I don't know if it's just the local store of chainwide, but the local Little Caesar's Pizza had their prices prominently displayed on the front window. I went in, ordered a pizza, and they asked for several dollars more than I expected. I asked to see the ticket, which was for $2 more than the posted price. Their excuse: that was the "drive through" price, it cost $2 more if you went inside.
I handed back the receipt and told them to keep their pizza. Since I hadn't paid yet, I just walked out. And I've never been back. (and no, the sign didn't mention anything about "drive through.")
The FBI's deployment of facial recognition software in various airports and Federal buildings was a topic of discussion when I first started reading the usenet comp.risks newsgroup back in... 1986.
I imagine they've moved right along in the last thirty years.
I keep expecting trouble, someday. A guy named Hassan Nasrallah has been near the top of the Most Wanted Terrorist list for a long time. Unfortunately, though he is Lebanese and I'm Irish/Cherokee, a roll of the genetic dice makes us the next thing to identical twins.
There might be 7 billion humans on Earth, but there aren't 7 billion unique faces...
Every few years there's a bill to require some kind of registration and authentication for internet use. Usually it's buried in some kind of "protect the children" or anti-porn thing.
You have a lot of people in the Fed, and probably a bunch of marketing wonks, who squee at the thought of absolute identification of every user and device on the net.
Their ideal is something like a giant mainframe with a bunch of terminals hung off it, with everything under central control.
I don't necessarily blame the lawyers; they're guns for hire, no matter how stupid their clients are.
But the people who filed the suit... it's not something one executive can do on his own. Probably, not even just one board or committee. And then their own in-house legal counsel either went along with it or were overridden. I figure at least a dozen very senior people would have been needed.
Things like this tend not to be one problem; they're the result of a cascade of problems caused by an institutional culture of "stupid."
The thing that amazes me is not that some companies finally go under, but that they last as long as they do.
Let's see... a 40-year-old floppy would be from 1976.
I bow in respect for your greatness! And the hundreds of 1.2 and 1.44Mb floppies my floppy drives ground on, trying to recover *anything*, were obviously figments of my imagination.
In my experience, HD (1.44Mb) floppies have a lifespan of about ten years before the magnetic domains blur until they can't be read. About the same for CD-ROMs - the kind you can write on your PC. I have 25-year-old commercial music CDs that still play fine, but they use a different technology.
Various backup tape formats, less than 5 years. VHS video tapes start looking cartoony after 10 years. Cassette tapes start going bad at around the same age, even if not played. (most cassettes died from wear, not age)
The lifespan of a recording medium appears to be inversely proportional to its density. Chipped stone, now *that* is permanent. Baked clay isn't as good. That newfangled "paper" stuff, who'd want that?
The ringers are the various drum or disc audio formats; Edison cylinders and records. As long as you don't play them they'll last almost forever. And near the end of the LP era, there were players that used a laser instead of a stylus, so the grooves wouldn't wear. And they're not at all bad for density; that's why the Compact Disc format needed 700Mb to store an LP at a reasonably high sample rate.
There are something like 12,000 police jurisdictions in the United States. They don't work for the Department of Justice; they work for, and are authorized by, their own local governments. If they're not bound by any contracts via taking Federal money, the Fed has no means of compelling them to make reports, or to do anything at all, for at matter.
If the Feds want to compel reporting they might be better off doing it through the judiciary via the DAs' offices and courts.
Otherwise, if they want that data, they can send Men In Black out to every station or courthouse, examine the records, and compile it for themselves. Which might not be a bad thing, since the DOJ appears to have an excess of bureaucratic drones in need of something useful to do.
Airbus Industrie has self-flying airplanes. De facto, due to political reasons, any crash is pilot error. Because the flight control software is *always* right, you stupid pilot, you're just there to keep the union from striking.
An automobile on US roads is involved in a collision. Who is at fault? The driver? The manufacturer? Nobody? "It was on autopilot, but you're supposed to hover over the controls to correct for anything the software couldn't handle?"
Until that's settled, I foresee grave problems getting these things insured. And without insurance, you're not rolling far in the USA. Or getting financing, for that matter.
We could have a new reality TV show called "Who Wants To Be A Test Case?!"
Even with fast broadband, they fill a 28" monitor with animated ads, autoplay movies, and other visual spam, taking interminable times to load. Then there's the "story", about the size of a playing card, broken into a dozen pages, each click ramming more spam down the wire.
They should also sue "the Phone Company" (all of them) and "the Post Office" (all of them, where different from the Phone Company), the governments that own the Post Offices (where not privatized), and "the internet", if they can find it...
On the post: Washington Post Charges An 'Activation' Fee To Let You Pay Them To Get Around Their Paywall
I handed back the receipt and told them to keep their pizza. Since I hadn't paid yet, I just walked out. And I've never been back. (and no, the sign didn't mention anything about "drive through.")
On the post: T-Mobile Declares It's On 'The Right Side Of History' As It Laughs At Net Neutrality
On the post: Germany Interior Minister Pushing For Deployment Of Facial Recognition Software In Public Areas
Re:
On the post: Apple Updates iOS To Close Three Separate 0days That Were Being Exploited
On the post: Germany Interior Minister Pushing For Deployment Of Facial Recognition Software In Public Areas
I imagine they've moved right along in the last thirty years.
I keep expecting trouble, someday. A guy named Hassan Nasrallah has been near the top of the Most Wanted Terrorist list for a long time. Unfortunately, though he is Lebanese and I'm Irish/Cherokee, a roll of the genetic dice makes us the next thing to identical twins.
There might be 7 billion humans on Earth, but there aren't 7 billion unique faces...
On the post: Police Unions To City Officials: If You Want Good, Accountable Cops, You'll Need To Pay Them More
I thought we were paying them for their full efforts already, and always recommend their pay get cut to match their performance level.
On the post: Woman Sues After Police Destroy Her Home During 10-Hour Standoff With The Family Dog
Re:
On the post: Donald Trump Says He'll Turn Off The Internet For Terrorists
You have a lot of people in the Fed, and probably a bunch of marketing wonks, who squee at the thought of absolute identification of every user and device on the net.
Their ideal is something like a giant mainframe with a bunch of terminals hung off it, with everything under central control.
On the post: Citigroup Gets First Loss In Trademark Suit Against AT&T For Saying 'Thanks'
But the people who filed the suit... it's not something one executive can do on his own. Probably, not even just one board or committee. And then their own in-house legal counsel either went along with it or were overridden. I figure at least a dozen very senior people would have been needed.
Things like this tend not to be one problem; they're the result of a cascade of problems caused by an institutional culture of "stupid."
The thing that amazes me is not that some companies finally go under, but that they last as long as they do.
On the post: Archivists Grapple With Problems Of Preserving Recent Culture Held On Tape Cassettes And Floppy Drives
Re: Re:
I bow in respect for your greatness! And the hundreds of 1.2 and 1.44Mb floppies my floppy drives ground on, trying to recover *anything*, were obviously figments of my imagination.
On the post: Archivists Grapple With Problems Of Preserving Recent Culture Held On Tape Cassettes And Floppy Drives
Various backup tape formats, less than 5 years. VHS video tapes start looking cartoony after 10 years. Cassette tapes start going bad at around the same age, even if not played. (most cassettes died from wear, not age)
The lifespan of a recording medium appears to be inversely proportional to its density. Chipped stone, now *that* is permanent. Baked clay isn't as good. That newfangled "paper" stuff, who'd want that?
The ringers are the various drum or disc audio formats; Edison cylinders and records. As long as you don't play them they'll last almost forever. And near the end of the LP era, there were players that used a laser instead of a stylus, so the grooves wouldn't wear. And they're not at all bad for density; that's why the Compact Disc format needed 700Mb to store an LP at a reasonably high sample rate.
On the post: DOJ Finally Going To Force Law Enforcement Agencies To Hand Over Info On People Killed By Police Officers
If the Feds want to compel reporting they might be better off doing it through the judiciary via the DAs' offices and courts.
Otherwise, if they want that data, they can send Men In Black out to every station or courthouse, examine the records, and compile it for themselves. Which might not be a bad thing, since the DOJ appears to have an excess of bureaucratic drones in need of something useful to do.
On the post: If Police Officials Won't Hold Officers Accountable, More Cameras Will Never Mean More Recordings
a) the officer's testimony is always discarded if he has no supporting video
b) if there's not a complete video record of his workday, he doesn't get paid for that day
c) all video footage goes to a publicly-accessible server immediately after each shift
What is it they like to say? Oh, right. "If you're not doing anything wrong, you don't have anything to worry about."
On the post: Frustrated Public Defender Appoints Governor -- And Licensed Attorney -- To Provide Indigent Defense
On the post: Study: Trolls Are Even Worse When Using Real Names
The problem is the suckers who keep falling for the bait. Every. Single. Time.
Trolls eventually lose interest and move on, but the suckers are still there, ready for the next troll.
On the post: Wall Street Journal Reporter Hassled At LA Airport; Successfully Prevents DHS From Searching Her Phones
"Sure, go for it."
"Where is the SIM card?"
"What is a 'SIM card'?"
On the post: Yes, The Democratic National Committee Flat Out Lied In Claiming No Donor Financial Info Leaked
Did those people actually *do* anything other than burning up their keyboards and keypads?
On the post: Elon Musk's Master Plan Includes Turning Tesla Into An Autonomous Uber
An automobile on US roads is involved in a collision. Who is at fault? The driver? The manufacturer? Nobody? "It was on autopilot, but you're supposed to hover over the controls to correct for anything the software couldn't handle?"
Until that's settled, I foresee grave problems getting these things insured. And without insurance, you're not rolling far in the USA. Or getting financing, for that matter.
We could have a new reality TV show called "Who Wants To Be A Test Case?!"
On the post: New York Times Public Editor Scolded For Suggesting Websites Should Treat News Commenters Like Actual Human Beings
Re:
Never.
Even with fast broadband, they fill a 28" monitor with animated ads, autoplay movies, and other visual spam, taking interminable times to load. Then there's the "story", about the size of a playing card, broken into a dozen pages, each click ramming more spam down the wire.
There's no news story worth dealing with that.
On the post: Facebook Sued Again For 'Material Support' Of Terrorism, Because Hamas Uses Facebook
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