Although I'm primarily a hardware type, I've written a lot of (working!) code in my time, and Clippy et. al. personify what I call 'Software just smart enough to be stupid'.

What's amazing is that most people put up with crapware (it's an interesting exercise to turn off animated menus when confronted with them for the first time), but in this case it was so detested that 'Kill Clippy' became almost a cult call.

I use a number of very expensive tools from PCB design suite vendors, and the disconnect between those specifying the software and the needs of the users is astounding - just as with Clippy ;)

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A truly wise man never plays leapfrog with a Unicorn.

Western Electric was the manufacturing arm of AT&T.

AT&T required it's subscribers to rent telephones from WE; they were not permitted to buy their own.

Sounds just like the thing going on here, doesn't it, with the difference that Comcast buys the set top boxes from a third party; the key is they are forcing subscribers to use this one and no other to enrich themselves via a forced revenue stream.

This issue was a major factor in the modified final judgment that broke up AT&T.

Yes, AT&T was a little different, but not that much.

Apart from that, the Communications act 1996 required that set-top boxes be freely available for consumers to purchase to prevent this sort of thing.

It would not surprise me one bit if this thing really gets off the ground.

Artificial Intelligence is no match for Natural Stupidity.

Interestingly, Virgin Media (well, the part that used to be NTL) simplifies this for themselves by hijacking DNS requests; by which I mean it doesn't matter what you set your DNS to (such as OpenDNS) - all DNS requests go to the ISP DNS servers.

I ran into this a few years back when I was using NTL, which I now do not.

The very best are not affected by what we are pleased to call an education: They know how to think, and nothing the educational system does can remove this innate ability, no matter how hard it tries.

The rest, however, are being shunted to the sidings of science because the government might be embarrassed that their increasing scores are in fact an indicator of decreasing ability.

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Only the Mediocre area always at their best

I remember my Maths O Level GCE, which had 3 papers.

1. Mensuration (no, it's not a female issue) - basically straight numeracy problems. No calculators or slide rules permitted.

Typical problem: Evaluate 27 ^^[2/3]

2. Algebra and Plane geometry. Just what it says. No calculators or slide rules permitted.

3. Calculus. Slide rules and/or calculators permitted.

A pass (D) was calculated:

Minimum of 50% on all 3 papers and an average of 65%.

Note there was no 'grading on the curve'.

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Artificial Intelligence is no match for Natural Stupidity.