I've noticed this a lot, and so told my parents that if I'm ever arrested and the media come asking you've got to say "yeah he was a real dick, I'm glad he got busted". It'd be worth it just for the reaction.
Until their media statement is used against you in court.
They are protesting Uber and other services because they cannot compete with them. They cannot compete with them because of the licensing and insurance costs. They want the field to be level, as far as I can tell. I'm all for one or the other - either remove the restrictions on the taxi companies or apply them to Uber. You can't have it both ways. But you have to remember that taxis have these restrictions for a reason. They didn't come into existence out of thin air. The requirements are there to protect the citizens of the city, not to protect the interests of the poor schmuck driving a taxi.
Dumping waste onto your neighbor's property (even gas, here), without their consent, is criminal.
Offering to give a person a ride at a cheaper rate than the alternative, without misrepresenting your product (and regular Uber users know what the product is perfectly well), with their consent, is not just legal, but beneficial to society as a whole.
When was the last time you went for a ride with an Uber driver who just happened to be going to the same place as you? You didn't. Not once. Ever. Uber isn't a ride sharing service, it's an unlicensed livery service. If you and I are driving from Los Angeles to NYC together and we agree to split gas, then we are ride sharing. If I pay you $40 to take me to the airport after work, then you're providing a taxi service. See the difference? It's perfectly legal for you and I to carpool together. It's legal for me to buy you gas for giving me a ride somewhere. It's not legal (in many jurisdictions) to offer unregulated livery services.
If the problem is regulated rates, minimum road time, and so on... how about we fix that problem, instead of creating new ones?
What you're describing is called protectionism and it's been disproven in economics for hundreds of years. If you're going to cry 'Nothing happens in a vacuum' you can't then proceed to talk about only the taxi cab owners/drivers. You have to talk about all of society.
The people that those regulations listed by the GP are trying to protect are the passengers. Do you think that the taxi drivers want to be out there during unprofitable hours? That they want to charge the same rate at 5pm as they do at 1am? No. So I am not sure how you think those rules are protecting the taxi companies.
Well they are insured and they do have a license, so I am not sure your point.
In NYC, they do have proper insurance and licensing, yes. But the GP's statement suggested that these regulations existed strictly to protect the interests of taxi drivers and that there was no actual benefit to society. The GP forgets that these laws were introduced with public safety in mind.
Unless Uber is underwriting all of the insurance on their non-professional drivers, I doubt that Uber's policy offerings are of much value to those who may be harmed in an accident. To my knowledge, no one has made a major claim under Uber's policy, so we will have to wait and see how that turns out.
I only respect laws designed to represent the interests of the citizenry as a whole--not the vested interests of one tiny class who bribed some politicians with campaign contributions.
You're right. It's not in the best interest of citizenry as a whole to have properly licensed and insured livery drivers. We're much better off when anyone with a smart phone and a car can provide taxi services.
Kermit is a good choice, should be able to do all he needs with no extra cost as long as he can cable 2 computers together.
I specifically dislike those telling him to buy a UBS adapter for the old disk drive or other solutions that require spending money and waiting. I do have such an adapter, and a PCMCIA firewire card that would open other options for me, but they are not needed in this case.
Another option that seems to be ignored is that XP computer he says he also has. At that vintage it likely has USB and Ethernet. I would try swapping the drive into that (if it isn't too thick to fit) and booting the XP computer with a Live Linux CD (the 3.11 Windows disk will likely not boot properly and would not have the needed drivers even if it did). Then from Linux you could easily write the 160 meg drive contents to a USB flash drive or transfer it across ethernet to the destination computer (I would do that with FTP but there are any number of options).
If he doesn't know that a NULL modem cable is a viable means of transfer, what makes you think he has a NULL modem cable at all? I would bet he's going to have to spend money or borrow a cable anyway.
You were trying to claim that people either can be in support of monopolies or that they cannot be in support of any monopoly. That is obviously a black and white situation and entirely untrue. And there are multiple reasons that there are monopolies on running wires through neighborhoods. The number one reason is safety. Do you realize that there used to be almost free reign in running electric wires in the US? Take a look at these photos of NYC. You can see thousands of wires all over the neighborhoods. It was dangerous and an eye sore. Having unlicensed and under insured Uber drivers is potentially harmful to unknowing and unsuspecting customers. This is the reason that taxi licensing exists. Are you proposing that we no longer require any sort of licensing for anyone to drive on the open roads? What is the justification for Uber to be allowed to run an unlicensed taxi service? If its okay for them to operate without licensing, can my 95 year old grandmother drive unlicensed through your neighborhood?
I agree with you. The US Political system is in shambles right now because everyone believes that it should be a two party system. They are two sides of the same coin.
Oh don't be so foolish. The world is NOT black and white, first of all. And I would be willing to bet that 90% of the Slashdotters on here would be HAPPY with a municipal monopoly on fiber lines in their streets. They would love the open competition that such a monopoly would allow. There are advantages to monopolies in some cases. Furthermore, there is no "taxi monopoly". I have yet to see a single city in the US or Europe that has only a single taxi/livery company. The fact that the city/county/state licenses those companies does NOT make it a monopoly.
That's not the biggest challenge. The biggest challenge is that it is no more convenient or reliable to pay a bill with my smartphone than it is with a credit card. My credit card doesn't run out of power. And I don't have to worry about it not getting a good connection inside a store. And I don't have to worry about pulling out a $500 phone and juggling it around every time I want to pay for something.
I actually did find Apple Pay useful once. I went for a quick run to the store with my girlfriend and didn't bring my wallet, but happened to have my phone. Had I brought my wallet, however, I would have just used my card. It was handy to have a backup plan.
Heroin is certainly addictive but addiction is a response to stress and pain, not a moral failing or a bio-chemical crutch.
Long term use of these drugs do create a change in your biochemical system. Not a permanent change, but there are, in my opinion, two types of addictions: a chemical addiction and an emotional one. You are either trying to escape pain/stress, as you say, or your body stops producing the chemicals provided by the drug. You could have a procedure done to block the pain and would still have a hard time quitting long term opioid use.
There has been much debate of the allegedly poor performance of the bullet on target, especially the first-shot kill rate when the muzzle velocity of the firearms used and the downrange bullet deceleration do not achieve the minimally required terminal velocity of over 750 m/s (2,500 ft/s) at the target to cause fragmentation.
Not only are you wrong, you are so wrong that the round is actually criticized for not causing enough damage.
From what I was told in the service the round was designed to wound not to kill on purpose. If you wound someone, one of their comrades has to drag them back to cover. You thereby take two enemies out of the fight. But hell, what would the armorer know.
I think "designed to wound" is a reassuring way to say "technically not as lethal". We switched to smaller ammo for logistical reasons, to carry more ammo, and statistically less lethality is not a bad thing for the reason you mentioned, it's just not the real reason we switched to 5.56. Way I look at it is, without increasing the weight or cost, is there any obvious thing you can do to make a 5.56 nato round more lethal? The FMJ is for penetrating body armor, and only increases the chances of having exit wounds. So it was light, cheap, and "lethal enough" - not designed to be less lethal, in my opinion.
I believe that the Geneva Convention (or some addendum to it) prohibits the use of hollow point ammunition in military rounds. That is why we use FMJ.
6 months probation is about right for what he did anyway. I can't believe they're clogging prisons with petty criminals like this then turning violent criminals out because of over crowding. A BB gun as a deadly weapon? They're turning the legal system into a farce with that kind of bullshit.
Florida has some pretty generous laws with regard to carrying and using a firearm for defensive purposes. To help balance that out, the laws are very strict with regard to actually using a firearm in a threatening manner. Since a BB gun often looks similar to firearms to the lay person, they fall under the same penalties.
The article points out how LoopPay can more easily work with existing terminals, and ApplePay needs retailers to get new terminals.
But aren't most retailers going to be upgrading in the near term anyway? The U.S. is moving to credit cards with chips now which mean most serious retailers will be upgrading. The little retailers are probably mostly going to upgrade also, once Square supports ApplePay because you don't want to pass up those customers.
It's a nice try but I don't think it will get much traction no matter how easy it is for retailers to support, since they have to convince the customer first...
Retailers and banks are upgrading their terminals and cards respectively because of a new law that either took effect in January of 2015 or will in Jan of 2016 (I forget which). The law puts the responsibility of a fraudulent transaction on the head of the party with the least amount of security. If the card offers chip security and the retailer uses mag stripe, then the retailer is responsible for fraud. If the retailer has a chip terminal and the card only has a mag stripe, then the bank is responsible. Any mom and pop business that gets burned by this once will upgrade ASAP, I'm sure.
Looking at the list of donors page, it has this curious summary:
In 2015 we received 2535 donations of 87299 € .
In this year we received 2826 donations of 97255 €.
I'm not sure how to read that as this year is 2015. But if this is all for one person, they don't seem to be hurting for funds now.
My guess is that one is a list of donations for the proceeding 12 months while the other is just for the 2015 calendar year. This would mean that he received almost no donations in the 2014 time period.
Get me an affordable light field imaging camera and I might spend as much as I did on my phone. Otherwise, it's still just pictures and I dont see the point in carrying another device which doesn't offer significant advantages to what my phone provides.
That, of course, depends entirely on what you are doing. I have a dSLR and a waterproof (33ft) camera. If I am hiking, snorkeling, or something like that, I would use the waterproof camera. If I want to do tricks that require manual control of the aperture, shutter speed, long distance shots, or very low light shots, I would use my dSLR. If I am just out and about living my life, I will use my phone. Just because you have not imagined a use that requires a real camera does not mean that those uses are non-existent.
Anyone looking at life in prison for a non-violent drug crime is living under an unjust system.
I think in this case, the sheer scale of the crime would warrant a harsher sentence than your street corner pusher. The guy was helping many people sell product and then launder the proceeds back into currency they could actually use. I expect a general to face stiffer penalties for breaking the rules than a private. I'm not saying life in prison is necessarily called for, but he shouldn't get 3 years out in 1 kind of treatment.
The error range for the strenuous jogging group is absolutely huge and only represents 2 deaths out 36 (or 40, depending on which plot you're looking at). Yeah, the differences between strenuous jogging and sitting on your ass might be technically statistically significant, but are the numbers in these groups sufficient to tell if there's a difference, ie is the study sufficiently powered?
Not to mention that this depends entirely on the person. If my math is correct, this article is suggesting than running faster than a an 8:45 mile can be dangerous to you. I'm a pretty big guy. I can run an 8:30 mile for 5 miles without becoming short of breath. If I were a foot shorter, perhaps that would be a very strenuous pace for me. I don't see how running that fast could be dangerous for me if I am running at the same number of strides per minute as someone who runs slower than me.
BLOCKQUOTE>Will he be rescued by the US military if kidnapped in Iraq?
Extremely unlikely.
I lived in Venezuela during the military coup of 2002. The US embassy actually did make arrangements to potentially helicopter out US citizens if the situation got bad enough. So they do look out for US citizens abroad, when possible. I would call in twice a day to determine whether or not I was supposed to try and escape the country. And no, I was not a US Government employee there at the time.
What do encryption chips have to do with anything? If a card is stolen and known stolen, the owner can report the theft and the card is deactivated, whether or not it contains an "encryption chip". If the card is stolen and the owner does not know it was stolen, and the thief also has the pin, then they can use the card, whether or not it has an "encryption chip". Or am I totally understanding what this "encryption chip" does?
The encryption chip prevents someone from duplicating your card, at least in theory. They could make a copy of your card using an ATM skimmer and then steal your PIN and you wouldn't even know that someone had access to your bank card.
In Germany a lot of small suburb banks require you to use your ATM card to open the lobby door after hours. At least that was my experience a few years ago. This doesn't prevent someone from using a stolen card to gain access to the bank lobby, but it forces the criminals to enter into a lighted and monitored building before they can engage in any shenanigans.
With the possible exception of #3, I think voicemail has this covered.
A.
That is definitely not true for #1. I ran in a marathon event and I had my cell phone with me. At the end of the event, some woman who was not feeling very well at all was desperately trying to get a hold of her boyfriend. I called him 10 times in a row from my cell phone and, after he ran into her by chance, he admitted that he ignored my calls and voicemails. I suspect his girlfriend was not happy with him after that.
I've lived in Venezuela. It is not a poor country. The people are poor, but they have huge oil reserves, diamonds, gold and many other natural resources. They used to be the largest oil exporter to the US until Hugo Chavez started diverting that oil to Cuba for free. Venezuela also charges import duties on all products (with some exception in the state of Nueva Esparta, which is mostly duty free). They also charge an income tax that most people do their best to avoid ever paying.
The real problem with Venezuela is corruption. When I lived there, I did not keep an ID on me at all times, even though it was required by law. I kept my passport in a safety deposit box because it was cheaper to pay the fines for not having proper ID than it was to pay the bribes to get my passport back from the National Guard when they would do one of their regular shakedowns. If you were a mere janitor for the state-run oil company (PDVSA), you were probably set for life. If you didn't have some important friends or family, you probably couldn't get a job for PDVSA.
Anytime I feel like there may be something wrong with me, I consult the symptom tracker on WebMD. Do I then go into my doctor and tell them that I have x, y, or z? No. I go in there and present my symptoms to my doctor and get their expert opinion and see whether it coincides with what I read online. I don't try and steer them in any particular direction. But when the doctor decides that I should be tested for z, I can have an intelligent conversation with him about what that actually means, and whether or not that is a useful course of action for me. Should these sites disappear because of hypochondriacs? No. They will just go to the library and check out books to self-diagnose their crazy diseases. You can't fix that sort of mental disorder by hiding information from people. Does it cause frustration for doctors? Absolutely. But the doctors should educate their patients on the appropriate use for these tools. None of the doctors I know have ever had a discussion with their patients about online medical resources. They just go home and huff and puff to their friends and family how they have to fight with WebMD empowered patients.
Slashdot Mirror
I've noticed this a lot, and so told my parents that if I'm ever arrested and the media come asking you've got to say "yeah he was a real dick, I'm glad he got busted". It'd be worth it just for the reaction.
Until their media statement is used against you in court.
They are protesting Uber and other services because they cannot compete with them. They cannot compete with them because of the licensing and insurance costs. They want the field to be level, as far as I can tell. I'm all for one or the other - either remove the restrictions on the taxi companies or apply them to Uber. You can't have it both ways. But you have to remember that taxis have these restrictions for a reason. They didn't come into existence out of thin air. The requirements are there to protect the citizens of the city, not to protect the interests of the poor schmuck driving a taxi.
Dumping waste onto your neighbor's property (even gas, here), without their consent, is criminal.
Offering to give a person a ride at a cheaper rate than the alternative, without misrepresenting your product (and regular Uber users know what the product is perfectly well), with their consent, is not just legal, but beneficial to society as a whole.
When was the last time you went for a ride with an Uber driver who just happened to be going to the same place as you? You didn't. Not once. Ever. Uber isn't a ride sharing service, it's an unlicensed livery service. If you and I are driving from Los Angeles to NYC together and we agree to split gas, then we are ride sharing. If I pay you $40 to take me to the airport after work, then you're providing a taxi service. See the difference? It's perfectly legal for you and I to carpool together. It's legal for me to buy you gas for giving me a ride somewhere. It's not legal (in many jurisdictions) to offer unregulated livery services.
If the problem is regulated rates, minimum road time, and so on... how about we fix that problem, instead of creating new ones?
What you're describing is called protectionism and it's been disproven in economics for hundreds of years. If you're going to cry 'Nothing happens in a vacuum' you can't then proceed to talk about only the taxi cab owners/drivers. You have to talk about all of society.
The people that those regulations listed by the GP are trying to protect are the passengers. Do you think that the taxi drivers want to be out there during unprofitable hours? That they want to charge the same rate at 5pm as they do at 1am? No. So I am not sure how you think those rules are protecting the taxi companies.
Well they are insured and they do have a license, so I am not sure your point.
In NYC, they do have proper insurance and licensing, yes. But the GP's statement suggested that these regulations existed strictly to protect the interests of taxi drivers and that there was no actual benefit to society. The GP forgets that these laws were introduced with public safety in mind.
Unless Uber is underwriting all of the insurance on their non-professional drivers, I doubt that Uber's policy offerings are of much value to those who may be harmed in an accident. To my knowledge, no one has made a major claim under Uber's policy, so we will have to wait and see how that turns out.
I only respect laws designed to represent the interests of the citizenry as a whole--not the vested interests of one tiny class who bribed some politicians with campaign contributions.
You're right. It's not in the best interest of citizenry as a whole to have properly licensed and insured livery drivers. We're much better off when anyone with a smart phone and a car can provide taxi services.
Kermit is a good choice, should be able to do all he needs with no extra cost as long as he can cable 2 computers together.
I specifically dislike those telling him to buy a UBS adapter for the old disk drive or other solutions that require spending money and waiting. I do have such an adapter, and a PCMCIA firewire card that would open other options for me, but they are not needed in this case.
Another option that seems to be ignored is that XP computer he says he also has. At that vintage it likely has USB and Ethernet. I would try swapping the drive into that (if it isn't too thick to fit) and booting the XP computer with a Live Linux CD (the 3.11 Windows disk will likely not boot properly and would not have the needed drivers even if it did). Then from Linux you could easily write the 160 meg drive contents to a USB flash drive or transfer it across ethernet to the destination computer (I would do that with FTP but there are any number of options).
If he doesn't know that a NULL modem cable is a viable means of transfer, what makes you think he has a NULL modem cable at all? I would bet he's going to have to spend money or borrow a cable anyway.
You were trying to claim that people either can be in support of monopolies or that they cannot be in support of any monopoly. That is obviously a black and white situation and entirely untrue. And there are multiple reasons that there are monopolies on running wires through neighborhoods. The number one reason is safety. Do you realize that there used to be almost free reign in running electric wires in the US? Take a look at these photos of NYC. You can see thousands of wires all over the neighborhoods. It was dangerous and an eye sore. Having unlicensed and under insured Uber drivers is potentially harmful to unknowing and unsuspecting customers. This is the reason that taxi licensing exists. Are you proposing that we no longer require any sort of licensing for anyone to drive on the open roads? What is the justification for Uber to be allowed to run an unlicensed taxi service? If its okay for them to operate without licensing, can my 95 year old grandmother drive unlicensed through your neighborhood?
I agree with you. The US Political system is in shambles right now because everyone believes that it should be a two party system. They are two sides of the same coin.
Oh don't be so foolish. The world is NOT black and white, first of all. And I would be willing to bet that 90% of the Slashdotters on here would be HAPPY with a municipal monopoly on fiber lines in their streets. They would love the open competition that such a monopoly would allow. There are advantages to monopolies in some cases. Furthermore, there is no "taxi monopoly". I have yet to see a single city in the US or Europe that has only a single taxi/livery company. The fact that the city/county/state licenses those companies does NOT make it a monopoly.
That's not the biggest challenge. The biggest challenge is that it is no more convenient or reliable to pay a bill with my smartphone than it is with a credit card. My credit card doesn't run out of power. And I don't have to worry about it not getting a good connection inside a store. And I don't have to worry about pulling out a $500 phone and juggling it around every time I want to pay for something.
I actually did find Apple Pay useful once. I went for a quick run to the store with my girlfriend and didn't bring my wallet, but happened to have my phone. Had I brought my wallet, however, I would have just used my card. It was handy to have a backup plan.
Heroin is certainly addictive but addiction is a response to stress and pain, not a moral failing or a bio-chemical crutch.
Long term use of these drugs do create a change in your biochemical system. Not a permanent change, but there are, in my opinion, two types of addictions: a chemical addiction and an emotional one. You are either trying to escape pain/stress, as you say, or your body stops producing the chemicals provided by the drug. You could have a procedure done to block the pain and would still have a hard time quitting long term opioid use.
From your own source:
There has been much debate of the allegedly poor performance of the bullet on target, especially the first-shot kill rate when the muzzle velocity of the firearms used and the downrange bullet deceleration do not achieve the minimally required terminal velocity of over 750 m/s (2,500 ft/s) at the target to cause fragmentation.
Not only are you wrong, you are so wrong that the round is actually criticized for not causing enough damage.
From what I was told in the service the round was designed to wound not to kill on purpose. If you wound someone, one of their comrades has to drag them back to cover. You thereby take two enemies out of the fight. But hell, what would the armorer know.
I think "designed to wound" is a reassuring way to say "technically not as lethal". We switched to smaller ammo for logistical reasons, to carry more ammo, and statistically less lethality is not a bad thing for the reason you mentioned, it's just not the real reason we switched to 5.56. Way I look at it is, without increasing the weight or cost, is there any obvious thing you can do to make a 5.56 nato round more lethal? The FMJ is for penetrating body armor, and only increases the chances of having exit wounds. So it was light, cheap, and "lethal enough" - not designed to be less lethal, in my opinion.
I believe that the Geneva Convention (or some addendum to it) prohibits the use of hollow point ammunition in military rounds. That is why we use FMJ.
6 months probation is about right for what he did anyway. I can't believe they're clogging prisons with petty criminals like this then turning violent criminals out because of over crowding. A BB gun as a deadly weapon? They're turning the legal system into a farce with that kind of bullshit.
Florida has some pretty generous laws with regard to carrying and using a firearm for defensive purposes. To help balance that out, the laws are very strict with regard to actually using a firearm in a threatening manner. Since a BB gun often looks similar to firearms to the lay person, they fall under the same penalties.
there are circles to Hell, and they aren't in the same class as Sony and Comcast.
Is this where Google+ got their Circles idea from? I wonder if Satan had filed a trademark on Circles in the US?
The article points out how LoopPay can more easily work with existing terminals, and ApplePay needs retailers to get new terminals.
But aren't most retailers going to be upgrading in the near term anyway? The U.S. is moving to credit cards with chips now which mean most serious retailers will be upgrading. The little retailers are probably mostly going to upgrade also, once Square supports ApplePay because you don't want to pass up those customers.
It's a nice try but I don't think it will get much traction no matter how easy it is for retailers to support, since they have to convince the customer first...
Retailers and banks are upgrading their terminals and cards respectively because of a new law that either took effect in January of 2015 or will in Jan of 2016 (I forget which). The law puts the responsibility of a fraudulent transaction on the head of the party with the least amount of security. If the card offers chip security and the retailer uses mag stripe, then the retailer is responsible for fraud. If the retailer has a chip terminal and the card only has a mag stripe, then the bank is responsible. Any mom and pop business that gets burned by this once will upgrade ASAP, I'm sure.
Looking at the list of donors page, it has this curious summary:
I'm not sure how to read that as this year is 2015. But if this is all for one person, they don't seem to be hurting for funds now.
My guess is that one is a list of donations for the proceeding 12 months while the other is just for the 2015 calendar year. This would mean that he received almost no donations in the 2014 time period.
Get me an affordable light field imaging camera and I might spend as much as I did on my phone. Otherwise, it's still just pictures and I dont see the point in carrying another device which doesn't offer significant advantages to what my phone provides.
That, of course, depends entirely on what you are doing. I have a dSLR and a waterproof (33ft) camera. If I am hiking, snorkeling, or something like that, I would use the waterproof camera. If I want to do tricks that require manual control of the aperture, shutter speed, long distance shots, or very low light shots, I would use my dSLR. If I am just out and about living my life, I will use my phone. Just because you have not imagined a use that requires a real camera does not mean that those uses are non-existent.
Anyone looking at life in prison for a non-violent drug crime is living under an unjust system.
I think in this case, the sheer scale of the crime would warrant a harsher sentence than your street corner pusher. The guy was helping many people sell product and then launder the proceeds back into currency they could actually use. I expect a general to face stiffer penalties for breaking the rules than a private. I'm not saying life in prison is necessarily called for, but he shouldn't get 3 years out in 1 kind of treatment.
The error range for the strenuous jogging group is absolutely huge and only represents 2 deaths out 36 (or 40, depending on which plot you're looking at). Yeah, the differences between strenuous jogging and sitting on your ass might be technically statistically significant, but are the numbers in these groups sufficient to tell if there's a difference, ie is the study sufficiently powered?
Not to mention that this depends entirely on the person. If my math is correct, this article is suggesting than running faster than a an 8:45 mile can be dangerous to you. I'm a pretty big guy. I can run an 8:30 mile for 5 miles without becoming short of breath. If I were a foot shorter, perhaps that would be a very strenuous pace for me. I don't see how running that fast could be dangerous for me if I am running at the same number of strides per minute as someone who runs slower than me.
Possibly.
Ditto
BLOCKQUOTE>Will he be rescued by the US military if kidnapped in Iraq?
Extremely unlikely.
I lived in Venezuela during the military coup of 2002. The US embassy actually did make arrangements to potentially helicopter out US citizens if the situation got bad enough. So they do look out for US citizens abroad, when possible. I would call in twice a day to determine whether or not I was supposed to try and escape the country. And no, I was not a US Government employee there at the time.
What do encryption chips have to do with anything? If a card is stolen and known stolen, the owner can report the theft and the card is deactivated, whether or not it contains an "encryption chip". If the card is stolen and the owner does not know it was stolen, and the thief also has the pin, then they can use the card, whether or not it has an "encryption chip". Or am I totally understanding what this "encryption chip" does?
The encryption chip prevents someone from duplicating your card, at least in theory. They could make a copy of your card using an ATM skimmer and then steal your PIN and you wouldn't even know that someone had access to your bank card.
In Germany a lot of small suburb banks require you to use your ATM card to open the lobby door after hours. At least that was my experience a few years ago. This doesn't prevent someone from using a stolen card to gain access to the bank lobby, but it forces the criminals to enter into a lighted and monitored building before they can engage in any shenanigans.
With the possible exception of #3, I think voicemail has this covered.
A.
That is definitely not true for #1. I ran in a marathon event and I had my cell phone with me. At the end of the event, some woman who was not feeling very well at all was desperately trying to get a hold of her boyfriend. I called him 10 times in a row from my cell phone and, after he ran into her by chance, he admitted that he ignored my calls and voicemails. I suspect his girlfriend was not happy with him after that.
Wouldn't it be easier to go Uruguay or Venezuela?
I've lived in Venezuela. It is not a poor country. The people are poor, but they have huge oil reserves, diamonds, gold and many other natural resources. They used to be the largest oil exporter to the US until Hugo Chavez started diverting that oil to Cuba for free. Venezuela also charges import duties on all products (with some exception in the state of Nueva Esparta, which is mostly duty free). They also charge an income tax that most people do their best to avoid ever paying.
The real problem with Venezuela is corruption. When I lived there, I did not keep an ID on me at all times, even though it was required by law. I kept my passport in a safety deposit box because it was cheaper to pay the fines for not having proper ID than it was to pay the bribes to get my passport back from the National Guard when they would do one of their regular shakedowns. If you were a mere janitor for the state-run oil company (PDVSA), you were probably set for life. If you didn't have some important friends or family, you probably couldn't get a job for PDVSA.
Anytime I feel like there may be something wrong with me, I consult the symptom tracker on WebMD. Do I then go into my doctor and tell them that I have x, y, or z? No. I go in there and present my symptoms to my doctor and get their expert opinion and see whether it coincides with what I read online. I don't try and steer them in any particular direction. But when the doctor decides that I should be tested for z, I can have an intelligent conversation with him about what that actually means, and whether or not that is a useful course of action for me. Should these sites disappear because of hypochondriacs? No. They will just go to the library and check out books to self-diagnose their crazy diseases. You can't fix that sort of mental disorder by hiding information from people. Does it cause frustration for doctors? Absolutely. But the doctors should educate their patients on the appropriate use for these tools. None of the doctors I know have ever had a discussion with their patients about online medical resources. They just go home and huff and puff to their friends and family how they have to fight with WebMD empowered patients.