cashes in their tickets, ends up with my $20, and then subsequently uses it to buy crack in a sting operation, and they see that I was formerly in possession of that $20. So? At most, the concern here is that it may get you some unwanted attention, but it's hardly solid evidence if you have the thought to just move it between a wallets on tor exit nodes. Not to mention that "Satoshi Square Meetups" happen in a variety of cities around the world, where people meet in person to relatively anonymously buy and sell bitcoin without going through an exchange at all.
So yes, bitcoin is quite traceable. That doesn't necessarily mean it can't be used as a method of exchange with fairly solid privacy when that is one's planned for goal.
The exchanges I know of thus far provide no shorts yet, but Kraken has the code laid for it (they're brand new and are waiting for volume to increase before they add that along with some other advanced trade options). And yes, this would add market stability, which is part of the reason they're adding it.
Unfortunately, they're only available in a few states as of yet. The regulations in the US that apply to them unfortunately are on a state by state basis, and have significantly slowed the rollout of the exchange (unlike some of the prior exchanges that's gone up, they're A) operating in the US and B) being now scrutinized enough to really need to be fully compliant).
Hey, look, you found a better use for the NSA's facilities. Embrace a more technologically sound method of easily moving money around (if not a stable currency) while in the meantime save face by shutting down the NSA's current agenda while replacing it with something far more profitable in the first place (ooh, you could use all that money to go build NEW facilities with MORE op-sec in mind with TWICE the floorspace!). And provided you regulate the exchanges with KYC laws, the taxes are an added bonus.
That anyone was worried they'd be really cracking down on bitcoin after the events in the EU and China was a little amusing.
Teenagers don't question authority, by and large. They yell, throw tantrums, stomp their feet, and make a lot of noise, and then once that angst is out of their system, they promptly tend to get to doing whatever it is that the authorities have told them they should do to "get ahead".
In any case, it's not about authority here...the real issue is that to most teenagers, or most people in general, a computer is merely an entertainment device, rather than a powerful tool that can be tailored to one's own needs. It doesn't matter how easy the latest user-friendly scripting language gets, "programming" remains something they envision as involving binary and machine code, purely there for autistic folks and aliens.
What we really need is to integrate programming of SOME kind into the general curriculum of our schoolchildren. And for Christ's sake, leave enough holes open on the local school network for kids to have fun learning to poke holes in the restrictive environment you've set them up in. The classes teach them HOW to do things, and the rebelliousness of getting around the restrictions gets them interested in doing them (and then the combination of heavy handed laws and bug bounty programs bring them back into societal correctness once they enter adulthood...hopefully).
The absolute LAST thing kids need is a user friendly interface. Save those for grandma, give the kid a raspberry pi, a book on Python, and then put them up behind a firewall that blocks most anything their friends will be wasting their time with. Not because you want to keep the kid OFF of such sites, but to make them at least learn a thing or two from time to time in their attempts to waste time in an otherwise purely wasteful manner.
I'm sure it's actually a set of logic trees so elaborately woven together as to monitor the news and manipulate people into carrying out it's programmed goals, put in place by a disgruntled brain cancer ridden game developer, coordinating these "cyber arms dealer" groups. Naturally, bitcoins are the darknet credits...
Tahoe-LAFS (https://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs) may be exactly what you're looking for. Redundancy, privacy, AND it's DIY. Grab a few VPS's (and perhaps an actual box your control or two), and have your own encrypted, private cloud.
With how cheap VPS's are getting, this may very well be your best option.
Failing that, use Truecrypt inside a Dropbox or and go nuts.
If you use encryption anywhere , it will be stored indefinitely until a time comes and there is sufficient computing horsepower to decode it.
So, this is true, and is perhaps a major problem for some (though it's worth noting that most things the average person has that are sensitive enough to require strong encryption have a time period after which they're no longer that sensitive). The technically feasible, though slow, and perhaps difficult, solution is to use One Time Pad cryptography. When used correctly, it is mathematically unbreakable, as instead of using an algorithm at all, it uses an absolutely random one time use key. Brute forcing at that point becomes entirely impossible, as any message of a given length could be literally ANY other message of that length (or, if you're combining some other form of crypto or simply padding, even the length may be wrong). It's what sleeper cells have long used (if you're not familiar, do yourself a favor and google "number stations" for some interesting reading).
The big inconvenience with OTP crypto is that it is symmetric. You need to preshare the keys with anyone you're communicating with (and to boot, each key is only to be used for a single message, and then destroyed). So it's not really being posed as a general solution to the situation we find ourselves facing, but at the same time, seems like it may have SOME use, and is worth spreading awareness about. Just don't half-ass the key generation using rand() or anything equally foolish.
Heh, you're nicer than I would be. Replace all image requests with Goatse and Meatspin, and maybe ALSO upside-down-ternet, just for good measure. This would actually be quite amusing to set up on a honeypot router with WEP or WPS pin authentication enabled, just to let the would-be intruder know that they just got fooled:-P.
If you think that setting your router's dns to OpenDNS means that people connecting can't use a completely independent DNS server, I have some networking configuration settings to introduce you to...
Could have just blacklisted the kids' mac addresses. And once they figured out MAC spoofing, turned on WEP. May as well make the whole experience educational for them:-P
Most home routers with default firmware handle some degree of QoS. It might be worth looking into on your router.
And sorry to hear about your woes with DD-WRT. It can be a bit of a navigational hazard to figure out how to do exactly what with your specific hardware, but proved worth it in my case anyway. Best of luck in the future.
I would think that anything that has iptables available would work for that. That would include DD-WRT, OpenWRT, Tomato, and a number of others. PFsense I'm sure can do it too, though I'm not familiar with the BSD equivalent of iptables (hell, they may use iptables...). For a great OpenWRT router for under $100, I can say my netgear WNDR3700v2 works wonders, and the usb port built into it makes for handy storage space for installing various programs on the router (I've seen out of date packages for snort and tor, which both seemed of interest. You'd obviously want to self-compile the up to date versions to bother deploying it though). In addition, this setup will also allow you to open a SPAN port, to throw up wireshark or tcpdump or snort, and do packet logging, which may prove VERY handy if you were to be running a Tor Exit node, or just allowing wifi through on it's own, as the logs being handed over (if you were to choose to do so) would be seen as cooperative, and likely look quite good in any possible legal proceedings that may develop.
Anyway, I'm beginning to rant. Point is, OpenWRT/DD-WRT are awesome.
I'm going to have to concur on Minecraft as an option (though I'm not sure how well it'll work for your 3 year old...it may take a year or two, kind of depends on the kid). Part of the benefit here is just how extensible Minecraft is, what with things like the Tekkit or Technic mod packs, or the thousands of individual mods out there. At the very core, Minecraft can be played with much like blocks, working all the way up to actual computer programming (the ComputerCraft mod allows programming in Lua, as well as programmable "Turtles", which are essentially robots), and other exercises in logic. Combine that with the artistic design elements (art critics, spare me), and it really strikes me as perhaps the perfect game to give to a small child, at least among those I've seen. Couple that with it being playable on any platform, and even in a web browser, and you've now given your kid a game they can play at a friend's house on their OS X/Windows setup, or whatever else they may encounter (hey, for all its downfalls, Java is still good for SOMETHING...Flash, not so much).
And best of all, it does provide you with an activity you can do WITH your kid, rather than just sitting them in front of a computer and telling them to go be entertained. This in itself seems worthwhile, even if many other aspects are taken away, as most games geared for young kids (or hell, kids that are under 13 anyway) are anything but engaging for adults... Minecraft bridges that gap nicely, and you may even find yourself in a world in which your kid's minecraft contraptions show yours up...
Facebook's privacy policies basically amount to "you only have as much privacy on our site as we feel like giving you". Anyone who still chooses to use the site after that and is surprised by a privacy breach clearly does need to go back and get educated on how privacy on Facebook works.
On the other hand, this is a matter of other people who know secrets essentially posting them online. This is nothing new.
What is perhaps worse than that is that some businesses still use OS/2. And some even still use punch card systems. Not every computer on the planet is connected to the Internet, and some exist behind firewalls, which, if breached, would be small potatoes compared to other systems on the same network, and thus are not a high priority to have upgraded. Up until the late 90s, even the White House still was using a good few Commodore 64 systems...
In elementary school, we had Apple II's on which we played a few games (Oregon Trail is the only one I recall...). ONCE they sat down and showed us roughly how using a modem works, and how email works, but it was more just watching the teacher than any hands on experience, as most kids didn't have regular access to a computer yet anyhow. There was a single computer in the library (not sure what OS...probably win95) which had Grolier's Encyclopedia on CD-ROM, which I recall checking out on a few occasions.
In middle school, we were using Windows 95, and 98 as that turnover happened. We got basic typing instruction, though that seemed to be fading as this was when use of AOL Instant Messenger was taking off, and kids were showing up for typing class with precious little need to have anyone drag them through the basics. Also around this time was basic use of search engines (yahoo, excite, lycos, dogpile, altavista, and this NEW one with the weird name of "Google" that one of the teachers had stumbled upon while surfing in their free time...). Throughout middle school, we also got periodic instruction in use of MS Word and Powerpoint, with perhaps a dusting of Excel once or twice (more for making graphs than anything else).
High school was where I got regular access to the Internet at home, and I was fairly late in my town to be getting it (we'd had computers all my life growing up, but they were all old by the time I even got to any playing with them (think Commodore 64 in 1993), other than the Pentium I box we got in 1996 with a modem that only worked a handful of times...I suspect it was just a matter of bum hardware). In any case, High school was where we got a bit more with web research skills, use of graphics editing programs, and an elective to learn basic C++ (the only programming class offered at all). Most of the learning I did in High school with computers involved either at home stuff on my own, or hanging out with the tech club during open periods, which was quite the helpful way to pass the time that I'd recommend to any teenager looking for both technical knowledge AND a social life in high school at the same time. You might even get some inside information on how the school firewall is set up, allowing you to find interesting and easy ways to bypass it, like I did! (The firewall was port blocking, but allowed port 25..Exe files were disallowed, but often changing the name to something like "calc.exe" was all it'd take to run say, Telnet. Telnet server on port 25 on the box at home, and voila... Anyway, obviously I'm dating myself with this one, because any kid these days would undoubtedly be able to rig up at least an SSH tunnel for a bit less awkward method of connecting out...I'm just recalling getting SSH running on our systems being a bit more of a pain than simple Telnet was...).
Anyway, I'm 26, for a reference point, and I'd be pretty horrified to hear of any school systems doing things the way they did while I was in school, but at the same time, don't actually expect that it's THAT much better, all in all.
I smoked an e-cig for situations I wasn't allowed to smoke real cigarettes (handy hint: e-cigarettes may not be "allowed" on flights; but since they don't set off smoke alarms or leave a scent (as long as you use the right flavours/fluids), you can use them in the toilets without anyone knowing...). It served the purpose of giving me nicotine to avoid the withdrawal, but never really gave me the "pleasant fulfilled" feeling of a cigarette.
I smoke an e-cig most of the time these days, with the occasional real cigarettes from time to time, and this sounds pretty familiar. There is a good reason for this, which you may or may not be aware of, which is that tobacco smoke contains MAO inhibitors (commonly used as anti-depressants, and known for producing a calming effect)...e-cigs don't (at least, in all cases I've seen). I've not played around enough with some workarounds I have in mind, but it may be worth your while supplementing your e-cig use with a cup of Yerba Mate, which contains naturally occuring moderate amounts of Mateine, which is an MAOI, and comparing the satisfaction between e-cig sans mate, and e-cig with mate. I strongly suspect it'll provide a noticeable difference.
The interesting thing when the types of intoxication is brought up, is that nicotine has been shown to increase many brain functions ( http://www.whatarenootropics.com/does-nicotine-have-nootropic-properties/ , contains further citations). Coffee tends also to improve work functions (though, once you get past a few cups, particularly in someone sensitive to caffeine, that can reverse as manic behaviors can take over, such as excessive talking...).
So, while most people may be too hung up on all the baggage that goes with smoking, it is worth noting that using another method of nicotine administration (e-cig, gum, patch, lozenge, or hell, even nasal snuff if used discretely) may quite possibly be at least as helpful during the workday as coffee, with similarly low health risks, and lower health risks than say, drinking a few Pepsi's throughout the workday (nevermind the neuro-degenerative effects of high fructose corn syrup...).
In any case, that anyone would compare periodic breaks for nicotine to periodic breaks for alcohol consumption is nothing more than amusing (and perhaps indicative that the person doing the comparison may never have imbibed alcohol...).
No, it has been proven that smoking cigarettes deteriorates your physical health. It has not and can not be proven that "smoking is bad for you", for every instance of "you" possible, because of the indefinite configurations of mental health, wherein there are those who exist that will, for example, commit suicide, if not for the bit of calm and stress release they gain from smoking cigarettes (extreme example, chosen for clarity). That doesn't even take into account those who, upon meeting someone while "bumming a smoke", make a lifelong connection that changes their life drastically for the better. Kind of hard to say that for all instances of smokers, smoking is always an action with net negative effects.
This seems to be a problem with the way human psychology works (or perhaps it falls more into the field of sociology...they're not REAL sciences anyway...). I mean, nobody wants to watch boring news on tv, so they don't bother showing it. But as soon as you show exciting (read: scary) news on tv with any regularity, it's Chicken Little time. Perhaps it'd be best if people kept up with current events via a medium that wasn't geared to be a sense-maximized entertainment device, but we know that won't be happening as long as people insist on keeping their tv's around. And to boot, even print media is overly sensationalized as well (because again, people buy what looks exciting).
Yea. It's looking like as long as there's news, there's going to be an added message to it, which is the media through which it is conveyed, even if unintended. The solution to this problem remains elusive, but perhaps referring to McLuhan will help.
Slashdot Mirror
For shopping, I've found it a LOT more useful for reordering things than buying them the first time. Trash bags, paper towels, toilet paper, etc, have all become as simple to restock as "Alexa, reorder ".
Buying things the first time with Alexa seems...suboptimal.
I'll take mpd tyvm. Headless, can stream to icecast, great cataloging, controllable through various cli, gui, or other plugin based clients (irssi and firefox come to mind).
foobar is nice though...just not what I'd go with for usefulness over mpd
A transaction history isn't as useful as it necessarily sounds. I use a $20 to buy scratch tickets at a convenience store, someone else cashes in their tickets, ends up with my $20, and then subsequently uses it to buy crack in a sting operation, and they see that I was formerly in possession of that $20. So? At most, the concern here is that it may get you some unwanted attention, but it's hardly solid evidence if you have the thought to just move it between a wallets on tor exit nodes. Not to mention that "Satoshi Square Meetups" happen in a variety of cities around the world, where people meet in person to relatively anonymously buy and sell bitcoin without going through an exchange at all.
So yes, bitcoin is quite traceable. That doesn't necessarily mean it can't be used as a method of exchange with fairly solid privacy when that is one's planned for goal.
The exchanges I know of thus far provide no shorts yet, but Kraken has the code laid for it (they're brand new and are waiting for volume to increase before they add that along with some other advanced trade options). And yes, this would add market stability, which is part of the reason they're adding it.
Unfortunately, they're only available in a few states as of yet. The regulations in the US that apply to them unfortunately are on a state by state basis, and have significantly slowed the rollout of the exchange (unlike some of the prior exchanges that's gone up, they're A) operating in the US and B) being now scrutinized enough to really need to be fully compliant).
Hey, look, you found a better use for the NSA's facilities. Embrace a more technologically sound method of easily moving money around (if not a stable currency) while in the meantime save face by shutting down the NSA's current agenda while replacing it with something far more profitable in the first place (ooh, you could use all that money to go build NEW facilities with MORE op-sec in mind with TWICE the floorspace!). And provided you regulate the exchanges with KYC laws, the taxes are an added bonus.
That anyone was worried they'd be really cracking down on bitcoin after the events in the EU and China was a little amusing.
Teenagers don't question authority, by and large. They yell, throw tantrums, stomp their feet, and make a lot of noise, and then once that angst is out of their system, they promptly tend to get to doing whatever it is that the authorities have told them they should do to "get ahead".
In any case, it's not about authority here...the real issue is that to most teenagers, or most people in general, a computer is merely an entertainment device, rather than a powerful tool that can be tailored to one's own needs. It doesn't matter how easy the latest user-friendly scripting language gets, "programming" remains something they envision as involving binary and machine code, purely there for autistic folks and aliens.
What we really need is to integrate programming of SOME kind into the general curriculum of our schoolchildren. And for Christ's sake, leave enough holes open on the local school network for kids to have fun learning to poke holes in the restrictive environment you've set them up in. The classes teach them HOW to do things, and the rebelliousness of getting around the restrictions gets them interested in doing them (and then the combination of heavy handed laws and bug bounty programs bring them back into societal correctness once they enter adulthood...hopefully).
The absolute LAST thing kids need is a user friendly interface. Save those for grandma, give the kid a raspberry pi, a book on Python, and then put them up behind a firewall that blocks most anything their friends will be wasting their time with. Not because you want to keep the kid OFF of such sites, but to make them at least learn a thing or two from time to time in their attempts to waste time in an otherwise purely wasteful manner.
I'm sure it's actually a set of logic trees so elaborately woven together as to monitor the news and manipulate people into carrying out it's programmed goals, put in place by a disgruntled brain cancer ridden game developer, coordinating these "cyber arms dealer" groups. Naturally, bitcoins are the darknet credits...
Tahoe-LAFS (https://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs) may be exactly what you're looking for. Redundancy, privacy, AND it's DIY. Grab a few VPS's (and perhaps an actual box your control or two), and have your own encrypted, private cloud.
With how cheap VPS's are getting, this may very well be your best option.
Failing that, use Truecrypt inside a Dropbox or and go nuts.
If you use encryption anywhere , it will be stored indefinitely until a time comes and there is sufficient computing horsepower to decode it.
So, this is true, and is perhaps a major problem for some (though it's worth noting that most things the average person has that are sensitive enough to require strong encryption have a time period after which they're no longer that sensitive). The technically feasible, though slow, and perhaps difficult, solution is to use One Time Pad cryptography. When used correctly, it is mathematically unbreakable, as instead of using an algorithm at all, it uses an absolutely random one time use key. Brute forcing at that point becomes entirely impossible, as any message of a given length could be literally ANY other message of that length (or, if you're combining some other form of crypto or simply padding, even the length may be wrong). It's what sleeper cells have long used (if you're not familiar, do yourself a favor and google "number stations" for some interesting reading).
The big inconvenience with OTP crypto is that it is symmetric. You need to preshare the keys with anyone you're communicating with (and to boot, each key is only to be used for a single message, and then destroyed). So it's not really being posed as a general solution to the situation we find ourselves facing, but at the same time, seems like it may have SOME use, and is worth spreading awareness about. Just don't half-ass the key generation using rand() or anything equally foolish.
Heh, you're nicer than I would be. Replace all image requests with Goatse and Meatspin, and maybe ALSO upside-down-ternet, just for good measure. This would actually be quite amusing to set up on a honeypot router with WEP or WPS pin authentication enabled, just to let the would-be intruder know that they just got fooled :-P.
If you think that setting your router's dns to OpenDNS means that people connecting can't use a completely independent DNS server, I have some networking configuration settings to introduce you to...
Could have just blacklisted the kids' mac addresses. And once they figured out MAC spoofing, turned on WEP. May as well make the whole experience educational for them :-P
Most home routers with default firmware handle some degree of QoS. It might be worth looking into on your router.
And sorry to hear about your woes with DD-WRT. It can be a bit of a navigational hazard to figure out how to do exactly what with your specific hardware, but proved worth it in my case anyway. Best of luck in the future.
I would think that anything that has iptables available would work for that. That would include DD-WRT, OpenWRT, Tomato, and a number of others. PFsense I'm sure can do it too, though I'm not familiar with the BSD equivalent of iptables (hell, they may use iptables...). For a great OpenWRT router for under $100, I can say my netgear WNDR3700v2 works wonders, and the usb port built into it makes for handy storage space for installing various programs on the router (I've seen out of date packages for snort and tor, which both seemed of interest. You'd obviously want to self-compile the up to date versions to bother deploying it though). In addition, this setup will also allow you to open a SPAN port, to throw up wireshark or tcpdump or snort, and do packet logging, which may prove VERY handy if you were to be running a Tor Exit node, or just allowing wifi through on it's own, as the logs being handed over (if you were to choose to do so) would be seen as cooperative, and likely look quite good in any possible legal proceedings that may develop.
Anyway, I'm beginning to rant. Point is, OpenWRT/DD-WRT are awesome.
https://www.xkcd.com/5/
I'm going to have to concur on Minecraft as an option (though I'm not sure how well it'll work for your 3 year old...it may take a year or two, kind of depends on the kid). Part of the benefit here is just how extensible Minecraft is, what with things like the Tekkit or Technic mod packs, or the thousands of individual mods out there. At the very core, Minecraft can be played with much like blocks, working all the way up to actual computer programming (the ComputerCraft mod allows programming in Lua, as well as programmable "Turtles", which are essentially robots), and other exercises in logic. Combine that with the artistic design elements (art critics, spare me), and it really strikes me as perhaps the perfect game to give to a small child, at least among those I've seen. Couple that with it being playable on any platform, and even in a web browser, and you've now given your kid a game they can play at a friend's house on their OS X/Windows setup, or whatever else they may encounter (hey, for all its downfalls, Java is still good for SOMETHING...Flash, not so much).
And best of all, it does provide you with an activity you can do WITH your kid, rather than just sitting them in front of a computer and telling them to go be entertained. This in itself seems worthwhile, even if many other aspects are taken away, as most games geared for young kids (or hell, kids that are under 13 anyway) are anything but engaging for adults... Minecraft bridges that gap nicely, and you may even find yourself in a world in which your kid's minecraft contraptions show yours up...
Facebook's privacy policies basically amount to "you only have as much privacy on our site as we feel like giving you". Anyone who still chooses to use the site after that and is surprised by a privacy breach clearly does need to go back and get educated on how privacy on Facebook works.
On the other hand, this is a matter of other people who know secrets essentially posting them online. This is nothing new.
You can search the web for a repo, and add it to your /etc/apt/sources.list file. http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu:Precise#IceWeasel should point you in the right direction.
"The Cloud".
What is perhaps worse than that is that some businesses still use OS/2. And some even still use punch card systems. Not every computer on the planet is connected to the Internet, and some exist behind firewalls, which, if breached, would be small potatoes compared to other systems on the same network, and thus are not a high priority to have upgraded. Up until the late 90s, even the White House still was using a good few Commodore 64 systems...
In elementary school, we had Apple II's on which we played a few games (Oregon Trail is the only one I recall...). ONCE they sat down and showed us roughly how using a modem works, and how email works, but it was more just watching the teacher than any hands on experience, as most kids didn't have regular access to a computer yet anyhow. There was a single computer in the library (not sure what OS...probably win95) which had Grolier's Encyclopedia on CD-ROM, which I recall checking out on a few occasions.
In middle school, we were using Windows 95, and 98 as that turnover happened. We got basic typing instruction, though that seemed to be fading as this was when use of AOL Instant Messenger was taking off, and kids were showing up for typing class with precious little need to have anyone drag them through the basics. Also around this time was basic use of search engines (yahoo, excite, lycos, dogpile, altavista, and this NEW one with the weird name of "Google" that one of the teachers had stumbled upon while surfing in their free time...). Throughout middle school, we also got periodic instruction in use of MS Word and Powerpoint, with perhaps a dusting of Excel once or twice (more for making graphs than anything else).
High school was where I got regular access to the Internet at home, and I was fairly late in my town to be getting it (we'd had computers all my life growing up, but they were all old by the time I even got to any playing with them (think Commodore 64 in 1993), other than the Pentium I box we got in 1996 with a modem that only worked a handful of times...I suspect it was just a matter of bum hardware). In any case, High school was where we got a bit more with web research skills, use of graphics editing programs, and an elective to learn basic C++ (the only programming class offered at all). Most of the learning I did in High school with computers involved either at home stuff on my own, or hanging out with the tech club during open periods, which was quite the helpful way to pass the time that I'd recommend to any teenager looking for both technical knowledge AND a social life in high school at the same time. You might even get some inside information on how the school firewall is set up, allowing you to find interesting and easy ways to bypass it, like I did! (The firewall was port blocking, but allowed port 25. .Exe files were disallowed, but often changing the name to something like "calc.exe" was all it'd take to run say, Telnet. Telnet server on port 25 on the box at home, and voila... Anyway, obviously I'm dating myself with this one, because any kid these days would undoubtedly be able to rig up at least an SSH tunnel for a bit less awkward method of connecting out...I'm just recalling getting SSH running on our systems being a bit more of a pain than simple Telnet was...).
Anyway, I'm 26, for a reference point, and I'd be pretty horrified to hear of any school systems doing things the way they did while I was in school, but at the same time, don't actually expect that it's THAT much better, all in all.
I smoked an e-cig for situations I wasn't allowed to smoke real cigarettes (handy hint: e-cigarettes may not be "allowed" on flights; but since they don't set off smoke alarms or leave a scent (as long as you use the right flavours/fluids), you can use them in the toilets without anyone knowing...). It served the purpose of giving me nicotine to avoid the withdrawal, but never really gave me the "pleasant fulfilled" feeling of a cigarette.
I smoke an e-cig most of the time these days, with the occasional real cigarettes from time to time, and this sounds pretty familiar. There is a good reason for this, which you may or may not be aware of, which is that tobacco smoke contains MAO inhibitors (commonly used as anti-depressants, and known for producing a calming effect)...e-cigs don't (at least, in all cases I've seen). I've not played around enough with some workarounds I have in mind, but it may be worth your while supplementing your e-cig use with a cup of Yerba Mate, which contains naturally occuring moderate amounts of Mateine, which is an MAOI, and comparing the satisfaction between e-cig sans mate, and e-cig with mate. I strongly suspect it'll provide a noticeable difference.
The interesting thing when the types of intoxication is brought up, is that nicotine has been shown to increase many brain functions ( http://www.whatarenootropics.com/does-nicotine-have-nootropic-properties/ , contains further citations). Coffee tends also to improve work functions (though, once you get past a few cups, particularly in someone sensitive to caffeine, that can reverse as manic behaviors can take over, such as excessive talking...).
So, while most people may be too hung up on all the baggage that goes with smoking, it is worth noting that using another method of nicotine administration (e-cig, gum, patch, lozenge, or hell, even nasal snuff if used discretely) may quite possibly be at least as helpful during the workday as coffee, with similarly low health risks, and lower health risks than say, drinking a few Pepsi's throughout the workday (nevermind the neuro-degenerative effects of high fructose corn syrup...).
In any case, that anyone would compare periodic breaks for nicotine to periodic breaks for alcohol consumption is nothing more than amusing (and perhaps indicative that the person doing the comparison may never have imbibed alcohol...).
No, it has been proven that smoking cigarettes deteriorates your physical health. It has not and can not be proven that "smoking is bad for you", for every instance of "you" possible, because of the indefinite configurations of mental health, wherein there are those who exist that will, for example, commit suicide, if not for the bit of calm and stress release they gain from smoking cigarettes (extreme example, chosen for clarity). That doesn't even take into account those who, upon meeting someone while "bumming a smoke", make a lifelong connection that changes their life drastically for the better. Kind of hard to say that for all instances of smokers, smoking is always an action with net negative effects.
This seems to be a problem with the way human psychology works (or perhaps it falls more into the field of sociology...they're not REAL sciences anyway...). I mean, nobody wants to watch boring news on tv, so they don't bother showing it. But as soon as you show exciting (read: scary) news on tv with any regularity, it's Chicken Little time. Perhaps it'd be best if people kept up with current events via a medium that wasn't geared to be a sense-maximized entertainment device, but we know that won't be happening as long as people insist on keeping their tv's around. And to boot, even print media is overly sensationalized as well (because again, people buy what looks exciting).
Yea. It's looking like as long as there's news, there's going to be an added message to it, which is the media through which it is conveyed, even if unintended. The solution to this problem remains elusive, but perhaps referring to McLuhan will help.