I have been involved with bot Boy/Cub Scouts and Girl Scouts for many years. The organization, program structure and materials differ rather significantly.
Some girls are now joining BOTH programs for the challenge - we had one girl that finished her Gold Award and joined BSA to get Eagle Scout. Another joined Cub scouts because the Girl Scouts wouldn't let her use a knife.
Some girls choose BSA because the GSUSA program is either too 'girly' or because it seems a little patronizing at times. My wife actually bought BSA handbooks for her entire GS troop as reference material because the official GS materials for First Aid and Outdoor Skills were both expensive and poorly written.
Say what you will about both programs, but there is no mistaking them - except maybe if you don't look too hard. (idiot in a hurry?)
I pay Netflix for extra streams so each of my family members are able to watch wherever they are. We all live at the main address, but we do get around.
Any one of us could be watching Netflix:
At home
At a hotel
At university
On our phone, anywhere
On our laptop, anywhere
On a "travel" Roku, anywhere
On a friend/family Smart TV while we are visiting
To me, these all seem like reasonable use cases for "sharing" to me - nobody outside the family has the password, but any of us could be in locations away from our home at any time.
If I'm in Manilla and my wife gets locked out of Netflix at her sister's house three doors down, I'll be more than a little annoyed.
30 years ago, I would travel fairly regularly with $10,000-$50,000 on my person. I would do this when purchasing large amounts of IT equipment from regional importer/distributors that offered cash discounts. I was always nervous about being carjacked or mugged during these trips; cops never made me nervous because my business was on the level.
These days, with both local cops and various 3-letter agencies all looking to steal cash and other assets, travelling with cash is treated as criminal behavior. If I ever need to travel with a lot of funds, I will probably get a cashier's check.
I currently have Dish Network, NetFlix, Amazon Prime and HBO.
Like many Americans, I happily paid hundreds of dollars a month for years just access to the movies and shows I wanted to watch. The cost just kept rising until I finally decided to put an end to the cycle.
Last year, I shaved $100/month off my Dish subscription by moving to a 'bare minimum' package (and I made them upgrade my hardware, for free, just to keep me as a customer for 2 more years). The only 'premium' we still watch is HBO, but even then, I dropped it from Dish and went with HBO Now. I will probably drop Dish at the end of my contract, HBO may go sooner than that. I left the decision to drop HBO up to my wife, as she's the one that is into Game of Thrones.
As long as NetFlix continues to not suck, that's not going anywhere.
I was an Amazon Prime customer for years before they added video, but I'm addicted to Prime shipping, so that's going to stay. The Prime video client kind of sucks on my Android TV, so I rarely use it. If needed, I have some software that can be used pull content from Amazon and dump it onto my home media server, so, problem solved.
I've tried Hulu, CBS, Starz, Showtime and a few smaller ones - their interfaces were slow and there was very little I considered worth watching to justify the monthly charges.
If I gave a crap about any of their exclusives, I doubt it would be difficult to find the shows through other means. Assuming I did, I really have only two choices: Sign up for their crappy service, install their crappy app an (assuming one exists for Android TV), and watch it buffer every 7 minutes. Or, I could grab a pirate copy, for free, put it on my media server and watch it, without interruption, whenever I want, wherever I want, forever.
Anyway, after cutting back on media services, the money I saved is enough to take the family to see 2-3 movies per month in the theater, including popcorn and drinks! I have zero interest in signing up for a new fly-by-night streaming service to get content I used to be able to get on NetFlix.
A few notes for the new service providers:
Your playback client isn't stable
Your interface sucks
You have a crappy content delivery network
Your selection is smaller than what I have on my media server
Heck, your selection is smaller than my dwindling VHS collection
Learn to work together people, it will benefit you all.
I used to frequently watch Netflix from my hotel when I traveled on business. My family could potentially be watching at home at the same time, thousands of miles away. when travelling outside of the US, I would need to be on VPN to watch certain content on Netflix. A handful of extended family members have our account on their smart TVs, but it is rarely running unless we are visiting.
Considering the (in)accuracy of IP geolocation, this would be a regular minefield - and this is just one account.
I currently have Netflix, Prime and HBO Now and if they start pulling stupid crap to limit my access, I guarantee I will look elsewhere. I'm not calling support to unlock my account, I'd be calling to cancel.
I've been using CorelDRAW since it was first released for Windows 2.x - so, coming up on 30 years. I am currently using the latest version, CorelDRAW 2018, which is basically version 20. Probably needless to say, I have been a huge fan and something of a booster for the software over the last three decades. I've used Adobe Illustrator in the past, but it always seemed to come up short compared to CorelDRAW.
That being said, I've given a lot of thought recently to kicking CorelDRAW to the curb after my last couple upgrade experiences. The latest version has the gall to pop up obnoxious animated advertisements for other Corel products as desktop notifications. Combined with the really obvious 'always on' (Protexis/Arvato) copy protection and less than optimal software stability, it's hardly my favorite software anymore.
They also used to have amazing customer support, but in the past several years, they have taken to treating even their most loyal customers as just numbers. There was a day when a call to the support line for a damaged install disk would net you a surprise boxed copy of the latest version just because they were out of replacement disks.
I see this in so many large organizations. A 90 day password rotation cycle is a complete farce. Arbitrary complexity requirements/limits and password histories make it that much worse for users, who just tune out these IT policies. What really gets me is when they limit the password length to 8 or 9 characters; my normal passwords are usually at least 15 characters long and I have many over 20.
Users end up with a piece of paper hidden somewhere at their desk or in their wallet/purse with the list of passwords they rotate through. To make matters worse, they are usually garbage passwords like Sprn$018, Smmr$018, Atmn$018 and Wntr$019.
Don't even get me started on password reset procedures.
I have not yet fully disconnected from satellite TV, but my average traffic on my 50/5 mpbs residential cable connection for the last 12 months is 291 GB/mo, but the actual monthly rate has been on the rise as my family watches more an more online programming (Via PC, mobile/Wi-fi & Roku). For September I was at 331 GB, for October I am at 335 GB with a full day to go.
I have friends and family that have fully "cut the cord" and I suspect their usage is much higher than mine.
Thankfully, TWC has not capped our connections - yet. Considering I have no real competitive options in my area should they choose to do so, I'm not particularly happy with this trend.
Interesting, I was using email pretty regularly on my local BBS and later via Compuserve around that time... I had no idea that this guy invented it! {/sarcasm}
Anyway, from what I can tell, this joker claims that his email system was the first 'complete' email system. He lists a bunch of features that his system supported and claims that all of them are required for a fully functional system.
I suppose that I could just as easily claim that a 'feature complete' email system must have a subsystem to dispense adult beverages to recipients every time annoying business buzzwords are used in company-wide email...
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by Ted the IT Guy.
As a person involved in both programs...
I have been involved with bot Boy/Cub Scouts and Girl Scouts for many years. The organization, program structure and materials differ rather significantly.
Some girls are now joining BOTH programs for the challenge - we had one girl that finished her Gold Award and joined BSA to get Eagle Scout. Another joined Cub scouts because the Girl Scouts wouldn't let her use a knife.
Some girls choose BSA because the GSUSA program is either too 'girly' or because it seems a little patronizing at times. My wife actually bought BSA handbooks for her entire GS troop as reference material because the official GS materials for First Aid and Outdoor Skills were both expensive and poorly written.
Say what you will about both programs, but there is no mistaking them - except maybe if you don't look too hard. (idiot in a hurry?)
Well, this should be fun...
I pay Netflix for extra streams so each of my family members are able to watch wherever they are. We all live at the main address, but we do get around.
Any one of us could be watching Netflix:
To me, these all seem like reasonable use cases for "sharing" to me - nobody outside the family has the password, but any of us could be in locations away from our home at any time.
If I'm in Manilla and my wife gets locked out of Netflix at her sister's house three doors down, I'll be more than a little annoyed.
Re: Yay for Florida Paints
Florida Paints just gained the visibility of 1.4M+ new potential customers.
They look like a pretty cool company already, probably an excellent fit for him.
Travelling with Cash
30 years ago, I would travel fairly regularly with $10,000-$50,000 on my person. I would do this when purchasing large amounts of IT equipment from regional importer/distributors that offered cash discounts. I was always nervous about being carjacked or mugged during these trips; cops never made me nervous because my business was on the level.
These days, with both local cops and various 3-letter agencies all looking to steal cash and other assets, travelling with cash is treated as criminal behavior. If I ever need to travel with a lot of funds, I will probably get a cashier's check.
That should make sure I end up on a watch list.
(untitled comment)
I currently have Dish Network, NetFlix, Amazon Prime and HBO.
Like many Americans, I happily paid hundreds of dollars a month for years just access to the movies and shows I wanted to watch. The cost just kept rising until I finally decided to put an end to the cycle.
Last year, I shaved $100/month off my Dish subscription by moving to a 'bare minimum' package (and I made them upgrade my hardware, for free, just to keep me as a customer for 2 more years). The only 'premium' we still watch is HBO, but even then, I dropped it from Dish and went with HBO Now. I will probably drop Dish at the end of my contract, HBO may go sooner than that. I left the decision to drop HBO up to my wife, as she's the one that is into Game of Thrones.
As long as NetFlix continues to not suck, that's not going anywhere.
I was an Amazon Prime customer for years before they added video, but I'm addicted to Prime shipping, so that's going to stay. The Prime video client kind of sucks on my Android TV, so I rarely use it. If needed, I have some software that can be used pull content from Amazon and dump it onto my home media server, so, problem solved.
I've tried Hulu, CBS, Starz, Showtime and a few smaller ones - their interfaces were slow and there was very little I considered worth watching to justify the monthly charges.
If I gave a crap about any of their exclusives, I doubt it would be difficult to find the shows through other means. Assuming I did, I really have only two choices: Sign up for their crappy service, install their crappy app an (assuming one exists for Android TV), and watch it buffer every 7 minutes. Or, I could grab a pirate copy, for free, put it on my media server and watch it, without interruption, whenever I want, wherever I want, forever.
Anyway, after cutting back on media services, the money I saved is enough to take the family to see 2-3 movies per month in the theater, including popcorn and drinks! I have zero interest in signing up for a new fly-by-night streaming service to get content I used to be able to get on NetFlix.
A few notes for the new service providers:
Learn to work together people, it will benefit you all.
Game Client Roundup
After more than 10 years of online gaming, I have the following:
That's not even all of the 'ecosystems' I'm part of! Some have merged, Some are just gone, taking my games with them.
I don't even maintain a friends list in anything outside of Steam.
Re: Problems
Considering the (in)accuracy of IP geolocation, this would be a regular minefield - and this is just one account.
I currently have Netflix, Prime and HBO Now and if they start pulling stupid crap to limit my access, I guarantee I will look elsewhere. I'm not calling support to unlock my account, I'd be calling to cancel.
Corel vs their customers
That being said, I've given a lot of thought recently to kicking CorelDRAW to the curb after my last couple upgrade experiences. The latest version has the gall to pop up obnoxious animated advertisements for other Corel products as desktop notifications. Combined with the really obvious 'always on' (Protexis/Arvato) copy protection and less than optimal software stability, it's hardly my favorite software anymore.
They also used to have amazing customer support, but in the past several years, they have taken to treating even their most loyal customers as just numbers. There was a day when a call to the support line for a damaged install disk would net you a surprise boxed copy of the latest version just because they were out of replacement disks.
Those days are long gone.
Security Theater
I see this in so many large organizations. A 90 day password rotation cycle is a complete farce. Arbitrary complexity requirements/limits and password histories make it that much worse for users, who just tune out these IT policies. What really gets me is when they limit the password length to 8 or 9 characters; my normal passwords are usually at least 15 characters long and I have many over 20.
Users end up with a piece of paper hidden somewhere at their desk or in their wallet/purse with the list of passwords they rotate through. To make matters worse, they are usually garbage passwords like Sprn$018, Smmr$018, Atmn$018 and Wntr$019.
Don't even get me started on password reset procedures.
Woe to the Cord Cutters
I have friends and family that have fully "cut the cord" and I suspect their usage is much higher than mine.
Thankfully, TWC has not capped our connections - yet. Considering I have no real competitive options in my area should they choose to do so, I'm not particularly happy with this trend.
CompuServe and BBSs
Anyway, from what I can tell, this joker claims that his email system was the first 'complete' email system. He lists a bunch of features that his system supported and claims that all of them are required for a fully functional system.
I suppose that I could just as easily claim that a 'feature complete' email system must have a subsystem to dispense adult beverages to recipients every time annoying business buzzwords are used in company-wide email...
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by Ted the IT Guy.
Submit a story now.
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