Some will argue that prisons shouldn’t have all the latest computer technologies available to inmates.
Who the fuck argues that? If they're locked-up, the least you can do is give them the best possible computers, gyms, and therapists..
this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2025
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Well may be not he "latest" high-end for gaming 4k 160fps, but... floppy disks?
But yes your point stands, if you want to give social reinsertion a chance.
They want inmates for life, doing slave labor.
Plenty of people would rather we throw prisoners into a medieval dungeon because they're obsessed with "punishment".
Some negligible minority, sure.
Not negligible enough. You think it's a coincidence that "tough on crime" is a consistently successful angle to push?
You think we live in a democracy?
It's weasel words. Nobody is arguing "the latest", just something from this century.
I do think we should give them the latest. They deserve it.
Imagine during your appeal process, they reach disk #18 of #20 and there's a read error and now you will be in prison for five more years.
This is some Sierra Online bullshit.
there's a read error and now you will be in prison for five more years.
Prisoners don't have to be paid minimum wage, and there's an entire industry around using prisoners as dirty cheap labor. Anything that makes it harder for them to get out of the system is additional revenue for private prisons, not something the people who have the power to change it want to see solved.
Alvarado’s lawyers send documents on flash drives, which must be decanted to (sometimes multiple) floppy disks
Which gives an opportunity for the state to look them over.
and here i thought decanting was just for wine.
which I'm pretty sure most inmates don't do with their homebrew.
now if only we could get them some homebrew software to get away from these floppy disks.
I remember having to juggle something like 6 floppy disks just to load Dune II on our family’s old, hand-me-down Amiga 2000 back in the early-to-mid 90s. How is this still a fucking things 30+ years later?!
For profit prisons. Bet they sell floppies for like 10 times what they should cost, which honestly should be free since it’s essentially trash nowadays.
Well unless you’re me and you have this idea for a giant wall art piece of old school pixelated graphics made from colored floppies connected together. Yes I’m a nerd. But if you have any old floppies you want rid of hit me up.
Surely it’d be cheaper for them to switch to a more common media like cheap, crappy flash drives than sourcing out floppy drives?
give them some ssd drives and the latest windows update.. at least they'll learn how to troubleshoot.
Good times, using pkzip to install Doom II from like 10 floppies I got from my friend. And then there'd be an error on disk 7 randomly, so you'd have to start over and hope nothing fucked up for no reason.
Yeah, we need prison reform.
US prisons are a business instead of a federal service. Not saying that government would do a better job but if its federal at least the basic policies can be fixed nationwide vs state by state.
The number of prisoners in private prisons in the US is lower than I would've thought (though it should ideally be zero)
As of 2022, 28 states used privately run prisons along with (or instead of) local jails and state-run facilities. That same year, 7.4% of prisoners were in a private facility.
Nice fact.
I'll not well learned about the US prison system. Everything I've seen and heard leads me to believe it's just punishment. Making people more likely to re-offend and start a cycle instead or rehabilitate to decrease crime.
Why not do better about preventing violence between inmates?
Why not provide medical services? Oh right no universal healthcare.
Why not provide mental health services like substance abuse or therapy? Maybe it could help accelerate getting on probation.
Just another tool to control the poors.
Some of these things could be fine I'm some states but I've heard of too many horror stories.
You are right, we need a USA reform.
I think their biggest mistake is claiming to be a single country. Can't lord over such a high population without repression, authoritatianism and fascism. Everyone would benefit if it didn't exist and the place got balkanized.
I can't imagine what computers they're using that still have floppy drives. How do they even get tech support for them?
They make USB peripheral floppy drives now for like $15. Its like the shittiest thumb drive ever.
I'd bet that they don't have USB ports on their prison computers at all.
Fun fact: As of El Capitan from 10-ish years ago, Macs can no longer read floppies. They removed drivers from the kernel so some people upgraded and couldn't read their disks anymore.
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There are USB and sata floppy drives. As for tech support? If it doesn't work then warranty or replace, there isn't much else you do with drives beyond that for modern drives either (unless I've missed something by not paying attention for years). I may be wrong on the last point, think some hard drives may be repairable but don't think it was common for consumer level stuff. The worst case is probably a stuck disk that loses it's protector then gets replaced, both the drive and the disk when copied over.
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Wow I thought they'd upgrade to zip disks by now
I think route missing the point. They want them to suffer and not be able to use the computers
I know. It was a bad joke :/ (Zip disks are also very old tech)
CD-RW would be better.
Oh god, I was so excited for CD-RW and then I realized how horrible they are, having to wipe the whole ass disc to rewrite on it, and they didn’t read in some CD drives.
Funny, I can't remember that. Even checked wikipedia and you're right.
I remember being really impressed by CD-R and CD-RW when we got a new P3 desktop with a CD drive with CD-RW support. And I vividly remember even USB flash drives being relatively low capacity (32 MB) in the early 2000.
Maybe I only used them on my PC or perhaps the school had a computer lab refresh and the CD drives supported CD-RW media.
I know the flash drive ban is about being able to hide files or have a bootable alternative OS.
But floppy disks have a that metal slide cover that could easily be made into a shiv. Unless they can only have the kind with plastic slides.
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They should be GRATEFUL they get floppies. Until a few years ago all you got was a Turkey feather and some coal-black.
In 2025?
At least give them a zip or jazz drive!
Do we really want prison officials driving around looking for more floppy disks and a drive from 1985?
Floppy disks were still in use well into the 2000s. They were required to install XP if you needed raid drivers.
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