Yeah, somewhere around there. Might have been more like 1999 or 2000. First I disabled Javascript and such as most websites didn't use it for anything legitimate or they still had pages that could function without it, and then after it got too difficult to surf without it I had to start using active blocking tools. I did a lot of PC desktop support back then and I think seeing so many messed up computers due to Internet-delivered malware helped reinforce my hatred of ads, toolbars, popups, and anything else that detracted from simply reading the content of the webpage.
Honestly, given the dollar amount that one can spend in big-box retailers that happen to have grocery store departments, if one could pay with a fingerprint it wouldn't be unreasonable to make a practical special effects finger with a fingerprint on it that would pass under normal scrutiny. If such were to develop I could see someone going in and buying the high-end television, the home theatre receiver, the speakers, the tablet computer, and some bread, milk, cereal, fresh fruit, and beer in one trip...
Normally one needs to use a two-fold method. Think username and password. Think ATM card and PIN. Something you have, and something you know.
The blue nitrile gloves aren't durable enough, you'll tear the glove and leave fingerprints anyway.
You're better off with the heavy duty black nitrile gloves. Just be sure to stock up on talcum powder so your hands don't look like they've been soaking in dishwater for four hours.
Joking aside, I didn't start using an adblocker until ads started opening new windows, opening popunder windows, resize windows, and otherwise mess with the browser itself. Admittedly that was a long time ago, but I learned my lesson once and frankly as long as technology exists that lets me block ads I will block ads because of it.
The marketing industry has no one to blame but itself.
How do any/all of these react to seawater? Fires aboard ships are fought with seawater as there's an inexhaustible supply, so it's very likely that at some point at least some seawater will spray on the batteries.
Guilty until proven innocent? Thank you for exposing yourself as a statist... You are the enemy, and you will be defeated.
Forgot to reply to this part earlier.
I'm a realist and I've had to deal with small businesses and contractors my entire working life. The one thread that nearly all of them have in common is they'll cut corners whenever and wherever they can at an upper management level, will cut corners at middle management crew-chief or foreman or section manager level, and the employees themselves will further cut corners whenever and wherever they can as well. In some ways it doesn't matter if upper management decides to turn-around problems, if their middle management layers and workers have other ideas then nothing will change.
As far as Uber goes, if a driver as an independent contractor wants to save money he may well reduce his insurance. After all, he's a safe driver, right? He doesn't get into crashes, right? What's the difference besides a few more bucks in his pocket? That works fine until he's involved in a crash and his insurance won't pay the whole bill for the extensive medical treatment for his badly injured passenger, or even where the other driver has no insurance and his commercial insurance is supposed to cover his own passengers in that scenario, except he doesn't have it...
Probably better to book it away from the police station, give a destination address that's basically at the police station, and if questioning while driving leads to a need to continue questioning, take the driver inside to interview them in an official capacity.
Heh. My wife had one of the last Analog cell phones, they started implementing a surcharge if she continued using it instead of replacing it with a digital phone. She ended up with a Samsung bar phone, I think an X820, but it's been awhile so I can't remember for sure.
Or, companies should institute a policy of calling the business with whom they're conducting business through a known-reliable means (like a telephone call) to speak with company officials that they're actually acquainted with, and to contact the financial institutions with whom they're coordinating such funds transfers, to confirm that all of the Is are dotted and Ts are crossed...
There's a reason why they say that if you need to contact your bank, you should call the telephone number on the back of card, and reject any attempts by an entity claiming to be your bank that contacts you out of the blue, unless that caller literally asks you to contact the bank via the contact information that you already have on-file.
Scams like this require the mark to be complacent. With this level of finances that's completely inexcusable.
Large hand grenades are called RPGs, or TOWs, or LAWs, SMAWs, etc. They introduce more technology in the form of a launcher, and they require more training and some additional ground-rules for use (ie, clear the area behind you when firing, do not fire from an enclosed space, etc).
Large Lithium-based batteries do exist, but at the moment the risks associated with them outweigh the packaging headaches when using small commodity batteries. My guess is that as battery control/maintenance technology improves there will come a point when manufacturers look to increase volumetric efficiency by going to larger batteries with less packaging volume per battery.
Don't knock it, it worked for the other ostensibly American automakers, producing many of their cars and parts in Canada and in Mexico.
Don't get me wrong, from an automaker's perspective it makes sense to build cars in Mexico as it's part of both NAFTA and ALDAI (a Latin-American free-trade zone) so cars built in Mexico can be sold in nearly all of North and South America without much in the way of tariffs.
The people who designed the internet had the right idea: Dumb network, intelligent edge.
No they didn't. There was no default encryption. There was no built-in means to confirm that one was speaking to the host one thought one was speaking to. There was no method in the protocols to detect MIM attacks. Basic protocols require one to be honest about one's identity (like SMTP) and have only relatively recent bandaid attempts to mitigate the disaster that is their implementation. The original Internet was all telnet and UUCP and FTP and SMTP and POP3 and password flying in plain-text all over the place with the first hint of real security, and that mindset is still a problem today.
You can for ADSL routers. Cable service routers usually combine modem and router into one box, and DOCSIS authenticates this device with the other end of the network cryptographically - even if you wanted to replace it, you couldn't. If you check the fine print you'll usually find that the modem-router is the property of the cable company and serves as the demarcation point.
On Cox Communications networks you can use your own Cablemodem, but it must be one from an approved list. Unfortunately that means no buying a used Cisco 2800-series router and throwing a DOCSIS module into the HWIC slot, even if theree was a DOCSIS module conforming to a new enough standard.
All one has to then do is contact them and have them "provision" the modem, which I assume means entering its OUI into your customer record that it appears in their allowed-devices list.
Manufacturers should have to support smart phones for five years? What have you been smoking, buddy? And can you pass me some? The hardware itself (screen, casing, battery, etc.) of most phones does not last 5 years - why should the software?
My phone is a Samsung Galaxy SII. I bought it when it was newly launched. It is now four years old. My previous phone was a T-Mobile G1, also sold as the HTC Dream, the first retail Android phone, which I also bought when it was newly launched. I still have it and it actually still works, but we replaced it in part because of application problems from being limited to Android 2.3.
Just because you replace your technology frequently doesn't mean that the rest of us do. Frankly I'd rather spend my money on other pursuits rather than re-buying the same theoretically-durable goods all of the time.
Mine runs Linux, compiled for MIPS. It's actually going to be replaced soon anyway so I haven't bothered to do much with it.
Either way, the average person is only going to use the web interface or the software that the manufacturer provided that runs on the computer, if any. They won't be in position to fix anything that's broken if the manufacturer does not provide either an automatic means or a simple means to do so.
I think it'll eventually come down to a regulatory issue. Tech companies and those companies that use consumer-facing electronics (like car companies and their infotainment and body-control computers) have proven that they're not interested in maintaining their arguably defective products. Don't mince words, bugs are defects. Companies need to be taken to task over both this and over the increasingly rapid discontinuation of support (like factory-shipped apps on cell phones that stop working and can't be updated because new versions require OS updates that aren't provided) such that companies end up with mandatory windows of support until the last product ships, where all bugs and changes in communications protocols and services are maintained, such that devices that consumers have paid good money for actually last as long as their pricetags indicate that they should. For smartphones I think that window should be five years. For things line broadband routers, it should be at least five years, and I'd argue that it's not unreasonable to demand closer to a decade. For cars, where the average age of cars on the road is now something like twelve or thirteen years, it should be at least a decade for basic feature maintenance and probably another ten years for critical bugs that compromise the security of the vehicle's systems, like these easily unlocked cars we're hearing about.
Yeah, it sucks to have to maintain old code, but I'm very tired of having to pay for defective products whose features begin to stop working when the companies that wrote those features decide to change directions.
Autonomous flying devices (ie, actual drones) will follow rules too. They won't fly low over peoples' houses. They won't randomly start taking video of people. They will follow FAA rules established specifically for them, or their operators and manufacturers will be held liable.
I don't think that drones will ever be suitable for infants yet somehow obscene.
To get serious, I have no problem with people flying RC aircraft if the following conditions are met:
The aircraft is operated on land that the operator has explicit permission to use or on public land where use has been granted
The aircraft is either not flown around bystanders within a reasonable distance limit or all bystanders are comfortable with the operation of the device
The aircraft is not being used to peer into private property beyond the capabilities of the unaided eye, typically around a 50 degree field of view at a minimum, and is not being used for the purpose of looking at people on their private property where they have a reasonable right and expectation of privacy
I don't think that's too much to ask. Don't put telephoto lenses on drones and fly them on public property (ie, over streets and alleys) to spy on people. Don't fly over private property that the operator has not received explicit permission to fly over. Don't fly over people in public places unless they're there to witness or participate in an RC aircraft demonstration.
These are the some of the same rules that model rocketry enthusiasts are supposed to follow too, if it's any consolation. Don't launch model rockets on or over property where permission hasn't been obtained. Don't fire rockets where the realistic recovery area is over people that aren't involved in the activity. Don't fire rockets where it isn't safe to fire them, bearing in mind the nature of the device.
No, they would have considered shooting it down, but because it was not noisy and because a camera in the eighties capable of taking high quality video or film would have been far too large for all but expert kite makers to have put into the air, there wouldn't have been much reason to shoot it down.
Now, you can have a high-definition video capture integrated into a device that weighs a couple of ounces, on a motor-powered device that makes a terrible racket when it operates, that tends to get too close to other people.
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Yeah, somewhere around there. Might have been more like 1999 or 2000. First I disabled Javascript and such as most websites didn't use it for anything legitimate or they still had pages that could function without it, and then after it got too difficult to surf without it I had to start using active blocking tools. I did a lot of PC desktop support back then and I think seeing so many messed up computers due to Internet-delivered malware helped reinforce my hatred of ads, toolbars, popups, and anything else that detracted from simply reading the content of the webpage.
Honestly, given the dollar amount that one can spend in big-box retailers that happen to have grocery store departments, if one could pay with a fingerprint it wouldn't be unreasonable to make a practical special effects finger with a fingerprint on it that would pass under normal scrutiny. If such were to develop I could see someone going in and buying the high-end television, the home theatre receiver, the speakers, the tablet computer, and some bread, milk, cereal, fresh fruit, and beer in one trip...
Normally one needs to use a two-fold method. Think username and password. Think ATM card and PIN. Something you have, and something you know.
The blue nitrile gloves aren't durable enough, you'll tear the glove and leave fingerprints anyway.
You're better off with the heavy duty black nitrile gloves. Just be sure to stock up on talcum powder so your hands don't look like they've been soaking in dishwater for four hours.
Yeah, I hate it when they actually me.
Joking aside, I didn't start using an adblocker until ads started opening new windows, opening popunder windows, resize windows, and otherwise mess with the browser itself. Admittedly that was a long time ago, but I learned my lesson once and frankly as long as technology exists that lets me block ads I will block ads because of it.
The marketing industry has no one to blame but itself.
That's why commercial insurance exists. It pays when the other responsible party won't.
How do any/all of these react to seawater? Fires aboard ships are fought with seawater as there's an inexhaustible supply, so it's very likely that at some point at least some seawater will spray on the batteries.
Guilty until proven innocent? Thank you for exposing yourself as a statist... You are the enemy, and you will be defeated.
Forgot to reply to this part earlier.
I'm a realist and I've had to deal with small businesses and contractors my entire working life. The one thread that nearly all of them have in common is they'll cut corners whenever and wherever they can at an upper management level, will cut corners at middle management crew-chief or foreman or section manager level, and the employees themselves will further cut corners whenever and wherever they can as well. In some ways it doesn't matter if upper management decides to turn-around problems, if their middle management layers and workers have other ideas then nothing will change.
As far as Uber goes, if a driver as an independent contractor wants to save money he may well reduce his insurance. After all, he's a safe driver, right? He doesn't get into crashes, right? What's the difference besides a few more bucks in his pocket? That works fine until he's involved in a crash and his insurance won't pay the whole bill for the extensive medical treatment for his badly injured passenger, or even where the other driver has no insurance and his commercial insurance is supposed to cover his own passengers in that scenario, except he doesn't have it...
Probably better to book it away from the police station, give a destination address that's basically at the police station, and if questioning while driving leads to a need to continue questioning, take the driver inside to interview them in an official capacity.
If the vendors won't do it without it, yes.
My point is that there are potential criminal penalties enforced by the state if the driver of the cab isn't the licensee.
Heh. My wife had one of the last Analog cell phones, they started implementing a surcharge if she continued using it instead of replacing it with a digital phone. She ended up with a Samsung bar phone, I think an X820, but it's been awhile so I can't remember for sure.
How about booking one, then questioning the driver?
I'm a little confused too, aren't Uber drivers using their own cars? Is there something that is supposed to distinguish the car from any other car?
Prove that the driver is actually the person with whom the Uber account was established by.
Prove that the insurance meets passenger livery laws.
Because the technical/engineering portion of the company doesn't have anything to do with the back-office clerical/financial division?
Or, companies should institute a policy of calling the business with whom they're conducting business through a known-reliable means (like a telephone call) to speak with company officials that they're actually acquainted with, and to contact the financial institutions with whom they're coordinating such funds transfers, to confirm that all of the Is are dotted and Ts are crossed...
There's a reason why they say that if you need to contact your bank, you should call the telephone number on the back of card, and reject any attempts by an entity claiming to be your bank that contacts you out of the blue, unless that caller literally asks you to contact the bank via the contact information that you already have on-file.
Scams like this require the mark to be complacent. With this level of finances that's completely inexcusable.
Large hand grenades are called RPGs, or TOWs, or LAWs, SMAWs, etc. They introduce more technology in the form of a launcher, and they require more training and some additional ground-rules for use (ie, clear the area behind you when firing, do not fire from an enclosed space, etc).
Large Lithium-based batteries do exist, but at the moment the risks associated with them outweigh the packaging headaches when using small commodity batteries. My guess is that as battery control/maintenance technology improves there will come a point when manufacturers look to increase volumetric efficiency by going to larger batteries with less packaging volume per battery.
Don't knock it, it worked for the other ostensibly American automakers, producing many of their cars and parts in Canada and in Mexico.
Don't get me wrong, from an automaker's perspective it makes sense to build cars in Mexico as it's part of both NAFTA and ALDAI (a Latin-American free-trade zone) so cars built in Mexico can be sold in nearly all of North and South America without much in the way of tariffs.
The people who designed the internet had the right idea: Dumb network, intelligent edge.
No they didn't. There was no default encryption. There was no built-in means to confirm that one was speaking to the host one thought one was speaking to. There was no method in the protocols to detect MIM attacks. Basic protocols require one to be honest about one's identity (like SMTP) and have only relatively recent bandaid attempts to mitigate the disaster that is their implementation. The original Internet was all telnet and UUCP and FTP and SMTP and POP3 and password flying in plain-text all over the place with the first hint of real security, and that mindset is still a problem today.
You can for ADSL routers. Cable service routers usually combine modem and router into one box, and DOCSIS authenticates this device with the other end of the network cryptographically - even if you wanted to replace it, you couldn't. If you check the fine print you'll usually find that the modem-router is the property of the cable company and serves as the demarcation point.
On Cox Communications networks you can use your own Cablemodem, but it must be one from an approved list. Unfortunately that means no buying a used Cisco 2800-series router and throwing a DOCSIS module into the HWIC slot, even if theree was a DOCSIS module conforming to a new enough standard.
All one has to then do is contact them and have them "provision" the modem, which I assume means entering its OUI into your customer record that it appears in their allowed-devices list.
Manufacturers should have to support smart phones for five years? What have you been smoking, buddy? And can you pass me some? The hardware itself (screen, casing, battery, etc.) of most phones does not last 5 years - why should the software?
My phone is a Samsung Galaxy SII. I bought it when it was newly launched. It is now four years old. My previous phone was a T-Mobile G1, also sold as the HTC Dream, the first retail Android phone, which I also bought when it was newly launched. I still have it and it actually still works, but we replaced it in part because of application problems from being limited to Android 2.3.
Just because you replace your technology frequently doesn't mean that the rest of us do. Frankly I'd rather spend my money on other pursuits rather than re-buying the same theoretically-durable goods all of the time.
Mine runs Linux, compiled for MIPS. It's actually going to be replaced soon anyway so I haven't bothered to do much with it.
Either way, the average person is only going to use the web interface or the software that the manufacturer provided that runs on the computer, if any. They won't be in position to fix anything that's broken if the manufacturer does not provide either an automatic means or a simple means to do so.
I think it'll eventually come down to a regulatory issue. Tech companies and those companies that use consumer-facing electronics (like car companies and their infotainment and body-control computers) have proven that they're not interested in maintaining their arguably defective products. Don't mince words, bugs are defects. Companies need to be taken to task over both this and over the increasingly rapid discontinuation of support (like factory-shipped apps on cell phones that stop working and can't be updated because new versions require OS updates that aren't provided) such that companies end up with mandatory windows of support until the last product ships, where all bugs and changes in communications protocols and services are maintained, such that devices that consumers have paid good money for actually last as long as their pricetags indicate that they should. For smartphones I think that window should be five years. For things line broadband routers, it should be at least five years, and I'd argue that it's not unreasonable to demand closer to a decade. For cars, where the average age of cars on the road is now something like twelve or thirteen years, it should be at least a decade for basic feature maintenance and probably another ten years for critical bugs that compromise the security of the vehicle's systems, like these easily unlocked cars we're hearing about.
Yeah, it sucks to have to maintain old code, but I'm very tired of having to pay for defective products whose features begin to stop working when the companies that wrote those features decide to change directions.
Autonomous flying devices (ie, actual drones) will follow rules too. They won't fly low over peoples' houses. They won't randomly start taking video of people. They will follow FAA rules established specifically for them, or their operators and manufacturers will be held liable.
To get serious, I have no problem with people flying RC aircraft if the following conditions are met:
I don't think that's too much to ask. Don't put telephoto lenses on drones and fly them on public property (ie, over streets and alleys) to spy on people. Don't fly over private property that the operator has not received explicit permission to fly over. Don't fly over people in public places unless they're there to witness or participate in an RC aircraft demonstration.
These are the some of the same rules that model rocketry enthusiasts are supposed to follow too, if it's any consolation. Don't launch model rockets on or over property where permission hasn't been obtained. Don't fire rockets where the realistic recovery area is over people that aren't involved in the activity. Don't fire rockets where it isn't safe to fire them, bearing in mind the nature of the device.
No, they would have considered shooting it down, but because it was not noisy and because a camera in the eighties capable of taking high quality video or film would have been far too large for all but expert kite makers to have put into the air, there wouldn't have been much reason to shoot it down.
Now, you can have a high-definition video capture integrated into a device that weighs a couple of ounces, on a motor-powered device that makes a terrible racket when it operates, that tends to get too close to other people.
Or ask them to prove that the drone is theirs. They can start with the serial number.