MelodiousFunk

I worked in a “datacenter” where the humidifier function for the HVAC unit was turned off because it leaked under the floor into an adjoining office when it was trying to humidify. Management refused to fix the unit due to the cost, and saw no issue with running the room with relative humidity in the teens all winter. Madness.

No thank you, I just ate.

Anyone else think it’s cool to just fly solo as a good human, no religion attached?

Religion does not have a monopoly on morality, despite what many preach. Be kind, and believe what you want.

Im sure that there are other lifeforms in some other system just not the flying sorcerer type.

Ugh, I hope you’re right. Flying aliens would be bad enough. But if the bastards can muticlass and use magic as well… we’d be doomed.

“I was unsure of whether I could trust y’all with this info, but after talking with you a bit I think it’s time to come clean.” And then start talking about Second Impact as if it happened IRL and not in a famous anime. (Spoilers for Evangelion in the link.) There’s already in-lore conspiracies and coverups to use as talking points.

iT rEgUlAtEs ItSeLf

A perfect example is this guy from my last job. Thought himself a leader. Thought himself knowledgeable. Always had an answer, regardless of actual facts. Alternated between barking out orders and lamenting on how he had to do everything himself. Constantly getting schooled by people who actually knew the subject matter. Those who had been around just kinda put up with his BS because he filled a position that nobody else wanted.

Enter new management, who was very impressed with his authoritative tone, apparent breadth of knowledge, and willingness to lick boot. Suddenly management is bypassing dude’s bosses to go straight to the horse’s mouth and get the straight dope (which often involved taking credit for other people’s work and bus-chucking whoever was handy). All because someone who barely knew what he was talking about spoke confidently to people that had no idea what was going on.

American here. My ISP blackholes certain sites at the DNS level. Easy enough to work around, but it’s there.

Saturday the 14th

Now that’s a name I’ve not heard in a long time. It brings me back. I can smell the independent movie rental place, the one with the low ceilings and the wall of NES games. Simpler times.

Lawnmower Man (read the book first, then watch the movie, then go WTF did I just watch)

I’m not sure that one gets back around to being good. Nailed the WTF part though. As a corollary, you can do the same with The Mangler. I saw the movie first, thought it was unremarkable. Then I saw it in one of the King short story compilations and was curious to see what they changed. It’s even shorter than Lawnmower Man, like two pages. And they made it into a whole damn movie.

Look Who’s Talking Now

…wait what

immediately thinks of the alternate ending to The Butterfly Effect 🤔

That’s how they get you.

$10 on Amazon. Or just a piece of broken spark plug. Anyone who seriously wants to break a car window will have something handy.

Or maybe thieves are just walking down the street and see a fancy bag on a seat and a rock and just decide to do the deed on a whim and get foiled by tempered glass. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Likewise breaking a car window is typically harder than breaking a house window.

All it takes to break a car window is a single tap. There’s specific tools available, or someone can just use a shard of ceramic. Shatters completely and instantly.

So, disregarding physical brute force (because that lock bypass method will never change), let’s say a smart lock today is functionally equivalent to a traditional lock in terms of security. How’s that smart lock going to look in 5 years? In 10? When is the manufacturer going to abandon the product and stop providing security updates? It’s only a matter of time before whatever firmware it shipped with becomes obsolete. And then it’s just one more thing on the list of pwnd devices that unscrupulous actors can access at will. Your friendly neighborhood junkie in search of quick cash might not know the difference, but a list of people that have e-Lock v2.2 would be very lucrative to the types of people that run the current smash and grab operations.

Soft/firmware obsolescence is a thing with any “smart” device, but it becomes especially egregious when it’s built into what are traditionally durable devices like appliances. And even more so when it’s something embedded, like a lock, outlet, etc. It becomes “replace that light fixture, or leave that vulnerability on the network.” A lock takes that from “someone can waltz into my home network” to “someone can waltz through my front door.”