Still attempting to wrestle that blogosaurus into submission. I may end up metaphorically stomped to death under its large, lumbering foot before it lumbers back off into the wilderness. Meanwhile, have some links:
- You may have heard about the Garadget flap, in which a petulant CEO “bricked” a complaining customer’s app. The key line from this article: “… when a device gets connected to the internet—whether it’s a cellphone, a thermostat, or a tea kettle—it’s no longer yours.”
- And given the way the ‘Net is going, this might be good news to some of you old hands and privacy buffs: a 1986 BBS is back online.
- This real-life heist has the makings of a movie. Except that Cary Grant’s dead and Sean Connery’s too old. Maybe one of the Ryans — Reynolds or Gosling — could handle the role of the suave criminal mastermind. Great mystery carried out in a rarified intellectual world.
- Victory! 23andMe, the genetic testing company for the people, has been freed by the FDA to tell its customers their risk of certain genetic diseases. For four years, the FDA has hobbled 23andMe’s presentation of results on the grounds (I paraphrase) that customers are too stupid and hysterical to evaluate such news.
- Speaking of bricking on the internet-of-dumb-things, a whiny entrepreneur is hardly the only thing that can brick your formerly useful device.
- Okay, so the proper term is czaritsa, not czarina. I’ll put that into my data banks. Still. Question is: why are such creatures roaming the shores of America?
- In need of some good news? Here’s two stories on the kindness of strangers. When Joe McGrath had to drop out of a planned group trip to Mallorca, his friends invited another Joe McGrath that none of them had ever met. And when a brand-new amputee couldn’t make it up the steps to his house … well, just read.
Oh, that BBS is great! I cut my online teeth on a BBS running on an Apple ][. I wasn’t hugely active in BBS stuff, but I participated in a couple of others off/on, over the years.
And text-based online activity never became completely dead either. I still hang out in a MOO with some people I met in 1998, where we used a MOO at work for sysadmin communication, as well as a bit of fun. As people left that company, one of them decided to host our MOO at home, and most of us have kept up a near-constant connection.
I’m also glad that IRC has never gone away.
Great wheelchair ramp story. I hope some soul-sucking bureaucrat doesn’t ruin it with a code-violation action. (Cuz that’d be what a bureaucrat would do.)
The “brickware” strikes me as being arguably within the province of the white hats. Not only does it eliminate the potential for the targeted dumb-thing-on-the-internet to do malicious stuff, it rather vigorously imparts the necessary lessons:
— Some things don’t need to be connected to the internet;
— Things that are connected to the internet need to have decent security built in, not to mention user accessible and upgradable firmware.
DON’T EVER use ’23andMe’! It has been proven they provide YOUR DNA to law-enforcement authorities WITHOUT YOUR KNOWLEDGE OR CONSENT, – or even a warrant:
Cops are asking Ancestry.com and 23andMe for their customers’ DNA
fusion.net/cops-are-asking-ancestry-com-and-23andme-for-their-cust-1793851927
Law enforcement investigators seek out private DNA databases
mashable.com/2016/03/26/law-enforcement-dna-databases/
Once something that belongs to you is out of your control (DNA, guns, real-estate, etc), the end result will be to hurt you.
Besides, how will DNA testing help you if it shows you have or will develop:
– Huntington’s Chorea – Lou Gehrig’s Disease – Alzheimer’s – etc
(other than making an informed decision not to pass it on via procreation)?
I consider a DNA swab to be a loaded weapon; and, I have the Right to defend myself when someone is trying to hurt me.
Some things don’t need to be connected to the internet;
IMHO very few things need to be connected to the internet.
Maybe one of the Ryans — Reynolds or Gosling — could handle the role of the suave criminal mastermind.
Scarlett Johansson.
Besides, how will DNA testing help you if it shows…
Gene tests for people who have had cancer can show how likely a recurrence is, and help make decisions about treatment. Knowing what my chances of developing Alzheimer’s were could influence decisions about how and when I might retire.
Building that ramp should remind us all that there are good people helping other people every day and even though our lovely agenda driven media will rarely report on it there are many people out there getting by and doing good when they can!
“Scarlett Johansson.”
Okay, she could be on the ninja team. For sure. But no, not its mastermind. Sorry. Nobody with those lips could be a believable movie mastermind. If that’s sexist, sue me.
And well-said on DNA. While I agree with ExpatNJ that DNA databases can be very, very dangerous to privacy, there’s plenty of good reason to want to know genetic disease risks. Sure, if you’ve got the gene for Huntington’s Disease, you’re doomed and that’s that. But with almost everything else, you can take measures to decrease the risks, prepare to manage the disease, or even know whether to write your will sooner rather than later. Besides, it’s interesting to know! Not to mention that you might also get good news in such a test.