I agree, this would most likely only pose much of a thread to people like celebrities, where the potential gain is very high.
For the average person it's much more likely that the burglar is just using opportunity. For example they saw you leave shortly before 9:00 or your house just happens to look empty during the day.
That's by no means to say that this project is a bad idea. I think anything that attempts to teach people to be more careful about the information they put out there in public online is absolutely a good idea as this kind of information could be used for purposes other than burglary.
I doubt I would use it personally. It's not something I would use often enough to justify adding another icon on my phone. Especially when I can just look on google for movie quotes. If it added functionality to find quotes by actors or attempt to find quotes from an incomplete quote (I forgot the actual quote but know the gist) and the ability to drill down by quote subject I might use it but I'd likely still prefer it to be a website.
I don't know that lazy is the right word. If he moves to a more modern system and then turns off all of the modern automatic features and has no use for anything his current setup doesn't offer it's not really an efficient use of his time to learn a new system. It's only lazy if we assume there is some feature that would make him drastically more efficient but the fact is we don't really know his workflow. Besides, I seriously doubt his word processing time is the bottleneck in the writing process.
My guess (with nothing to back it up) is people will start moving into paterns of 963 852 741 or the reverse since they're easy to type on the numpad without really remembering the values.
edit: On second look, that's exactly what you did in your example.
You seem to be making the erroneous assumption that everyone is motivated in the same way as you. Personally, if someone embarrasses me in a conversation in this way I'm going to feel like an idiot and resent them for making me feel that way. When this kind of thing happens it feels to me like they'd rather have someone to laugh at and feel superior to than help that person better their skills. I don't have much respect for that.
If they point me in the direction of some resources or help me learn it I'm going to respect them more because it makes it clear they care about their craft. They don't feel the need to feel superior, they'd rather have a peer on their level.
My point really is just that different people are motivated in different ways and what may motivate you has the opposite effect on others.
I see what you're getting at and agree it could be offensive but it could also be Charles Spears. At the same time someone could name an account CharlesSpears and probably no one would find it offensive.
It is interesting to think about where the line should be drawn. Especially in human moderated cases.
Agreed. Personally, whenever I study or do work in a coffee shop I try to regularly make purchases.
I usually end up averaging between $1 and $2 per hour which I think is completely reasonable for the space, drinks, snacks, and internet access. I'll ramp it up a bit if they get busy and if they stay busy for very long (30 min. or longer) I will usually leave.
Technical issues aside, the way AOL implemented poses some issues from SPAM I think.
With AOL I could check and if I can't unsend I know they opened the email. If this worked across all email and I wanted to use email for nefarious purposes I could use this to see, with great accuracy, exactly which email address that I've sent to were active and opened the message. I can then target these accounts more.
In general, I agree with this. I speak to someone that's younger in a different manner than I do someone who is an adult.
Not only that, I feel like someone starting out stands to be affected a lot more by negative feedback. In this case knowing the experience level gives me a chance to word my advice in such a manner as to help them improve while also encouraging them.
For the average person it's much more likely that the burglar is just using opportunity. For example they saw you leave shortly before 9:00 or your house just happens to look empty during the day.
That's by no means to say that this project is a bad idea. I think anything that attempts to teach people to be more careful about the information they put out there in public online is absolutely a good idea as this kind of information could be used for purposes other than burglary.