Trying to get in order for convention - 7 May 2007

[silveradept]

Well, I went out looking for things to get for the convention, and came back empty-handed. I did, however, finally find a pair of shoes that I think I like - although I think that I’m either going to have to learn to walk correctly in these shoes or get used to them/break them in for some way that they may not be comfortable with. But I think I’ll be able to get used to them, and maybe learn a little bit better walking structure.

I think I’ll leave this particular object out front, for people to make of what they like from it - The Modesty Survey took statements and questions from “Christian” girls and posed them to “Christian” boys about the concept of modesty and their dress and actions. The results seem to read pretty normal - things like earrings or ankle-length skirts are considered modest, but most things that would let you see torso skin are not. And apparently, bending that shows any skin, or just bending with your back to a boy is a “stumbling block”. As is stretching, because the natural stretch pose accents a girl’s breasts.

More to the credit of places that would be likely to conduct such a thing as the Modesty Survey, Evangelical Christians are urging their congregants to adopt children. Sounds like they’re taking the idea of being pro-life a bit more seriously. Adoption and support of foster care systems from those who believe in the sanctity of all life, in both conception, gestation, and life after birth. Plus, as the article notes, if Christians are going to complain about people they consider unfit parents adopting, they should consider some adoption themselves.

Social engineering produces the following warning - A Trojan that wants you to activate your already-active copy of Windows. Ingenious, significantly because it takes advantage of how much consumers are afraid of being considered software pirates, even if they legitimately bought their software. A different story of breaking into computer systems is a teen who broke into AOL's computer systems, trying to get his account reactivated. What I would like to know (as would several others, I guess) is: Why would you want to go back to AOL?

Welcome to the People’s Republic of China, where several characters that look remarkably like copyrighted likenesses of Disney and other characters abound, but of course, they are not copyrighted likenesses of Disney and other companies’ characters. At least, that’s the official park line. Sounds like someone in red-and-green glasses wielding a piece of wood needs to inform someone there about the inability of the piece of wood to prevaricate.

Children were exposed to some material for people much older than they were when an accidental switch change broadcast hardcore pornography on the Disney channel in some areas of New Jersey. I note some of the quotes make it appear that those on the receiving end of the error believe that the switch was made in a deliberate manner. Unless there’s a Tyler Durden in the bunch, I think it was an accident. Keeping with the nudity theme, a record eighteen thousand people got naked to be photographed by Spencer Tunick.

Gary Brecher wants to answer the question that was posed by Senator Lindsay Graham after Harry Reid spoke of the war in Iraq being lost. Who won Iraq? has two big answers for Gary - Iran and the far east, like China and India. The losers is a bigger list.

Looking in on the other end of the political spectrum, Linda Chavez in the Washington Times says the Democrats have a role to play in Iraq - but they have to accept that we're there for the long run to be effective, and thus set up good benchmarks for when the troops should leave. Something that’s probably intended to be just as serious, but fails at the task are the fifty greatest conservative rock songs, apparently based on snippets of their lyrical content.

As part of the problems going on with regards to China-imported goods, bradhicks notes that cheap stuff, of the kind that can kill you, is being sent out of China without a second thought to safety. Or, in some cases, what the consequences of deliberately mislabeling something is. This is why the regulations are there. Or at least why regulations about purity and accuracy should be in place.

Trying to keep yourself healthy and well-fed is tougher to do when you have to cook on a budget, but according to Mark Erickson, the VP of continuing education at the Culinary Institute of America, says that having good tools and planning your meals will help you cook both cheaply and in a small amount of time. “Tools” includes water filtration systems, if the taste of bottled water is to your liking, and some good sharp knives. The planning part includes doing things like making enough chicken on Thursday that will then go into the chicken and vegetable soup on Saturday. (And if you like what you’re making, if you can afford to make enough for another meal that can then be reheated later, that’s not a bad idea, either.)

Possibly making a little fun of some pronunciation regarding a free on-line encyclopedia that anyone can edit, Wickerpedia offers up several articles about the power of wicker as a building material (and several other things wicker-related). On the actual encyclopedic site, there is an article about a clone of an Invaders game called "Communist Mutants from Space". The things that are in that encyclopedic object are great and strange, indeed. And then, we find out, from the Telegraph, the image of Hitler's mustache we know so well was not his first choice. Because he needed to fit into a gas mask.

More rumors of a possibly cold fusion exercise. This one offers some proof of a replicable process. So we’ll wait to see if it can be replicated, and then to see whether it scales up to any sort of useful purpose in terms of size and power output.

Information Week has a small piece about the Indian government's aim to create laptop copmuters for $10. Nothing there about the specs and capabilities of such a machine, but since it’s being compared with One Laptop Per Child, I assume they’re aiming for a similar capability.

Earlier in the year, the Defense Department warned about possible radio transmission in Canadian coins. As it turns out, it was a poppy coin, perfectly harmless, but unfamiliar to the American contractors carrying them. False alarm. Maybe the settings on our paranoia meter are cranked a bit high?

Wired offers up the smarter emergency kit set, one for the house, one that fits in a backpack in case of the need to vacate the premises in a hurry.

Hitting the home stretch are the random collections, which offer up a lot of varied objects, some of the NSFW variety, so be careful. One of the offerings is metal art of natural objects, just to give you a sampling.

Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act passes U.S. House - expected to be passed and signed. Inherited illnesses and genetic predispositions will not be acceptable causes to deny jobs or insurance to citizens.

The last thing for tonight, though, regards the bill that the House passed and the President has threatened to veto regarding adding gender, sexual orientation and gender identity to the hate-crimes law. Pam's House Blend asks "Who is it OK to Hate?", and reads a litany of many recent victims of crimes that would be covered under the new categories. Pam’s notes that even with current hate-crime laws, groups like the Ku Klux Klan are still able to operate, and still able to speak what they want regarding members of other races. Those who object to homosexuality won’t be muzzled or considered thoughtcriminals, but those who murder and do violence to others based on those objections should be prosecuted. Why should it be acceptable to call people faggots and beat them when calling someone a nigger or a Jew and beating them is a prosecutable offense?

Comments

[rimspace.livejournal.com]

*EYES that Wired link*

Okay, now I would just like to know the answer to a simple question: what planet is Melissa Miller on. For example, the suggestion that people keep backpacks with, among other things, $500 in cash per person. Using her example of a "four person family", that's $2000 sat in backpacks?! I mean, what sort of family can afford to stick $500 per person there doing nothing on the off-chance of some disaster (at which point, carrying around that sort of money just makes you even more of a bloody target, even assuming there is any infrastructure left on which the money can be spent), and even if they can afford it, $2000 in used bills in easily portable containers is a thief's wet dream. Add in enough documents to make identify theft a trivial exercise... And then there's the cost of medicines in there, assuming that you can even get the doctor or pharmacist to over-prescribe or hand out large quantities of some of the possible essentials... I just.. eeeeugh. Yes, possible nice idea, if you really are paranoid about such things, but in practice it isn't going to work for so many reasons...

[2dlife.livejournal.com]

As part of the problems going on with regards to China-imported goods, bradhicks notes that cheap stuff, of the kind that can kill you, is being sent out of China without a second thought to safety. Or, in some cases, what the consequences of deliberately mislabeling something is. This is why the regulations are there. Or at least why regulations about purity and accuracy should be in place.

Ah, Americans, such a weird combination of apathy and holier-than-thou.

[silveradept]

I was going to say that the cash requirement was a little steep, even for families that are fairly well-off. It was probably aiming at what the perfect kit would be - as you've pointed out, there are a lot of places where you just might not be able to make it work.

[silveradept]

"We don't care what's in it, so long as it doesn't hurt us"?

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

We don't care what's in it, so long as it's cheap and doesn't kill us immediately.

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

I'd think $200 per person would be reasonable, and if you put $20-40 away per week, it isn't that difficult to build up. I would definitely keep the money and ID documents in a fire-proof safe that I could easily take out of the house with me.

If I lived in LA or a similarly-expensive place, that $500 might seem reasonable. I think the concept behind it is that if you have to flee in a disaster situation, you're going to run into power/communications outages which could render credit cards worthless. In such a situation it's likely that merchants will go cash-only as they have no reliable way to verify checks.

I think $100 a day per adult would be a reasonable amount to set aside. You would definitely want to be careful about flashing the money around, thus the use of hidden wallets and such would be useful.

We should have prepared bug-out kits last year: my wife's house is in a national forest and the fire danger went to extreme. We had basically a 15 minute warning in the event the town had to be evacuated. We didn't make such kits, but we knew where everything was that we needed to grab, including important documents. A lot of people don't even have that level of planning.

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

Your Washington Post/Mark Erickson links are bad. Try these:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/01/AR2007050100690.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/27/AR2007042702624.html

If these go bad, just search for Mark Erickson.

[silveradept]

Fixed, hopefully. Somehow, a different URL got stuck in with the WaPo one.

[silveradept]

Fair enough. That sounds about like the right blend.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

Comcast chiefs also were investigating why the X-rated action was not screened out by parental controls on TV sets.

Uhm, maybe because some parents don't use the parental controls because they don't believe in censoring their television?

Most pr0n stuff is PPV anyway, so there generally is no chance of the little ones turning it on "accidentally".

[silveradept]

Try again. The answer is "While parental control technology is installed in all televisions, it is not enabled by default. Most parents, even with campaigns to make them aware of it, do not know about the V-chip in their television. Others do not want to deal with the hassle of one more passphrase to think and remember when they want to watch the news and soap operas."

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

That's also quite true.

I mean, if you block out certain phrases, you can block out things you WANT - like block out "naked", and you don't get to watchany of BNL's TV appearances!!

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

I'm lucky I can keep $20 in my glove box for emergencies on the road!

One thing I didn't see the article mention, and I might have overlooked it, but a pre-paid calling card, in the event that cell phone towers are out and you can't use them. Then again, if computers are down, chances are there is no phone at all to use.

I also wonder how you are supposed to fit eveything plus your "family of four" into your car for evacuation...and don't forget about the pets, either. You need a Suburban to fit everything if you've got a large dog!

[silveradept]

...do you know how most parental controls work on televisions? It's certainly not anything as fine-grained as being able to read phrases from descriptions. It's based on the rating of the television program - the V-chip checks the rating, and if it's above threshold, then the program's blocked. A password has to be input to release or change the setting.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

Now that's just stupid.

How many evening sitcoms are TV 14 even though kids could watch it?

[silveradept]

How many movies are rated PG-13 or R that kids could watch, but for one bit here and there that automatically earned them that rating?

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

/me nods.

So if parents used the V-chip, they'd have to constantly manually override it.

[silveradept]

Dingdingdingdingding! You got it! Actually, when used as a DVD player, the PS2 also requires a code to be input the first time, and then re-input every time after that, for any DVD that requires parental control levels to be set. It's an aggravation, really. So, while legislation mandates that the control be installed into television, there's nothing that mandates it be used. Unlike the laws that require, say, libraries and schools to install functional Internet filtration devices when receiving special rates for Internet access.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

Why does a code need to be used for the PS2?

[silveradept]

Parental controls have to be there, I suspect. And so the PS2 is designed to make sure that those controls are in place. I just wish I could turn the moddamn thing off once I've actually managed to set it up.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

that would be nice. So is it a code ANYTIME you use it as a DVD player? what about playing mature rated games?

[silveradept]

Basically, yes, it appears any time I use it as a DVD player. And as for M-rated games... nope. No code at all. At least, I'm pretty sure that any M-rated games won't trip the code department. After all, Grand Theft Auto is M-rated, right? And I've seen that played on several PS2 without needing any codes.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

Then I don't get the whole "need a code to pay a DVD" thing. You would think the M rating on a game would require the parent code, too.

[silveradept]

The game does not require the code, because I suspect the game does not have any information on it that would require a check. The DVDs have needed to change the parental control level. I don't think PS2 games do anything like that. They might check to see whether the PS2 is being modded or not, but I don't think they check parental control requirements. They assume that if you have the game, you're old enough to play it. Kind of like the default on the television.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

But then shouldn't it also go that if you're old enough to own the DVD, you can watch it? It just doesn't make much sense at all.

[silveradept]

Parse that statement again. There's an unstated thing that you're missing out on, and it's the same rationale behind why there's a V-chip mandated into the television in the first place. What did you just assume when you said that that doesn't match the reality at all?

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

That the person is old enough to watch the DVD?

[silveradept]

Very good, class. You assumed that the only person who would be watching those shows, playing those games, and using the media would be someone who met the age requirements for it. As the media so tirelessly tells us every time a kid fucks up his schoolmates with guns, or someone catches a teenager looking at porn and gives them whatever they feel is an appropriate response to that, or when situations mix, moving images are involved, or lyrics, and someone ends up dead, fucked, or in a worse place than they were before, it's an almost constant refrain - these kids were too young for this. Won't anyone think of the children? We have to stop the evil peddlers of porn, the sexualized shows, the violent video games. The kids have to be coddled, because otherwise they'll just suck the media down and what to do what those people do.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

Right, but you just said that there is no block on a Mature game, which implies the same thing - that the person putting the game into the player is "old enough", which is why I said that should be the assumption for the DVD, too.

[silveradept]

Think of it this way - retailers are not required to card someone for buying a DVD unless it's 18+. Retailers are increasingly being required to card someone for buying an M-rated game. This is a double-standard, but video games get special treatment because they're interactive, and because some people with legislative power still think video game systems are for children.

What the shows are doing is placing the lock on the DVD (and I wonder whether standalone DVD players now have parental controls that require unlocking, or if it's just a PS2 thing...) and trusting that only the people old enough to view it will have the unlock code. With games, there's no locking code on the disc, but the retailer now performs the check of being old enough.

In both of these cases, and the V-chip, the locks are only as strong as the people who possess the item. A 17-year old can buy an M-rated game, and then let his 10-year old sister play it. If one of the kids can suss out or reset the controls to the TV or DVD player (and an observant kid could probably do so), then any locks on them are useless. In the end, the responsibility falls on the parents/older children as to how effectively they can guard their kids from influences they don't want.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

And there's always a manual reset button,in the event the parent forgets the codes, and I bet the kids know where it is, too.

THey card on X rated movies, but I don't think they card to buy R rated. Then again, I haven't been that young in a while, though I did once get carded *going* to an R-rated movie when I was 22. Yep. Old enough to drink, and getting carded for the movies.

I don't think TVs shoudl have V-chips. Parents need to be more attentive to their children and NOT park them in front of the telly for hours on end. If parents were attentive and watching TV with the kids, they'd know what was being watched and when. It's when the parents stick the kids in the den with the telly while they do other things that the kids wind up watching the "bad shows" and/or when the parent requires the V-chip. My mom always knew what I was watching when I was younger. Then again, the Living room and dining room were connected to each other, and the kitchen was so tiny (and off the dining room) that you mostly did prep work in the dining room and if you sat at the one particular seat, you had a good view of what was on the telly.

But Iknow a lot of parents, in particular a pair I know expecting their 2nd child) who have taught their child at the age of two how to operate the TV remote so that she could watch TV on her own, and even gave her a TV in her room at age 3 with her own DVD player.

[2dlife.livejournal.com]

Actually, we don't care as long as it's cheap, except if we do care, then wave after wave of the appropriate moral outrage.

[silveradept]

Which is sort of the point - people use the machine as a babysitter, then turn around and expect it to know which shows the kids should and shouldn't watch. Thus, V-chip. They expect the computer to know which sites the kids should and shouldn't be able to access. Thus, filtering software. This is a trend. It will likely continue.

[silveradept]

Ah. It's the selectivity of the thing. We don't care, unless we do.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

What ever happened to teaching your kids what's OK to watch/view on the internet and trusting them not to go beyond your rules and/or sitting with them while they do things?

And how does the internet filtering stuff work, anyway? Is there a way the parent can override it so they can do what they want to do? What's to say, again, that the chld won't learn how to override it as well?

[silveradept]

Children are inquisitive people. They will go beyond boundaries just to see what's there. Plus, it might happen by accident, like it did here, and through no fault of the children. Trusting your kids is a good thing to do, certainly, but you can be pretty sure they'll be testing the boundaries you put up.

And filters work in different ways. Some scan the page looking for objectionable keywords like breast (which will block a page on breast cancer) or sex (which will block sex education sites) or pagan (there's almost always a "Occult/Cult/Satanic" category) and if it finds one, the page is blocked. In other cases, there's a list of domains that are considered unacceptable, and any attempt to go to that domain will result in the page being blocked. Most likely, there's a combination of the two at work. (There is also the "whitelist", which is a list of pages and domains that contain the objectionable material, but have been approved by someone with the password as safe - those will render.)

Filters have a master password that parents or librarians or teachers have and aren't supposed to give out. But again, someone can probably circumvent those measures, either through social engineering, paying attention to the people typing, or by knowing how to disable the filter on start-up.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

Would having the V-chip activated really prevent those children from the Pr0n that showed on Disney? The show they were watching was rated for them, and unless as soon as the Pr0n started playing it displayed it's TV MA rating, it might not have gotten caught anyway.

So, if someone is reading a forum or a journal page and winds up on someone's posting that has the word "pagan" in it, they wouldn't be able to see any of the site? That's not such a good filtering system. I think a better filter would be one that blocks images on all sites except for "aproved" sites, because there's also always those pop up pr0n ads that have no actual text because the text is in the graphic itself.

What will you do if you get told at your library you must use filtering software?

[silveradept]

V-chip might, might not have worked. Depends on how often the signal transmits the rating of the program.

And I don't know how sensitive the filters are - they might just block the page, not the whole site, but a site that repeatedly has those words in it will probably be blocked and added to the blacklist of domains.

You can turn off all the images in a web browser. There's probably even an extension to most of the major browsers that will selectively allow you to display or block images, in the same way you can block many pop-up windows and Flash.

Regarding the use of filtering software, see, respectively, CIPA, COPA, COPPA, and other statutes that mandate the use of filtering software on computers designated for children that receive either discounted Internet rate or were bought with certain types of federal assistance monies. It's basically the law in many places that there must be some sort of filtering software installed on computers that could be used by minors.

Right. New Thread, since LJ is being stoopid.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

V-chip might, might not have worked. Depends on how often the signal transmits the rating of the program.

And I don't know how sensitive the filters are - they might just block the page, not the whole site, but a site that repeatedly has those words in it will probably be blocked and added to the blacklist of domains.

You can turn off all the images in a web browser. There's probably even an extension to most of the major browsers that will selectively allow you to display or block images, in the same way you can block many pop-up windows and Flash.

Regarding the use of filtering software, see, respectively, CIPA, COPA, COPPA, and other statutes that mandate the use of filtering software on computers designated for children that receive either discounted Internet rate or were bought with certain types of federal assistance monies. It's basically the law in many places that there must be some sort of filtering software installed on computers that could be used by minors.

I have no idea, but I know that they show the rating at the end of each commercial break on regular TV, but since the Disney Channel doesn't have "commercials", I'm not sure how that works. BUT, if they only show the rating/send out the rating at the end of commerical breaks, then a child could turn on something rated the blocked rating and watch a few minutes until a commercial break, so I would almost assume that the program has to send out the rating more frequently than that.

I've obviously never used filters. when I was in HS, since access to the internet was "new", we didn't have filters in place. I know some workplaces have them. When I worked at the bank, I could look at the forum at the ladies room (www.nettwerkfanclubs.com/bnl)but not barenaked.net, because the filters worked on URL and not website content. If it had worked on content, I'm sure BOTH sites would have gotten blocked.

So, again, the work around is not not accept funding for computers or internet access? Would the filtering also cover computers NOT in the children's section? (and i'm sensing we already discussed that).

Re: Right. New Thread, since LJ is being stoopid.

[silveradept]

A lot more workplaces have filters and restrictions on "personal use" of the net on "company time" these days, as well as content filters, so that the employees aren't accessing pr0n with the company bandwidth, or something. The general consensus on filters so far is that they don't work, they impede legitimate queries because they're stupid, and that it's a lot of hassle to have to maintain one because of the stupidities.

The workaround is that you would have to be able to purchase your own Internet access, yes, and not accept funding or assistance for purchases. Of course, a lot of libraries can't do that at all. The amount of funding they get means that the special rate allows them to have access in the first place. As for computers not in the children's section, I don't know. I suspect those are also filter-required if they receive the special Internet rate, because children are going to use the adult computers too. Other reasons to filter content might be because the library doesn't want to deal with someone who would look at explicit images and then commit an act of public indecency.

Re: Right. New Thread, since LJ is being stoopid.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

I can understand that, but if the library is supposed to be a public place for anyone, they have to be willing to also have those types of people. You can read Romance Novels at the l'/ibrary, and really, some of those ought to be classified as "erotic novels", for all the graphic sex that goes on in them. What would be the difference in someone reading one of those books and doing said act, over looking at it on the computer?

As for in the workplace...really, if they dont' want their employees to be on the internet, then just don't give them access. Allowing partial access or limited/filtered access is just stupid. You might remember how I hacked my way into giving myself 'net access at work because we technically didn't have it, and then I found the loophole and how to give it to my computer -- but you also have to admit that my skills in that area are probably higher than the average worker at that place of employment. Most of them are satisfied with the knowledge that our computers do not have the internet on them, and if a reason crops up where they need to have access, they need to ask their supervisor to use thier computer.

Re: Right. New Thread, since LJ is being stoopid.

[silveradept]

No significant difference between the two, and there are policies in place on what to do if someone's doing such indecent acts, but the idea of open access to everyone includes that some people will want to look up material that would be caught by filtering software in a legitimate query, and so it's really easier just to leave the filters off and deal with the people who are not following the rules of conduct.

If you want to cut off access to all the workers that you think don't need it, well, you're cutting off a significant portion of the workplace, plus there's usually a Google need that happens through the course of the day for many professionals. To have to go and ask your supervisor to use the computer to answer a question that takes thirty seconds ends up taking five minutes and could make the user feel kind of stupid for not remembering it. It takes time out of both the worker and the supervisor's day to have to do this several times a day. Better and easier to give everyone access - after all, they can all already access the LAN and get to their office e-mail.

Re: Right. New Thread, since LJ is being stoopid.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

I agree. If the flilters are going to block access to the informative sites as well as the "bad" sites, that's really no good. As long as there's decent patrolling going on, anything can probably be dealt with, right? And if someone was looking at Pr0n, you could kick them out too, right?

Where I worked, there was no inter-office email nor a reason to even need to use google. We also didn't have email access at the bank I worked for, because the head teller didn;t want us to have too much information, basically. Some jobs just involve sitting at a desk and using one or two programs and do not require internet access at all. If you're in that kind of job, it makes sense to not even have access out to the 'net. Since I was able to hack it to give my computer access, that sort of defeated the purpose of "no internet access", and really, after we got new computers, it was even easier, because they were STUPID and only took off the icons for ie, and removed it from the start menu, but if you ran it via a run command...boom, internet access.

Re: Right. New Thread, since LJ is being stoopid.

[silveradept]

Well, looking at pr0n may or may not be a violation of the use policies of the library. Your mileage may vary. Regarding "monitoring", the computers generally have screens or filters on them to help protect the privacy of the people using them. Which makes it harder for the computer monitor to actually see what's going on.

Those jobs that require one or two programs are sometimes very boring jobs as well - without Internet access, keeping the mind occupied is somewhat tough, assuming that there isn't enough work being piled on that person to keep them tapping keys from dawn to dusk.

Regarding the "hackery" that you can use, that may or may not have been considered "circumvention" and used as grounds for termination or discipline. The way to make sure of it would be to physically disconnect and have no cable running to that computer, along with no wireless access. Which would totally isolate it from the network, and likely make it useless. It's harder than you think to enforce a no net policy, unless your IT guy wants to do significant configuring of permissions.

Re: Right. New Thread, since LJ is being stoopid.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

Oh, I agree it's hard to deny access,and like I said, they didn't really try hard. The thing that made no sense to me was the whole just removing the ie icons. I mean, if you really wanted to be thorough, wouldn't you completely remove the program? The only reason I discovered I had access to it was I accidentally clicked on help in Word and it took me to the website.

since we didn't have individual log-ins (we used rsh1,2,3, etc) it would have been impossible to know who was accessing the 'net at any given time, unless you knew who sit where. since we had no assigned seating and no real management back there...there was no way to trace it at all.

When I worked at the bank, if we were on sites we "shouldn't be on", our head teller would print the pages off from the server. It got quite embarrassing when she printed out one of my co-workers journal entries she was writing at work!

The jobs that involve one or two programs ARE boring. That's why the entire time I worked for where I was working, I kept my cell phone in my lap, or on my ddesk, with yahoo or aim logged in and text messaging. Talking to you, westy, linz, etc. made my day go by much faster.

Re: Right. New Thread, since LJ is being stoopid.

[silveradept]

Um, as far as I know, unless you have a special European version of Windows, Internet Explorer is built in and integrated into the operating system. Uninstalling IE would severely cripple the functionality of the computer. Which is why Microsoft got hit with the monopoly suit.

So the discouragement is more to the order of what your boss did. Not that it's perfect, but it works somewhat, unless your employees are bored because they don't have anything to do, and then they get creative in one way or another. With draconian anti-fun policies, though, you can see where that would breed a significant amount of hate.

Re: Right. New Thread, since LJ is being stoopid.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

Really? I thought for sure I had uninstalled IE after I got firefox on my old computer. Hmm, maybe I hadn't.

Well, you certainly know I hated the job I was at, and you know all the activities I used to do while at work sitting at my desk that had nothing to do with actual work. reading a book, doing arts and crafts, texting on my cell...heck, even going outside to make personal calls and staying on the phone for a half hour at a time.

Not allowing fun at work is really bad for the employees, I think .