Why Cancelling an Account is Such a Headache
Refusing to cancel someone's account is a very bad thing (and probably illegal). However, cancelling your account can be a fight that you're not prepared to handle. In case you didn't know this already, companies are structured to put enormous pressure their representatives to keep you from cancelling at all costs.
If you are a typical call center worker - unskilled, uneducated, living paycheck to paycheck off .... [Click here to read the rest of this post]E-Voting Still Not Working
California did an audit on three of the major e-voting products and found them all to be seriously lacking. To keep a long story short, my view on this is simply: how does a company release products this bad for something this important and not expect it to blow up in their face? Every state that has used these machines should sue Diabold etc. .... [Click here to read the rest of this post]
Attempted Copyright Infringement Bill In Congress
This is really bad. Attempting to rob a store, I understand, but attempting Copyright Infringement? What if you plan to use someone’s copyrighted work in a demonstration thinking that’s covered under fair use and order some posters, but the shop reports you for “attempted copyright infringement” and has you thrown in jail. Maybe it doesn’t really work this way and someone who’s read the bill in detail can add more .... [Click here to read the rest of this post]
Tags: CongressChildren are ID Theft Victims Too
In case you haven’t been paying attention, kids are just as likely to be ID theft victims as adults, even more so. Because they don’t have any regular financial activity and no one would ever think to get a credit report for their kids (since they shouldn’t have one), the theft can go on for much longer without detection..... [Click here to read the rest of this post]
Tags: Consequences, If You Only Knew, KidsBlackle? Google with a Black Theme
Someone suggested that Google could save a lot of energy around the world if they used black as their background color (because white is the most intense color that a monitor can produce where black is the absense of light). So some company created Blackle (which is powered by Google though not RUN by Google). Their “about” page says that they’re all about saving electricity and being green, but I’m .... [Click here to read the rest of this post]
Summary of Deep Packet Inspection and Net Neutrality
Here’s a great summary of both deep packet inspection and net neutrality and why they’re important. The short of it is that if a company can inspect your internet packets, they can figure out what you’re doing. This lets them charge more for certain types of traffic than others. The companies will be able to use their vast resources of technical and number crunching experts to find the best way .... [Click here to read the rest of this post]
The 12 Kinds of Ads – Know Their Tricks so You Don’t Fall For Them
It's interesting how knowing the basic purpose behind the ad can help you prevent any manipulative attempts they make. It's a lot like watching a horror movie with the sound off. You completely destroy the maker's ability to control your response. Be sure to check the link for the commentary and sample ads, but here's the abbreviated version:
- The "Demo" – The only purpose of this ad is to .... [Click here to read the rest of this post]
Casual Gaming Big Business and Getting Bigger
I was glad to see this Ars Technica article about how casual gaming is a huge thing especially in the arena of casual MMOs. This is what I’ve been saying all along with my City of Heroes webpage.
Tags: GamingThe State of Airline Security From the Pilot’s Perspective
Almost six years after 9/11, it is inexcusable that — in an environment where TSA misses more than 90% of weapons, RON [aircraft left unattended and unlocked at night] aircraft are not secured, and ground employees are not screened — fewer than 2% of our airliners have a team of armed pilots aboard, fewer than 5% have air marshals, and the flight attendants have no mandatory .... [Click here to read the rest of this post]Supermarkets Treat You Like A Criminal – Fingerprints for Food
Some supermarkets now have fingerprint readers in lieu of credit card payments. You have to supply your fingerprint and attach your credit card to it, but then you can pay just by touching your finger to the reader. There are many problems with this: 1) In theory, they’re promising only to take the “data points” not the fingerprint, but if they use the same data points as other companies, then .... [Click here to read the rest of this post]
Tags: Utter Failure