Useless Conversation

[Paelos]

The Android interface is no harder to use than the Apple one. It might even be easier for people used to Windows.

I find the apple one more complicated as a PC user. I never understand why people like that model, but it's all about what you're used to.

[HaemishM]

The Android interface is no harder to use than the Apple one. It might even be easier for people used to Windows.

But it isn't an iPad.

[Cyrrex]

We live in a black box world.  Most people prefer to use devices that require little knowledge of said device.  I'll bet that if you ask 100 people how a car or television works, only about 20 will give a reasonable answer.

You see, a television is this series of tubes...


You people are dead wrong about the ease of use of an Android and an Apple device.  I have now seen three of my boys grow up in the iphone/itouch/ipad era (plus several senior citizens), and I can tell you without reservation that Apple has managed to hit on something that small toddlers intuitively understand how to use.  If I handed my Android phone to any of them, they would be stone cold stumped.  Very savvy people will have little or no trouble going from one or the other, but there is no comparison between the two.  

That is not a judgement on which I think is better.  I prefer my Android for a number of things.  But the Apple product is 10 times easier to use.  Even stinking iTunes is easier.

[Nebu]

Some of that is because "experts" have been to known to give people half-truths that cover up the fact they don't want to do extra work.

My industry is guilty of it. We'll often give people half the information because if you actually tell them the whole thing, they'll want you do try and calculate their infinitely small chance of getting a deduction for their boat, but then not pay you for that knowledge.

In college, the first 2-3 years of science education is made up of mostly lies because students lack the math and physics to understand the truth.  I'm certain that this phenomenon exists in most fields and it disturbs me.

[Ingmar]

Ugh, I have to teach a sales guy how to use PGP.

UGH.

[Nebu]

Ugh, I have to teach a sales guy how to use PGP.

UGH.

Might be less work to do everything for him.

[Phildo]

I concur on iOS being more user-friendly based on spending hours walking people through setting up email remotely.

[Cadaverine]

Because Apple is a marketing machine. 

We had a client earlier in the year that had us buy them three new Macbook Pros, and then install Office on all three, and Parallels + Windows 8.1 on two of them.  I'm not sure how Apple does it, but clearly they're really good at it.

[Lantyssa]

It's ok.. Relax in the knowledge that when it becomes an issue you'll be the scapegoat and get fired.

It's more comforting a thought than you can ever imagine.

Also I'd be able to earn ten times what I do now consulting for them because they'd be out of business before they could manage to hire someone and get them up to speed.  Not that they'd realize that in time, so I can take comfort in that, too.

[Lantyssa]

Ugh, I have to teach a sales guy how to use PGP.

Uh?  What possibly led to that happening?

I don't want to call it a full programming language though perhaps it qualifies.  Scripting language?  Still, that's like asking to teach someone Basic or Pascal.

[Ingmar]

Ugh, I have to teach a sales guy how to use PGP.

Uh?  What possibly led to that happening?

I don't want to call it a full programming language though perhaps it qualifies.  Scripting language?  Still, that's like asking to teach someone Basic or Pascal.

PGP (email encryption stuff), not PHP. If it was PHP I would already have gone on my murderous rampage.

[Lantyssa]

Oh.  Gotcha.  Misread.  (I love acronyms.)  Still... uh, gods no.

We exchanged keys and have the server automatically decrypt the sent file.  No way am I letting one of my people near PGP.

[Ingmar]

We use a cloud service that doesn't support it natively so basically I have to teach him how to do it himself with Thunderbird or something on his desktop. Because our customers are paranoid lunatics who are worried about their super important secrets despite having nothing particularly special to protect.

Emails I've received on the topic today contained the words "NSA", "Snowden", "GCHQ", etc. We make building controls and electrical meters. 

[Lantyssa]

At least we deal with sensitive personal and financial information.  Yeesh.

[ezrast]

The Man is going to hack your electricity, man.

[Chimpy]

Having worked with building controls and the systems that network them together and manage them from several of the biggest vendors in the world, the place they need to focus their security neuroses at is the products they make and sell and not their discussions about next week's corporate golf outing.

[Yegolev]

The Man is going to hack your electricity, man.

It can happen.

[Merusk]

It's one of the top security concerns out there.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/421112/how-to-hack-the-power-grid-for-fun-and-profit/

As more building systems get automated and wired it'll be an even bigger issue.

Hell, there's people who can hack your car.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/07/24/hackers-reveal-nasty-new-car-attacks-with-me-behind-the-wheel-video/

[Zetor]

Yep, things like car and smarthome hacking are pretty hot in the sec research area right now -- car hacking in particular (including some KITT-level shit) has been around since 2008-2009. It's also possible to hack [some] insulin pumps and pacemakers, btw...

edit: if one of your technologically illiterate co-workers or clients wants to encrypt shit (and it's a rare or one-off occurrence), it's probably a better idea to have them use an AES-capable .zip compressor like winzip or 7zip, and just come up with a password/passphrase for that. Then you can send the password/phrase by SMS. If they complain about THAT, tell them that while the Illuminati have control of the world's mobile networks and thus can read the password, currently the Templars are in control of the world's internet communication via Echelon -- and since they hate each other, your data is safe! If they don't believe you, have them play Deus Ex: Invisible War so that they will fully understand the consequence of their folly.


Important note: I spent about ~20 days total in Israel and China the last two months, and f13.net was basically the only site I frequent (gaming-related or not) that was blacklisted in BOTH countries -- it was on the shitlist for the Netspark content filter in Jerusalem, and if you try to view f13.net over the Great Firewall of China, you just get a 403. schild, you have some splaining to do  

[schild]

I'm not a zionist and China can blow me.

That should just about cover it.

[Trippy]

and if you try to view f13.net over the Great Firewall of China, you just get a 403. schild, you have some splaining to do  

China IPs are blocked on our server

No but seriously if we didn't block them we would get tens if not hundreds of spam posts a day.

Sorry about that.

[schild]

Awwwww, I was content with him thinking China blocked us.

[Zetor]

Yea, the spamblocking makes sense, though now the mystique is gone. See, I thought there was some kind of DNS poisoning thing with f13.net pointing to a different domain (like if you try to embed youtube in an iframe, sometimes you get a redirect to incomprehensiblechinesespamsite.net in its place) especially since they seem to love domain names with numbers in them.  /sadf

I'm pretty sure that what ACTUALLY happens, though, is that that there is a huge blackboard somewhere within the Chinese People's Internet Committee building (which itself is somewhere under the evil volcano lair, and right next to where they are constructing the Chinese Moonbase) with hundreds of URLs containing objectionable material... and f13.net takes up like half of the blackboard by itself, with various remarks as "Confirmed Hellgate:London Fansite -- DO NOT ENGAGE" and "Epicenter of grunk outbreak -- QUARANTINED", and they have someone assigned 24/7 to replace all f13.net requests to a 403 web page in order to protect the citizenship from the terror that is f13.

[Yegolev]

I'm too late to say that the Chinese snooped into the secret forums and became frightened.

Instead I'll say I now have a new HVAC upstairs and my son says it's drying out the house too well.  Need to figure out how to adjust that.

[Signe]

Speaking of spam, there seem to be a LOT of Russian girls who want to meet me.   

[MisterNoisy]

Emails I've received on the topic today contained the words "NSA", "Snowden", "GCHQ", etc. We make building controls and electrical meters. 

This made me laugh way harder than it should have.  Thanks.  :)

[RhyssaFireheart]

Oh nice, work allows us to install Google Chrome as an alternative browser.  Now I can finally stop using FFv15 as my "casual" browser on the laptop.  I still need to use IE though for the work apps because SharePoint (and some other things) don't play nicely with anyone else.

[Paelos]

Got back from Cooperstown over the weekend where I went to see the MLB Hall of Fame induction ceremonies. That's a cool little town that gets bombarded by about 50,000 people at once.

Good news was the weather held off. It was raining pretty hard surrounding that day.

[Yegolev]

What were the other 49,999 people there for?

[Ingmar]

Got back from Cooperstown over the weekend where I went to see the MLB Hall of Fame induction ceremonies. That's a cool little town that gets bombarded by about 50,000 people at once.

Good news was the weather held off. It was raining pretty hard surrounding that day.

50k is an unusually large crowd for the induction, it's usually more like 15k from how they were talking on the radio.

[Sky]

What were the other 49,999 people there for?

Ommegang.

[Paelos]

Got back from Cooperstown over the weekend where I went to see the MLB Hall of Fame induction ceremonies. That's a cool little town that gets bombarded by about 50,000 people at once.

Good news was the weather held off. It was raining pretty hard surrounding that day.

50k is an unusually large crowd for the induction, it's usually more like 15k from how they were talking on the radio.

There were 6 guys going in, and it was a pretty huge turnout. They guessed 40k, and I would say it seemed like more given the field coverage. You could barely get around.

[Ingmar]

It was the 3rd biggest turnout ever, if the reporting was to believed, yeah. Cal Ripken/Tony Gwynn and the Nolan Ryan/George Brett years were the only bigger ones.

[Phildo]

Tony La Russa and Joe Torre are huge inductees.  I didn't follow baseball at all for 20 years and I know who they are.

[Paelos]

Tony La Russa and Joe Torre are huge inductees.  I didn't follow baseball at all for 20 years and I know who they are.

When combined with Bobby Cox, the other managerial inductee, you have 3 of the top 5 managers ever in terms of wins. That's what made it so ridiculous. Toss in the Big Hurt, and two of the best Braves pitchers of all time? You had tons of fans from Chicago, St. Louis, New York, and Atlanta, which comprises a pretty large chunk of MLB fans in the country.