April Fools Observations
Having kind of missed the opportunity at the first of the month for anything foolish, I thought it time to make up for that oversight. And folks have been kind of enough to allow me observe lots of fools and foolish things the last several days. So I am blogging my current observations of foolish things in general and if it is not foolish, well, I will find some angle to make such all the same. To begin…
- The saga of the school system in Pennsylvania that has been alleged to have used the laptops built-in cameras to spy on students at home is beyond believe foolish. So the story goes something like this. School loans out laptop to students, maybe for a small fee. Has camera built-in that can be activated from remote in case of laptop is stolen or not returned appropriately. Camera is activated and school sees a student with prescription drugs (unknown), school officials, including principal confront student, using images as proof of problem. You can read more, if you want – but just how many fundamental rights are being not just stepped on but ground into the ground the heel by the school in the scenario?
- A recent survey found that email remains important but that it is need of a major overhaul, specific complaints were the obvious: too much email and way to much spam or not relevant stuff coming through. This was a well-duh foolish kind of survey to perform. We all know that email suffers from way to much of it and it there is not any way to filter out all the spam. I can tell you that our email servers drop approximately 70% of all incoming messages at the gate and yet everyone says reading email and getting rid of the spam occupies way to much time. Problem is though, if you ignore or only check few times a day you will miss the important things you need to give attention, like the do this NOW email from the boss. All the IM’s and Wiki’s are still behind the curve on replacing email though, by a long shot.
- Printer drivers have a limited lifespan according to HP and Google, both of who see this huge need and are working toward eliminating drivers in their own special way. I am not so sure I am buying this, especially given my days of working on printer drivers at Lexmark. You see, those bottom end printers have no smarts really, that how they make them so cheap. All the processing is done up on the computer and hence the need for a driver. Sure there are some almost universal concepts to send things down to a printer, like PCL and Postscript, but those all require processing from a language to dots – just a laser printer has the space and cost enough to include that. Besides, so much of the printer technology runs the same with a given company and they want to work with major operation systems like Windows, so they are pretty much there the next release after the fact and the web makes grabbing on the fly a snap. And do we really see HP and Lexmark making the interface the same universal kind of language?
- Folks purchasing DRM protected music when there are so many other choices out there have to be a bit foolish. for those out of the loop, DRM is the protection scheme that folks like I-Tunes uses to keep it to one computer and one device when you download it after you purchase it. For someone like me, who uses about four computers in any given week, has an MP3 player and also a stereo in my truck that will accept USB drives or S/D cards that just seems so limiting. Do not think I am advocating piracy, as anyone that knows me knows I am very much on a purchase music, movies, software kind guy. But I also feel like I purchase it is my option to play it on any and all my devices that will support it.
- Speaking of foolish, I will give myself that mark as well. Maybe a year or perhaps two back, I was wondering if I could purchase MP3′s online and enjoy that process without having a media of some sort otherwise. Indeed I can and have. My experience with e-Music was less than enjoyable, only because of small print, poor selection, and crappy customer service – but Amazon has it all and is DRM free to boot. It is green to go this way on so many levels – that being said, I still check out the used CD’s which somehow still seems green to me.
- Was reading something today on Facebook where person A, a very conservative person was down on person B for getting a tax refund. Person A felt that person B’s refund was basically stealing money from them. This was expressed without asking to see of person B had indeed paid taxes by what was indeed an overage amount based on what they earned and such, so in truth they were only getting back money that person B had paid and in and Person A is a fool.
- Having said that, do not get me wrong. Our IRS is a foolish operation too, but that is mostly because of the fools in congress. A flat rate tax system with no favorites, no write-offs, not one rebate or tax incentive is the way to go and it needs to be applied to individuals and corporations as well. You make X dollars, X times Y percentage is what you pay to the IRS. If your through the year deductions total an amount greater than that you get the difference back, otherwise you owe the difference.
Anyone else seen anything else foolish of late? I am sure you have. Share it with us if you have!
