I remember I also had to change passwords on Yahoo! about two years ago.
I believe there's a clue in their "Breach FAQ" where they state "the vast majority of passwords were hashed with bcrypt". It could be that their old passwords were protected with a less-secure older salting-and-hashing system, (maybe something like the original crypt() ) and by 2014 they had replaced it with bcrypt.
But even an old crypt() hash can't simply be broken on demand without a lot of CPU grinding for every password recovered. Because the old passwords were hashed, there would have been no easy way for Yahoo! to automatically migrate them into bcrypt. So after the system conversion was complete, they prompted all users to change their old passwords so they would migrate themselves to the new bcrypt-based system. People who haven't logged in since 2014 probably still have the old original hashed passwords on file somewhere at Yahoo HQ..
According to their breach FAQ, the stolen data included "hashed passwords (the vast majority with bcrypt) ". I don't know what "the vast majority" means, nor do I know what alternate form of hashing may have been done prior to their adoption of bcrypt that they're still hanging on to.
I do know that the only reason I still have an active Yahoo! account is because of their OAuth support. Well that's pretty much in the crapper now, isn't it?
First, congratulations on dropping 100 pounds! That is a remarkable achievement for anyone.
Next, I think our stories sound somewhat similar. I, too, look at data and outcomes, and as I know I'm lazy, I'm constantly turning to technology to make the mundane business of data logging as painless as possible. I have a wifi connected scale that also measures body fat, and logs every reading automatically. I weigh myself daily. And yes, I also recognized that lots of people get discouraged by the daily up and down fluctuations in weight. My motivation there is to look at the three month chart, and to see the weight line steadily descending into a healthier range. It doesn't matter that this morning I was up a pound over the previous day when the overall trend line is still on a good trajectory. Every individual measurement shows a bump up or down from the previous day; the insignificance of any one day's measurement is obvious to anyone when looking at the data in aggregation.
I also have logged everything (well, everything except for a few days while on a vacation) I have eaten since I started this journey. What helps me there is a smartphone app that scans barcodes, looks up foods in a crowdsourced database, and populates the day's journal with the data. Yes, I do have to evaluate and select the data more carefully than I'd like, but it's still easier than typing in a pile of numbers. Knowing what went in enables me to stop before I reach the day's limit. Being honest with the data is critical there. So far it seems that I could maintain this pace indefinitely, but I do see how it occasionally requires returning to the touchstone of motivation.
I know that nutrition info is always an average; so I don't get all worried about exact portion sizes, or logging a few carrots or lettuce unless they exceed a reasonable threshold. I'm interested only in a good outcome, not precision in data measurements. Along with this I do know that I have to either carefully log or avoid certain types of foods entirely - sweets and snacks are not something I can write off as not worth logging.
The activity tracker study was a bit odd. I am interested and motivated to use technology and data to drive positive changes, but I ironically ended up in their control group. So I wore their tracker, but did not have access to their step counts. I continued to wear the personal tracker I've worn for the past three years, but in the interest of the study I deliberately ignored it. After the study ended, I looked and could see that my daily counts were averaging much lower than they were when I was actively trying to meet a daily step goal. Incidentally, I also discovered that the wrist-worn tracker is far less accurate in step-counting than the hip-worn tracker.
One of the biggest hurdles I had to overcome at the beginning of this was entrusting my personal health data to random companies operating cloud services. How do I know that my data won't be used against me in some way? But I decided that my long-term health concerns had to trump the fears of unknown (and possibly imaginary) consequences.
Another thing that is important to me is that I don't have a plan, but a goal. I didn't start with an artificial "drop 60 pounds by New Years" resolution; instead I know I have to continue to lose weight until I reach the target weight my doctor and I agreed to. So far, I've lost 50 pounds in the past 7 months, with about 15 to go. And as long as the one month slope of the weight line remains negative, I have high confidence I'll get there.
Finally, buying new clothes was not nearly as motivating as afterwards when I emptied my closet and donated every single stitch of old clothes to a local charity. Now I know that if I gain weight, it's going to cost me a fortune to buy a size larger!:-)
As much as this explanation appears to make sense, like anything in a social study, the results are likely virtually meaningless at the individual level. How any one person reacts to a tracker will not be predictable.
Success at improving someone's health will always be based entirely on the motivation of the person, not on which electronic toys they wear or which brand of granola they gnaw upon. Perhaps they'll find a correlation where buying Garmin branded devices is indicative of people who are more motivated than people who buy Apple branded devices, but that certainly doesn't mean buying a Garmin or an Apple will alter your chances of success.
I participated in a clinical activity tracker study earlier this year. There were so many holes in the testing methodology that I'm not sure the results will be worth the PDF they'll be printed on. Yet they'll be publishing results soon enough, and no doubt will contribute to the collective misinformation already encompassing the 'get healthy' rackets.
It appears to be tied to a word count. I think that if I had cut back to one instance of the T-word, it would have been fine.
But it appears to be following the same pattern as any authoritarian's response to criticism: whether it be Chinese citizens talking about Falun Gong, or slashdotters complaining about trolls, those in charge trot out the Great Firewall and censor them.
[ Sorry in advance for the stupid l33t spelling, but the lameness filter won't let me write the word tr0ll.]
I wonder about "patent tr0lls". The inventor patents Invention X, then wants to monetize their invention. They can build a business (slow and risky) or they can sell their patent to someone else, such as a manufacturer, in exchange for money. Whether or not they get a lot of money or a little money is not important; what is important is that they agreed to the sale. The patent now belongs to Company Y. Company Y makes a warehouse full of Xs, but realizes they aren't selling. They now own a warehouse of valueless junk, plus the rights to X. They need money, so they sell the rights to X to "Patent Tr0ll Z". Again, the amount isn't important as long as they voluntarily agreed to the sale.
So now Z has no boxes of X, no real way to make more Xs, but they have the patent and want to monetize it. Companies A, B, and C start making widgets W, which have a tiny little sliver of concept that coincides with patent X. Tr0ll Z recognizes the concept and sues them. They invested in patent X in order to make money. They did not steal the patent from the inventor. They did not steal products from the warehouse of company Y. So why are the patent tr0lls evil in all of this?
If the tr0lls were stealing innovations, or tricking people into surrendering their rights, then they'd be guilty of fraud. But when everyone involved in the invention agreed to the terms of the sale of the rights, it seems like a legitimate way to execute a business transaction. They may be sleazy and undercut inventors or manufacturers, but those are all governed by contracts, voluntarily entered into by all parties. So I'm asking: what are the tr0lls doing that is unethical?
Only as long as you know which transmitter to measure. In a cell system, the subscribers aren't transmitting the phone's IMEI or the SIM card's IMSI, nor are they sending out the owner's name and number. They just send a temporary mobile ID, which is a randomly generated number that changes frequently. So which signal do you lock on to? Since 90+% of the population is carrying a cell phone, your $40 directional finder would point at everyone. Even a $40,000 direction finder would point at everyone if it can't tel them apart.
No, you need to know exactly which signal belongs to the subscriber you're tracking. How? The StingRay works by transmitting like a cell tower so it can trick the suspect's phone into giving up its true identity. Once you can identify a response as coming from the subscriber you're following, those responses can then be measured using a traditional DF. (The StingRay says "ping", and the subscriber's phone replies "pong".) Harris sells the 'AmberJack' DF antenna accessory for use with the StingRay line. It pings the phone for a while, as it rotates the DF antenna. It then shows the average bearing to the strongest received signal, and the approximate distance in meters.
Their revenue model is not the customer's problem. If they can't make money on the sale, why does that mean customers must give up their privacy unwittingly? Is there a reason you can't pay the true cost up front, instead of giving up privacy?
Could it be that Google is an advertising company, and makes far more money over time through third-party sales of your location data to sleazy marketers? Ergo, if they don't sell their OS for a profit up front, it can be nothing but sleaze all the way down.
As further evidence... I find it veeeeery suspicious that in addition to Google Earth, we now have Google Moon, and Google Mars.
They are already getting ready to track us there too. The Lunar Positioning Service (LPS) will be online by decade's end. McDonald's is already working out franchise rights...
Does anyone else find Mayor McGreen-Cheese more than a little creepy? I thought bringing back their old Mac Tonight character for the Sea Of Tranquility store opening was more sleazy than corny, but the green cheese thing always grosses me out.
The number of actual complete words recorded can improve the overall quality of the synthesized voice. Phonetically pasted-together words are still not quite as good as complete, well formed words. (That's why they always have the talent read the full set of numbers instead of synthesizing words like "eleven".) Reading a phonetically complete subset of words is a good way to capture the most usable portion of the voice in the minimum amount of time. That's important when you're paying the talent by the hour, but it's not necessarily going to produce the overall best results. Having access to the full body of work will not only provide the needed phonemes, but will include a good vocabulary of higher quality words.
Of course, having a slightly choppy computer voice is one way of overcoming the uncanny valley. Holding a conversation with a dead person might be unnerving for some people. Hearing the little clips and weird tone changes as the voice is reassembled would be a constant reminder that you're actually talking to a computer, not a person, and might be of some comfort.
I would hope that the rental company would reset the system in part of their cleanup/inspection after return, however.
+1, funny!
Oh, wait, you were serious? You're lucky if a rental company runs a vacuum cleaner over the floors before they turn the car over to the next renter. Cleaning data would be like so far down the list of stuff they do that "never" comes before it.
My mom worked for Northwest Orient back when the 747 was launched, and I remember her taking me to see one at MSP. To a kid, every passenger jet was huge, but this one was clearly a completely different beast.
She also showed me the maintenance hangar. Minneapolis in the winter is no place to work on an aircraft (it was the shooting location for the old original Airport movie if you want to see what winter looked like back in that era.) Since no existing hangar on the property was large enough for the new bird, they went to the largest hangar they had and built new doors with a semi-circular cut-out on each side. When one was in for maintenance in the winter, they parked it so that when they closed the doors, the tail feathers stuck out the hole.
The average iPhone user is not going to evaluate the repair on anything but the replacement cost. Disposal of the old phone is a negative cost - after all, there is a large market for broken iPhones. So sell the year-old broken phone for $100, get the "newest" phone with all the new features for $100 down payment, and the cell company just charges an extra $50 a month for a few more years.
To people who don't understand the costs of buying on credit (which are most of them) it's a new phone for free.
To the people who buy the broken or used phones, it's a bargain.
To the cell carriers who sell the new phones, and to Apple, it's a platinum-plated gold mine.
Bleeding off the excess H2 and O2 seems as wasteful as throwing away the tank itself. I would suspect that having an extra ton or two of oxygen and hydrogen wouldn't be all that hard to turn into an extra ton of H2O, which the crew might appreciate. Or if they send up multiple partially empty tanks, they could designate one tank as the recovery tank.
The tank purging process would probably be time consuming, but there should no reason to be in a hurry to convert the tank into a different usable space. Conversion is something the crew can do while under way to their final destination (with the reward of having an extra building to live in after they're all done; that should provide incentive to prioritize the task.) I would question the value of sending dedicated construction robots into orbit since the crew is already going to be there (unless the task has dangerous elements due to the residual fuel, risks of fire or explosive decompression while cutting openings into the tanks, etc.)
It definitely limits the main engines to burning hydrogen and LOX, though. There would be no way to purge a tank holding any of the other fuels they might want to use. Imagine if living in an empty diesel fuel drum was the best of the other available options.
Right now, people are willing to wait weeks for a cargo ship to cross the ocean; those ships hold thousands of containers. But the expensive assets are unavailable during the journey. If you need them faster, your only choice is to load them on a plane, and you can have them in a day. But what about the middle ground? Is there no market for cargo that needs to arrive in three days instead of three weeks, at one tenth the price of air freight? I'm thinking that half of Amazon purchases could be shipped directly from China and arrive in four or five days, which would probably still be acceptable for most purchases. When you consider the volume Amazon ships, that's a lot of freight.
So I wouldn't discount this as a useless exercise, at least not yet. People are surprisingly clever at coming up with creative uses for all kinds of technical novelties.
True, the DIGIPASS readers would make online purchasing completely secure.
Except for the part where *zero* banks in America are even talking about distributing them. They'd rather push Chip and Signature because the convenience factors make them much more money, and they want companies like Square, Apple, and PayPal to duke it out in the marketplace to push crappy credit solutions out so they can collect more vigorish from the increase in transaction volume.
The PIN doesn't make any difference between easy-to-skim/hard-to-skim. The chip makes it virtually impossible to clone a card issued by a bank that properly authenticates its cards, meaning skimming is worthless for creating cloned chip cards. The US will continue to have problems with skimming until online/card-not-present security can be solved, and that doesn't matter if the card technology uses PINs or signatures.
Other countries no longer have cloning problems, but they all have had massive increases in online fraud problems.
The only security difference between signature and PIN is that PIN protects your card from being used by muggers, and the banks don't give a shit if you get mugged or not.
What I love about this is that a sociologist, of all people, a practitioner of a "science" almost as soft (read: inaccurate and trend-driven) as psychology, feels compelled to weigh in on the unreasonable nature of trying for actual correctness.
I think he's very well-positioned to refute this idea. He knows better than most that human nature is not rational, and won't fit neatly into a rational-based society. He likely has the data to back up those assertions.
Anyway, this story is about a better way to mobile-pay, IMO. QR scanning rates higher than the "touch your phone to the pad" customer experience. At least it seems more reliable, in my experience. And scanners are always present at checkouts today... the specialized pads for proximity readers are not.
Smartphone based barcodes are often difficult for scanners to read. Scanners are primarily designed to pick up reflected light - the scanner transmits light, it bounces off the barcode, and the scanner receives the image. But a phone's screen is backlit with a pulse-width modulated array of flickering LEDs; flickering that is not in sync with the scanner's imaging sensor. They are not all engineered to read light transmissive screens. Some scanners have the option to turn off the light when reading a phone screen, which can help
The "touching a phone to a pad" experience depends largely on the technology of the phone. Samsung's MST is a pure hack, and whether or not it works depends entirely on the geometry of the heads concealed in the reader -- a reader that wasn't designed to read anything but a mag stripe on a card.
An NFC phone is very reliable because NFC readers are specifically engineered to read contactless devices. They are much more reliable than either Samsung's MFT or smartphone QR codes. Right now NFC is more secure than mag stripes, but less secure than EMV. They're much faster and more convenient than EMV or QR codes. The QR codes are probably more secure than NFC cards (for right now) and are probably on par with Apple Pay, but there's no way of knowing how secure any of the back end systems are.
Slashdot Mirror
I remember I also had to change passwords on Yahoo! about two years ago.
I believe there's a clue in their "Breach FAQ" where they state "the vast majority of passwords were hashed with bcrypt". It could be that their old passwords were protected with a less-secure older salting-and-hashing system, (maybe something like the original crypt() ) and by 2014 they had replaced it with bcrypt.
But even an old crypt() hash can't simply be broken on demand without a lot of CPU grinding for every password recovered. Because the old passwords were hashed, there would have been no easy way for Yahoo! to automatically migrate them into bcrypt. So after the system conversion was complete, they prompted all users to change their old passwords so they would migrate themselves to the new bcrypt-based system. People who haven't logged in since 2014 probably still have the old original hashed passwords on file somewhere at Yahoo HQ..
and now they are.
Your tongue-in-cheek idea is at least as good as any Yahoo's executives have put forward in the last 5 years.
Wait, wait- Yahoo executives have had ideas??
None that weren't some derivative of "what can we sell off this year?" or "Who can we find with that kind of money?"
According to their breach FAQ, the stolen data included "hashed passwords (the vast majority with bcrypt) ". I don't know what "the vast majority" means, nor do I know what alternate form of hashing may have been done prior to their adoption of bcrypt that they're still hanging on to.
I do know that the only reason I still have an active Yahoo! account is because of their OAuth support. Well that's pretty much in the crapper now, isn't it?
Yeah, there's an option I disabled before even knowing what it was: "Power saving: off".
If I'm spending coin on a shiny thing to be watched, I don't want to be continually fighting it over the one task I bought it for.
First, congratulations on dropping 100 pounds! That is a remarkable achievement for anyone.
Next, I think our stories sound somewhat similar. I, too, look at data and outcomes, and as I know I'm lazy, I'm constantly turning to technology to make the mundane business of data logging as painless as possible. I have a wifi connected scale that also measures body fat, and logs every reading automatically. I weigh myself daily. And yes, I also recognized that lots of people get discouraged by the daily up and down fluctuations in weight. My motivation there is to look at the three month chart, and to see the weight line steadily descending into a healthier range. It doesn't matter that this morning I was up a pound over the previous day when the overall trend line is still on a good trajectory. Every individual measurement shows a bump up or down from the previous day; the insignificance of any one day's measurement is obvious to anyone when looking at the data in aggregation.
I also have logged everything (well, everything except for a few days while on a vacation) I have eaten since I started this journey. What helps me there is a smartphone app that scans barcodes, looks up foods in a crowdsourced database, and populates the day's journal with the data. Yes, I do have to evaluate and select the data more carefully than I'd like, but it's still easier than typing in a pile of numbers. Knowing what went in enables me to stop before I reach the day's limit. Being honest with the data is critical there. So far it seems that I could maintain this pace indefinitely, but I do see how it occasionally requires returning to the touchstone of motivation.
I know that nutrition info is always an average; so I don't get all worried about exact portion sizes, or logging a few carrots or lettuce unless they exceed a reasonable threshold. I'm interested only in a good outcome, not precision in data measurements. Along with this I do know that I have to either carefully log or avoid certain types of foods entirely - sweets and snacks are not something I can write off as not worth logging.
The activity tracker study was a bit odd. I am interested and motivated to use technology and data to drive positive changes, but I ironically ended up in their control group. So I wore their tracker, but did not have access to their step counts. I continued to wear the personal tracker I've worn for the past three years, but in the interest of the study I deliberately ignored it. After the study ended, I looked and could see that my daily counts were averaging much lower than they were when I was actively trying to meet a daily step goal. Incidentally, I also discovered that the wrist-worn tracker is far less accurate in step-counting than the hip-worn tracker.
One of the biggest hurdles I had to overcome at the beginning of this was entrusting my personal health data to random companies operating cloud services. How do I know that my data won't be used against me in some way? But I decided that my long-term health concerns had to trump the fears of unknown (and possibly imaginary) consequences.
Another thing that is important to me is that I don't have a plan, but a goal. I didn't start with an artificial "drop 60 pounds by New Years" resolution; instead I know I have to continue to lose weight until I reach the target weight my doctor and I agreed to. So far, I've lost 50 pounds in the past 7 months, with about 15 to go. And as long as the one month slope of the weight line remains negative, I have high confidence I'll get there.
Finally, buying new clothes was not nearly as motivating as afterwards when I emptied my closet and donated every single stitch of old clothes to a local charity. Now I know that if I gain weight, it's going to cost me a fortune to buy a size larger! :-)
As much as this explanation appears to make sense, like anything in a social study, the results are likely virtually meaningless at the individual level. How any one person reacts to a tracker will not be predictable.
Success at improving someone's health will always be based entirely on the motivation of the person, not on which electronic toys they wear or which brand of granola they gnaw upon. Perhaps they'll find a correlation where buying Garmin branded devices is indicative of people who are more motivated than people who buy Apple branded devices, but that certainly doesn't mean buying a Garmin or an Apple will alter your chances of success.
I participated in a clinical activity tracker study earlier this year. There were so many holes in the testing methodology that I'm not sure the results will be worth the PDF they'll be printed on. Yet they'll be publishing results soon enough, and no doubt will contribute to the collective misinformation already encompassing the 'get healthy' rackets.
It appears to be tied to a word count. I think that if I had cut back to one instance of the T-word, it would have been fine.
But it appears to be following the same pattern as any authoritarian's response to criticism: whether it be Chinese citizens talking about Falun Gong, or slashdotters complaining about trolls, those in charge trot out the Great Firewall and censor them.
[ Sorry in advance for the stupid l33t spelling, but the lameness filter won't let me write the word tr0ll.]
I wonder about "patent tr0lls". The inventor patents Invention X, then wants to monetize their invention. They can build a business (slow and risky) or they can sell their patent to someone else, such as a manufacturer, in exchange for money. Whether or not they get a lot of money or a little money is not important; what is important is that they agreed to the sale. The patent now belongs to Company Y. Company Y makes a warehouse full of Xs, but realizes they aren't selling. They now own a warehouse of valueless junk, plus the rights to X. They need money, so they sell the rights to X to "Patent Tr0ll Z". Again, the amount isn't important as long as they voluntarily agreed to the sale.
So now Z has no boxes of X, no real way to make more Xs, but they have the patent and want to monetize it. Companies A, B, and C start making widgets W, which have a tiny little sliver of concept that coincides with patent X. Tr0ll Z recognizes the concept and sues them. They invested in patent X in order to make money. They did not steal the patent from the inventor. They did not steal products from the warehouse of company Y. So why are the patent tr0lls evil in all of this?
If the tr0lls were stealing innovations, or tricking people into surrendering their rights, then they'd be guilty of fraud. But when everyone involved in the invention agreed to the terms of the sale of the rights, it seems like a legitimate way to execute a business transaction. They may be sleazy and undercut inventors or manufacturers, but those are all governed by contracts, voluntarily entered into by all parties. So I'm asking: what are the tr0lls doing that is unethical?
It's a conspiracy, I tells ya. They put GPS and tracking in it.
Of course, emacs has had GPS support for 15 years now...
Only as long as you know which transmitter to measure. In a cell system, the subscribers aren't transmitting the phone's IMEI or the SIM card's IMSI, nor are they sending out the owner's name and number. They just send a temporary mobile ID, which is a randomly generated number that changes frequently. So which signal do you lock on to? Since 90+% of the population is carrying a cell phone, your $40 directional finder would point at everyone. Even a $40,000 direction finder would point at everyone if it can't tel them apart.
No, you need to know exactly which signal belongs to the subscriber you're tracking. How? The StingRay works by transmitting like a cell tower so it can trick the suspect's phone into giving up its true identity. Once you can identify a response as coming from the subscriber you're following, those responses can then be measured using a traditional DF. (The StingRay says "ping", and the subscriber's phone replies "pong".) Harris sells the 'AmberJack' DF antenna accessory for use with the StingRay line. It pings the phone for a while, as it rotates the DF antenna. It then shows the average bearing to the strongest received signal, and the approximate distance in meters.
Their revenue model is not the customer's problem. If they can't make money on the sale, why does that mean customers must give up their privacy unwittingly? Is there a reason you can't pay the true cost up front, instead of giving up privacy?
Could it be that Google is an advertising company, and makes far more money over time through third-party sales of your location data to sleazy marketers? Ergo, if they don't sell their OS for a profit up front, it can be nothing but sleaze all the way down.
As further evidence... I find it veeeeery suspicious that in addition to Google Earth, we now have Google Moon, and Google Mars.
They are already getting ready to track us there too. The Lunar Positioning Service (LPS) will be online by decade's end. McDonald's is already working out franchise rights...
Does anyone else find Mayor McGreen-Cheese more than a little creepy? I thought bringing back their old Mac Tonight character for the Sea Of Tranquility store opening was more sleazy than corny, but the green cheese thing always grosses me out.
Whoever coined the "vDOS" name missed out on a great opportunity. It should have been DDoSaaS.
DUMBaasS naming scheme you got there. :-)
The number of actual complete words recorded can improve the overall quality of the synthesized voice. Phonetically pasted-together words are still not quite as good as complete, well formed words. (That's why they always have the talent read the full set of numbers instead of synthesizing words like "eleven".) Reading a phonetically complete subset of words is a good way to capture the most usable portion of the voice in the minimum amount of time. That's important when you're paying the talent by the hour, but it's not necessarily going to produce the overall best results. Having access to the full body of work will not only provide the needed phonemes, but will include a good vocabulary of higher quality words.
Of course, having a slightly choppy computer voice is one way of overcoming the uncanny valley. Holding a conversation with a dead person might be unnerving for some people. Hearing the little clips and weird tone changes as the voice is reassembled would be a constant reminder that you're actually talking to a computer, not a person, and might be of some comfort.
I would hope that the rental company would reset the system in part of their cleanup/inspection after return, however.
+1, funny!
Oh, wait, you were serious? You're lucky if a rental company runs a vacuum cleaner over the floors before they turn the car over to the next renter. Cleaning data would be like so far down the list of stuff they do that "never" comes before it.
My mom worked for Northwest Orient back when the 747 was launched, and I remember her taking me to see one at MSP. To a kid, every passenger jet was huge, but this one was clearly a completely different beast.
She also showed me the maintenance hangar. Minneapolis in the winter is no place to work on an aircraft (it was the shooting location for the old original Airport movie if you want to see what winter looked like back in that era.) Since no existing hangar on the property was large enough for the new bird, they went to the largest hangar they had and built new doors with a semi-circular cut-out on each side. When one was in for maintenance in the winter, they parked it so that when they closed the doors, the tail feathers stuck out the hole.
The average iPhone user is not going to evaluate the repair on anything but the replacement cost. Disposal of the old phone is a negative cost - after all, there is a large market for broken iPhones. So sell the year-old broken phone for $100, get the "newest" phone with all the new features for $100 down payment, and the cell company just charges an extra $50 a month for a few more years.
To people who don't understand the costs of buying on credit (which are most of them) it's a new phone for free.
To the people who buy the broken or used phones, it's a bargain.
To the cell carriers who sell the new phones, and to Apple, it's a platinum-plated gold mine.
Thanks for that video, it's completely amazing to watch!
Bleeding off the excess H2 and O2 seems as wasteful as throwing away the tank itself. I would suspect that having an extra ton or two of oxygen and hydrogen wouldn't be all that hard to turn into an extra ton of H2O, which the crew might appreciate. Or if they send up multiple partially empty tanks, they could designate one tank as the recovery tank.
The tank purging process would probably be time consuming, but there should no reason to be in a hurry to convert the tank into a different usable space. Conversion is something the crew can do while under way to their final destination (with the reward of having an extra building to live in after they're all done; that should provide incentive to prioritize the task.) I would question the value of sending dedicated construction robots into orbit since the crew is already going to be there (unless the task has dangerous elements due to the residual fuel, risks of fire or explosive decompression while cutting openings into the tanks, etc.)
It definitely limits the main engines to burning hydrogen and LOX, though. There would be no way to purge a tank holding any of the other fuels they might want to use. Imagine if living in an empty diesel fuel drum was the best of the other available options.
Right now, people are willing to wait weeks for a cargo ship to cross the ocean; those ships hold thousands of containers. But the expensive assets are unavailable during the journey. If you need them faster, your only choice is to load them on a plane, and you can have them in a day. But what about the middle ground? Is there no market for cargo that needs to arrive in three days instead of three weeks, at one tenth the price of air freight? I'm thinking that half of Amazon purchases could be shipped directly from China and arrive in four or five days, which would probably still be acceptable for most purchases. When you consider the volume Amazon ships, that's a lot of freight.
So I wouldn't discount this as a useless exercise, at least not yet. People are surprisingly clever at coming up with creative uses for all kinds of technical novelties.
True, the DIGIPASS readers would make online purchasing completely secure.
Except for the part where *zero* banks in America are even talking about distributing them. They'd rather push Chip and Signature because the convenience factors make them much more money, and they want companies like Square, Apple, and PayPal to duke it out in the marketplace to push crappy credit solutions out so they can collect more vigorish from the increase in transaction volume.
The PIN doesn't make any difference between easy-to-skim/hard-to-skim. The chip makes it virtually impossible to clone a card issued by a bank that properly authenticates its cards, meaning skimming is worthless for creating cloned chip cards. The US will continue to have problems with skimming until online/card-not-present security can be solved, and that doesn't matter if the card technology uses PINs or signatures.
Other countries no longer have cloning problems, but they all have had massive increases in online fraud problems.
The only security difference between signature and PIN is that PIN protects your card from being used by muggers, and the banks don't give a shit if you get mugged or not.
No, he clearly meant DeScent, the game where you remove the musk glands from skunks and other animals.
What I love about this is that a sociologist, of all people, a practitioner of a "science" almost as soft (read: inaccurate and trend-driven) as psychology, feels compelled to weigh in on the unreasonable nature of trying for actual correctness.
I think he's very well-positioned to refute this idea. He knows better than most that human nature is not rational, and won't fit neatly into a rational-based society. He likely has the data to back up those assertions.
Anyway, this story is about a better way to mobile-pay, IMO. QR scanning rates higher than the "touch your phone to the pad" customer experience. At least it seems more reliable, in my experience. And scanners are always present at checkouts today... the specialized pads for proximity readers are not.
Smartphone based barcodes are often difficult for scanners to read. Scanners are primarily designed to pick up reflected light - the scanner transmits light, it bounces off the barcode, and the scanner receives the image. But a phone's screen is backlit with a pulse-width modulated array of flickering LEDs; flickering that is not in sync with the scanner's imaging sensor. They are not all engineered to read light transmissive screens. Some scanners have the option to turn off the light when reading a phone screen, which can help
The "touching a phone to a pad" experience depends largely on the technology of the phone. Samsung's MST is a pure hack, and whether or not it works depends entirely on the geometry of the heads concealed in the reader -- a reader that wasn't designed to read anything but a mag stripe on a card.
An NFC phone is very reliable because NFC readers are specifically engineered to read contactless devices. They are much more reliable than either Samsung's MFT or smartphone QR codes. Right now NFC is more secure than mag stripes, but less secure than EMV. They're much faster and more convenient than EMV or QR codes. The QR codes are probably more secure than NFC cards (for right now) and are probably on par with Apple Pay, but there's no way of knowing how secure any of the back end systems are.