Hey... what would happen if someone realized a crowded shopping mall was a good place to blow up a lot of people easily, so they packed a stroller full of explosives and took a walk to the food court? (OMG! Never thought of THAT serious potential security issue! We better start searching all baby strollers as parents enter the malls, right??)
Or, what would happen if someone decided to do a suicide bombing run in a big, multi-level parking garage? (OMG! Never thought of THAT serious potential security issue! We better start searching all cars as they enter garages, right??)
I could go ON and ON with this, and probably create a lot of scenarios with more chance of happening than someone using a child as a bomb on a flight leaving the U.S.A. But no matter.... The point is, you simply can't legislate complete safety for yourself. Life is ALL about risks. The moment you get up out of bed in the morning? You're taking risks. What if you slip and fall because your kid spilled a glass of water on the hard-wood floor, and you crack your head on the floor and die? Every day you drive to work in your car or truck? You're taking a relatively significant risk of dying in a car accident. Every time you EAT, you run some potential risk that your food had bacteria in it that will poison you.
What we need to do is get a grip, quit allowing ourselves to be scared by all of this, and accept that the "risk vs. reward" is FAR tilted towards the "reward" side of the equation if we can quickly/easily board airline flights we want to take, and not be subjected to all of this B.S.!
You see this same tactic over on cnet.com ALL the time. Their bloggers will make a questionable assertion about something... anything, with Apple in the subject -- knowing full-well it will bring in the "hits" from all the people who rush to defend the company, and those who love a good chance to bash the Apple brand.
I'm actually interested in reading Wu's book. I just saw a summary of it online, last night, and think it's an interesting possibility, at the very least; an Internet taken over completely by large corporate interests and/or government, as we saw with radio, TV, etc.
But the suggestion Apple is the "one to fear" the MOST with all of this?! I say, get a grip, Wu!
1. Apple doesn't even have much interest in the "Enterprise" portion of the marketplace. Their ONLY rack-mountable server product, the XServe, is now scheduled to be discontinued as of 2011! They make *no* real network routing/switching gear to speak of, unless you count the Airport Express/Extreme wireless routers. And their former ".Mac" (now Mobile ME) Internet-based service has traditionally been SLOW and of questionable value, save the convenient integration with OS X that twists some people's arms to pay $99 a year for it. They're really not in a technological position to "take over the Internet" at all! 2. Apple's recent experiment selling interactive advertising on their iOS devices hasn't exactly been taking the world by storm. Advertisers are complaining that it's too difficult to work with Apple, because Apple's people want too much input and control of the ad campaigns their people try to produce (imagine that, coming from Apple, huh?). 3. If anything, Apple has been pushing for more "open standards" on things in recent years. Their core products are all based on Unix and get a lot of help from open source projects. Even on the hardware side, they often choose a unique/obscure standard to support, yet one that actually is open and available for others to use (such as the mini displayport video connector). And yes, while they *do* still use DRM on things (and some consider that so evil, it's flatly unacceptable to them), they're not among the strongest proponents of it. I can't speak officially for them, obviously, but I get the idea Apple only employs DRM when they feel it's still needed to get an aspect of digital media sales going strong. Look at the music situation? They basically HAD to employ DRM in the beginning, to get "buy in" from the recording industry, or iTunes wouldn't have ever gotten off the ground. But once it was successful and proven, Apple started removing the DRM from all the tracks.
I recently cleaned this off of a PC for a client of mine, and in their case, the original trojan horse files were found embedded in the compressed Java runtime files. So at least some of this stuff may be coming from "drive by infections" that take advantage of security flaws in older versions of the Sun JRE. Once the trojan is implanted in the JRE, it proceeds to auto download and install this other stuff.
I was just reading about a guy who had to endure TSA agents dusting his 4 year old kid's cast for explosive residue on a recent flight.
All of this is beyond insane, and they just keep adding more rules and regulations - as though it's really all just a test to see how much American citizens will endure before they find our "breaking point". (I believe now, they just outlawed bringing inkjet printer cartridges on International flights! Really? Printer ink??)
Meanwhile, I've been on flights myself (and so have my friends) where we accidentally brought along clearly banned items like straight razors or box cutters/utility knives because we forgot or didn't realize they were stuck in the bottom, or in some small side pocket of a carry-on bag. The items went right on through multiple security checkpoints..... Makes you wonder if ANY of this is really effective at all.
The latest thing I heard is that the TSA is about to get assigned to do security screenings (with full body scanners and all) for Amtrak train trips too.... Govt. has been using the airports as a "test bed" for a lot of this stuff and to acclimate people to accepting their authority over you. I imagine it's only a matter of time before they proceed to do random car checkpoints too -- if people don't protest things NOW.
As a good friend of mine pointed out though? This was a common tactic by Jews in WWII Germany too. They often made jokes and goofed off around Nazi soldiers ordered to check their IDs and so forth. Ultimately, it was pretty ineffective in getting any policies changed in their favor.
I have to agree with him, that anger and resisting the system they're trying to put in place is the only *effective* response.
Yeah... no argument that DRM Is inherently evil. But so were the practices of many software publishing houses taking such a large cut of sales, the original developers didn't get a fair piece of the profits. Steam got started from situations like that, as much as anything else.
I don't think I ever used Steam on my Windows PC except for when I bought Half Life 2.... but on my Macs, I've used it quite a bit and am happy they've made the commitment to supporting OS X.
The fact is "strangles LAN play" used to be a big negative for me, but as time goes on, I care less and less. I can't even get more than 2 lazy people to get off their butts and drag a gaming rig to another location to HAVE a LAN gaming session these days! And furthermore, the places that still DO pull off successful LAN parties are more likely to have a decent Internet connection now than in the past. (If you're still having them, you're probably well organized and using a nice facility for them -- or else people wouldn't bother with it.)
Valve has shown some generosity by way of letting Mac users download OS X versions of their games at no charge if they bought them in the past for Windows, too. Fat chance I'd get a retail store to give me a free Mac version of some game I bought a Windows-only edition of 2 years earlier - even if I brought in a receipt!
How much of a "used game market" has there EVER really been?
If it was there, I managed to miss it completely for years.... On many occasions, I've tried to resell my used game software I no longer wanted, only to find I couldn't get more than a buck or two per title out of it. When you're only fetching that on a site like eBay, then you're usually better off just keeping the thing than spending the gas money to take the thing to the post office plus the cost of the packing tape and time/effort to box it all up!
I've even tried the strategy of "holding onto a few classics until they're old enough, they might have some special collector value". (I have a copy of Wing Commander III that's all like-new in the original box, to this day.) Nope.... still no takers.
And how often do we expect a team of 2 people to crank out hit games?
World of Goo may have been a "1 hit wonder" that people can't expect to retire off the earnings of.... but I don't think it's fair to try to lessen the value of what they've said/done by complaining that they haven't released more great games already?
Among other things, I really appreciated the fact that they did both a Mac and a PC version of World of Goo. I spend most of my time on a Mac these days, and it's still disappointing how often a good game title never gets a Mac port. You'd think a developer would realize that to boost sales of a game they spent (presumably) years working on, it's easier to just recompile the code for OS X and get it running well on there than to come up with a whole new idea and crank out another whole game. Mac users may only be 10-20% of the overall market (depending on which stats you use), but they're far more likely to buy YOUR game title you release for OS X than the typical Windows user is! They've got far less to choose from AND they tend to be more affluent and willing to pay for software.
Well, yeah - but I think Apple's stance on the whole "storage capacity" thing was to pair up an XServe with a disk storage unit. They used to sell their own Xserve RAID cabinet, which they eventually discontinued in favor of selling the Promise V-Trak in its place. (Good move, IMHO. We have a V-Trak here at work on a Windows 2003 box, and it's a nice, reasonably-priced unit.)
Honestly though, I'm thinking that since the Mac Pro never did get much of a case redesign from the one they made for the PowerMac G5 towers that came before it, and Mac Pros have been around since 2006 now? Maybe the next big Mac Pro revision will include a new tower case with detachable "handles" on the top and bottom, and a form-factor that makes it perfect to slide into a rack sideways with those removed?
Yeah.... I'm glad you mentioned that, because that was my "bone to pick" with the whole BSG series too. It was an *excellent* series, all in all - but that religious stuff near the end deflated my interested in it almost immediately!
One of my friends pointed out that the main scriptwriter was a devout Mormon though, so he was probably trying to interject his beliefs into the story-line.
I mean, it's one, valid way to tell the story -- but it just wasn't at all satisfying one for me. I had a similar problem with "The Matrix" sequels, where they went from an initially really cool story-line to some sort of religious thing with Morpheus as a prophet, etc. etc. I know plenty of people who thought The Matrix would have been far better if they didn't bother doing a part 2 or 3....
I have a few friends who still go to the movies, but the conditions are predictable. Either A), they have a kid or kids and they're going to see a "family movie" for the sake of said kids, or B), they're single and have plenty of disposable income + free time. With "A", they often go to discount priced shows during the middle of the day, too.
The theaters are definitely hurting, but just like the recording industry, they're not really imaginative/innovative enough to re-invent themselves into something that will dramatically boost their customer-base/profits, so they're resorting to legal tactics (searching bags for drinks and snacks to confiscate, etc.).
One of the big theaters by me is hawking more expensive "rumble seats" so you can "feel the explosions" and so on while watching. I'm thinking that's hardly going to go over well though, when people already had to shell out $20 to get a couple small popcorns and sodas.
Honestly? I think what *might* work for them is going for quantity of sales vs. bigger profit margins. Even Netflix or a cable subscription costs people money, so it's not like most people just started refusing to spend anything on seeing movies. Rather, they want some VALUE for their entertainment dollar. If the theaters could offer NEW releases you can't yet see elsewhere, priced at $2 per ticket or so, and attractively priced food/drinks (still marked up, but not excessively)? I think you MIGHT just be able to start filling all your seats at all your showings and do pretty well. But then, I'm not an accountant and don't have access to their stats. Maybe I'm way off base?
Sure, the drive-in theaters are cool -- but at least where I live, they've all but died off. We've got only one left, in a neighboring state. While it's only a relatively short drive across the border to go (and many people do!), they're adjacent to some bad neighborhoods you have to drive through to get there, and I'm sure that hurts their business. Additionally, they broadcast the movie's sound over a certain radio frequency you're supposed to tune in to, to listen. Ends up sucking for a lot of people because they can't hear their stereo that well outside the vehicle (where they usually *really* want to be while watching the film). If you don't bring along a portable radio or have an upgraded, loud car stereo, you're out of luck.
I know many Libertarians and none of them are particularly well-off financially. In fact, quite a few live more of a "neo hippie" lifestyle, if anything. They believe in things like bartering for goods whenever possible, minimizing use of credit cards or debit cards, and growing their own food instead of trusting big corporate farms to supply everything.
Sure, there are millionaires and billionaires who believe in Libertarian principles. It's not rocket science to realize that government regulations and controls make running a business much more difficult. Those who are the best at building businesses would be the most opposed to such things, since they have the most experience running up against them time and time again - whether or not they became very financially successful in the end, despite them.
But all in all, being a Libertarian really isn't that different than being a traditional conservative Republican, except for a disconnect when it comes to personal freedoms. (Your Libertarian candidate, for example, is not going to support things like the "war on drugs" or side with govt. instead of the individual on a "land rights" dispute.) Even when it comes to such issues as military buildup for the sake of "deterrence", I'm not sure that wouldn't come down to individual beliefs and personal justifications more than a "party line ideology"? Ronald Reagan considered himself a very Libertarian-minded Republican, yet he was obviously a big believer in a powerful military. (And yes, the drug war started with him too -- but most of us realize that had a lot more to do with his wife's urging than anything he was personally advocating.) Other Libertarians would argue the opposite... that the military should only be used defensively, as needed -- and not maintained constantly as a huge drain on taxpayer dollars.
Honestly though, the Libertarian party suffers from the same problems other independent parties have. You get the nut-cases who sign on because it's a relatively easy chance to say you're "involved in politics", and the people who simply want to undermine the party. (I remember we had some goofball running as a Libertarian candidate around here, some years back, who got his name legally changed to Chief Wannadoobie. Pretty obvious this idiot was just a recreational drug user who thought it'd be a kick to say he was a politician. Wouldn't imagine he even formed much of an opinion on anything outside of wanting to get high legally.....) That's why so many people make the distinction that they're a "small-l libertarian" and not an official card-carrying supporter of the party itself.
Actually, I'm a big George Carlin fan (may he R.I.P.).... But comedy aside, all Americans are not equal when it comes to possessing virtues like honesty. Our current political structure encourages the corrupt to rise towards the top, while those who don't take any interest in bettering themselves at others' expense often steer clear of anything resembling politics.
Basically, Carlin was a nihilist (at least in his comedic themes, if not really in his personal life). Maybe as I get older and more cynical, I'll come to agree with him on that completely? But right now, I still hear enough stories about the good individuals do to believe we're not totally hopeless.
I've been saying for years, I think our political system might do a lot better if we eliminated the idea of it as a career job. Make all the positions volunteer ones. Maybe throw people a few little perks like free haircuts or car washes at certain places (not like they don't already get 'em now!), but basically make it no more profitable a position than jury duty is. That would tend to attract people who have more than self-interest at heart. (And yes, I realize it would make it so "only the wealthy could do it" -- but to that I say two things. First, isn't that who FOUNDED this nation and wrote the Constitution and Bill of Rights in the first place? Seems like THEY didn't do too shoddy a job! And second, isn't it pretty much only the wealthy in political office today anyway? Nobody else can afford the ridiculously high cost of campaigning.)
You make several good points, but ultimately, I still find I disagree with you on some of it.
Although major party candidates of the "2 party system" may in fact use a 3rd. party candidate as "leverage" to get more votes (channeling support to them so votes for them siphon them away from their direct competitor), I'm not sure that should be viewed as a "problem"? If you happen to believe that neither a Republican or a Democrat that's running for a given position is right for the job, you're stuck with the following options:
1. Refuse to vote. (Useless, because by sitting it out, you're ranked among the apathetic. Everything goes on without your input.) 2. Go to the polls and vote for the "lesser of 2 evils" of the Republicans/Democrats in question. (That means your vote just counted the same as the next guy who was in FULL SUPPORT of the candidate you disliked, but only voted for because you hoped they were slightly better than the alternative.) 3. Vote for a 3rd. party candidate who is closer to your own beliefs than the others in the running. 4. Vote for a write-in candidate. (Practically-speaking, this option seems to accomplish nothing except in some oddball case where you knew the majority agreed to go with a write-in. Otherwise, it's pretty much a statistical impossibility your random write-in candidate is going to be selected over people actually named on the ballot as choice, who spent money actively campaigning.)
So optimally, I think your options really boils down to either 2 or 3 here, if you're wanting to accomplish anything at all? And the way I look at it? If nobody cast any votes for the 3rd. party guys or gals on the ballot, they'd eventually just go away completely. Sure, their chances of actually winning might be slim to none, but your vote for them helps legitimize what they're doing. For example, the Libertarian party has pretty much always managed to get somebody onto the ballot in every election I've ever voted in. They may only get 3% of the vote in the end -- but that's enough so they know some people out there are listening to what they're saying. In turn, they may influence some of the Democratic or Republican voters to demand more Libertarian-minded solutions from their candidates down the road.
Actually, this is a real problem at the college level too!
I was just recently reading the story of a gal who started college and was unable to fit in the desks provided in one of her classrooms. She was determined not to let that get in the way of earning a credit in the course, so she started sitting on the floor. Unfortunately, she was told she wasn't legally allowed to do that (fire hazard, in case people scramble for exits and trample you in the process, or you serve to block them from exiting safely because they trip over you or what-not). She demanded alternate seating arrangements but was ignored repeatedly. Meanwhile, she was failing the course. You'd think that in this day and age, something like this simply wouldn't happen. Schools want your tuition money so badly, and there's all the possibility of lawsuits.... but especially in parts of the southern USA, it's apparently a common problem.
I heard that in another similar situation, another gal had to resort to sitting in a separate chair, pulled up next to the side of the teacher's desk. (This worked because the teacher said it was ok, and he was the type who preferred to stand up and lecture, walking around the front of the room, anyway.)
I remember back when I was at our local community college in the early 1990's, the desks they provided didn't really provide a lot of room... so if they're still using that same type of furniture? You don't have to be especially huge to find it uncomfortable.
Yep, but let's all say a second prayer... that these folks don't all start switching to Macs! The Mac Limewire users I've known were still able to run it, downloading anything they wanted, without a single issue.....
Unlike the Windows versions of Java, you aren't regularly harassed to install "Yahoo Toolbar", or "Google Chrome" or some other piece of software along with every single update they try to push out to you!
I have some experience with this, and IMHO, you never want to substitute a real PC workstation for a "thin client" running a session of some sort on a back-end server, whether you're using Terminal Server with RDP or Citrix, or whatever else. These technologies certainly have a place, but it's more of complimenting an existing infrastructure than replacing a basic part of it for "cost savings" purposes.
I love things like Citrix or Terminal Server to provide remote access to people, and even when you need to run an app that's not installed/configured for the environment in one office, but IS all set up for one in another office that has WAN connectivity between them. But most of the thin client desktop replacements don't really come out any cheaper than a basic workstation when you factor in the cost of licensing AND the limitations and headaches it creates down the road. Chiefly, there are too many issues getting printers working in those sessions. Say someone has a cheap all-in-one inkjet printer on their desk. Maybe they scan or receive occasional faxes on it that not everyone is supposed to be seeing, and they may as well be printing to it as well. Chances are good it won't function right via Terminal Server or Metaframe, where they expect all your printers/drivers are "enterprise class" units. Additionally, it removes flexibility. A lot of sysadmins claim to love this type of environment, because they retain all the control. Well, that's only ok until you've got hundreds or thousands of users who start requesting special software on their computers and you realize that now, YOU have to do all of those installs yourself and retain full responsibility for them. (Truth is, if you give people standard Windows workstations with enough rights to install things, most of them will just go download and install what they want/need and you'll be none the wiser. Sure, someone *could* infect their box with a virus or something that causes problems. But most people are still afraid of doing that sort of thing and getting in trouble for it, so it shouldn't be that common of a problem. Meanwhile, you've saved all the hassles of people asking for Firefox or other popular and harmless apps. And if/when they try out things that are defective/buggy? They'll usually just figure that out, uninstall them again, and move on. No point in getting I.T. all worked up over the "problem app".)
I know there are exceptions where you just can't allow this much "freedom" for your users (banking, military, etc.).... but those people know their specific scenarios. I'm talking about typical corporate settings here and what works best, vs. someone's ideal "controlled environment".
Even in a bigger city (like the one I live in) there are always FAR more people out there bragging about their A+ certs. and trying to make a go of building or fixing PCs and basic wi-fi networks than there are people who are willing to troubleshoot a corporate VPN or server.
But when I look at it, *I* was one of "those guys" myself. I spent years working as a "bench tech" for little mom and pop type computer resellers or retailers. Truthfully, they were all dead-end jobs, but at the time, I was convinced it was a career path -- and it was what I liked to do! Eventually, I managed to get a corporate I.T. job, doing PC support. The skills required weren't much different, except I actually needed to know LESS - because in the corporate setting, everyone bought 50-100 PCs at a time, all identically configured, and complete with 3 year on-site warranties. The fact I could tell if their problem was due to bad RAM, a bad video card, or defective motherboard was rather irrelevant, as long as I knew the 800# for Dell support and our contract number.....
Mostly out of boredom and a desire to earn credit for "improving" something, I worked on several projects there -- including rebuilding old, retired PCs as "thin clients" that booted MS-DOS, the proper network drivers, and a Citrix ICA client. The company never cared, ultimately, and opted to blow a bunch of money on rather crappy Windows CE based thin clients instead -- but at least I got paid to experiment and learn something new.
Later on? I did work refurbishing a bunch of vintage Apple Macs for a guy. Again, this was something I had NO real experience with, but I figured "Hey, a computer is a computer, right? How hard can it be?" so I fibbed a bit and told him I was experienced with them. I got by just fine, and again - it was a neat learning experience, seeing how Apple designed various systems over the years, and learning the tricks to disassemble all their oddball case styles.
After that, I worked for a small business that did on-site service calls for businesses and residential customers. I ran into several interesting situations there, including Novell networks that needed troubleshooting and office networks with all manner of networking issues. The times I felt like I was dealing with something "out of my league", we paid supposed experts in those areas to come in and assist. And each of those times? I discovered the "experts" knew less than I did, all in all -- and were largely useless. I was always better off just going by instinct and a gut sense of what would PROBABLY fix something. A little trial and error, and lack of fear in trying things went a LONG way. (Just make sure you always document important settings before changing them so you can put them back if you're wrong!)
Currently, I work for yet another business... this time with a title of "Network Manager", and I run my own on-site service business on the side. I had to inherit a lot of technology I knew little about (such as our Sonicwall VPN, and a specialized inventory and customer tracking system written in Unix), but once again -- I've always found that the most critical thing is to make your employer and co-workers confident that you're able to find solutions to the problems. Google is your friend, and so are tech. support forums on the net! Ability to research issues and dig up/download the proper instruction manuals or documents is priceless. I've been able to pretty much single-handedly keep this whole network going without any big issues for several years now. But if this place only hired based on what I said I knew or did previously? I wouldn't be working here.
So in short? I wouldn't call someone a "turkey" because they know their DDR3 RAM and so forth. That's a good start, because it shows they actually CARE about the stuff enough to learn the "nuts and bolts" of what goes in the machines. The big thing is if they're WILLING to tackle the "unknown" things and have good research abilities to look up solutions as they go along.
Sure, there are "thousands of Android apps working without problems" -- but that doesn't mean it was easy for everyone to get them there.
Just last week, I did updates to the apps I use on my Android phone, and I think it found 4. Of those, 2 had "reviews" of 1 star, warning people not to download them because they caused massive crashes and issues. (I believe one was the "Trivial Droid" app, which supposedly was crashing so bad for some people on the latest update, they had to pull their batteries out of their phones to get them to reset.)
I forget the other that had issues, but the author commented about how the update was yet another bug-fix to address incompatibility problems, and expressed his frustration that it was such a challenge to develop for the platform.
Honestly, I'd say the Windows analogy helps argue the opposite of the point you're trying to make with it, too! How many hassles did people have getting older apps written for Windows '95/'98/ME working properly under newer versions of Windows? How many things that worked in XP had no support at all under Vista or 7? How often did Windows suffer from crashes due to incompatibility issues related to some specific hardware component that was never tested against?
Apple's iPhone is always going to be the easier product to quality test against, because nobody but Apple is making the phones -- so you have a complete, exhaustive list of the possible configurations readily at hand, and it numbers FAR less than all the variations of devices running Android OS.
Throwing all the blame at "shitty programmers" is a cop-out. There will always be some developers with less skill than others... but that should be equally true across all platforms possible to program for. Although it's been a LONG time since I did any coding and I don't claim to know all the details of coding for today's "smartphones"? It's not difficult to see that there are a lot of software issues arising that seem to stem from unexpected differences in hardware between different handsets with Android. (For example, the Google Goggles app immediately crashes and exits on my Kyocera/Sanyo Zio as soon as it tries to activate the camera. Isn't that app developed by people at Google? Are you saying THEY are "shitty programmers" for letting something like this happen? Sounds to me like they're simply not anticipating something about the way the camera communicates with this particular phone.)
In most cases, specialists rendering a service are viewed as having really "added value". For example, the programmer actually writes code that's left behind after he/she is gone, and gets used regularly. The doctors aren't generally criticized for making the money they do, as much as the HOSPITALS are, from what I've seen? Typically, if you have a good doctor, you're happy to pay him/her for their services and feel like their advice and prescriptions gave you back some measure of lost health that was worth what they charged you.
In the case of attorneys, they're largely regarded as "parasites" because they insist on billing that way. The services they provide are typically littered with "nonsense" that becomes line-items on a client's bill. For example? Say you're in the middle of a divorce and hire an attorney to deal with it? You'll typically be asked to pay several thousands bucks, up front, as a retainer fee, BEFORE anything is even accomplished at all. (Does you doctor or software programmer demand this?) After you pay, you get billed for such things as a document being delivered and submitted to the court clerk. (Did you really need to pay $250/hr. or whatever he/she bills at, to pay the lawyer to drive 15 minutes from the office to the courthouse and stand in a line a few minutes to turn the document in for you?) For that matter, you're typically billed an hour or more for time spent drafting letters or other documents that are already saved on a PC as a Word template, and a relatively low-paid admin. assistant actually filled out. Then, if you have the unfortunate luck I had in my own personal situation? You might even have your lawyer call you, unsolicited, to complain about the fact that you said something negative about the way he was handling your case to another attorney he happened to be buddies with -- and then get billed for an hour of phone time for the call! In any case, you can bet they're going to charge you that high rate any time you call with a simple question he/she didn't adequate explain to you when you were in the office discussing the topic in the first place!
Usually, by the time your divorce case ever makes it to a courtroom, where the attorney's skill-set is actually NEEDED? He/she has burnt through that whole retainer fee and wants thousands of dollars MORE from you to finish things up!
True... but when has a class action lawsuit ever really punished anyone at fault for the original problem?
The whole point to them is to discourage a repeat of the same mistakes, via a financial smackdown - and some sort of group compensation for all the victims.
I'd say the people responsible won't just "walk away" on this one. They'll probably suffer through meetings and new written policies that restrict what they're allowed to do on student computer configurations, etc. etc., and you never know if at least one of them winds up losing a job over it (even if the school denies the one situation had anything to do with their termination).
I find broadcasting the SSID helps greatly in troubleshooting wireless issues for other people, if nothing else. If I get called out to the typical home user's place to help them "fix their problems getting on the Internet", they often don't have any clue what their SSID is set to. All they know is that "It worked ever since the Geeksquad guys came out and set it all up for us!" or what-have-you.
On more than one occasion, I discovered the reason someone had issues had to do with neighbors buying new Linksys routers that had default SSID's of "linksys", matching the default of THEIR Linksys router they'd been using for months/years. Sometimes they were actually connecting to a neighbor's unsecured router for quite some time, before that neighbor made changes that booted them out -- and only THEN did they think they had things mis-configured.
For decades now, your network cards all had unique MAC addresses which could theoretically identify you, too. So what? It only identifies the particular piece of HARDWARE as unique. It doesn't prove anything about WHO owns the device, or even who is actually operating it at a given point in time.
Any privacy issues only come up because of specific implementations that do "bad" things. Anger at the hardware maker for including some sort of unique ID with the device is misplaced, IMO.
(You know, kind of like that "Guns don't kill people.... People do." argument.)
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Hey... what would happen if someone realized a crowded shopping mall was a good place to blow up a lot of people easily, so they packed a stroller full of explosives and took a walk to the food court?
(OMG! Never thought of THAT serious potential security issue! We better start searching all baby strollers as parents enter the malls, right??)
Or, what would happen if someone decided to do a suicide bombing run in a big, multi-level parking garage?
(OMG! Never thought of THAT serious potential security issue! We better start searching all cars as they enter garages, right??)
I could go ON and ON with this, and probably create a lot of scenarios with more chance of happening than someone using a child as a bomb on a flight leaving the U.S.A. But no matter.... The point is, you simply can't legislate complete safety for yourself. Life is ALL about risks. The moment you get up out of bed in the morning? You're taking risks. What if you slip and fall because your kid spilled a glass of water on the hard-wood floor, and you crack your head on the floor and die? Every day you drive to work in your car or truck? You're taking a relatively significant risk of dying in a car accident. Every time you EAT, you run some potential risk that your food had bacteria in it that will poison you.
What we need to do is get a grip, quit allowing ourselves to be scared by all of this, and accept that the "risk vs. reward" is FAR tilted towards the "reward" side of the equation if we can quickly/easily board airline flights we want to take, and not be subjected to all of this B.S.!
You see this same tactic over on cnet.com ALL the time. Their bloggers will make a questionable assertion about something ... anything, with Apple in the subject -- knowing full-well it will bring in the "hits" from all the people who rush to defend the company, and those who love a good chance to bash the Apple brand.
I'm actually interested in reading Wu's book. I just saw a summary of it online, last night, and think it's an interesting possibility, at the very least; an Internet taken over completely by large corporate interests and/or government, as we saw with radio, TV, etc.
But the suggestion Apple is the "one to fear" the MOST with all of this?! I say, get a grip, Wu!
1. Apple doesn't even have much interest in the "Enterprise" portion of the marketplace. Their ONLY rack-mountable server product, the XServe, is now scheduled to be discontinued as of 2011! They make *no* real network routing/switching gear to speak of, unless you count the Airport Express/Extreme wireless routers. And their former ".Mac" (now Mobile ME) Internet-based service has traditionally been SLOW and of questionable value, save the convenient integration with OS X that twists some people's arms to pay $99 a year for it. They're really not in a technological position to "take over the Internet" at all!
2. Apple's recent experiment selling interactive advertising on their iOS devices hasn't exactly been taking the world by storm. Advertisers are complaining that it's too difficult to work with Apple, because Apple's people want too much input and control of the ad campaigns their people try to produce (imagine that, coming from Apple, huh?).
3. If anything, Apple has been pushing for more "open standards" on things in recent years. Their core products are all based on Unix and get a lot of help from open source projects. Even on the hardware side, they often choose a unique/obscure standard to support, yet one that actually is open and available for others to use (such as the mini displayport video connector). And yes, while they *do* still use DRM on things (and some consider that so evil, it's flatly unacceptable to them), they're not among the strongest proponents of it. I can't speak officially for them, obviously, but I get the idea Apple only employs DRM when they feel it's still needed to get an aspect of digital media sales going strong. Look at the music situation? They basically HAD to employ DRM in the beginning, to get "buy in" from the recording industry, or iTunes wouldn't have ever gotten off the ground. But once it was successful and proven, Apple started removing the DRM from all the tracks.
Actually, I'm not so sure it's always an issue of users installing this stuff voluntarily?
The "Vundo" trojan is supposedly a leading cause of automated installations of the annoying "AntiVirus 2009/2010" fake AV packages and other garbage.
(See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vundo)
I recently cleaned this off of a PC for a client of mine, and in their case, the original trojan horse files were found embedded in the compressed Java runtime files. So at least some of this stuff may be coming from "drive by infections" that take advantage of security flaws in older versions of the Sun JRE. Once the trojan is implanted in the JRE, it proceeds to auto download and install this other stuff.
Exactly!
I was just reading about a guy who had to endure TSA agents dusting his 4 year old kid's cast for explosive residue on a recent flight.
All of this is beyond insane, and they just keep adding more rules and regulations - as though it's really all just a test to see how much American citizens will endure before they find our "breaking point". (I believe now, they just outlawed bringing inkjet printer cartridges on International flights! Really? Printer ink??)
Meanwhile, I've been on flights myself (and so have my friends) where we accidentally brought along clearly banned items like straight razors or box cutters/utility knives because we forgot or didn't realize they were stuck in the bottom, or in some small side pocket of a carry-on bag. The items went right on through multiple security checkpoints..... Makes you wonder if ANY of this is really effective at all.
The latest thing I heard is that the TSA is about to get assigned to do security screenings (with full body scanners and all) for Amtrak train trips too.... Govt. has been using the airports as a "test bed" for a lot of this stuff and to acclimate people to accepting their authority over you. I imagine it's only a matter of time before they proceed to do random car checkpoints too -- if people don't protest things NOW.
As a good friend of mine pointed out though? This was a common tactic by Jews in WWII Germany too. They often made jokes and goofed off around Nazi soldiers ordered to check their IDs and so forth. Ultimately, it was pretty ineffective in getting any policies changed in their favor.
I have to agree with him, that anger and resisting the system they're trying to put in place is the only *effective* response.
Yeah... no argument that DRM Is inherently evil. But so were the practices of many software publishing houses taking such a large cut of sales, the original developers didn't get a fair piece of the profits. Steam got started from situations like that, as much as anything else.
I don't think I ever used Steam on my Windows PC except for when I bought Half Life 2.... but on my Macs, I've used it quite a bit and am happy they've made the commitment to supporting OS X.
The fact is "strangles LAN play" used to be a big negative for me, but as time goes on, I care less and less. I can't even get more than 2 lazy people to get off their butts and drag a gaming rig to another location to HAVE a LAN gaming session these days! And furthermore, the places that still DO pull off successful LAN parties are more likely to have a decent Internet connection now than in the past. (If you're still having them, you're probably well organized and using a nice facility for them -- or else people wouldn't bother with it.)
Valve has shown some generosity by way of letting Mac users download OS X versions of their games at no charge if they bought them in the past for Windows, too. Fat chance I'd get a retail store to give me a free Mac version of some game I bought a Windows-only edition of 2 years earlier - even if I brought in a receipt!
How much of a "used game market" has there EVER really been?
If it was there, I managed to miss it completely for years .... On many occasions, I've tried to resell my used game software I no longer wanted, only to find I couldn't get more than a buck or two per title out of it. When you're only fetching that on a site like eBay, then you're usually better off just keeping the thing than spending the gas money to take the thing to the post office plus the cost of the packing tape and time/effort to box it all up!
I've even tried the strategy of "holding onto a few classics until they're old enough, they might have some special collector value". (I have a copy of Wing Commander III that's all like-new in the original box, to this day.) Nope.... still no takers.
And how often do we expect a team of 2 people to crank out hit games?
World of Goo may have been a "1 hit wonder" that people can't expect to retire off the earnings of .... but I don't think it's fair to try to lessen the value of what they've said/done by complaining that they haven't released more great games already?
Among other things, I really appreciated the fact that they did both a Mac and a PC version of World of Goo. I spend most of my time on a Mac these days, and it's still disappointing how often a good game title never gets a Mac port. You'd think a developer would realize that to boost sales of a game they spent (presumably) years working on, it's easier to just recompile the code for OS X and get it running well on there than to come up with a whole new idea and crank out another whole game. Mac users may only be 10-20% of the overall market (depending on which stats you use), but they're far more likely to buy YOUR game title you release for OS X than the typical Windows user is! They've got far less to choose from AND they tend to be more affluent and willing to pay for software.
Well, yeah - but I think Apple's stance on the whole "storage capacity" thing was to pair up an XServe with a disk storage unit. They used to sell their own Xserve RAID cabinet, which they eventually discontinued in favor of selling the Promise V-Trak in its place. (Good move, IMHO. We have a V-Trak here at work on a Windows 2003 box, and it's a nice, reasonably-priced unit.)
Honestly though, I'm thinking that since the Mac Pro never did get much of a case redesign from the one they made for the PowerMac G5 towers that came before it, and Mac Pros have been around since 2006 now? Maybe the next big Mac Pro revision will include a new tower case with detachable "handles" on the top and bottom, and a form-factor that makes it perfect to slide into a rack sideways with those removed?
Yeah.... I'm glad you mentioned that, because that was my "bone to pick" with the whole BSG series too. It was an *excellent* series, all in all - but that religious stuff near the end deflated my interested in it almost immediately!
One of my friends pointed out that the main scriptwriter was a devout Mormon though, so he was probably trying to interject his beliefs into the story-line.
I mean, it's one, valid way to tell the story -- but it just wasn't at all satisfying one for me. I had a similar problem with "The Matrix" sequels, where they went from an initially really cool story-line to some sort of religious thing with Morpheus as a prophet, etc. etc. I know plenty of people who thought The Matrix would have been far better if they didn't bother doing a part 2 or 3....
I have a few friends who still go to the movies, but the conditions are predictable. Either A), they have a kid or kids and they're going to see a "family movie" for the sake of said kids, or B), they're single and have plenty of disposable income + free time. With "A", they often go to discount priced shows during the middle of the day, too.
The theaters are definitely hurting, but just like the recording industry, they're not really imaginative/innovative enough to re-invent themselves into something that will dramatically boost their customer-base/profits, so they're resorting to legal tactics (searching bags for drinks and snacks to confiscate, etc.).
One of the big theaters by me is hawking more expensive "rumble seats" so you can "feel the explosions" and so on while watching. I'm thinking that's hardly going to go over well though, when people already had to shell out $20 to get a couple small popcorns and sodas.
Honestly? I think what *might* work for them is going for quantity of sales vs. bigger profit margins. Even Netflix or a cable subscription costs people money, so it's not like most people just started refusing to spend anything on seeing movies. Rather, they want some VALUE for their entertainment dollar. If the theaters could offer NEW releases you can't yet see elsewhere, priced at $2 per ticket or so, and attractively priced food/drinks (still marked up, but not excessively)? I think you MIGHT just be able to start filling all your seats at all your showings and do pretty well. But then, I'm not an accountant and don't have access to their stats. Maybe I'm way off base?
Sure, the drive-in theaters are cool -- but at least where I live, they've all but died off. We've got only one left, in a neighboring state. While it's only a relatively short drive across the border to go (and many people do!), they're adjacent to some bad neighborhoods you have to drive through to get there, and I'm sure that hurts their business. Additionally, they broadcast the movie's sound over a certain radio frequency you're supposed to tune in to, to listen. Ends up sucking for a lot of people because they can't hear their stereo that well outside the vehicle (where they usually *really* want to be while watching the film). If you don't bring along a portable radio or have an upgraded, loud car stereo, you're out of luck.
Wow... what a skewed viewpoint!
I know many Libertarians and none of them are particularly well-off financially. In fact, quite a few live more of a "neo hippie" lifestyle, if anything. They believe in things like bartering for goods whenever possible, minimizing use of credit cards or debit cards, and growing their own food instead of trusting big corporate farms to supply everything.
Sure, there are millionaires and billionaires who believe in Libertarian principles. It's not rocket science to realize that government regulations and controls make running a business much more difficult. Those who are the best at building businesses would be the most opposed to such things, since they have the most experience running up against them time and time again - whether or not they became very financially successful in the end, despite them.
But all in all, being a Libertarian really isn't that different than being a traditional conservative Republican, except for a disconnect when it comes to personal freedoms. (Your Libertarian candidate, for example, is not going to support things like the "war on drugs" or side with govt. instead of the individual on a "land rights" dispute.) Even when it comes to such issues as military buildup for the sake of "deterrence", I'm not sure that wouldn't come down to individual beliefs and personal justifications more than a "party line ideology"? Ronald Reagan considered himself a very Libertarian-minded Republican, yet he was obviously a big believer in a powerful military. (And yes, the drug war started with him too -- but most of us realize that had a lot more to do with his wife's urging than anything he was personally advocating.) Other Libertarians would argue the opposite ... that the military should only be used defensively, as needed -- and not maintained constantly as a huge drain on taxpayer dollars.
Honestly though, the Libertarian party suffers from the same problems other independent parties have. You get the nut-cases who sign on because it's a relatively easy chance to say you're "involved in politics", and the people who simply want to undermine the party. (I remember we had some goofball running as a Libertarian candidate around here, some years back, who got his name legally changed to Chief Wannadoobie. Pretty obvious this idiot was just a recreational drug user who thought it'd be a kick to say he was a politician. Wouldn't imagine he even formed much of an opinion on anything outside of wanting to get high legally.....) That's why so many people make the distinction that they're a "small-l libertarian" and not an official card-carrying supporter of the party itself.
Actually, I'm a big George Carlin fan (may he R.I.P.).... But comedy aside, all Americans are not equal when it comes to possessing virtues like honesty. Our current political structure encourages the corrupt to rise towards the top, while those who don't take any interest in bettering themselves at others' expense often steer clear of anything resembling politics.
Basically, Carlin was a nihilist (at least in his comedic themes, if not really in his personal life). Maybe as I get older and more cynical, I'll come to agree with him on that completely? But right now, I still hear enough stories about the good individuals do to believe we're not totally hopeless.
I've been saying for years, I think our political system might do a lot better if we eliminated the idea of it as a career job. Make all the positions volunteer ones. Maybe throw people a few little perks like free haircuts or car washes at certain places (not like they don't already get 'em now!), but basically make it no more profitable a position than jury duty is. That would tend to attract people who have more than self-interest at heart. (And yes, I realize it would make it so "only the wealthy could do it" -- but to that I say two things. First, isn't that who FOUNDED this nation and wrote the Constitution and Bill of Rights in the first place? Seems like THEY didn't do too shoddy a job! And second, isn't it pretty much only the wealthy in political office today anyway? Nobody else can afford the ridiculously high cost of campaigning.)
You make several good points, but ultimately, I still find I disagree with you on some of it.
Although major party candidates of the "2 party system" may in fact use a 3rd. party candidate as "leverage" to get more votes (channeling support to them so votes for them siphon them away from their direct competitor), I'm not sure that should be viewed as a "problem"? If you happen to believe that neither a Republican or a Democrat that's running for a given position is right for the job, you're stuck with the following options:
1. Refuse to vote. (Useless, because by sitting it out, you're ranked among the apathetic. Everything goes on without your input.)
2. Go to the polls and vote for the "lesser of 2 evils" of the Republicans/Democrats in question. (That means your vote just counted the same as the next guy who was in FULL SUPPORT of the candidate you disliked, but only voted for because you hoped they were slightly better than the alternative.)
3. Vote for a 3rd. party candidate who is closer to your own beliefs than the others in the running.
4. Vote for a write-in candidate. (Practically-speaking, this option seems to accomplish nothing except in some oddball case where you knew the majority agreed to go with a write-in. Otherwise, it's pretty much a statistical impossibility your random write-in candidate is going to be selected over people actually named on the ballot as choice, who spent money actively campaigning.)
So optimally, I think your options really boils down to either 2 or 3 here, if you're wanting to accomplish anything at all? And the way I look at it? If nobody cast any votes for the 3rd. party guys or gals on the ballot, they'd eventually just go away completely. Sure, their chances of actually winning might be slim to none, but your vote for them helps legitimize what they're doing. For example, the Libertarian party has pretty much always managed to get somebody onto the ballot in every election I've ever voted in. They may only get 3% of the vote in the end -- but that's enough so they know some people out there are listening to what they're saying. In turn, they may influence some of the Democratic or Republican voters to demand more Libertarian-minded solutions from their candidates down the road.
Actually, this is a real problem at the college level too!
I was just recently reading the story of a gal who started college and was unable to fit in the desks provided in one of her classrooms. She was determined not to let that get in the way of earning a credit in the course, so she started sitting on the floor. Unfortunately, she was told she wasn't legally allowed to do that (fire hazard, in case people scramble for exits and trample you in the process, or you serve to block them from exiting safely because they trip over you or what-not). She demanded alternate seating arrangements but was ignored repeatedly. Meanwhile, she was failing the course. You'd think that in this day and age, something like this simply wouldn't happen. Schools want your tuition money so badly, and there's all the possibility of lawsuits .... but especially in parts of the southern USA, it's apparently a common problem.
I heard that in another similar situation, another gal had to resort to sitting in a separate chair, pulled up next to the side of the teacher's desk. (This worked because the teacher said it was ok, and he was the type who preferred to stand up and lecture, walking around the front of the room, anyway.)
I remember back when I was at our local community college in the early 1990's, the desks they provided didn't really provide a lot of room ... so if they're still using that same type of furniture? You don't have to be especially huge to find it uncomfortable.
Yep, but let's all say a second prayer ... that these folks don't all start switching to Macs! .....
The Mac Limewire users I've known were still able to run it, downloading anything they wanted, without a single issue
Unlike the Windows versions of Java, you aren't regularly harassed to install "Yahoo Toolbar", or "Google Chrome" or some other piece of software along with every single update they try to push out to you!
I have some experience with this, and IMHO, you never want to substitute a real PC workstation for a "thin client" running a session of some sort on a back-end server, whether you're using Terminal Server with RDP or Citrix, or whatever else. These technologies certainly have a place, but it's more of complimenting an existing infrastructure than replacing a basic part of it for "cost savings" purposes.
I love things like Citrix or Terminal Server to provide remote access to people, and even when you need to run an app that's not installed/configured for the environment in one office, but IS all set up for one in another office that has WAN connectivity between them. But most of the thin client desktop replacements don't really come out any cheaper than a basic workstation when you factor in the cost of licensing AND the limitations and headaches it creates down the road. Chiefly, there are too many issues getting printers working in those sessions. Say someone has a cheap all-in-one inkjet printer on their desk. Maybe they scan or receive occasional faxes on it that not everyone is supposed to be seeing, and they may as well be printing to it as well. Chances are good it won't function right via Terminal Server or Metaframe, where they expect all your printers/drivers are "enterprise class" units. Additionally, it removes flexibility. A lot of sysadmins claim to love this type of environment, because they retain all the control. Well, that's only ok until you've got hundreds or thousands of users who start requesting special software on their computers and you realize that now, YOU have to do all of those installs yourself and retain full responsibility for them. (Truth is, if you give people standard Windows workstations with enough rights to install things, most of them will just go download and install what they want/need and you'll be none the wiser. Sure, someone *could* infect their box with a virus or something that causes problems. But most people are still afraid of doing that sort of thing and getting in trouble for it, so it shouldn't be that common of a problem. Meanwhile, you've saved all the hassles of people asking for Firefox or other popular and harmless apps. And if/when they try out things that are defective/buggy? They'll usually just figure that out, uninstall them again, and move on. No point in getting I.T. all worked up over the "problem app".)
I know there are exceptions where you just can't allow this much "freedom" for your users (banking, military, etc.) .... but those people know their specific scenarios. I'm talking about typical corporate settings here and what works best, vs. someone's ideal "controlled environment".
Even in a bigger city (like the one I live in) there are always FAR more people out there bragging about their A+ certs. and trying to make a go of building or fixing PCs and basic wi-fi networks than there are people who are willing to troubleshoot a corporate VPN or server.
But when I look at it, *I* was one of "those guys" myself. I spent years working as a "bench tech" for little mom and pop type computer resellers or retailers. Truthfully, they were all dead-end jobs, but at the time, I was convinced it was a career path -- and it was what I liked to do! Eventually, I managed to get a corporate I.T. job, doing PC support. The skills required weren't much different, except I actually needed to know LESS - because in the corporate setting, everyone bought 50-100 PCs at a time, all identically configured, and complete with 3 year on-site warranties. The fact I could tell if their problem was due to bad RAM, a bad video card, or defective motherboard was rather irrelevant, as long as I knew the 800# for Dell support and our contract number.....
Mostly out of boredom and a desire to earn credit for "improving" something, I worked on several projects there -- including rebuilding old, retired PCs as "thin clients" that booted MS-DOS, the proper network drivers, and a Citrix ICA client. The company never cared, ultimately, and opted to blow a bunch of money on rather crappy Windows CE based thin clients instead -- but at least I got paid to experiment and learn something new.
Later on? I did work refurbishing a bunch of vintage Apple Macs for a guy. Again, this was something I had NO real experience with, but I figured "Hey, a computer is a computer, right? How hard can it be?" so I fibbed a bit and told him I was experienced with them. I got by just fine, and again - it was a neat learning experience, seeing how Apple designed various systems over the years, and learning the tricks to disassemble all their oddball case styles.
After that, I worked for a small business that did on-site service calls for businesses and residential customers. I ran into several interesting situations there, including Novell networks that needed troubleshooting and office networks with all manner of networking issues. The times I felt like I was dealing with something "out of my league", we paid supposed experts in those areas to come in and assist. And each of those times? I discovered the "experts" knew less than I did, all in all -- and were largely useless. I was always better off just going by instinct and a gut sense of what would PROBABLY fix something. A little trial and error, and lack of fear in trying things went a LONG way. (Just make sure you always document important settings before changing them so you can put them back if you're wrong!)
Currently, I work for yet another business ... this time with a title of "Network Manager", and I run my own on-site service business on the side. I had to inherit a lot of technology I knew little about (such as our Sonicwall VPN, and a specialized inventory and customer tracking system written in Unix), but once again -- I've always found that the most critical thing is to make your employer and co-workers confident that you're able to find solutions to the problems. Google is your friend, and so are tech. support forums on the net! Ability to research issues and dig up/download the proper instruction manuals or documents is priceless. I've been able to pretty much single-handedly keep this whole network going without any big issues for several years now. But if this place only hired based on what I said I knew or did previously? I wouldn't be working here.
So in short? I wouldn't call someone a "turkey" because they know their DDR3 RAM and so forth. That's a good start, because it shows they actually CARE about the stuff enough to learn the "nuts and bolts" of what goes in the machines. The big thing is if they're WILLING to tackle the "unknown" things and have good research abilities to look up solutions as they go along.
Sure, there are "thousands of Android apps working without problems" -- but that doesn't mean it was easy for everyone to get them there.
Just last week, I did updates to the apps I use on my Android phone, and I think it found 4. Of those, 2 had "reviews" of 1 star, warning people not to download them because they caused massive crashes and issues. (I believe one was the "Trivial Droid" app, which supposedly was crashing so bad for some people on the latest update, they had to pull their batteries out of their phones to get them to reset.)
I forget the other that had issues, but the author commented about how the update was yet another bug-fix to address incompatibility problems, and expressed his frustration that it was such a challenge to develop for the platform.
Honestly, I'd say the Windows analogy helps argue the opposite of the point you're trying to make with it, too! How many hassles did people have getting older apps written for Windows '95/'98/ME working properly under newer versions of Windows? How many things that worked in XP had no support at all under Vista or 7? How often did Windows suffer from crashes due to incompatibility issues related to some specific hardware component that was never tested against?
Apple's iPhone is always going to be the easier product to quality test against, because nobody but Apple is making the phones -- so you have a complete, exhaustive list of the possible configurations readily at hand, and it numbers FAR less than all the variations of devices running Android OS.
Throwing all the blame at "shitty programmers" is a cop-out. There will always be some developers with less skill than others ... but that should be equally true across all platforms possible to program for. Although it's been a LONG time since I did any coding and I don't claim to know all the details of coding for today's "smartphones"? It's not difficult to see that there are a lot of software issues arising that seem to stem from unexpected differences in hardware between different handsets with Android. (For example, the Google Goggles app immediately crashes and exits on my Kyocera/Sanyo Zio as soon as it tries to activate the camera. Isn't that app developed by people at Google? Are you saying THEY are "shitty programmers" for letting something like this happen? Sounds to me like they're simply not anticipating something about the way the camera communicates with this particular phone.)
In most cases, specialists rendering a service are viewed as having really "added value". For example, the programmer actually writes code that's left behind after he/she is gone, and gets used regularly. The doctors aren't generally criticized for making the money they do, as much as the HOSPITALS are, from what I've seen? Typically, if you have a good doctor, you're happy to pay him/her for their services and feel like their advice and prescriptions gave you back some measure of lost health that was worth what they charged you.
In the case of attorneys, they're largely regarded as "parasites" because they insist on billing that way. The services they provide are typically littered with "nonsense" that becomes line-items on a client's bill. For example? Say you're in the middle of a divorce and hire an attorney to deal with it? You'll typically be asked to pay several thousands bucks, up front, as a retainer fee, BEFORE anything is even accomplished at all. (Does you doctor or software programmer demand this?) After you pay, you get billed for such things as a document being delivered and submitted to the court clerk. (Did you really need to pay $250/hr. or whatever he/she bills at, to pay the lawyer to drive 15 minutes from the office to the courthouse and stand in a line a few minutes to turn the document in for you?) For that matter, you're typically billed an hour or more for time spent drafting letters or other documents that are already saved on a PC as a Word template, and a relatively low-paid admin. assistant actually filled out. Then, if you have the unfortunate luck I had in my own personal situation? You might even have your lawyer call you, unsolicited, to complain about the fact that you said something negative about the way he was handling your case to another attorney he happened to be buddies with -- and then get billed for an hour of phone time for the call! In any case, you can bet they're going to charge you that high rate any time you call with a simple question he/she didn't adequate explain to you when you were in the office discussing the topic in the first place!
Usually, by the time your divorce case ever makes it to a courtroom, where the attorney's skill-set is actually NEEDED? He/she has burnt through that whole retainer fee and wants thousands of dollars MORE from you to finish things up!
True ... but when has a class action lawsuit ever really punished anyone at fault for the original problem?
The whole point to them is to discourage a repeat of the same mistakes, via a financial smackdown - and some sort of group compensation for all the victims.
I'd say the people responsible won't just "walk away" on this one. They'll probably suffer through meetings and new written policies that restrict what they're allowed to do on student computer configurations, etc. etc., and you never know if at least one of them winds up losing a job over it (even if the school denies the one situation had anything to do with their termination).
I find broadcasting the SSID helps greatly in troubleshooting wireless issues for other people, if nothing else.
If I get called out to the typical home user's place to help them "fix their problems getting on the Internet", they often don't have any clue what their SSID is set to. All they know is that "It worked ever since the Geeksquad guys came out and set it all up for us!" or what-have-you.
On more than one occasion, I discovered the reason someone had issues had to do with neighbors buying new Linksys routers that had default SSID's of "linksys", matching the default of THEIR Linksys router they'd been using for months/years. Sometimes they were actually connecting to a neighbor's unsecured router for quite some time, before that neighbor made changes that booted them out -- and only THEN did they think they had things mis-configured.
For decades now, your network cards all had unique MAC addresses which could theoretically identify you, too. So what?
It only identifies the particular piece of HARDWARE as unique. It doesn't prove anything about WHO owns the device, or even who is actually operating it at a given point in time.
Any privacy issues only come up because of specific implementations that do "bad" things. Anger at the hardware maker for including some sort of unique ID with the device is misplaced, IMO.
(You know, kind of like that "Guns don't kill people.... People do." argument.)