Agreed. What need does a biller have in hooking up their IPOD to their work PC? Why would a clientservices-phone jockey need to hook up their USB memory stick? Why would a transcriptionist need access msn/hotmail/yahoomail?
In theory this sounds wonderful. In practice very few IT folks would accept the same restrictions on their own computers without massive revolt, so why should "stupid users" have to put up with this kind of BS. Eh, you're just a sysadmin. Here, use this copy of Windows the way I happened to configure it to try to get all your work done. Really? You'd bend over and take that?
While sysadmins are ultimately responsible for IT security, there are generally many ways to accomplish that. "Lock down everything and screw the user" is not the only way; nor is it always the best way, overall.
Consider that today virtually every "knowledge" worker has 3-10 different job roles. Nobody is *just* a button pusher anymore... You may not care enough to find out why someone needs to use a memory stick once a year, but that doesn't mean there isn't a good (== good for the company) reason. The company can go out of business for other reasons too, like being hampered into lower consistently low productivity by a paranoid IT staff.
This "only I am smart enough to actually have any control" attitude is also one of the reasons so many IT folks don't get dates.
I think lots of people are missing the real potential here; think about the possibility of pointing your cellphone at a vending machine or point of sale console and making a purchase instantly. Very very handy.
Now imagine your phone being able to make purchases directly without something like a biometric finger scan -- very scary.
This isn't just to protect the data in your address book -- get over yourself, you don't have that many secret numbers... this is to allow the phone to evolve towards an all-in-one device that lets you leave your wallet behind.
And can we stop the ranting that everyone will start cutting fingers off right and left.
Steal phone: 3 months probation. Cut off finger: 10+ years. They're not that desperate for your data.
Can you really imagine others *not* noticing when you pull out a severed finger to make your purchase?
This tool has worked for me, though it's beta... I would LOVE to see this one refined and put out for mainstream use. The ability to stay organized by tweaking subject lines is invaluable!
The new Tags in 2.0 are also a godsend. To make Thunderbird feel a bit more like gMail, download the "Buttons!" extension and give yourself a big handy "Archive!" button in the main toolbar. Once you use it, you'll never ever go back to dragging things to folders.
Could a solution be as simple as blocking all such stupid non-tags?
yes, no, fud, notfud -- etc are not real tags. What if we didn't allow them?
(Then again we'll just get y3s, n0tfUd, etc... but still...)
I realize this is slashdot but this childishness is killing a potentially useful community-based feature. So sad, and more to the point not even remotely clever anymore.
> What I don't understand is why so many people here are describing our service provider using terms
> like "incompetent". They are doing exactly what they are being paid to do.
Regardless of your beliefs that what they are doing is morally (or whatever) correct...
If you were to switch to a trusted ISP your company's BL problems would go away. As an IT person at your company I'd say you have an obligation to make the switch.
I think there is a major difference between being visually observed in public and a TV broadcast that a lot of posters have missed...
Sure, when you do something where people could see you, people can see you.
All of a sudden when it's broadcast, though, it will be Tivo'd by someone; and now whatever stupid or scandalous thing you've just done in public is virtually guaranteed to end up posted on youtube, etc and/or emailed around the world.
Basically what we'd be doing is giving any person the ability to take what is currently in the hands of the authorities (which is scary enough) and decide what of it to publish to the world. Not cool.
Whole top-level domains concept flawed
on
Is It Time For .tel?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Why do we need even more top level domains? So that companies must register yet another TLD to keep people from claiming pepsi.tel?
In the minds of the vast majority of internet users, the extension is an afterthought at best. The company I work for is a.net, but of course we had to buy the.com because everyone types it... and the.org just in case... and what's this I hear about.co and.biz??? (comment from the PHB)
Real progress would be in moving to simplify things; less top level domains. How about just one for governments, one for schools, and one for absolutely everything else?
> The news will be that if this practice does go into wide usage, spammers
> will turn toward draining large, anonymous bank accounts to fund their e-mail > influxes.
Um... if they are able to drain (other peoples') large bank accounts, why would they waste that money for paid spamming?
Seems that if we they can get away with stealing money directly, they'd just stop at that.
So spam goes down, and then when they get caught it's for a more serious crime -- all in all this sounds like a good plan!
It really seems to me that -- especially as free/cheap alternatives like this come online -- that the only way cell companies are going to keep customers is to allow all-you-can-use packages (voice and data) at reasonable prices.
Counting minutes? Seriously? Let it go already...
You want your customer to use the product so much that they can't imagine living without it; not to instinctively try to avoid using it whenever possible due to (effectively) micropayments.
I've read and believe that AJAX is being or has been de-acronym-ified...
AJAX is just a proper noun now, referring more to the user interaction style used in the BLURG apps you mention, and doesn't need to use any specific technology.
i.e. Don't shove the whole user interface down the pipe every time the user clicks... adapt the interface as work progresses... etc.
The term is probably here to stay... so we might as well make it mean what we want it to.
Seriously? All the geeks I know work 70+ hour work weeks... then again I think a lot of that is self-imposed...
More on-topic, though, I've seen many examples of unions just going way too far. They were a good idea, and have wrought many benefits. However the only 2 things they are responsible for are:
(a) Provide for their own survival.
(b) Increase benefits to their members.
Point being, there is no incentive whatsoever for them to act reasonably. Members only making $160,000/year? Strike and get more (see longshoremen). Company on the brink of bankruptcy? Screw 'em. Demand more wages and benefits (See big 3 automatkers).
Clearly when the little people are getting screwed unions can serve the greater good. But there needs to be some point at which they can say "we've done our job, things are reasonable, goodbye" and stop the drain on the companies they have become parasites to.
At some point, the companies are the "little people" being screwed by the unions, which is not really any better.
> By people downloading Child porn, does it give those that hurt the
> children more means to make child porn? I'm not trying to make a point
> with this question, I'm actually asking that question.
If you're seriously looking for an answer, then here it is:
No.
I do wonder, though, if downloading xyz (pretend it's not child porn for a second) would still provide incentive to the actual producers of xyz (just not a financial one)...
I mean, honestly, if you produce a super spiffy free open source tool and a million people download it and love it, you feel pretty darn good and might choose to do so again if you can. The fact that we even have an open source community proves that (direct) financial gain isn't the only thing that motivates people to produce something and make it available on the internet.
Back to child porn; if those that are actually producing it feel that there are millions of people just begging for their product, they will be more likely to try to produce more, no? Thus it seems that the "as long as you don't pay them for it" argument is flawed?
This is somewhat tangential, but does anyone else worry that by giving each soldier more and more gear such as these cooling suits, helmets with wireless HUDs, etc we make them more attractive targets?
I recall reading somewhere that by 2020 the average US soldier will carry something like $50,000 of (mostly high tech) gear each.
OK, it's bad that we have to send them where people will try to kill them... but setting up a situation where people will try to kill them just to take (and sell/use) all their high tech stuff seems like it could be even worse.
Slashdot Mirror
Now imagine your phone being able to make purchases directly without something like a biometric finger scan -- very scary.
This isn't just to protect the data in your address book -- get over yourself, you don't have that many secret numbers... this is to allow the phone to evolve towards an all-in-one device that lets you leave your wallet behind.
And can we stop the ranting that everyone will start cutting fingers off right and left.
Because let's be honest...
URLs like in.fini.ty, del.icio.us, etc are both extremely lame and annoying.
Don't be that guy.
It's actually possible via an (experimental?) extension to edit subject lines on received emails.
w nload-of-the-day--edit-subject-lines-in-thunderbir d-180373.php
Check out the Header Tools Extension.
Discussed here:
http://www.lifehacker.com/software/thunderbird/do
Link here:
http://www.supportware.net/mozilla/#ext15
This tool has worked for me, though it's beta... I would LOVE to see this one refined and put out for mainstream use. The ability to stay organized by tweaking subject lines is invaluable!
The new Tags in 2.0 are also a godsend. To make Thunderbird feel a bit more like gMail, download the "Buttons!" extension and give yourself a big handy "Archive!" button in the main toolbar. Once you use it, you'll never ever go back to dragging things to folders.
Depends on what you mean by "as we know it".
I would have thought that the MacOS was pretty much mature and stable, and they did some pretty groundbreaking stuff moving to OSX.
Until we have an OS that lets us interface like the guys in Minority Report (or, hell... like HAL) we may not be finished.
Could a solution be as simple as blocking all such stupid non-tags?
yes, no, fud, notfud -- etc are not real tags. What if we didn't allow them?
(Then again we'll just get y3s, n0tfUd, etc... but still...)
I realize this is slashdot but this childishness is killing a potentially useful community-based feature. So sad, and more to the point not even remotely clever anymore.
> What I don't understand is why so many people here are describing our service provider using terms
> like "incompetent". They are doing exactly what they are being paid to do.
Regardless of your beliefs that what they are doing is morally (or whatever) correct...
If you were to switch to a trusted ISP your company's BL problems would go away. As an IT person at your company I'd say you have an obligation to make the switch.
I think there is a major difference between being visually observed in public and a TV broadcast that a lot of posters have missed...
Sure, when you do something where people could see you, people can see you.
All of a sudden when it's broadcast, though, it will be Tivo'd by someone; and now whatever stupid or scandalous thing you've just done in public is virtually guaranteed to end up posted on youtube, etc and/or emailed around the world.
Basically what we'd be doing is giving any person the ability to take what is currently in the hands of the authorities (which is scary enough) and decide what of it to publish to the world. Not cool.
Why do we need even more top level domains? So that companies must register yet another TLD to keep people from claiming pepsi.tel?
.net, but of course we had to buy the .com because everyone types it... and the .org just in case... and what's this I hear about .co and .biz??? (comment from the PHB)
In the minds of the vast majority of internet users, the extension is an afterthought at best. The company I work for is a
Real progress would be in moving to simplify things; less top level domains. How about just one for governments, one for schools, and one for absolutely everything else?
> The news will be that if this practice does go into wide usage, spammers
> will turn toward draining large, anonymous bank accounts to fund their e-mail
> influxes.
Um... if they are able to drain (other peoples') large bank accounts, why would they waste that money for paid spamming?
Seems that if we they can get away with stealing money directly, they'd just stop at that.
So spam goes down, and then when they get caught it's for a more serious crime -- all in all this sounds like a good plan!
It really seems to me that -- especially as free/cheap alternatives like this come online -- that the only way cell companies are going to keep customers is to allow all-you-can-use packages (voice and data) at reasonable prices.
Counting minutes? Seriously? Let it go already...
You want your customer to use the product so much that they can't imagine living without it; not to instinctively try to avoid using it whenever possible due to (effectively) micropayments.
I've read and believe that AJAX is being or has been de-acronym-ified...
AJAX is just a proper noun now, referring more to the user interaction style used in the BLURG apps you mention, and doesn't need to use any specific technology.
i.e. Don't shove the whole user interface down the pipe every time the user clicks... adapt the interface as work progresses... etc.
The term is probably here to stay... so we might as well make it mean what we want it to.
reasonable work hours, etc.
Seriously? All the geeks I know work 70+ hour work weeks... then again I think a lot of that is self-imposed...
More on-topic, though, I've seen many examples of unions just going way too far. They were a good idea, and have wrought many benefits. However the only 2 things they are responsible for are:
(a) Provide for their own survival.
(b) Increase benefits to their members.
Point being, there is no incentive whatsoever for them to act reasonably. Members only making $160,000/year? Strike and get more (see longshoremen). Company on the brink of bankruptcy? Screw 'em. Demand more wages and benefits (See big 3 automatkers).
Clearly when the little people are getting screwed unions can serve the greater good. But there needs to be some point at which they can say "we've done our job, things are reasonable, goodbye" and stop the drain on the companies they have become parasites to.
At some point, the companies are the "little people" being screwed by the unions, which is not really any better.
Wikipedia wars.
Your flippin tax dollars at work.
> By people downloading Child porn, does it give those that hurt the > children more means to make child porn? I'm not trying to make a point > with this question, I'm actually asking that question.
If you're seriously looking for an answer, then here it is:
No.
I do wonder, though, if downloading xyz (pretend it's not child porn for a second) would still provide incentive to the actual producers of xyz (just not a financial one)...
I mean, honestly, if you produce a super spiffy free open source tool and a million people download it and love it, you feel pretty darn good and might choose to do so again if you can. The fact that we even have an open source community proves that (direct) financial gain isn't the only thing that motivates people to produce something and make it available on the internet.
Back to child porn; if those that are actually producing it feel that there are millions of people just begging for their product, they will be more likely to try to produce more, no? Thus it seems that the "as long as you don't pay them for it" argument is flawed?
This is somewhat tangential, but does anyone else worry that by giving each soldier more and more gear such as these cooling suits, helmets with wireless HUDs, etc we make them more attractive targets?
I recall reading somewhere that by 2020 the average US soldier will carry something like $50,000 of (mostly high tech) gear each.
OK, it's bad that we have to send them where people will try to kill them... but setting up a situation where people will try to kill them just to take (and sell/use) all their high tech stuff seems like it could be even worse.
I'll try to never buy any song priced over $0.99 if this happens. If you're all with me, problem solved.