Zak
They wanted full access to the user’s Google Drive. That’s a permission Google is very reluctant to hand out because some users (perhaps unwisely) store large amounts of sensitive information there, and very few apps actually need direct access.
Even if an editor app needs access to arbitrary files on Google Drive that it did not create, it can use the Android file picker. This seems like a case of an app developer failing to follow the good practice of minimizing permissions. I have complaints about Google and the Android ecosystem, but having high requirements for unrestricted access to Google Drive is not one of them.
I remember getting a boarding pass from an airline that was only offered in their app or printed at the airport, no email/download image/PDF option. I didn’t have to install their app, but I would have had to waste time at the airport otherwise. I removed it when I was done and left it a negative review.
The number I remember seeing was that on average, app users are seven times more profitable than web users. Sorry, no citation.
I suspect there’s some selection bias in that regular/loyal users of a particular product or service are more likely to install the app, but it also affords the company greater access to send notifications and collect data. On the rare occasion that I install some random company’s app for a specific benefit, I remove it when I’m done.
It’s likely the harassers can be prosecuted for false imprisonment, a misdemeanor. It is illegal to use deadly force such as hitting people with cars to prevent/terminate a misdemeanor.
here’s not really anything of that nature for tech stuff
The Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act does not exclude tech stuff. The problem is that it’s a lot harder to work on tech stuff without insider information than 1970s cars.
He can’t. He’s paralyzed and his exoskeleton is broken.
On a more serious note, the 404media article (login wall) reports the problem was that the wristwatch controller for the exoskeleton had its battery wire’s solder joint break. They seem to be trying to frame it as a right to repair issue, but that’s a trivial repair for anyone with basic electronics experience.
If I feel threatened in my car, I am not allowed to run over the person
You are not allowed to run people over merely because you feel threatened.
You are allowed to use deadly force, in the USA when you reasonably believe that it is necessary to prevent someone from unlawfully killing, causing serious physical injury, or committing a short list of violent felonies. The harassment described in the article probably does not rise to that level, though an ambitious lawyer might try to describe intentionally causing the car to stop as carjacking or kidnapping.
PRNGs aren’t random at all; they produce a deterministic sequence of numbers based on a seed value and an internal counter. Two PRNGs using the same algorithm and seed will produce the same sequence of numbers. The sequence is difficult to predict without knowing the algorithm and seed, and the values are close to evenly-distributed, which is enough like random numbers for a lot of use cases.
Here’s an example in Ruby:
seed = Random.new_seed()
=> 142757148148443078663499575299582907518
prng_1 = Random.new(seed=seed)
prng_1.rand()
=> 0.6702742156250219
prng_2 = Random.new(seed=seed)
prng_2.rand()
=> 0.6702742156250219
prng_1.rand()
=> 0.9667236181962573
prng_2.rand()
=> 0.9667236181962573
If you run this yourself using 142757148148443078663499575299582907518 as the seed, your first two pseudorandom numbers will also be 0.6702742156250219 and 0.9667236181962573, assuming your version of Ruby hasn’t changed its PRNG.