The Year's Dumbest Moments in Tech 96
harrymcc writes "Over at TIME.com, I rounded up the year's dumbest moments in technology. Yes, the launch of Healthcare.gov is included, as are Edward Snowden's revelations. But so are a bunch of people embarrassing themselves on Twitter, both BlackBerry and Lenovo hiring celebrities to (supposedly) design products, the release of glitchy products ranging from OS X 10.9 Mavericks to the new Yahoo Mail, and much more." I can't think of anything dumber than the NSA's claims that metadata isn't data.
Mavericks was glitchy? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems fine to me. You must have mistaken it for iOS 7.
Re:Mavericks was glitchy? (Score:5, Interesting)
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No doubt Mavericks improves upon at least a few things, but there are definite problems with it. I hit the ARP issue (http://www.macstadium.com/blog/osx-10-9-mavericks-bugs/), which made the application I was using (VMWare View) unusable.
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No doubt Mavericks improves upon at least a few things, but there are definite problems with it. I hit the ARP issue (http://www.macstadium.com/blog/osx-10-9-mavericks-bugs/), which made the application I was using (VMWare View) unusable.
So Apple's "bug" is to do what others have been doing for ages? Take this 8 year old bug report [novell.com] - and weep for the bug fix is actually what Apple supposedly does wrong now.
iCloud requirement? (Score:2)
What about iCloud requirement? That pissed a lot of people off like myself. We don't want to use the darn cloud. There's no more local USB synchronization with Mavericks and probably for now on. :(
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Ah lucky you. Yeah, any iOS devices with Mavericks. :(
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Seems fine to me. You must have mistaken it for iOS 7.
TFA refers to Apple's fuck-up with Mail.app gmail.
Re:Mavericks was glitchy? (Score:5, Interesting)
Mavericks is glitchy.
It broke a lot of things in the Adobe suites that still haven't been fixed (yeah, I know this is partly Adobe's fault- but the backwards compatibility with Mavericks kinda stinks, especially for a closed platform). It introduced a lot of bugs relating to App Nap and the new memory compression, both of which are unfortunately opt-out rather then opt-in (as they should have been). There's still issues with ColorSync (going back to 10.7), which they kinda improved but also messed up with the way ICNS (icon) files are rendered (which now appear over saturated and darker then they should). Likewise, file labelling was replaced with that abomination called "Tags", which is such a horrible hap-hazard hack on top of Spotlight and the Finder that I'm surprised they even released it.
I'm sure a lot of this stuff will be resolved in the next version or two, but the unfortunate issue with Apple these days is that their operating systems are in a perpetual state of "almost working" and "not quite there yet". By the time you get 10.x.4 or 10.x.5, they're already working on the next major version that comes with it's own useless features that nobody wants or needs, and the existing features are basically abandoned and left to stagnate.
IMHO; their yearly release cycle is the worst thing to happen to OS X in a long time, and the effects of that are starting to become apparent in operating systems like Mavericks. It will only get worse until they decide enough is enough, and the next version will come when it's done (remember the days of10.6? We got all the way up to 10.6.8, and it was a damned fine OS as a result).
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I'm sure a lot of this stuff will be resolved in the next version or two
That's optimistic....as you mention, Apple has a habit of abandoning features that work perfectly well, leaving them to stagnate. They also seem actively hostile to backwards compatibility for some reason.
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Speaking of Adobe, how is the Adobe user account leak not on this list? Storing passwords encrypted rather than salted and hashed, using single-DES encryption rather than 3DES, using ECB instead of CBC, and storing the password hints in plain text? How in the seven hells did that not make this list when there's bullshit like the Mavericks Mail bug in here?
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Turns out they did use 3DES, not 1DES. Still...
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The hands down winner (Score:5, Informative)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Glass [wikipedia.org]
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I genuinely fail
That's obvious.
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Re:The hands down winner (Score:5, Insightful)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Glass [wikipedia.org]
Apparently your hands are not placed down enough.
The REAL hands down winner:
http://beta.slashdot.org/ [slashdot.org]
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not only for mobile, sometimes I'm being directed to that overpadded pile of shit they call beta.slashdot.org despite my best efforts
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I always get directed to beta. How do I stop it?
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I always get directed to beta. How do I stop it?
Log on to Facebook.
Re:The hands down winner (Score:4)
I actually submitted a story about your "hands down winner" but strangely enough the editors did not pass it:
http://slashdot.org/submission/3217581/how-not-to-design-a-ui-slashdot-beta-site-is-a-train-wreck [slashdot.org]
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Is there a Stylish style somewhere to get rid of that width restriction? I could've sword I hacked one up myself but annoyingly I don't seem to have uploaded it to userstyles.org.
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Funny how this gets a -1, but sibling gets a +5 Insightful for saying the same thing.
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<sarcasm>The entire thing must be wrong as everyone knows everything apple does is perfect</sarcasm>
Re:Snowden was a dumb moment in tech? (Score:5, Insightful)
Big nerd with big balls, Snowden.
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If he had "big balls," he would have stayed here and faced the music
You fail to understand civil disobedience. It means breaking an unjust law and risking facing the consequences. It doesn't mean sitting around waiting to get thrown in PMITA prison or whisked off to gitmo.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Snowden was a dumb moment in tech? (Score:5, Insightful)
The consequences decided by who? An out-of-control government where the court system has effectively ruled time-again that government has no limits?
Yes, he would be detained without trial and rights --- just like what Manning is enduring. Does Manning have any free speech rights? No.
Okay. Your argument just lost and lost hard.
Don't judge me, I'm just the messenger.
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Snowden has been careful to leak
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Snowden has been careful to leak only what he thinks was unconstitutional. I disagree with some of this definitions of what's unconstitutional, but I respect that he's trying to leak only the materials which are leak-worthy.
Snowden has by his own words dumped the full load on the news media. Now he's simply helping to guide discussion, and less of that lately. In fact, he's done nothing to leak only the leak-only materials. That's all the media. He more carefully chose his media outlets than Manning, that is all. They both did the same thing, and you're lauding one and decrying the other. Our own government has said that Manning's releases have not cost lives. What the public has learned from Manning, our enemies already knew.
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Hell, Yes!
I think that you are naiive if you think that we would have seen all the revelations if the USA had been able to reach Snowdon?
Re:Snowden was a dumb moment in tech? (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually quite often sitting around waiting to be arrested is exactly the point of civil disobedience. You can't really show the injustice of a bad law without demonstrating the consequences of the law. However this doesn't apply to Snowden. He wasn't trying to demonstrate that the laws surrounding classified data are wrong, he was trying to show that the activities the data documented were wrong so really there would be no point in letting himself get arrested. It wouldn't have furthered his cause in any way.
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Actually quite often sitting around waiting to be arrested is exactly the point of civil disobedience.
You really have no idea what you are talking about [wikipedia.org], and therefore should stop. Simply stop. Submit to arrest is not the same as volunteer to be arrested. If the authorities arrest you, you permit them, rather than say shooting at them. That's what makes it civil. The word isn't "civic".
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It depends on how you can do the most good. I don't think running did his message any good. He would be in a better position to talk about how he loves his country and how this is for the good of it if he were in his country and not overseas where people have to wonder what/how much he gave to the Russians and the Chinese that may not have hit the presses.
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It depends on how you can do the most good. I don't think running did his message any good. He would be in a better position to talk about how he loves his country and how this is for the good of it if he were in his country and not overseas where people have to wonder what/how much he gave to the Russians and the Chinese that may not have hit the presses.
Yes, because everyone in Gitmo is free to give as many press conferences as they want.
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He would be in a better position to talk about how he loves his country and how this is for the good of it if he were in his country
...being tortured and denied his supposedly unalienable rights. Yeah, what a great idea! You, sir, are an enemy of freedom. You would torture those who tell us the truth. Suggesting that they should be in the hands of the US amounts to the same thing. You're not still believing the USA's propaganda about itself, are you? I guess we should go back to leaflet bombing since the world's citizens are so gullible.
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Now, there's no telling what he gave up to some real enemies of freedom.
From my point of view (not living in any of the three countries), there's no meaningful difference between China, Russia and the USA in terms of how much of an enemy of freedom they are. Oh, the US says they're all about freedom, but in practice they're about as bad as the others.
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But he still acted as a traitor by running to China and Russia.
That's your opinion ( you silly little cunt you ) and certainly not a fact. Snowden is no more a traitor
than anyone who has won the Medal of Honor. Snowden loved his country enough to
seriously fuck up his own life for the sake of that love. You don't know what a traitor
is if you think Snowden is a traitor.
In any case, these days, only a naive fool believes that the US government deserves
allegiance from its citizens.
A realist knows that the US is run by corrupt scum who have no allegiance to anything
but ret
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You don't have any proof of this. Shut up!
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I'm still blown away that Hassleton didn't make the list.
What's that? Google search doesn't turn up anything useful...
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Windows 8 (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, I bought it cheap and I tried it. $40 and it sits unused currently because even after installing Classic Shell and doing a lot of unpaid work to fix what they broke, I still hate it.
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Surely the list must include the "Angry Fruit Salad" operating system that sucks worse than anything previously offered?
He already addressed Mac OS X.
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As far as the lack of professionalism in the IT sector, I worked in various professional enterprises. Some allow men to do whatever they want. Others have higher standards and require men to think. Say that men cannot think is silly. Men can think before they say or do stupid things. The trick is to fire the incompetent men who refuse
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I'd put releasing the XBone with Kinect on a list. It'll be out of the box by April is my guess.
Re:Windows 8 (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think it's a bad plan at all - because developers know they can rely on the user to have a Kinect, even if it's unplugged. So they can assume stuff like voice recognition and even body motion because it's in the box.
If it's unplugged, well, the devs will simulate it some other way - even it requires going through a million menus to do what would've taken 2 seconds by voice.
Now, if Microsoft didn't put it in the box, you're looking at what's happening with Sony's Move - sure you save a tiny bit of money, but now you've just relegated it to niche status. Just a toy that some people may have, and this early in the game, pretty much just good for putting sex shows online on Twitch.
The end effect is "enhanced with Kinect" is probably standard with Xbone, while the PS4 gets some lame ass implementation of what Kinect does. After all, the PS4 camera lets you do face recognition login and a modicum of voice commands that were put in as an afterthought to compete.
Hell, Sony's wasted money on the PS4 controller by adding in the parts for the Move when most users won't have it - every controller has a (2D - only X-Y positioning) Move emitter, but not every PS4 has a camera. Sure RGB LEDs are cheap, but it's still an extra expense. Especially as it's 2D only - for 3D positioning you need a regular Move controller with the ball as the camera can't see depth with the controller's built-in Move. (And really, who puts in 720p cameras? Yes, the PS4 cameras are 720p stereo).
Sony probably removed the cameras at the last minute just to undercut Microsoft. Not necessarily a good or bad idea - the Xbox360 was around $400-500 at launch, the PS3 was way out there, and the Wii was $250. When the prices tightened down a couple of years alter, it was $200, $300 and $400 and the PS3 took off.
The price these days is not an issue - $200, $400, $500, it's not a huge range. Hell, a PS4 + Camera is only $40 cheaper.
No, Microsoft won't be taking it out of the box. Especially as the first round of new games since release would be out assuming Kinect.
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It seems to me that the list is really 'products I don't like'. Certainly the dumbest idea of the year was MS WIndows 8, and Surface, write down of nearly 1 billion.
The irony.
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I like Windows 8, and it's better with Classic Shell. But your issues with Windows 8 don't really belong here since Windows 8 came out in August, 2012. Of course back then I upgraded from Windows 7 Home premium to Windows 8 Professional for $15 for each of my two computers. I wouldn't have liked it as much if I had to pay more.
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The other bad part with this crappy OS is losing your locense to the previous version when you do an upgrade.
hahahahahal0lz!!!!11! (Score:4, Insightful)
The NSA is spying on us all... and their powerpoint slides are ugly! HAHAAAHAAH!!!1!one!!11
Look - I'm not going to try and make the argument that we should all stop what we're doing and go on humor strikes until they shut down the NSA. But seriously, if you're so desperate for column inches that you feel the need to spin the Snowden affair as "dumb", then you really need to ask yourself whether you're Part of the Problem.
Tip for next time: be funnier.
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"Worst dressed" (Score:2)
As this is a more or less duplicate top-10 style list to the one posted yesterday, among many other "biggest foul ups" and "worst dressed" articles, the floor is open for meta-discussion.
I get that laughing at others' misfortune and fuckups makes sad people feel better about themselves and sells lots of glossy magazines, but you've got to admit it's all a bit depressing that we can't get past the psychology of school yard bullies and instead have at least one in five of these top 10 lists be about the great
No Slashdot Beta? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm disappointed that /.'s beta didn't make the list.
An Epidemic of Dumbness (Score:2)
Yes, but what about meta-meta data? (Score:1)
It's turtles all the way (up in this case.)