I recently tried out Comcast cable TV in the bay area. The DVR they gave me is a horrible piece of crap. It would crash or freeze about once a day, and after rebooting it would take 20-30 minutes to reload the program data after a reboot. It would record the same episode over and over, even though it was set to new episodes only. The list goes on but those are the worst of it. I assumed I had a bad unit until I found this site: http://www.bernzilla.com/2008/03/08/the-joys-of-using-a-comcast-dvr/
Turns out they have been giving this same awful DVR to customers FOR OVER TWO YEARS. They knew it sucked, but continue to give it out. When someone complains, they replace it with another of the same. That is seriously crappy service in my opinion. Luckily my place has just barely enough sky view for DirecTV. My fiance and I seriously wanted to smash the Comcast DVR with a hammer after a week.
- Several 80-gig drives - 1 removable IDE hard drive enclosure - 1 fireproof safe, preferably bolted to the ground or kept off-site (for the particularly paranoid)
I completely agree. The physical world of paper ballots is very comforting due to the tangible nature of paper. Electronic voting systems (at least those without a paper trail) are enigmatic to the average voter.
Consider the computer expertise that the average voter has. To the majority of votors, computerized voting systems are, literally, a "black box" solution. It is an issue of basic computer familiarity..in a few decades, just about everyone of voting age will have grown up surrounded by computers. Maybe then we'll be able to inform the public about the intricacies of the electronic voting system so that each voter can reliably verify that the system is working.
Since a web server (usually) knows which browser you're using before it sends any data, i'm sure the phishers have a layout for the non-IE browsers as well. Although most people using anything other than IE are probably familiar enough with their browser to notice any sneakyness.
One upside to computer monoculture is that the few in the know can easily avoid the pitfalls faced by the many. For example, I haven't seen a pop-up or distracting ad on the web for years (mozilla kicks ass), but the average user with IE keeps the internet revenue machine humming happily. And as long as joe average user falls for these scams, I can feel secure knowing that there are much easier targets out there.
The only way to avoid being a victim of this kind of fraud is to understand your computer and the internet. The average user doesn't have the personal connection to their computer that the average slashdot reader has, and they shouldn't have to. What a frightening world to live in--your money can be managed through a completely unfamiliar (and illogical, to the average computer user) medium.
Hopefully the technological divide will dimish before a major financial catastrophe occurs. IMHO, the most perilous psychological response is the urge to continue clicking "yes" or "ok" until a problem disappears. I've done it before, and i'm sure everyone else has done it too.
Computers are nothing more than a tool (like calculators and wrenches) to most people, and to many their benefits do not outweigh the time needed to learn advanced tasks. So can you call someone stupid for not knowing how to operate an HP-42S calculator?
I've had an Archos for 8 months. I had the 6 Gig for 6 months, then it fell off of my desk one day and the hard drive wouldn't spin up anymore. I traded it in for the 20 Gig (by then the same price as the 6 Gig had been), which hasn't crashed yet.
The Archos is awesome because it holds 20 gigs, acts as a fat32 drive, fits >5 hours of playtime on one charge, and fits in your pocket.
It has a wide variety of annoying quirks, however. It takes 4 seconds of holding the power button to turn it on. The UI is fairly clumsy and unstable. The blue shock protectors on the corners don't work at all and are hideously ugly (in my opinion at least). It can't take much movement without stopping to rebuffer, so it doesn't work well for jogging.
The month I had to wait for my 20 Gig after the 6 Gig crashed was painful--it has spoiled me to have my entire music collection with me wherever I go.
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I recently tried out Comcast cable TV in the bay area. The DVR they gave me is a horrible piece of crap. It would crash or freeze about once a day, and after rebooting it would take 20-30 minutes to reload the program data after a reboot. It would record the same episode over and over, even though it was set to new episodes only. The list goes on but those are the worst of it. I assumed I had a bad unit until I found this site: http://www.bernzilla.com/2008/03/08/the-joys-of-using-a-comcast-dvr/
Turns out they have been giving this same awful DVR to customers FOR OVER TWO YEARS. They knew it sucked, but continue to give it out. When someone complains, they replace it with another of the same. That is seriously crappy service in my opinion. Luckily my place has just barely enough sky view for DirecTV. My fiance and I seriously wanted to smash the Comcast DVR with a hammer after a week.
- Several 80-gig drives
- 1 removable IDE hard drive enclosure
- 1 fireproof safe, preferably bolted to the ground or kept off-site (for the particularly paranoid)
I completely agree. The physical world of paper ballots is very comforting due to the tangible nature of paper. Electronic voting systems (at least those without a paper trail) are enigmatic to the average voter.
Consider the computer expertise that the average voter has. To the majority of votors, computerized voting systems are, literally, a "black box" solution. It is an issue of basic computer familiarity..in a few decades, just about everyone of voting age will have grown up surrounded by computers. Maybe then we'll be able to inform the public about the intricacies of the electronic voting system so that each voter can reliably verify that the system is working.
Since a web server (usually) knows which browser you're using before it sends any data, i'm sure the phishers have a layout for the non-IE browsers as well. Although most people using anything other than IE are probably familiar enough with their browser to notice any sneakyness.
One upside to computer monoculture is that the few in the know can easily avoid the pitfalls faced by the many. For example, I haven't seen a pop-up or distracting ad on the web for years (mozilla kicks ass), but the average user with IE keeps the internet revenue machine humming happily. And as long as joe average user falls for these scams, I can feel secure knowing that there are much easier targets out there.
The only way to avoid being a victim of this kind of fraud is to understand your computer and the internet. The average user doesn't have the personal connection to their computer that the average slashdot reader has, and they shouldn't have to. What a frightening world to live in--your money can be managed through a completely unfamiliar (and illogical, to the average computer user) medium.
Hopefully the technological divide will dimish before a major financial catastrophe occurs. IMHO, the most perilous psychological response is the urge to continue clicking "yes" or "ok" until a problem disappears. I've done it before, and i'm sure everyone else has done it too.
hahahahaha.. absolutely ridiculous.
Computers are nothing more than a tool (like calculators and wrenches) to most people, and to many their benefits do not outweigh the time needed to learn advanced tasks. So can you call someone stupid for not knowing how to operate an HP-42S calculator?
PerlRun is the component that allows CGI to be run without modification, not Registry.
I've had an Archos for 8 months. I had the 6 Gig for 6 months, then it fell off of my desk one day and the hard drive wouldn't spin up anymore. I traded it in for the 20 Gig (by then the same price as the 6 Gig had been), which hasn't crashed yet.
The Archos is awesome because it holds 20 gigs, acts as a fat32 drive, fits >5 hours of playtime on one charge, and fits in your pocket.
It has a wide variety of annoying quirks, however. It takes 4 seconds of holding the power button to turn it on. The UI is fairly clumsy and unstable. The blue shock protectors on the corners don't work at all and are hideously ugly (in my opinion at least). It can't take much movement without stopping to rebuffer, so it doesn't work well for jogging.
The month I had to wait for my 20 Gig after the 6 Gig crashed was painful--it has spoiled me to have my entire music collection with me wherever I go.
I don't see any of the quoted text in the article...Is this guy quoting the article itself or just his interpretation?
That was damn easy. The hardest part was transcribing the numbers.