True story: I worked my way through college, because my dad died in my freshman year. One semester I was standing in line to write my tuition check for the courses I was taking, and the guy ahead of me received a check from the school to cover all of his expenses for the coming semester. He was a football player. WTF?
Of course, the school also had a special program set up for athletes, so that they could actually graduate with a B.S.. The "BS" was never more appropriate, and normal students were generally not allowed to sign up for these courses.
That one experience is probably the single biggest reason why I have never had any interest in continued contact with the school since graduating.
Apropos of the question in the title of this post. I had a meeting today with a guy in his early 20s. I mentioned that one of my current projects is a Java Client/Server application. He found this totally bizarre, because "Web apps are the future".
Now, I'm a geezer by IT standards. I cut my teeth on an IBM 360 (yes, that old). One of my standard charts that I use in general IT presentations is a spiral. I'll do it here in text, a bit oversimplified:
- 1970: centralized computation (mainframes)
- 1980: distributed computation (first PCs)
- 1990: centralized computation (Servers and thin clients)
- 2000: distributed computation (next generation of PCs)
- 2010: centralized computation (Web apps and cloud computing)
The pendulum swings back and forth, but you only start to recognize the pattern after you've lived through a couple of cycles. In fact, it seems that by the time one trend has established itself as inevitable, the next (opposite) trend is already well underway. Right now, Web-apps and Cloud computing are the buzzwords, but mobile computing is already well underway for dominance by 2020.
So, if I may answer the question posed in the title: Web Apps: the Future of the Internet?
The positive effects? You mean, like turning millions of service jobs part-time, so that the employees can be excluded from employer-provided health care? Or perhaps you meant further destroying the concept of health insurance, where I can freely choose what premium costs and out-of-pocket expenses I want? Or perhaps you were referring to the cynicism sparked by the fact that Congress and Congressional staff will be exempt from its own law, because they otherwise fear retention problems?
Personally, I want health insurance, where I pay my own way until and unless something catastrophic occurs. That is no longer available, because the government doesn't want us to have true insurance - they want to stick their grimy administrative fingers in all aspects of our health care. What possible benefit can their be, aside from job security for bureaucrats?
Repeal the law, and repeal most of the old regulations regarding health insurance. Instead, push through tort reform. Then let the free market work, and watch health costs plummet.
Sure, it now costs $450. Consider: you will never need to file another American tax return (or pay for it to be done), nor will you ever again have to pay taxes to a country you neither live nor work in.
Anyway, what's your privacy worth? Would you like to share all of your financial data with unknown "third parties" and accept sole liability for whatever they do with it?
Probably not worth answering an AC, but a couple of quick points:
- It is illegal to transfer data outside the country, but that doesn't stop it from happening. Consider the CDs of data purchased by the German government. The people who really deserve to be prosecuted are employees of the German government, who violated both Swiss and German law by purchasing stolen goods. Note that, they are not in jail.
- Essentially all of the large Swiss banks are affected. If they weren't, the government wouldn't have ratified the FATCA agreement, and would have left the banks to fend for themselves.
- Finally, for the banks that don't deal with US customers - that's great, we're customers of one such. However, it doesn't change the fact that literally tens of thousands of Americans live here (many of them "accidental" Americans), and that all of these people have a real problem: Surrender their rights in the country where they live, or try to do without a bank account. Not a nice choice.
FATCA (which applies to lots of countries, not only Switzerland) will, however, lead to giving customer data to the US.
It's basically blackmail by the US: Any bank that does not "voluntarily" release data on its US customers will be denied access to US dollar transactions in international banking. Since US dollars are rather important in international transactions, this is pretty much the death of any bank that does any sort of international business.
Swiss law prohibits turning over customer data to a foreign government, unless that foreign government can show probable cause for criminal acts. The US doesn't want to be bothered with such trivialities - the US government is accustomed to having full access to everyone's financial details.
Note that no one even thinks to criticize this - why should the IRS have all of your financial data? Is that not a violation of the 4th amendment, just as much as the NSA having access to your email and Internet data?
In any case, FATCA opens a loophole in Swiss law, by allowing US citizens to sign away their protections under Swiss law. Banks then require their US customers to do exactly this, or else their accounts will be closed. The wording of the document was dictated by the US, and it is shocking: Your financial data will be delivered to a US correspondence bank, to the IRS, and to unnamed third parties. You accept full liability for any data breaches or misuse. Finally, you not only renounce the protections of Swiss law and accept US law - you also accept the laws of other countries not specifically named.
No one with an ounce of sense would accept the terms of this document - except that they cannot otherwise have a bank account, and a bank account is a necessity of modern life. The truly wealthy will simply move their assets elsewhere; it's only the ordinary middle-class person who is screwed. The alternative - taken by 900 Americans in Switzerland last year - is to renounce your US citizenship and tell the US to f*** off.
Any reasonably civilized country has law enforcement. The difference is: Switzerland follows the rules. Email interception requires a valid warrant, there's no secret FISA court whose orders you cannot talk about, etc.
If you're doing illegal things, then you are better off with a provider in a country where law enforcement is, shall we say, sporadic.
If you just want to ensure your privacy, then a Swiss provider is absolutely fine.
Many thanks for your thoughtful post. Yes, people need to take this stuff seriously. The problem, of course, is that the vast majority are not even aware of the problem. "Look, Nascar this afternoon!".
Snowdon's single biggest impact is that he has made more people aware of the issues.
In the meantime, the practical solution is for everyone - most especially US citizens - to start using services based in other countries. If this trend really gets started, it will have a real effect on several large US companies, and they have the pocketbooks to make their displeasure known in Washington.
Anyone who hasn't RTFA really ought to at least look at the example. This is not only a case of a blurry 6 being replaced with a blurry 8, which would be bad enough. If surrounding context matches, it will replace numbers with complete different text! In the first example given, the number 14.31 is scanned in one place, and used to replace the numbers 21.11 and 17.42 in two other places. In all cases, the numbers are perfectly legible.
In what world is this acceptable? To actually document this on page 129 of the handbook (that almost no one will ever read) and deliver the product - insane!
As the parent writes, we have many government employees who regularly perjure themselves. This ranges from cops and FBI agents all the way to agency heads testifying in front of Congress.
Of course, we will never see a government employee prosecuted for perjury. The common citizen, on the other hand, is presumed to be lying if their testimony contradicts what the government says - and will be prosecuted accordingly. The classic are the FBI interviews, where the only allowed record are the FBI agent's notes. What you actually said is irrelevant: it's what's in the notes that counts, and no you may not make any other record of the conversation.
You can no longer trust the US government. Real unemployment at 23% and rising. Hopelessly corrupt two-party system. Hopelessly corrupt Congress. No realistic hope for change. Sorry, it's time to bail: there are other countries with better governments - take your pick based on your ideology. I left and handed in my passport, and I expect many, many more will do the same in the coming years.
You accept the situation too easily. Yes, governments have always run intelligence services. What these services have done has often been illegal, and for that reason their actions have always been hidden from view.
The difference today is that the US is claiming that these vast programs are legal. That they have the right to gather personal information on hundreds of millions of innocent people: communications, internet records, financial records and who knows what else. All of this despite the clear restrictions enumerated in the US Constitution. No need to skulk in the shadows, the US government is proud to have realized George Orwell's nightmare.
Just as a reminder: It has long been known that the US monitors international banking transactions (as a minimum, all transactions over the SWIFT system, probably others as well). This is long known, and hence "accepted", even though there is no possible justification for it.
So: they have your telecommunications, your internet records and your financial records. For countries that actually have privacy laws (the US doesn't, but many other countries do), this is clearly illegal. I would love to see some criminal cases filed against prominent figures in the US government...
I wonder about the material, though. Household products are made of a wide variety of materials. Even if we restrict ourselves to plastic, there are many different kinds of plastic, designed for different properties: flexibility, robustness, strength, UV tolerant, food safe, etc, etc.. If the properties of the printed item are unsuitable for the task, it will just be frustrating when it breaks after a couple of uses.
Still, it's a move in the right direction. I can well believe that 3D printing will mature: Printers will, perhaps, be able to mix different materials during printing in order to control the properties of the resulting item. We will also need vast online libraries of common items - Ma and Pa Smith will not be able to design their own shower rings, after all.
The best way to get rules changed is to refuse to follow them. Done right, this sparks a discussion of whether the rules are sensible or not. There's really no other way to do it. The government put these rules into place, and will not want to spend time reviewing or changing them. They have to be pressured into doing so, and that's exactly what is happening.
It is a very important responsibility of any citizen is to disobey senseless regulations. When you are called on one, invest the time in your society by fighting to have the regulation knocked down.
Because all of the above costs exist for a reason. They didn't just get made up because it was fun to regulate taxi drivers, they're there to protect people getting into the back of cars with strangers driving them.
A random taxi driver isn't a stranger?
Anyway, lots of us find a driver we like, and ask specifically for their services - this would be the case for ride-sharing as well. So they will only be strangers once.
If they don't fight it, it allows unregulated taxis to pop up all over the place, simply by repeatedly "offering a lift" at the airport, sidestepping the entire taxi regulation system.
Oh dear, how terrible! You mean that an entire raft of useless government regulations can be eliminated? Tragic, indeed, it might mean that we could also get rid of the government department that goes with them.
It is the business of the city/state. A company is operating on the city's roads what is effectively public transport without having to conform to any of the regulations intended to make public transport safe.
It's a car. Cars are already subject to inspections to ensure safety. A passenger is a passenger, whether or not they pay for the ride. The only possible difference is one of liability insurance, which is between the driver and their auto insurance company.
If I set up a child care business without any care for the regulations, and called it a "child share" funded by donations, would that be ok?... You have no idea of the driver's abilities, no idea of their insurance, no idea of the car's safety. At least with a taxi you have some reassurance.
Comparing child care to a taxi ride? That's sort of like comparing nuclear warheads to firecrackers. Let's stick to the topic, shall we?
As mentioned above, basic traffic safety is already assured through vehicle inspections. For a taxi ride I can read online reviews, I can ask to see your current insurance papers, I can decide whether you look reputable and sober. Their are only two reasons that governments get involved in taxi licensing:
The government can collect fees, so they have more money to spend. Wow, a new source of income that doesn't require voter approval, more slops for the trough.
Large taxi companies can more easily afford the fees, so they happily use them as a way of preventing competition. It's even better if only a limited number of taxi medallions are allowed - then the competition is really screwed
In short: government involvement adds nothing of value to taxi services.
How a passenger arrives at the airport - by bicycle, by train , by rideshare or by stork - is simply none of their business as long as it is not disruptive. From the airport's perspective, there is no difference between a taxi and a rideshare, so claiming that the rideshare is "trespassing" is absurd.
Of course, the regulatory capture by taxi companies is the real, underlying issue here. There is no reason to restrict who can take another person in their car; this is an arrangement for services between consenting adults, and none of the government's business.
I would think that a lot of bot reservations would go unused, at least, as soon as the newness of this wears off. How long until restaurants start charging a nonrefundable reservation fee?
Quick, hold up your hand if you laughed when your puppy first encountered a mirror! It's hilarious: "OMG there's another dog in the room". Depending on the dog, they will be fooled once, twice, maybe three times - that's it. Afterwards they realize that there's nothing there, and ignore it. It's the same for television. We have a herding dog, and the first time he saw animals on television (I think it was sheep), "OMG, I gotta go herd". Second time, he looked and then yawned. He didn't look a third time. Anyone who pays attention to their animals will have seen this. They know what's real and what's not. Things that are not real are not interesting.
There are already far too many dog owners who think that dogs are like furniture: there when you want them, and otherwise they can be ignored. Dogs need activity, they need interaction with their owners, they need a job to do (especially the working breeds). This stupid idea is going to make bad dog owners even worse: They will think they've done something to keep their dog busy, and will feel even less obligated to actually take proper care of their animals.
It must make him feel good to run his own personal little blacklist. And the data is "crowdsourced" - totally in keeping with the times: "see something, say something", otherwise known as minding your neighbor's business. How much do you have to piss someone off, to get added?
Of course, he will scrupulously check all additions for correctness, keep the data up-to-date when people move, and offer recourse to people who are added in error. And I have a bridge I want to sell you.
Assuming you have valuable and/or personal data on the machine, don't forget disk encryption. Either encrypt the entire disk, or perhaps just the data partition. Truecrypt is a good solution for this.
...they are bloody expensive! The consumer doesn't see most of this, but the merchants pay through the nose. A typical small business will pay around 3% of the total transaction to the credit card company, plus additional fees for payment processing, plus additional fees for certifications, plus...there's always another damned fee.
That could well represent the entire profit margin of a smaller business. Guess what, that means those costs are added into the price. Since most credit card contracts (at least in my country) explicitly prohibit giving a "cash discount" or anything else that would be to the disadvantage of credit card purchases, this means that there is no way out: everyone must pay the higher prices.
It's quite a racket, if you think about it: 3% of the top of a huge chunk of all consumer transactions. I dream of seeing some real competition in the payment processing market.
It's not only that stock exchanges have become gambling halls. It's worse: the HFT traders are the card sharks that any self-respecting casino bans from their premises.
If the markets themselves want to act like respectable gambling institutions, they need put a brake on this. The simplest means would be to charge big fees for cancellations. If Flash asks "would you like to buy an apple for 51c", and the answer is yes, then he had better buy the damn apple.
The liquidity argument is specious; there really is no benefit to liquidity below a certain threshold. Fees should also go up astronomically for very short-term trades.
Slashdot Mirror
True story: I worked my way through college, because my dad died in my freshman year. One semester I was standing in line to write my tuition check for the courses I was taking, and the guy ahead of me received a check from the school to cover all of his expenses for the coming semester. He was a football player. WTF?
Of course, the school also had a special program set up for athletes, so that they could actually graduate with a B.S.. The "BS" was never more appropriate, and normal students were generally not allowed to sign up for these courses.
That one experience is probably the single biggest reason why I have never had any interest in continued contact with the school since graduating.
Apropos of the question in the title of this post. I had a meeting today with a guy in his early 20s. I mentioned that one of my current projects is a Java Client/Server application. He found this totally bizarre, because "Web apps are the future".
Now, I'm a geezer by IT standards. I cut my teeth on an IBM 360 (yes, that old). One of my standard charts that I use in general IT presentations is a spiral. I'll do it here in text, a bit oversimplified:
The pendulum swings back and forth, but you only start to recognize the pattern after you've lived through a couple of cycles. In fact, it seems that by the time one trend has established itself as inevitable, the next (opposite) trend is already well underway. Right now, Web-apps and Cloud computing are the buzzwords, but mobile computing is already well underway for dominance by 2020.
So, if I may answer the question posed in the title: Web Apps: the Future of the Internet?
No.
Typical sue-happy mentality of the USA: My bad judgement is your fault.
If these people had made money with the stock, do you think they'd be offering to pay Microsoft part of their profits?
The positive effects? You mean, like turning millions of service jobs part-time, so that the employees can be excluded from employer-provided health care? Or perhaps you meant further destroying the concept of health insurance, where I can freely choose what premium costs and out-of-pocket expenses I want? Or perhaps you were referring to the cynicism sparked by the fact that Congress and Congressional staff will be exempt from its own law, because they otherwise fear retention problems?
Personally, I want health insurance, where I pay my own way until and unless something catastrophic occurs. That is no longer available, because the government doesn't want us to have true insurance - they want to stick their grimy administrative fingers in all aspects of our health care. What possible benefit can their be, aside from job security for bureaucrats?
Repeal the law, and repeal most of the old regulations regarding health insurance. Instead, push through tort reform. Then let the free market work, and watch health costs plummet.
Sure, it now costs $450. Consider: you will never need to file another American tax return (or pay for it to be done), nor will you ever again have to pay taxes to a country you neither live nor work in.
Anyway, what's your privacy worth? Would you like to share all of your financial data with unknown "third parties" and accept sole liability for whatever they do with it?
Probably not worth answering an AC, but a couple of quick points:
- It is illegal to transfer data outside the country, but that doesn't stop it from happening. Consider the CDs of data purchased by the German government. The people who really deserve to be prosecuted are employees of the German government, who violated both Swiss and German law by purchasing stolen goods. Note that, they are not in jail.
- Essentially all of the large Swiss banks are affected. If they weren't, the government wouldn't have ratified the FATCA agreement, and would have left the banks to fend for themselves.
- Finally, for the banks that don't deal with US customers - that's great, we're customers of one such. However, it doesn't change the fact that literally tens of thousands of Americans live here (many of them "accidental" Americans), and that all of these people have a real problem: Surrender their rights in the country where they live, or try to do without a bank account. Not a nice choice.
FATCA (which applies to lots of countries, not only Switzerland) will, however, lead to giving customer data to the US.
It's basically blackmail by the US: Any bank that does not "voluntarily" release data on its US customers will be denied access to US dollar transactions in international banking. Since US dollars are rather important in international transactions, this is pretty much the death of any bank that does any sort of international business.
Swiss law prohibits turning over customer data to a foreign government, unless that foreign government can show probable cause for criminal acts. The US doesn't want to be bothered with such trivialities - the US government is accustomed to having full access to everyone's financial details.
Note that no one even thinks to criticize this - why should the IRS have all of your financial data? Is that not a violation of the 4th amendment, just as much as the NSA having access to your email and Internet data?
In any case, FATCA opens a loophole in Swiss law, by allowing US citizens to sign away their protections under Swiss law. Banks then require their US customers to do exactly this, or else their accounts will be closed. The wording of the document was dictated by the US, and it is shocking: Your financial data will be delivered to a US correspondence bank, to the IRS, and to unnamed third parties. You accept full liability for any data breaches or misuse. Finally, you not only renounce the protections of Swiss law and accept US law - you also accept the laws of other countries not specifically named.
No one with an ounce of sense would accept the terms of this document - except that they cannot otherwise have a bank account, and a bank account is a necessity of modern life. The truly wealthy will simply move their assets elsewhere; it's only the ordinary middle-class person who is screwed. The alternative - taken by 900 Americans in Switzerland last year - is to renounce your US citizenship and tell the US to f*** off.
Any reasonably civilized country has law enforcement. The difference is: Switzerland follows the rules. Email interception requires a valid warrant, there's no secret FISA court whose orders you cannot talk about, etc.
If you're doing illegal things, then you are better off with a provider in a country where law enforcement is, shall we say, sporadic.
If you just want to ensure your privacy, then a Swiss provider is absolutely fine.
Many thanks for your thoughtful post. Yes, people need to take this stuff seriously. The problem, of course, is that the vast majority are not even aware of the problem. "Look, Nascar this afternoon!".
Snowdon's single biggest impact is that he has made more people aware of the issues.
In the meantime, the practical solution is for everyone - most especially US citizens - to start using services based in other countries. If this trend really gets started, it will have a real effect on several large US companies, and they have the pocketbooks to make their displeasure known in Washington.
Anyone who hasn't RTFA really ought to at least look at the example. This is not only a case of a blurry 6 being replaced with a blurry 8, which would be bad enough. If surrounding context matches, it will replace numbers with complete different text! In the first example given, the number 14.31 is scanned in one place, and used to replace the numbers 21.11 and 17.42 in two other places. In all cases, the numbers are perfectly legible.
In what world is this acceptable? To actually document this on page 129 of the handbook (that almost no one will ever read) and deliver the product - insane!
Why not? Everything else is a felony. Heck, let's go the next step and just toss the entire population in jail.
What was the title of that book? Three Felonies a Day? By now, it's surely four or five...
As the parent writes, we have many government employees who regularly perjure themselves. This ranges from cops and FBI agents all the way to agency heads testifying in front of Congress.
Of course, we will never see a government employee prosecuted for perjury. The common citizen, on the other hand, is presumed to be lying if their testimony contradicts what the government says - and will be prosecuted accordingly. The classic are the FBI interviews, where the only allowed record are the FBI agent's notes. What you actually said is irrelevant: it's what's in the notes that counts, and no you may not make any other record of the conversation.
You can no longer trust the US government. Real unemployment at 23% and rising. Hopelessly corrupt two-party system. Hopelessly corrupt Congress. No realistic hope for change. Sorry, it's time to bail: there are other countries with better governments - take your pick based on your ideology. I left and handed in my passport, and I expect many, many more will do the same in the coming years.
You accept the situation too easily. Yes, governments have always run intelligence services. What these services have done has often been illegal, and for that reason their actions have always been hidden from view.
The difference today is that the US is claiming that these vast programs are legal. That they have the right to gather personal information on hundreds of millions of innocent people: communications, internet records, financial records and who knows what else. All of this despite the clear restrictions enumerated in the US Constitution. No need to skulk in the shadows, the US government is proud to have realized George Orwell's nightmare.
That is the difference.
Just as a reminder: It has long been known that the US monitors international banking transactions (as a minimum, all transactions over the SWIFT system, probably others as well). This is long known, and hence "accepted", even though there is no possible justification for it.
So: they have your telecommunications, your internet records and your financial records. For countries that actually have privacy laws (the US doesn't, but many other countries do), this is clearly illegal. I would love to see some criminal cases filed against prominent figures in the US government...
I wonder about the material, though. Household products are made of a wide variety of materials. Even if we restrict ourselves to plastic, there are many different kinds of plastic, designed for different properties: flexibility, robustness, strength, UV tolerant, food safe, etc, etc.. If the properties of the printed item are unsuitable for the task, it will just be frustrating when it breaks after a couple of uses.
Still, it's a move in the right direction. I can well believe that 3D printing will mature: Printers will, perhaps, be able to mix different materials during printing in order to control the properties of the resulting item. We will also need vast online libraries of common items - Ma and Pa Smith will not be able to design their own shower rings, after all.
Interesting direction, but not quite there yet...
The best way to get rules changed is to refuse to follow them. Done right, this sparks a discussion of whether the rules are sensible or not. There's really no other way to do it. The government put these rules into place, and will not want to spend time reviewing or changing them. They have to be pressured into doing so, and that's exactly what is happening.
It is a very important responsibility of any citizen is to disobey senseless regulations. When you are called on one, invest the time in your society by fighting to have the regulation knocked down.
Because all of the above costs exist for a reason. They didn't just get made up because it was fun to regulate taxi drivers, they're there to protect people getting into the back of cars with strangers driving them.
A random taxi driver isn't a stranger?
Anyway, lots of us find a driver we like, and ask specifically for their services - this would be the case for ride-sharing as well. So they will only be strangers once.
If they don't fight it, it allows unregulated taxis to pop up all over the place, simply by repeatedly "offering a lift" at the airport, sidestepping the entire taxi regulation system.
Oh dear, how terrible! You mean that an entire raft of useless government regulations can be eliminated? Tragic, indeed, it might mean that we could also get rid of the government department that goes with them.
It is the business of the city/state. A company is operating on the city's roads what is effectively public transport without having to conform to any of the regulations intended to make public transport safe.
It's a car. Cars are already subject to inspections to ensure safety. A passenger is a passenger, whether or not they pay for the ride. The only possible difference is one of liability insurance, which is between the driver and their auto insurance company.
If I set up a child care business without any care for the regulations, and called it a "child share" funded by donations, would that be ok? ... You have no idea of the driver's abilities, no idea of their insurance, no idea of the car's safety. At least with a taxi you have some reassurance.
Comparing child care to a taxi ride? That's sort of like comparing nuclear warheads to firecrackers. Let's stick to the topic, shall we?
As mentioned above, basic traffic safety is already assured through vehicle inspections. For a taxi ride I can read online reviews, I can ask to see your current insurance papers, I can decide whether you look reputable and sober. Their are only two reasons that governments get involved in taxi licensing:
In short: government involvement adds nothing of value to taxi services.
How a passenger arrives at the airport - by bicycle, by train , by rideshare or by stork - is simply none of their business as long as it is not disruptive. From the airport's perspective, there is no difference between a taxi and a rideshare, so claiming that the rideshare is "trespassing" is absurd.
Of course, the regulatory capture by taxi companies is the real, underlying issue here. There is no reason to restrict who can take another person in their car; this is an arrangement for services between consenting adults, and none of the government's business.
I would think that a lot of bot reservations would go unused, at least, as soon as the newness of this wears off. How long until restaurants start charging a nonrefundable reservation fee?
Quick, hold up your hand if you laughed when your puppy first encountered a mirror! It's hilarious: "OMG there's another dog in the room". Depending on the dog, they will be fooled once, twice, maybe three times - that's it. Afterwards they realize that there's nothing there, and ignore it. It's the same for television. We have a herding dog, and the first time he saw animals on television (I think it was sheep), "OMG, I gotta go herd". Second time, he looked and then yawned. He didn't look a third time. Anyone who pays attention to their animals will have seen this. They know what's real and what's not. Things that are not real are not interesting.
There are already far too many dog owners who think that dogs are like furniture: there when you want them, and otherwise they can be ignored. Dogs need activity, they need interaction with their owners, they need a job to do (especially the working breeds). This stupid idea is going to make bad dog owners even worse: They will think they've done something to keep their dog busy, and will feel even less obligated to actually take proper care of their animals.
It must make him feel good to run his own personal little blacklist. And the data is "crowdsourced" - totally in keeping with the times: "see something, say something", otherwise known as minding your neighbor's business. How much do you have to piss someone off, to get added?
Of course, he will scrupulously check all additions for correctness, keep the data up-to-date when people move, and offer recourse to people who are added in error. And I have a bridge I want to sell you.
From California, what a surprise...
Assuming you have valuable and/or personal data on the machine, don't forget disk encryption. Either encrypt the entire disk, or perhaps just the data partition. Truecrypt is a good solution for this.
...they are bloody expensive! The consumer doesn't see most of this, but the merchants pay through the nose. A typical small business will pay around 3% of the total transaction to the credit card company, plus additional fees for payment processing, plus additional fees for certifications, plus...there's always another damned fee.
That could well represent the entire profit margin of a smaller business. Guess what, that means those costs are added into the price. Since most credit card contracts (at least in my country) explicitly prohibit giving a "cash discount" or anything else that would be to the disadvantage of credit card purchases, this means that there is no way out: everyone must pay the higher prices.
It's quite a racket, if you think about it: 3% of the top of a huge chunk of all consumer transactions. I dream of seeing some real competition in the payment processing market.
It's not only that stock exchanges have become gambling halls. It's worse: the HFT traders are the card sharks that any self-respecting casino bans from their premises.
If the markets themselves want to act like respectable gambling institutions, they need put a brake on this. The simplest means would be to charge big fees for cancellations. If Flash asks "would you like to buy an apple for 51c", and the answer is yes, then he had better buy the damn apple.
The liquidity argument is specious; there really is no benefit to liquidity below a certain threshold. Fees should also go up astronomically for very short-term trades.