the Internet of Things us not only useless, but detrimental

You've got it all wrong. It's the Internet of Other People's Things That You Use To Serve Their Interests which is detrimental. But as soon as we go from there to the Internet of Your Things Intended to Serve Your Interests Above All Others, this stuff is unambiguously good. All it takes to do this stuff right, is to not buy it. Build it. Just like your desktop PC, your server, and hopefully pretty soon, your phone. (I'm surprised by how feasible that last one is getting. I bet in 5-10 years a significant fraction of "typical nerds" will be using their own phones. It might still have a spy on board, but the spy will have very limited access.)

nice story on this topic

Don't know if they really did it or if it's rigged, but couldn't they put a wi-fi dongle in the cartridge?

One of many excellent sci-fi books by Spider Robinson.

Do I feel lucky? The smart ass in me, or maybe it's just age... would want to retort, with "Well do you?" I'd feel as if it was fortuitous that we both met in this situation. Out of the whole world, what are the odds.

Smart ass interview questions used to just confuse me, now they irritate me. Next time I get one I may just be honest about it.

 

Presumably the answer is: you wash it, and it still works.

No idea if this prototype has that property, but it very well might. (I didn't RTFA.) You can wash LilyPads, can't you?

Actually, after my follow-up email pointint out the idiocy of the reply I got, a staffer sent me a *real* email asking if I'd like to call and talk to him about it. Not that it means that they're really listening, but at least they have enough sense to not just ignore it completely. Meh.

Thanks, Representative Latta. I didn't realize that I was being an idiot. Obviously I'm just dumb.

Worse...I requested a response, which I just got. It begins:

Thank you for contacting me to voice your opposition to the recently released regulations by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Having recently been elected to my second term in Congress, Iâ(TM)m honored to be able to represent the people of Ohioâ(TM)s 14th Congressional District...

...which is why I emailed Rep. Latta (co-sponsor) and Rep Joyce (my rep from Ohio) and let them know that I vote, I elected one of them, and I don't support any action to reverse the FCC's recent reclassification.

I know I don't represent big bags of money, but I do directly represent a ballot. I let both of them know that I am a US Army veteran, a long-time IT professional, and a proponent of net neutrality and classifying internet service under Title II.

You're safe; I'm sure in our dystopian zombie future, the phones will still need sanitizing.

'Proof' (and derivatives thereof) means almost nothing when related to Pudge, no matter how tangentially. Much like 'lie' means... I don't even know what, when related to Pudge.

WTF is this shit?

Isn't the very point of this player's system, that the player serves the interests of the disc's publisher over the interests of the users, where the users' needs should always yield whenever there is a conflict? That's not a mere technicality; it's the very essence. From the spec's pov, this is desirable operation. Nothing has been subverted.