
The Antisocial Laptop - siromoney
http://scattered-thoughts.net/blog/2019/01/16/the-antisocial-laptop/
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AdmiralAsshat
Seems like a feature to me.

Worried about the NSA or other nefarious forces tapping your mic or webcam?
Worry not! This mainstream, off-the-shelf laptop will terminate its internet
connection the moment someone tries to access its webcam! If that hasn't
stopped it, the laptop will dutifully reset itself. Purism ain't got nothin'
on this.

~~~
kgwxd
No built-in cameras or mics would be an excellent feature, even for phones. I
would have already pre-orded the Librem 5, for the same price, if Purism had
offered that.

~~~
AdmiralAsshat
How would you make phonecalls on the Librem 5 without a mic?

~~~
Crespyl
Attach a microphone with USB or Bluetooth, and then turn off or detach it when
done. Same for a webcam.

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meddlin
> my mental model of causality was limited to the design of the machine -
> software interfaces and physical connections - and was completely missing
> the possibility of non-intentional interactions via the physical world.

I love hearing of stories like this. Similar line of thought to my personal
favorite interview question: ""What happens when you type google.com into your
browser and press enter?" (Answer in as much depth as you like.)"

[https://github.com/alex/what-happens-when](https://github.com/alex/what-
happens-when)

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fhood
When you write software at any level on top of the OS the number of possible
causes for bugs starts out at unmanageable. If you allow for unreliable
hardware, the possible cause count rises to unthinkable. As a result, I prefer
to pretend that hardware doesn't exist when at all possible.

I used to work in firmware, and spending hours chasing down a software bug
only to find that it was a hardware issue, and vice versa is a maddening
process.

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nathan_long
Reminds me of
[http://web.mit.edu/jemorris/humor/500-miles](http://web.mit.edu/jemorris/humor/500-miles)

> "We can't send mail more than 500 miles," the chairman explained.

------
hammock
I was wondering if this would be about how having your laptop open in a
meeting is bad form on a few different levels (distracting, signaling, body
language)

~~~
Isamu
Depends on the workplace, and specific behavior.

At my current workplace it is perfectly fine to bring in your laptop and
continue work in a meeting. The context is that this is an engineering
organization and everybody is cranking on their laptops all day and we expect
work to get finished. In a meeting you are expected to pay some attention
though, and contribute. It would be rude if a high-level executive were
running the meeting though.

It is rude if you are completely engrossed in your laptop when somebody is
speaking to you directly. One fellow (now gone) would sometimes ask a question
to me and then become engrossed in his laptop when I replied. That was rude,
but rare. And it is just basic listening skills.

At my previous workplace we generally didn't allow open laptops in meetings,
and that made more sense as there were more meetings with other non-
engineering groups that didn't have the same work culture.

~~~
hammock
If you wouldn't act that way with a high-level executive why act that way with
your coworkers- do you respect them less?

It's as easy as saying "Do you mind if I take notes on my laptop while you
answer your question" if you really have to.

~~~
Isamu
Again, depends on the workplace. And the meeting context.

I walked into a meeting today and said “some people think it is disrespectful
to have your laptop open during a meeting” and everyone laughed. And it was a
diverse group, men and women, a wide age range, from different parts of the
world. People are professional, respectful and notably productive in that
meeting. With laptops.

Regarding a high-level executive, it’s just that those kinds of meetings are
not engineering meetings.

------
sscarduzio
I was thinking about getting an XPS, but I could not understand if this is
resolved in the latest editions of XPS/precision or not.

~~~
antongribok
I have the XPS 13 9360 and love it.

2 day battery life and zero problems on multiple versions of Fedora over the
past 2.5 years.

