TECHNOLOGY: What a freak accident

Wednesday, September 22, 2021

https://nypost.com/2021/09/22/brazil-man-dies-in-freak-keg-explosion-on-his-43rd-birthday/

Cancer survivor killed after beer keg explodes at 43rd birthday party
By Ben Cost September 22, 2021 10:58am 

*** begin quote ***

A Brazilian man died at his own birthday party last week after a beer keg exploded while he was trying to fix it.

The tragedy occurred the evening of Sept. 17 after Gilson do Nascimento, 43, rented the booze barrel for his b’day bash in Campo Bom in the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, Newsflash reported.

*** end quote ***

What a freak accident.

I foresee a big lawsuit about who said what!

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HARDWARE: Chromebook versus Apple care

Monday, September 20, 2021

My experience with getting my ROSE Mac book air repaired continues. 

Yeah, I spilled coffee on it — thanks Dunkin Donuts — and I sent it in and paid for repair — spills not covered by Apple Care — back it came still broken.

Just went thru the process again because the box got lost. Argh!

I’m going to chrome books completely.  When they break you just recycle them.  Argh!

My fiancé’s chrome book broke down and I had her back in operation in less than a day.  Most of the time was to drive to Best Buy and pick up a new one. 

Chromebook = Appliance like “Toaster” where as the Mac Book Air is more like a cranky computer. Argh!

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SOFTWARE: Switching from PROVPN to EXPRESSVPN

Wednesday, August 4, 2021

Seems like PROXPN is “ghosting”?

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TECHNOLOGY: Texting sucks

Friday, July 23, 2021

2021-Jul-23 2148

Texts have been really screwed up on the TMobile network.  All sort of weird crap going on.  Texts to and from TMobile are just going into the bitbucket.

My work around is just to use the damn phone as a voice call.

All communications protocols SHOUD BE authenticated and error-resistant!

Argh!

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TECHNOLOGY: Can’t Sue the Corporation that Wrongly Marked You a Terrorist?

Saturday, July 10, 2021

https://www.eff.org/effector/33/4

Supreme Court Says You Can’t Sue the Corporation that Wrongly Marked You a Terrorist

In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court barred the courthouse door to thousands of people who were wrongly marked as “potential terrorists” by credit giant TransUnion. The Court’s analysis of their “standing” —whether they were sufficiently injured to file a lawsuit—reflects a naïve view of the increasingly powerful role that personal data, and the private corporations that harvest and monetize it, play in everyday life. It also threatens congressional efforts to protect our privacy and other intangible rights from predation by Facebook, Google and other tech giants.

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Seems like they made big mistake on this one.

Gooferment politicians and bureaucrats are immoral, ineffective, and inefficient. As well as untrustworthy.

Argh!

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TECHNOLOGY: “peak” cell phone?

Friday, July 9, 2021

https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/does-the-two-year-phone-upgrade-still-make-sense/#ftag=CAD590a51e

Wait a second, does the 2-year phone upgrade still make sense? I think not
Commentary: Flagship phones are giving us only incremental improvements, and our upgrade culture makes less sense than ever.
Sareena Dayaram  
July 7, 2021 5:00 a.m. PT

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Smartphone innovation has stagnated, and this is not a knock against the consumer electronics companies or the tech giants that design them. Maybe we’ve reached peak smartphone, and this is as far as it needs to go. It could well be part of the reason why the race to upgrade your phones is slowing.

*** end quote ***

I have a “broken” iPhone 10 (some broken glass on the back?) and pristine iPhone 7 (I brought to one of the cable companies cheap plans)..

Ever since I’ve found that there was no real reason to upgrade the 10 to the 12.

While I like technology, a $1,000 is an expensive “want”; not “need”.

Then I read about that NBA star from a third world country who uses a broken screen phone explaining that he can use the money for helping his people.  I guess that really shamed me.  If he can do it, so can I.

So I guess we have reached “peak phone” for me UNLESS there is some striking each-shaking feature “I just can’t live without”.

Sigh!  But upgrading was fun!

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TECHNOLOGY: Don’t depend on ANY Google product ever

Saturday, May 22, 2021

https://www.makeuseof.com/google-products-discontinued/?utm_source=MUO-NL-RP&utm_medium=newsletter

Google Fails: 10 Google Products Discontinued in 2021
BY JOY OKUMOKO

*** begin quote ***

If you have used some of the above Google products in the past, you will agree that some will be missed. We hope that Google will shape the lessons learned from these failures into better products in the future.

*** end quote ***

Unless YOU can see the “value equation” (i.e., how does a service pay for itself), do NOT commit yourself to using it.

Perhaps, it’s unique or serves you well, then just make sure you can get your data “out”!

Note how many of the ten “products” just “silently” disappeared!

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TECHNOLOGY: Podcast will disappear behind paywalls

Friday, May 21, 2021

https://theconversation.com/apple-threatens-to-upend-podcastings-free-open-architecture-160318

The Conversation – Articles (US)

Apple threatens to upend podcasting’s free, open architecture
by John Sullivan, Professor of Media and Communication, Muhlenberg College

*** begin quote ***

A medium that exploded due to the lack of institutional gatekeepers is now seeing big tech companies act like traditional media networks, signing popular hosts and shows to exclusive contracts. Of course, other publishers like Slate and Stitcher have offered subscriptions to their shows via their own websites and mobile apps. But the m

uch larger audience share of Apple Podcasts and Spotify has much greater potential to move the podcast ecosystem in the direction of premium paid content.

This presents a potential long-term threat to the free, open architecture of podcasting, though projects like The Podcast Index are aiming to preserve the medium as platform-agnostic.

One thing is for certain: Apple and Spotify have given us a glimpse of a podcasting future where the walled gardens of platform-exclusive, premium content become the norm.

*** end quote ***

The Podcast Index are aiming to preserve the medium as platform-agnostic.

Guess that’s all that can save us from paywalls and the Apple Tax?

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TECHNOLOGY: Buying a Tesla? You could be “owned”

Saturday, May 15, 2021

Researchers hack into a Tesla from an aerial drone

This one is material for a scene in a cyber-thriller: a Tesla speeds down the highway carrying “The MacGuffin” in the trunk…. suddenly a scary looking drone with spikes and a razor teeth paint job zooms out of the sky, falls into pace above the car, our hero takes evasive actions but no, the drone has put the vehicle into autonomous mode and veers it… off a cliff… the hero bailing out just in time (or a red-shirt unceremoniously disposed of)… an LED lights up on the drone and trunk pops open, it zooms in, scoops out The MacGuffin and soars away, as the Ian Fleming-esque music begins rolling….

Well we’re not there yet. But security researchers did hover a drone over a parked Tesla, and used a weakness in the vehicle’s WiFi to take control of the onboard infotainment center and make changes to the vehicle’s internal settings, including unlocking the doors and moving the seats (perhaps in our cyber-thriller the drone ejects the driver at accelerated force through the front windshield).

The duo of researchers work for a German cyber-security research firm called Comsecuris GmBH and they’ve dubbed the security flaws “TBONE”

Read: https://futurism.com/the-byte/hackers-tesla-drone

# – # – # – # – # 

Seems like an obvious hack.  What about the important controls?

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TECHNOLOGY: Yet Another “technology” abuse, hack, or immorality?

Sunday, May 9, 2021

“Wise guy figures out a way to park free on college campus but it’s kind of a d-ck move.” In short: guy buys a fake charger plug to make his Jeep look like an EV to get free parking. It’s sadly a total d-ck move because he’s leaving EV owners without a charger, but …I offer a respectful nod at the hustle (Jalopnik).

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Funny but immoral?

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