"the situation described here sounds quite plausible"
In no way does it sound plausible to me that there existed only one copy of this (or any) document. Nobody does backups? Really? That assertion fails the smell test right out of the gate.
It's just too bad that their routers are so terrible. I'll retain my "plan B", which is pretty much what I used to do: build my own router & WiFi AP.
It wasn't that long ago that if you wanted excellent equipment, you had to build or assemble it yourself. I wonder if the ongoing escalation of the locking people out of the devices they purportedly "own" will bring thing that back around.
Preview is close, but it's a weaker form. Most people won't click preview (or will ignore it, if the site does things the Slashdot way of forcing you to preview mode before you can post).
They will, however, read their own comment and want to edit it after it gets posted. So some sites take the stronger method of "posting" it so that only the commenter sees it, along with an editing timeout that tells you when everyone else will see it as well. That is orders of magnitude more effective than a preview button.
I should add what I do on my own sites. I implement the same thing I marked as my favorite above, but without the timeout. You can come back and edit your comment no matter how old it is, unless someone has replied to it.
"Far to many professionals sign deals with the devil abdicating all of their creative ownership when they get a job."
This is not only true, but to an astonishing degree.
I think that every contract I've been presented with since the mid '90s has included wording that assigned the rights and ownership of everything that I do to the company, regardless of whether or not the company, company resources, or even knowledge I gain during employment is involved.
From the very first time I saw that, I've been striking that language out of the contracts. Only once did an employer object to me doing so -- but we were able to negotiate a perfectly reasonable alternative.
What blows my mind is that almost nobody else ever does this. They just sign the damned things. Astonishing.
Sure. Here's just what I see various other sites do. You could provide a temporary holding time of a few minutes where you can see and edit your comment in place on the page, but nobody else can until the edit time expires. Or you could allow edits freely, but add a little notice of when the last one occurred. Or (my personal favorite) you could allow editing for 15 minutes or so after posting, unless someone replies first. Then you can no longer edit.
I can think of a few other approaches, but you get the idea. This is a cat that has been skinned many different ways.
Even if the financial need is genuine, this method of getting the additional revenue is offensive. It would be better if they just raise rates. At least that would be honorable and honest.
I agree. The problem isn't with caps per se, the problem is with how they're being used and marketed. But the difference is subtle enough that it's hard to talk about the issue without using the imprecise shorthand of "usage caps".
Truly good IT departments are very rare, and very often companies that have them are completely ignorant of their value or even consider them to be a nuisance.
In my experience, the problem IT departments face is twofold: first, they don't directly generate revenue. There's no line you can point a bean-counter to that says "here's the value to the company". This means that they are often viewed as a drain on resources that is to be minimized, rather than the essential utility that it actually is.
Second, if an IT department is excellent and doing its job properly, then there will always be clashes and people pissed off at them -- particularly management, because much of their interaction time will consist of raising holy hell in opposition to some stupid idea or another.
It means that being good at IT is as much a political thing as a technical one. Setting up a new network copier is technically easy, but that kind of thing is often littered with various political mines.
Bad IT departments just give up on the political battles and do the minimal amount they are required to do to keep their jobs. You can spot these pretty easily -- the people in these departments just look defeated and cranky.
I have immense respect for good IT people. I wouldn't last a month in their shoes.
As an aside, when I am evaluating a company that I'm unfamiliar with, the three most valuable things I can learn to get an idea of the company's character are what the custodial staff, the secretarial staff, and the IT staff think about how the company runs.
Not at all. The press of yesteryear was certainly imperfect -- often in precisely the same way as it is now.
However, the press of yesteryear was also a time when there was real and serious competition and diversity in the press. With consolidation and the monetization of news -- turning it into entertainment -- this diversity is gone.
Diversity is important because not all news outlets were flawed in the same way, and it was possible to glean some actual truth from the datastream.
Certain publications were highly valued because while they weren't free of bias, they were careful about getting their facts right. These outlets collectively thought of themselves as a necessary "fourth branch" of government and, as flawed as they were, they took that pretty seriously.
All of the went away years ago.
I'm not saying that the mainstream press used to be awesome and now sucks. I'm saying that they used to practice journalism and now don't.
Entrapment is when cops induce someone to commit a crime they would otherwise not have committed. I'm not seeing how that comes into play in this case.
There's nothing inherently wrong with using a Windows PC for an application like this.
Having it configured so that processes like virus scanning can happen while it is actively in use is a serious problem, but not one that is special to Windows PCs.
So much this. Such a requirement is so obviously a showstopper risk for a mission-critical application that the fact that any hospital accepts it is terrifying.
Not true. While it's true that privacy has been severely curtailed, and it's also true that you have to be proactive about maintaining what privacy you have left, you do have privacy left.
"Im going to tell you to get mad and do something."
If that's your goal, you should rethink your tactic. Screaming that there is no privacy anymore doesn't encourage most people to do anything. Just the opposite -- it tells people "you are doomed", which makes them more likely to just give up.
Re: A perspective from inside duh mainstream media....
"the fact is they're making less money now than in the past"
And the reason that they're making less money now is because they're losing audience. The reason they're losing audience is that they stopped doing their jobs decades ago, when major corporations started buying them all.
The "disruption" they like to complain about was not something that threatened their existence. If the quality of their work had not plummeted, they could have retained their position.
On the post: CIA Inspector General Claims It Accidentally Deleted CIA Torture Report After Being Asked To Retain It
Re:
In no way does it sound plausible to me that there existed only one copy of this (or any) document. Nobody does backups? Really? That assertion fails the smell test right out of the gate.
On the post: Despite New FCC Rules, Linksys, Asus Say They'll Still Support Third Party Router Firmware
Good for Linksys
It wasn't that long ago that if you wanted excellent equipment, you had to build or assemble it yourself. I wonder if the ongoing escalation of the locking people out of the devices they purportedly "own" will bring thing that back around.
On the post: Court Denies Immunity To Law Enforcement Officer Who Arrested Crew Sent To Clean Out His Foreclosed House
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
They will, however, read their own comment and want to edit it after it gets posted. So some sites take the stronger method of "posting" it so that only the commenter sees it, along with an editing timeout that tells you when everyone else will see it as well. That is orders of magnitude more effective than a preview button.
I should add what I do on my own sites. I implement the same thing I marked as my favorite above, but without the timeout. You can come back and edit your comment no matter how old it is, unless someone has replied to it.
On the post: FBI Response To FOIA Request About Whether It Is Hacking Your Amazon Echo: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Re: Re: Re: Always on
On the post: How Java's Inherent Verboseness May Mess Up Fair Use For APIs
Re: We deserve it.
This is not only true, but to an astonishing degree.
I think that every contract I've been presented with since the mid '90s has included wording that assigned the rights and ownership of everything that I do to the company, regardless of whether or not the company, company resources, or even knowledge I gain during employment is involved.
From the very first time I saw that, I've been striking that language out of the contracts. Only once did an employer object to me doing so -- but we were able to negotiate a perfectly reasonable alternative.
What blows my mind is that almost nobody else ever does this. They just sign the damned things. Astonishing.
On the post: Bad News: Two-Factor Authentication Pioneer YubiKey Drops Open Source PGP For Proprietary Version
Showstopper
On the post: Court Denies Immunity To Law Enforcement Officer Who Arrested Crew Sent To Clean Out His Foreclosed House
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I can think of a few other approaches, but you get the idea. This is a cat that has been skinned many different ways.
On the post: ISPs Are Now Forcing Cord Cutters To Subscribe To TV If They Want To Avoid Usage Caps
Re: Re:
On the post: ISPs Are Now Forcing Cord Cutters To Subscribe To TV If They Want To Avoid Usage Caps
Re: Re: Re:
On the post: Heart Surgery Stalled For Five Minutes Thanks To Errant Anti-Virus Scan
Re: Re: One correction
In my experience, the problem IT departments face is twofold: first, they don't directly generate revenue. There's no line you can point a bean-counter to that says "here's the value to the company". This means that they are often viewed as a drain on resources that is to be minimized, rather than the essential utility that it actually is.
Second, if an IT department is excellent and doing its job properly, then there will always be clashes and people pissed off at them -- particularly management, because much of their interaction time will consist of raising holy hell in opposition to some stupid idea or another.
It means that being good at IT is as much a political thing as a technical one. Setting up a new network copier is technically easy, but that kind of thing is often littered with various political mines.
Bad IT departments just give up on the political battles and do the minimal amount they are required to do to keep their jobs. You can spot these pretty easily -- the people in these departments just look defeated and cranky.
I have immense respect for good IT people. I wouldn't last a month in their shoes.
As an aside, when I am evaluating a company that I'm unfamiliar with, the three most valuable things I can learn to get an idea of the company's character are what the custodial staff, the secretarial staff, and the IT staff think about how the company runs.
On the post: Local Fox Affiliate's Reaction To Brutal Police Beating Is A Dereliction Of Its Duty
Re: Re: Re:
However, the press of yesteryear was also a time when there was real and serious competition and diversity in the press. With consolidation and the monetization of news -- turning it into entertainment -- this diversity is gone.
Diversity is important because not all news outlets were flawed in the same way, and it was possible to glean some actual truth from the datastream.
Certain publications were highly valued because while they weren't free of bias, they were careful about getting their facts right. These outlets collectively thought of themselves as a necessary "fourth branch" of government and, as flawed as they were, they took that pretty seriously.
All of the went away years ago.
I'm not saying that the mainstream press used to be awesome and now sucks. I'm saying that they used to practice journalism and now don't.
On the post: FBI Questions Veracity Of Emails It Released To FOIA Requester While Defending Refusal To Discuss Hacking Efforts
Re: Re: Re:
On the post: Heart Surgery Stalled For Five Minutes Thanks To Errant Anti-Virus Scan
Re: A PC?
Having it configured so that processes like virus scanning can happen while it is actively in use is a serious problem, but not one that is special to Windows PCs.
On the post: Heart Surgery Stalled For Five Minutes Thanks To Errant Anti-Virus Scan
Re: Re: Re:
On the post: FBI Doesn't Want Privacy Laws To Apply To Its Biometric Database
Re: Re: Re: LOL @ Privacy Impact Assessment(s)
Not true. While it's true that privacy has been severely curtailed, and it's also true that you have to be proactive about maintaining what privacy you have left, you do have privacy left.
"Im going to tell you to get mad and do something."
If that's your goal, you should rethink your tactic. Screaming that there is no privacy anymore doesn't encourage most people to do anything. Just the opposite -- it tells people "you are doomed", which makes them more likely to just give up.
On the post: Court Denies Immunity To Law Enforcement Officer Who Arrested Crew Sent To Clean Out His Foreclosed House
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
On the post: FBI Response To FOIA Request About Whether It Is Hacking Your Amazon Echo: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Re: Always on
On the post: FBI Response To FOIA Request About Whether It Is Hacking Your Amazon Echo: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Re: Microphones everywhere.
On the post: Local Fox Affiliate's Reaction To Brutal Police Beating Is A Dereliction Of Its Duty
Re: A perspective from inside duh mainstream media....
And the reason that they're making less money now is because they're losing audience. The reason they're losing audience is that they stopped doing their jobs decades ago, when major corporations started buying them all.
The "disruption" they like to complain about was not something that threatened their existence. If the quality of their work had not plummeted, they could have retained their position.
On the post: Local Fox Affiliate's Reaction To Brutal Police Beating Is A Dereliction Of Its Duty
Re:
That's the problem. It wasn't always this way -- there used to be such an obligation, both morally and ethically.
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