Not to say there won't be those that will take and upload, but I'm asking about the possibility of using it, you know, as a non-connected camera?

Text from the currently running Sprint TV ad:

“We can share every second in data dressed in pixels.”
“A billion roaming photo-journalists uploading the human experience.”
“I need to upload all of me.”

Yes, people will do this. Continuously.
Look at how many share every facet of their lives on Facebook.

"it would just force these hypothetical dirty bomb enthusiasts to line the bomb container with lead"

A friend of mine works for a company making detectors for ports.

I said to him "But terrorists will just ship them in in lead-lined boxes", and he told me that that would cause a measurable drop in the background radiation which would trigger suspicions.

I once renamed shutdown.exe from the Windows resource kit to DONOTRUN.exe, and sent it in a mail round to the company (in the I love you/Melissa days), warning people in the subject, and message to NOT RUN THE ATTACHED attachment.

People then started coming to me complaining they'd lost work because their computer had shutdown.

It's amazing, it really is.

I worked at an NRC institute from 2002-2011. It was a fantastic place though it had faults. Each Institute was a mini-fiefdom in which the respective Director Generals held all the power. A lot of blue sky research was done, however in reality a lot of it would be considered "mental masturbation"; papers were published but never referenced. Or papers would be whipped up so people could attend conferences in nice locales . For too long NRC acted like an academic environment where money didn't matter: there was always a new bag of money next year.

Many Institutes had overlapping work with other Institutes but didn't collaborate. In fact the way the IT infrastructure developed was also very silo'd, it was next to impossible to work with other sites because of various local policies.

NRC has needed a good kick in the ass for a number of years. Previous presidents talked the talk but did nothing. In the end the Old Boys Club endured. The current president has been given his orders and is executing them. He's collapsing ~15 years of pain into ~3. Much of the blame for this should be put on the previous presidents.

That all said, I'm not a big fan of everything that is going on, but if you look at this as a soft reset for NRC, things will get better.

Bottom line: if anyone at NRC says things were Just Fine before, they are delusional or lying.

Its not like they could have just said Critical update patch...oh no, we need to make things confusing.

What happens when admins get confused and pour the contents of their beverage containers into their servers?

We apologize for the confusion in the Critical Patch Updates. The individuals responsible have been sacked. To avoid further confusion, all CPUs will be processed through CUPS, the Critical Update Patch Server.

And now the goddamn printer doesn't work.

The three martini lunch is dead?

I've been happy with Wickr. No ties to the company, just a happy user. https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/wickr-self-destructing-secure/id528962154?mt=8

Check the specific terms, but usually no. IMHO.
The extended warranty company already has your money. They have every incentive not to give any of it back in the form of a repair.

I had this exact issue with an extended warranty on a slightly used car. Something broke, but as part of the chain of breaking parts was a non-covered part, the timing belt (a consumable), everything after that was not covered. The initial break was a covered part, but that did not matter.
Their default answer was deny, deny, deny. Eventually they threw me a bone and paid half.

The tanker was there anyway. it also had to return to Hickam with the F-22's to tank them on the way.
The software glitch was a one time thing, in a brand new aircraft. Fixed within 36 hours.

But yes. Let's continue the theme that the pilots suck, the aircraft are useless, and up until recent times, each and every deployment (be it people or a new machine) went perfectly.

When our daughter was born I took a month off to be home. Coffee and sleep deprivation was the order of the day, but I'd do it all over again in a heartbeat.