"Things" like the Fridge or Thermostat should be extremely lightweight. If you need "apps" use a user-replaceable front-end-controller.
The "thing" itself should be so lightweight that, at least for "things" like those that existed 20 years ago, they could run on an ASIC no more complicated than a mid-1970s desktop calculator or even with just a very simple circuit similar to that of a simple "dumb" home thermostat. The only complexity would be the optional front-end controller.
The optional front-end controller would come in two connected parts:
Part 1 would be a very basic box that provided only a very basic connection to the outside world (e.g. a serial port, Ethernet, WiFi, etc.) and the security services necessary to ensure authenticated private communications (SSH or similar). Strictly speaking, the front-end controller would be optional - without it, the fridge or other "thing" would still work but it wouldn't be any "smarter" than today's "dumb" devices. It would also be user-replaceable, because we all know that security and networking technologies change over time.
Part 2 would be a "computer on a chip" that ran apps and optionally provided "real" connectivity to the outside world (e.g. WiFi, a web server, web-based apps, etc.). Since the functions of this device can be handled by any PC, it should be optional and easy for the user to remove or replace.
The physical and logical interfaces between the 3 components will be well-defined, and for the interface from the device to "part 1" of the front-end controller, they would also be simple and designed to not become obsolete for more than the life of the actual "thing" they are controlling.
Call it an "enhanced security zone" staffed by well-trained, well-armed civilians with broad arrest- and secret-court prosecutorial powers which report to a newly-created cabinet level post. How do you say "Department of homeland nuclear security" in French?
-- Disclaimer: This is supposed to be funny. Anything that amounts to a huge government power-grab at the expense of its citizens' and legal residents' basic freedoms whether it's called a military force or a "civilian" force scares me and it should scare you as well.
If you simply can't live without your Win2003 server and don't plan on paying MS for additional support, make sure you:
* Move everything that can be moved off of that server onto a vendor- or reliable-third-party-supported solution.
* Make and test backups frequently. Make sure you have a way of bringing the server back if your hardware dies or server room goes up in flames/earthquake/flood/whatever.
* Put a vendor- or reliable-3rd-paty-supported hardware* firewall between it and the networks that it is attached to. Make sure the firewall(s) block all in-and-outbound traffic that isn't absolutely necessary.
*"Hardware firewall" could be just a PC or server providing firewall services, it doesn't have to be a box that was designed to be a firewall. If you are running Win2003 server in a VM, your hypervisor/host-OS can act as a firewall. Make sure it is supported by the vendor or a reliable 3rd-party though.
Come to think of it, this is good a good "starting point" even if you are using vendor-supported equipment and software throughout your enterprise. The difference is that if everything is supported, you can probably get away with putting multiple functions including your in-house-custom-apps in one server and (for small-load-situations) enjoy the cost- and speed benefits that come with doing it this way.
I can't think of any legitimate reason for any government agency that is providing services to the public to accept outside advertising.
If they must accept outside advertising for whatever reason, the traffic should be one-way and "blind" to the advertiser.
This means the federal government web site will need to host the ads and if they provide analytic data at all, only provide summary data, such as the number of hits in a given day or hour rounded off to a level designed to prevent teasing out additional information and if the numbers are large enough so privacy isn't an issue, the number of hits believed to come from particular states or metropolitan areas.
Since they always let the terrorist stuff through, so as not to tip their hand, when will the spammers start disguising their messages as jihadist cal to arms?
To: undisclosed-recipients Subject: MALE PLEASURE!!!!!! Date: 17 January 2014 02:20:05 +0000
Increase your pleasure NOW AND FOREVER! Click here to join the Holy Crusade and very soon you'll be spending eternity with your very own harem of 72 virgins for all eterinity!
Either destroy the seized-and-legally-forfeited goods or sell them at fair market value, convert the proceeds into $100 bills, and burn them.
This would totally remove the economic incentive for police departments to seize things. Plus, the state would be out its share of the costs of holding a civil forfeiture trial (no, the proceeds from the sale should NOT go towards the cost of paying for the trial, that would re-insert an economic incentive for forfeiture).
In other words, if Bitcoin transfers start to cut noticeably into banking business, the banks can always drop their transaction costs below what Bitcoin verifiers have to charge.
Up to a point. Most brick-and-mortar banks handle non-business paper-check and currency/coin deposits and withdrawals at a loss (they charge nothing, but it costs them manpower). I don't see them dropping their fees much below $0.
A countdown clock is great but at least a few weeks before it expires a human needs to review it and send a "red flag alert" to the vendor that will fix it and ask if they are working on it and if so ask when they expect to have it fixed.
If the answer is "yes" the estimated fix-it date is in the near future, keep quiet but pester them if the date passes without a fix.
If the answer is "yes, we've been working on this but it is hard" or "no, but we'll get started right away" then keep pestering them and don't release it as long as they are making good progress (you may have to take their word on whether they are making good progress though, sigh).
If the answer is silence or a plain "no" or some other indication that there is no fix coming soon, then release it on the original date.
A better goal for companies that hire more than a few dozen people for the same type of position a year and whose recent hiring for that type of position is far from a 50% male/female mix:
* Set a reasonable future goal - say, eventually no less than 1/3 (or 2/5, or 45%) of our new hires for that type of position will be men and no less than that same number will be women.
* Know and monitor your current industries' average new-hire gender mix.
* If you are well behind your industry - if you are more than 10 percentage pionts behind the industry average for the "minority" gender, try to bridge half of the gap this year with respect to new hires.
* If you are within 10 percentage points or he industry average or if you are "leading" your industry for the "minority" gender but you are not within percentage points of where you want to be, try to get 5 percentage points closer to your goal
* Even if your hiring was all-male last year, if you are able to do the above, within 10 years you should be at a 50/50 mix of new hires, if that is your goal. Personally, I see a goal of 33%-45% as being much more realistic, especially given year-to-year gender variations in the available talent pool.
* The only real "excuse" to not be able to reach your goal within 10 years is a severely gender-imbalanced talent pool or a combination of a gender-imbalanced talent pool and nearly-full employment for the type of position you are hiring for. If a gender-imbalanced talent pool is a significant problem, show some leadership in your industry and invest time, money, and energy into getting kids and teenagers of both genders interested in the jobs you want to hire, but put a strong emphasis on the under-represented gender.
In Japan they have something called "first errand". Young school children, say 5 or 6, are given a simple task to do such as go to the local shop and buy a specific item, then bring it home. The school organizes this[emphasis added]
We shouldn't need the school's help to do this. This is the kind of thing every parent should do at a time when they feel their kids are ready for it.
My mom with through a fairly "big deal" plan for me to walk to school for the first time. She drew maps and I think we walked it together at least once before the 1st day of school. I have no idea if she followed me "from a distance" that first day but in retrospect I would expect most mothers to do so for emotional reasons if not just for safety reasons.
I have heard of other parents who let their kids walk to school but they follow at a discreet distance.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I use "overrated" when a post has been modded up and I think it shouldn't be or modded up higher than I think it should be and there's no more specific reason to down-rate the post. I generally leave 0's and 1's alone. I'm also a bit careful about using overrated if the post is marked funny, because "+1 funny/-1 overrated/lather-rinse-repeat" will hurt the poster's karma.
Montgomery County Child Protective Services's hands were tied: Once there was a complaint, they had to go through the motions of an investigation.
Now, here's where I find fault with CPS: They should've realized very quickly this was a case of a well-meaning citizen who was over-reacting and put the case on a "close as unfounded ASAP" track.
I also fault the state legislators and/or whatever state agency made the rules for not realizing that well-meaning citizens will see possible neglect where none exists and failing to write the rules with that in mind. A well-written rule will give CPS or for that matter any investigative body the authority to "quickly close" a case when it's obvious to both the initial investigator and at least one supervisor that there is nothing worth investigating.
But to the extend that their hands were tied, I can't fault the front-line investigators in Montgomery County Child Protective Services - their only choice was to do their job, not do their job and risk disciplinary action, or to resign in protest for being made to do something that they knew was harmful to the family involved.
They would have been more effective if they had used the "camel's nose" approach.
For example:
Marriott executive wants hotels to be able to block Wi-Fi so they can make $$$.
Marriott executive knows it will be politically stupid for Marriott to boldly ask for a rule change.
Marriott executive has a friend who runs a business that makes outdoor equipment that runs on or near WiFi frequencies.
He suggests to his friend that the friend should ask for an exemption to allow businesses that use this "unlicensed spectrum" as an integral part of their business be able to actively block interfering signals, and use that company's non-controversial setup as an example.
Marriott executive uses paid lobbyists to provide draft FCC regulations that are quietly bot obscurely worded in such a way that if they take effect, hotels will be free to jam guests.
If his plan succeeds, he wins today.
If the wording of the proposed exemption is tightened up so it only applies to his friend's company and similar environments, he has still succeeded at eroding the existing rule. He can repeat this process, gradually eroding the rule until finally he gets what he wants.
The only way he will lose is if either the FCC starts rejecting the proposed rule changes outright or if it takes so long that WiFi as we know it becomes obsolete before he gets what he wants.
Expect either the fine, penalty, or annoyance to go up to cover the "additional costs" and/or expect the government to start going after Uber itself through either technical means (forcing ISPs/telcos to block or record communication) and/or claiming "worldwide jurisdiction" over the company and its executives.
While any attempt to claim "worldwide jurisdiction" probably won't be honored by other countries, it could impose a de-facto ban on any executives under indictment from visiting Australia.
More likely, the government will change the on-the-spot fine to an actual ticket and require that upon conviction, the now-convicted defendant will have to surrender all revenue made with any taxi-sharing service over the last year plus pay a huge fine. Repeat offenders will likely be required to put a tracker on their car for a year or so and be required to explain all trips made with that vehicle.
He (and the guy he took it from) a special hat to keep their thoughts from being detected.
A word of advice: Don't use tinfoil. It might work, but if people see you wearing a tinfoil hat, they will think you are a crackpot. Except of course if it doesn't work, then anyone who can read your mind will know if you really are a crackpot or not.
Disclaimer: The above is meant to be funny. Publicly-known technology is so far away from reading brainwaves at any significant distance that any claim that there is "secret technology" to do so is incredulous. It will be at least a decade, probably several decades, before you'll need to wear brainwave-blocking hats while walking down the street.
If it were me though, I'd go the way the military does for some of its members: A "sealed" (no radio or USB, with tamper-evident seals on the case) e-reader pre-loaded with the textbooks the student will need. This will keep theft way down.
Make it rugged enough to handle 5-10 years of careless use by students, but cheap enough so if it gets lost or really banged up it can be written off.
Use "e-paper" so there is no battery use until the student turns the page and so they can read it right before bedtime without causing sleep issues. Throw in a speaker for audio-books/text-to-speech/audio-translations/etc.
At the end of the year, unscrew the cases, replace or refresh the data chip with next year's books, and apply new tamper-evident seals.
In large quantities, a typical-tablet-sized device could be made for well under $50 before you add in the licensing fees for the books and the licensing fees for any applicable patents (sigh). Amortize that over 5 years and you are talking $10/year/student before paying off patent-holders, licensing the books, and paying the wages of the employees who refresh the machine each year.
To placate copyright owners (an unfortunate necessity), the "data chip" should be unreadable (i.e. encrypted) unless it is plugged into the same device as it was plugged into when it was first inserted or when it was last refreshed.
An optional enhancement to this would be a USB or similar port that ONLY talked to devices who presented a token cryptographically signed by the school that issued them. This would allow for things like e-library books, teacher-prepared books or presentations to be taken home (without color though, e-paper is B/W only as far as I know), and a less-labor-intensive end-of-year-refresh process.
If the school wants to issue tablets for the purposes of computation or Internet access, they should either be: * In-school-use only * leased to students who don't have a home computer or home Internet, and/or * "leased" at no cost to students who don't have a home computer or home internet and can't afford one
Adware added by anyone but the original author/publisher should be avoided. When in doubt, get the product directly from the publisher or from a web site that offers the exact same downloadable package as the author/publisher. Places like CNET/etc. who dicker with the publisher-supplied installable application should be ashamed of themselves and deserve all the public ridicule they get.
Adware or even non-adware third-party products offered/added by the publisher (Java and Adobe are two well-known "offenders") are a different beast. They are part of the publisher's economic model. Without the add-ons the products might not exist, they might not be free, or they might contain (more) internal advertising (okay, Java and Adobe's free products would probably exist as they do now, but others, not so much). For these, you just have to decide "is it worth it to recommend the product or not."
I and many others have stopped recommending a particular Windows-OS print-to-PDF package ever since it went the "adware" route. It used to be good. Stripped of its adware, it still is. But I can't recommend it because of the adware issue.
Slashdot Mirror
I am not a number
So I guess you are sqrt(-1)???
"Things" like the Fridge or Thermostat should be extremely lightweight. If you need "apps" use a user-replaceable front-end-controller.
The "thing" itself should be so lightweight that, at least for "things" like those that existed 20 years ago, they could run on an ASIC no more complicated than a mid-1970s desktop calculator or even with just a very simple circuit similar to that of a simple "dumb" home thermostat. The only complexity would be the optional front-end controller.
The optional front-end controller would come in two connected parts:
Part 1 would be a very basic box that provided only a very basic connection to the outside world (e.g. a serial port, Ethernet, WiFi, etc.) and the security services necessary to ensure authenticated private communications (SSH or similar). Strictly speaking, the front-end controller would be optional - without it, the fridge or other "thing" would still work but it wouldn't be any "smarter" than today's "dumb" devices. It would also be user-replaceable, because we all know that security and networking technologies change over time.
Part 2 would be a "computer on a chip" that ran apps and optionally provided "real" connectivity to the outside world (e.g. WiFi, a web server, web-based apps, etc.). Since the functions of this device can be handled by any PC, it should be optional and easy for the user to remove or replace.
The physical and logical interfaces between the 3 components will be well-defined, and for the interface from the device to "part 1" of the front-end controller, they would also be simple and designed to not become obsolete for more than the life of the actual "thing" they are controlling.
Drone swarms got you down? Use your smart bomb. Just be sure you are close enough when pod intersection happens or you might miss part of the swarm.
Call it an "enhanced security zone" staffed by well-trained, well-armed civilians with broad arrest- and secret-court prosecutorial powers which report to a newly-created cabinet level post. How do you say "Department of homeland nuclear security" in French?
--
Disclaimer: This is supposed to be funny. Anything that amounts to a huge government power-grab at the expense of its citizens' and legal residents' basic freedoms whether it's called a military force or a "civilian" force scares me and it should scare you as well.
If you simply can't live without your Win2003 server and don't plan on paying MS for additional support, make sure you:
* Move everything that can be moved off of that server onto a vendor- or reliable-third-party-supported solution.
* Make and test backups frequently. Make sure you have a way of bringing the server back if your hardware dies or server room goes up in flames/earthquake/flood/whatever.
* Put a vendor- or reliable-3rd-paty-supported hardware* firewall between it and the networks that it is attached to. Make sure the firewall(s) block all in-and-outbound traffic that isn't absolutely necessary.
*"Hardware firewall" could be just a PC or server providing firewall services, it doesn't have to be a box that was designed to be a firewall. If you are running Win2003 server in a VM, your hypervisor/host-OS can act as a firewall. Make sure it is supported by the vendor or a reliable 3rd-party though.
Come to think of it, this is good a good "starting point" even if you are using vendor-supported equipment and software throughout your enterprise. The difference is that if everything is supported, you can probably get away with putting multiple functions including your in-house-custom-apps in one server and (for small-load-situations) enjoy the cost- and speed benefits that come with doing it this way.
I can't think of any legitimate reason for any government agency that is providing services to the public to accept outside advertising.
If they must accept outside advertising for whatever reason, the traffic should be one-way and "blind" to the advertiser.
This means the federal government web site will need to host the ads and if they provide analytic data at all, only provide summary data, such as the number of hits in a given day or hour rounded off to a level designed to prevent teasing out additional information and if the numbers are large enough so privacy isn't an issue, the number of hits believed to come from particular states or metropolitan areas.
They want their near-real-time traffic-congestion reports back.
How about a radio signal that tells me when there is something good on /.?
In a million years, the start of the industrial age and the start of the nuclear age will be a geological blur.
Besides, if we have to put a date on it, 1970-01-01T00:00:00Z is about as good a time as any other time in the 19th/20th/21st centuries.
Since they always let the terrorist stuff through, so as not to tip their hand, when will the spammers start disguising their messages as jihadist cal to arms?
To: undisclosed-recipients
Subject: MALE PLEASURE!!!!!!
Date: 17 January 2014 02:20:05 +0000
Increase your pleasure NOW AND FOREVER! Click here to join the Holy Crusade and very soon you'll be spending eternity with your very own harem of 72 virgins for all eterinity!
Either destroy the seized-and-legally-forfeited goods or sell them at fair market value, convert the proceeds into $100 bills, and burn them.
This would totally remove the economic incentive for police departments to seize things. Plus, the state would be out its share of the costs of holding a civil forfeiture trial (no, the proceeds from the sale should NOT go towards the cost of paying for the trial, that would re-insert an economic incentive for forfeiture).
In other words, if Bitcoin transfers start to cut noticeably into banking business, the banks can always drop their transaction costs below what Bitcoin verifiers have to charge.
Up to a point. Most brick-and-mortar banks handle non-business paper-check and currency/coin deposits and withdrawals at a loss (they charge nothing, but it costs them manpower). I don't see them dropping their fees much below $0.
A countdown clock is great but at least a few weeks before it expires a human needs to review it and send a "red flag alert" to the vendor that will fix it and ask if they are working on it and if so ask when they expect to have it fixed.
If the answer is "yes" the estimated fix-it date is in the near future, keep quiet but pester them if the date passes without a fix.
If the answer is "yes, we've been working on this but it is hard" or "no, but we'll get started right away" then keep pestering them and don't release it as long as they are making good progress (you may have to take their word on whether they are making good progress though, sigh).
If the answer is silence or a plain "no" or some other indication that there is no fix coming soon, then release it on the original date.
A better goal for companies that hire more than a few dozen people for the same type of position a year and whose recent hiring for that type of position is far from a 50% male/female mix:
* Set a reasonable future goal - say, eventually no less than 1/3 (or 2/5, or 45%) of our new hires for that type of position will be men and no less than that same number will be women.
* Know and monitor your current industries' average new-hire gender mix.
* If you are well behind your industry - if you are more than 10 percentage pionts behind the industry average for the "minority" gender, try to bridge half of the gap this year with respect to new hires.
* If you are within 10 percentage points or he industry average or if you are "leading" your industry for the "minority" gender but you are not within percentage points of where you want to be, try to get 5 percentage points closer to your goal
* Even if your hiring was all-male last year, if you are able to do the above, within 10 years you should be at a 50/50 mix of new hires, if that is your goal. Personally, I see a goal of 33%-45% as being much more realistic, especially given year-to-year gender variations in the available talent pool.
* The only real "excuse" to not be able to reach your goal within 10 years is a severely gender-imbalanced talent pool or a combination of a gender-imbalanced talent pool and nearly-full employment for the type of position you are hiring for. If a gender-imbalanced talent pool is a significant problem, show some leadership in your industry and invest time, money, and energy into getting kids and teenagers of both genders interested in the jobs you want to hire, but put a strong emphasis on the under-represented gender.
In Japan they have something called "first errand". Young school children, say 5 or 6, are given a simple task to do such as go to the local shop and buy a specific item, then bring it home. The school organizes this [emphasis added]
We shouldn't need the school's help to do this. This is the kind of thing every parent should do at a time when they feel their kids are ready for it.
My mom with through a fairly "big deal" plan for me to walk to school for the first time. She drew maps and I think we walked it together at least once before the 1st day of school. I have no idea if she followed me "from a distance" that first day but in retrospect I would expect most mothers to do so for emotional reasons if not just for safety reasons.
I have heard of other parents who let their kids walk to school but they follow at a discreet distance.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I use "overrated" when a post has been modded up and I think it shouldn't be or modded up higher than I think it should be and there's no more specific reason to down-rate the post. I generally leave 0's and 1's alone. I'm also a bit careful about using overrated if the post is marked funny, because "+1 funny/-1 overrated/lather-rinse-repeat" will hurt the poster's karma.
Montgomery County Child Protective Services's hands were tied: Once there was a complaint, they had to go through the motions of an investigation.
Now, here's where I find fault with CPS: They should've realized very quickly this was a case of a well-meaning citizen who was over-reacting and put the case on a "close as unfounded ASAP" track.
I also fault the state legislators and/or whatever state agency made the rules for not realizing that well-meaning citizens will see possible neglect where none exists and failing to write the rules with that in mind. A well-written rule will give CPS or for that matter any investigative body the authority to "quickly close" a case when it's obvious to both the initial investigator and at least one supervisor that there is nothing worth investigating.
But to the extend that their hands were tied, I can't fault the front-line investigators in Montgomery County Child Protective Services - their only choice was to do their job, not do their job and risk disciplinary action, or to resign in protest for being made to do something that they knew was harmful to the family involved.
Bitcoin was designed so when all coins are mined, there will be transaction fees to cover the costs.
It was also designed to allow transaction fees at any time.
Maybe that time is now???
They would have been more effective if they had used the "camel's nose" approach.
For example:
Marriott executive wants hotels to be able to block Wi-Fi so they can make $$$.
Marriott executive knows it will be politically stupid for Marriott to boldly ask for a rule change.
Marriott executive has a friend who runs a business that makes outdoor equipment that runs on or near WiFi frequencies.
He suggests to his friend that the friend should ask for an exemption to allow businesses that use this "unlicensed spectrum" as an integral part of their business be able to actively block interfering signals, and use that company's non-controversial setup as an example.
Marriott executive uses paid lobbyists to provide draft FCC regulations that are quietly bot obscurely worded in such a way that if they take effect, hotels will be free to jam guests.
If his plan succeeds, he wins today.
If the wording of the proposed exemption is tightened up so it only applies to his friend's company and similar environments, he has still succeeded at eroding the existing rule. He can repeat this process, gradually eroding the rule until finally he gets what he wants.
The only way he will lose is if either the FCC starts rejecting the proposed rule changes outright or if it takes so long that WiFi as we know it becomes obsolete before he gets what he wants.
Expect either the fine, penalty, or annoyance to go up to cover the "additional costs" and/or expect the government to start going after Uber itself through either technical means (forcing ISPs/telcos to block or record communication) and/or claiming "worldwide jurisdiction" over the company and its executives.
While any attempt to claim "worldwide jurisdiction" probably won't be honored by other countries, it could impose a de-facto ban on any executives under indictment from visiting Australia.
More likely, the government will change the on-the-spot fine to an actual ticket and require that upon conviction, the now-convicted defendant will have to surrender all revenue made with any taxi-sharing service over the last year plus pay a huge fine. Repeat offenders will likely be required to put a tracker on their car for a year or so and be required to explain all trips made with that vehicle.
That's what fire departments are for.
He (and the guy he took it from) a special hat to keep their thoughts from being detected.
A word of advice: Don't use tinfoil. It might work, but if people see you wearing a tinfoil hat, they will think you are a crackpot. Except of course if it doesn't work, then anyone who can read your mind will know if you really are a crackpot or not.
Disclaimer: The above is meant to be funny. Publicly-known technology is so far away from reading brainwaves at any significant distance that any claim that there is "secret technology" to do so is incredulous. It will be at least a decade, probably several decades, before you'll need to wear brainwave-blocking hats while walking down the street.
If it were me though, I'd go the way the military does for some of its members: A "sealed" (no radio or USB, with tamper-evident seals on the case) e-reader pre-loaded with the textbooks the student will need. This will keep theft way down.
Make it rugged enough to handle 5-10 years of careless use by students, but cheap enough so if it gets lost or really banged up it can be written off.
Use "e-paper" so there is no battery use until the student turns the page and so they can read it right before bedtime without causing sleep issues. Throw in a speaker for audio-books/text-to-speech/audio-translations/etc.
At the end of the year, unscrew the cases, replace or refresh the data chip with next year's books, and apply new tamper-evident seals.
In large quantities, a typical-tablet-sized device could be made for well under $50 before you add in the licensing fees for the books and the licensing fees for any applicable patents (sigh). Amortize that over 5 years and you are talking $10/year/student before paying off patent-holders, licensing the books, and paying the wages of the employees who refresh the machine each year.
To placate copyright owners (an unfortunate necessity), the "data chip" should be unreadable (i.e. encrypted) unless it is plugged into the same device as it was plugged into when it was first inserted or when it was last refreshed.
An optional enhancement to this would be a USB or similar port that ONLY talked to devices who presented a token cryptographically signed by the school that issued them. This would allow for things like e-library books, teacher-prepared books or presentations to be taken home (without color though, e-paper is B/W only as far as I know), and a less-labor-intensive end-of-year-refresh process.
If the school wants to issue tablets for the purposes of computation or Internet access, they should either be:
* In-school-use only
* leased to students who don't have a home computer or home Internet, and/or
* "leased" at no cost to students who don't have a home computer or home internet and can't afford one
Oh wait, that was the day Microsoft Vista's mainstream support ended. Never-mind, carry on.
Adware added by anyone but the original author/publisher should be avoided. When in doubt, get the product directly from the publisher or from a web site that offers the exact same downloadable package as the author/publisher. Places like CNET/etc. who dicker with the publisher-supplied installable application should be ashamed of themselves and deserve all the public ridicule they get.
Adware or even non-adware third-party products offered/added by the publisher (Java and Adobe are two well-known "offenders") are a different beast. They are part of the publisher's economic model. Without the add-ons the products might not exist, they might not be free, or they might contain (more) internal advertising (okay, Java and Adobe's free products would probably exist as they do now, but others, not so much). For these, you just have to decide "is it worth it to recommend the product or not."
I and many others have stopped recommending a particular Windows-OS print-to-PDF package ever since it went the "adware" route. It used to be good. Stripped of its adware, it still is. But I can't recommend it because of the adware issue.