To be fair, it sounds like Amazon had little to do with this snafu. Not malice, not a desire for customer data, but simple negligence combined with bone shattering stupidity. Even so I agree with your sentiment: connected products that belong to data mining firms like Amazon and Google are doubly tainted. A voice assistant would make a great addition to my smart home setup but I am not adding one until they can be run off the cloud.
Done and done. I found having a doorbell with a camera in it is very useful (we don’t have Ring though), but you can be sure that sucker shares a separate VLAN with the other security cameras, with no access to the internet. And when we are at home, the indoor cameras have their power cut physically. Until we see CEOs in jail for such blatant unsafe practises, I’ll always double down on privacy measures when using IoT devices. And after that day... I’ll continue to do so. It is not hard to enjoy a little convenience without sacrificing or risking your privacy.
Correct, but you absolutely can legislate away the ability of banks to take such a debt into account when issuing a loan. Either way, the consequences of how such debts are handled need to be taken into account when the policy is drawn up. My point is that this didn't happen in this case: the nature of the debt was left unclear, not set by law but only hinted at with a promise that turned out to be worthless.
If it's a 2 year diploma mill arrangement, maybe not quite as good, but probably still a better deal with no interest accrued on a loan
Worse than that, it's half-year long vocational training. No accreditation. The interesting part of this story is that real universities are also interested in the scheme.
I bet some lawyers and policy makers will argue over the difference. It might matter, for instance in countries where there really isn't such a thing as credit history and lenders look at your outstanding debt instead. I remember a few years ago when the Netherlands turned student stipends into loans, with the promise that these would in no way, shape or form be treated as regular loans, i,e. they won't affect your credit rating. Que the banks, who made no secret of the fact that yes: they absolutely do take these student not-loans into account when issuing credit or a mortgage.
So perhaps it does matter whether this is a debt or not.
Are they actually paying out of pocket? Here in the Netherlands, insurance will often cover costs if you go to a specialist in Belgium or Germany (or even India in some cases; they have some world class clinics there). They do so if there's a waiting time in our own hospitals, but in some cases also if you (or your doctor) think you'll get better care abroad. I've heard of some people paying out of pocket for treatment in the US, but that was for stuff not covered by their insurance.
Why is that a strange concept? All of your other primary needs are held hostage by the same principle: the food on your table, the roof over your head, utilities, etc... or at least they are in most countries, and this has been the case for most of human history. Why would health care be any different?
Sure, there's a difference: almost all low income families in industrialized nations can afford food and some sort of housing (sometimes they receive assistance to provide those day-to-day needs, even in "the country that elected Trump"). But even middle class families would be hard up to pay for medical care directly. And in some countries, even the insurance that covers it has been made so expensive that many people simply cannot afford to pay the premiums out of their monthly wages. Thankfully, most countries treat medical care as a day-to-day need, and socialize some or all of the costs. And I'd call not doing so unwise... but I wouldn't go so far as to call it an alien concept".
Read the article (I know, that's crazy talk, but...) This is not about a massive data breach, nor about the large scale misuse of FB data, but about an individual case brought on by a US professor, as a test case of sorts:
Last year the Information Commissioner’s Office ordered SCL to hand over all the data it holds on U.S. academic, professor David Carroll, within 30 days. After the company failed to do so it was taken to court by the ICO.
One guy requested all data that CA has on him to be handed over, under UK law. They did not fully comply and he brought the case to the relevant authority, who issued an enforcement notice. The fine is for not complying within the required time frame. In such a case, $19k seems appropriate unless they'd have a history of ignoring similar requests (they don't)
If a company mentions "best experience", run like hell from their products. Little known fact: "best experience" is Mandarin for "your data is ours".
I wish these companies would behave like in the old days, when manufacturing consumer electronics meant just that: creating the best device in a certain price range, and making your money by selling it to consumers on its own merits. Sure, even back then companies tried to create silos, and some built tech into their devices to protect their other interests in the content business, but that's nothing like today. The other day I read an article on LinkedIn about data being the new gold, and boy they weren't kidding: everyone seems to want to get in on the game these days. And if FB has to pay Samsung to make their data harvesting apps preinstalled and indelible, then you can be sure that Samsung do not have your best interests in mind by allowing this.
The VOC (Dutch East India Company) had a market cap of almost $8T in today's dollars at its peak during the Tulip Mania, making it the most valuable publicly traded company ever. Standard Oil is another company that hit the $1T mark before being broken up, and there have been others.
It does though. The swastika was never in widespread use in Europe, so after the war it disappeared again. But to this day the German army displays the Schwarzes Kreuz, which is a combination of the Balkenkreuz used by the Nazis, and the cross pattée (also used by some extreme right wing groups), and very similar in appearance to both. Why? Because it is a very common symbol in the west, used before time out of mind - not just in Germany - and not considered to be tainted by Nazi use.
Another thing is that they don't invest enough in their software. iTunes is still a piece of garbage (shuffling the buttons around doesn't count as an upgrade). XCode got some love (certificate management is now actually working instead of it requiring the sacrifice of a goat first), but on the whole the experience has degraded a bit, especially for new users and that all-important first impression. In the old days, adding a new Mac or iPhone or replacing an older one was a great experience, painless, and easy to follow even for people who weren't tech-savvy. The one problem was that you needed iTunes to activate your new phone. Since then, they have added a lot of things to make things easier but they don't work half the time. Copying settings from a nearby phone doesn't work if that phone is never detected. Phones not recognizing the "cloud pattern" on another phone's screen. iPads sitting doing nothing after entering the 2FA code for activation. An iPhone prompting to be connected to iTunes, but not doing anything when you do that. The setup process prompting you 50 times for your iCloud credentials. The other day I spent 2 hours setting up an iPad for my dad, who is still reasonably capable with tech but who gave up after trying himself. Had to fix multiple issues, which I could do only after some googling (and they're not uncommon issues either).
One compelling reason to buy Apple was that it works rather well out of the box, and that it works seamlessly with other Apple stuff. That isn't really the case anymore... and with more equipment becoming connected, you'd want hardware that works well with established industry standards rather than just one brand. Another thing that Apple still don't get: in this day and age you cannot afford to be a silo anymore.
It looks like something from Kerbal Space Program... or like it was built in someone's garage. But as long as it accomplishes its mission, what does it matter?
originally named it Ultima Thule because the term infers that it's "beyond the limits of the known world." In practice, though, it also carries racist connotations.
Where are the scientists who named the object and what shirts are they wearing?! It's time for another public shaming and apology, right? Good grief...
Electric cars can never be "hand-me-downs" to the poor.
Why on earth not? You don't need to replace a well conditioned battery every few years; researchers estimated the useful life of a Tesla battery at 500k miles at least, and numbers from the field are starting to back up those claims. There's this TV show here they MOT old cars, and they had a Tesla in with 300k km on it, and it had lost a little less than 10% of its battery capacity. By the way, at 300k it was still using the original brake discs, and was only on its second set of brake pads. Some parts of the car are harder to repair but they need those repairs far less often, and a lot of the other stuff is still fairly conventional.
Apparently a lot of the cheaper EVs don't condition their batteries very well. But those car makers are learning their lesson and are making changes. We're still learning how to apply this tech in a durable and economical way, and in a decade or so we will have cheaper EVs hitting the second hand market, with batteries that are still going strong.
You pissed it away. Just like we did. At least we got "socially nice things" but we paid for them directly with oil & gas revenues, instead of setting up a fund and spending the proceeds of that.
Not really. The real problem is that most ISPs are not satisfied anymore to just pipe the internet into our home like any plumber, they also want to get into the content game. And as soon as that happens, there’s an incentive to promote your own crap over similar content from other providers. And in any case there’s the temptation of letting someone pay you to give them preferred service, allowing you to collect from both consumers and hosts. We (still) have plenty of providers to choose from here, but they were getting ready to do all that, before our parliament voted in net neutrality. One of them tries and sees what they can get away with, then the rest of them follows suit. A race to the bottom.
Oh yes, the chancellor who was probably totally ok with the total surveillance her constituents were already subject to, perhaps a little jealous of the capability of various other nations on that score, but who got rather pissy when she herself was spied upon. Ms. Merkel can seriously go suck an egg, and have a bite of the same shit sandwich we’re having.
Slashdot Mirror
To be fair, it sounds like Amazon had little to do with this snafu. Not malice, not a desire for customer data, but simple negligence combined with bone shattering stupidity. Even so I agree with your sentiment: connected products that belong to data mining firms like Amazon and Google are doubly tainted. A voice assistant would make a great addition to my smart home setup but I am not adding one until they can be run off the cloud.
Done and done. I found having a doorbell with a camera in it is very useful (we don’t have Ring though), but you can be sure that sucker shares a separate VLAN with the other security cameras, with no access to the internet. And when we are at home, the indoor cameras have their power cut physically. Until we see CEOs in jail for such blatant unsafe practises, I’ll always double down on privacy measures when using IoT devices. And after that day... I’ll continue to do so. It is not hard to enjoy a little convenience without sacrificing or risking your privacy.
Correct, but you absolutely can legislate away the ability of banks to take such a debt into account when issuing a loan. Either way, the consequences of how such debts are handled need to be taken into account when the policy is drawn up. My point is that this didn't happen in this case: the nature of the debt was left unclear, not set by law but only hinted at with a promise that turned out to be worthless.
If it's a 2 year diploma mill arrangement, maybe not quite as good, but probably still a better deal with no interest accrued on a loan
Worse than that, it's half-year long vocational training. No accreditation. The interesting part of this story is that real universities are also interested in the scheme.
Well, Y Combinator and Peter Thiel are involved. That should have been your first clue.
I bet some lawyers and policy makers will argue over the difference. It might matter, for instance in countries where there really isn't such a thing as credit history and lenders look at your outstanding debt instead. I remember a few years ago when the Netherlands turned student stipends into loans, with the promise that these would in no way, shape or form be treated as regular loans, i,e. they won't affect your credit rating. Que the banks, who made no secret of the fact that yes: they absolutely do take these student not-loans into account when issuing credit or a mortgage.
So perhaps it does matter whether this is a debt or not.
Are they actually paying out of pocket? Here in the Netherlands, insurance will often cover costs if you go to a specialist in Belgium or Germany (or even India in some cases; they have some world class clinics there). They do so if there's a waiting time in our own hospitals, but in some cases also if you (or your doctor) think you'll get better care abroad. I've heard of some people paying out of pocket for treatment in the US, but that was for stuff not covered by their insurance.
Why is that a strange concept? All of your other primary needs are held hostage by the same principle: the food on your table, the roof over your head, utilities, etc... or at least they are in most countries, and this has been the case for most of human history. Why would health care be any different?
Sure, there's a difference: almost all low income families in industrialized nations can afford food and some sort of housing (sometimes they receive assistance to provide those day-to-day needs, even in "the country that elected Trump"). But even middle class families would be hard up to pay for medical care directly. And in some countries, even the insurance that covers it has been made so expensive that many people simply cannot afford to pay the premiums out of their monthly wages. Thankfully, most countries treat medical care as a day-to-day need, and socialize some or all of the costs. And I'd call not doing so unwise... but I wouldn't go so far as to call it an alien concept".
Last year the Information Commissioner’s Office ordered SCL to hand over all the data it holds on U.S. academic, professor David Carroll, within 30 days. After the company failed to do so it was taken to court by the ICO.
One guy requested all data that CA has on him to be handed over, under UK law. They did not fully comply and he brought the case to the relevant authority, who issued an enforcement notice. The fine is for not complying within the required time frame. In such a case, $19k seems appropriate unless they'd have a history of ignoring similar requests (they don't)
If a company mentions "best experience", run like hell from their products. Little known fact: "best experience" is Mandarin for "your data is ours".
I wish these companies would behave like in the old days, when manufacturing consumer electronics meant just that: creating the best device in a certain price range, and making your money by selling it to consumers on its own merits. Sure, even back then companies tried to create silos, and some built tech into their devices to protect their other interests in the content business, but that's nothing like today. The other day I read an article on LinkedIn about data being the new gold, and boy they weren't kidding: everyone seems to want to get in on the game these days. And if FB has to pay Samsung to make their data harvesting apps preinstalled and indelible, then you can be sure that Samsung do not have your best interests in mind by allowing this.
Sure, but just maybe you bought that smart Android TV so you wouldn’t need the separate box + remote anymore.
Or buying the product but using the cracked executable, since that wouldn’t punish you for being an honest customer?
The VOC (Dutch East India Company) had a market cap of almost $8T in today's dollars at its peak during the Tulip Mania, making it the most valuable publicly traded company ever. Standard Oil is another company that hit the $1T mark before being broken up, and there have been others.
It does though. The swastika was never in widespread use in Europe, so after the war it disappeared again. But to this day the German army displays the Schwarzes Kreuz, which is a combination of the Balkenkreuz used by the Nazis, and the cross pattée (also used by some extreme right wing groups), and very similar in appearance to both. Why? Because it is a very common symbol in the west, used before time out of mind - not just in Germany - and not considered to be tainted by Nazi use.
Another thing is that they don't invest enough in their software. iTunes is still a piece of garbage (shuffling the buttons around doesn't count as an upgrade). XCode got some love (certificate management is now actually working instead of it requiring the sacrifice of a goat first), but on the whole the experience has degraded a bit, especially for new users and that all-important first impression. In the old days, adding a new Mac or iPhone or replacing an older one was a great experience, painless, and easy to follow even for people who weren't tech-savvy. The one problem was that you needed iTunes to activate your new phone. Since then, they have added a lot of things to make things easier but they don't work half the time. Copying settings from a nearby phone doesn't work if that phone is never detected. Phones not recognizing the "cloud pattern" on another phone's screen. iPads sitting doing nothing after entering the 2FA code for activation. An iPhone prompting to be connected to iTunes, but not doing anything when you do that. The setup process prompting you 50 times for your iCloud credentials. The other day I spent 2 hours setting up an iPad for my dad, who is still reasonably capable with tech but who gave up after trying himself. Had to fix multiple issues, which I could do only after some googling (and they're not uncommon issues either).
One compelling reason to buy Apple was that it works rather well out of the box, and that it works seamlessly with other Apple stuff. That isn't really the case anymore... and with more equipment becoming connected, you'd want hardware that works well with established industry standards rather than just one brand. Another thing that Apple still don't get: in this day and age you cannot afford to be a silo anymore.
These days, the only rational response to "That's racist (or nazist)" is: "And?". That, or you just ignore these people.
It looks like something from Kerbal Space Program... or like it was built in someone's garage. But as long as it accomplishes its mission, what does it matter?
originally named it Ultima Thule because the term infers that it's "beyond the limits of the known world." In practice, though, it also carries racist connotations.
Where are the scientists who named the object and what shirts are they wearing?! It's time for another public shaming and apology, right? Good grief...
Electric cars can never be "hand-me-downs" to the poor.
Why on earth not? You don't need to replace a well conditioned battery every few years; researchers estimated the useful life of a Tesla battery at 500k miles at least, and numbers from the field are starting to back up those claims. There's this TV show here they MOT old cars, and they had a Tesla in with 300k km on it, and it had lost a little less than 10% of its battery capacity. By the way, at 300k it was still using the original brake discs, and was only on its second set of brake pads. Some parts of the car are harder to repair but they need those repairs far less often, and a lot of the other stuff is still fairly conventional.
Apparently a lot of the cheaper EVs don't condition their batteries very well. But those car makers are learning their lesson and are making changes. We're still learning how to apply this tech in a durable and economical way, and in a decade or so we will have cheaper EVs hitting the second hand market, with batteries that are still going strong.
You pissed it away. Just like we did. At least we got "socially nice things" but we paid for them directly with oil & gas revenues, instead of setting up a fund and spending the proceeds of that.
Not really. The real problem is that most ISPs are not satisfied anymore to just pipe the internet into our home like any plumber, they also want to get into the content game. And as soon as that happens, there’s an incentive to promote your own crap over similar content from other providers. And in any case there’s the temptation of letting someone pay you to give them preferred service, allowing you to collect from both consumers and hosts. We (still) have plenty of providers to choose from here, but they were getting ready to do all that, before our parliament voted in net neutrality. One of them tries and sees what they can get away with, then the rest of them follows suit. A race to the bottom.
The loss per charger is like 2W. Compared the the gains made in vehicles and light bulbs (60W incandescents to 7W LEDs), that's a rounding error.
That's not how these things work. The losses are small, about 10-15%.
My new car will have one, which is nice. Sure beats fiddling with a cable.
Apple should learn from those unboxers on YouTube who go "ohh, braided cables" when opening a box. They say that for a reason.
Oh yes, the chancellor who was probably totally ok with the total surveillance her constituents were already subject to, perhaps a little jealous of the capability of various other nations on that score, but who got rather pissy when she herself was spied upon. Ms. Merkel can seriously go suck an egg, and have a bite of the same shit sandwich we’re having.