Wait, you actually think water is disappearing, going poof? Where do you think this water is going?
You might want to Google "photosynthesis". Major rivers no longer reach the ocean because we've diverted them for use in industrial agriculture. And yes, that water really does cease to exist as water.
Of course, realistically, most of it ends up going to waste, either soaking into the ground or evaporating; Yes, we can theoretically reduce those losses drastically, but as it stands, for both human consumption and TFA's electrical generation purposes, we no longer have access to that water in any meaningful, useful way.
Your ISP is likely not counting bytes that transfer through a connection to your modem.
Actually, not only do they likely do exactly that, they also most likely expect your modem to report its own usage. Why load up their routers when your CPE will kindly do the dirty work for them?
I have had a capped plan for quite a while now, and the modem keeps an accurate (within 1-2% of what my router says) local tally of my traffic. The modem itself also enforces service degradation when I go over my (daily) cap, though AT&T et al would much rather charge you than throttle you.
You will not be able to convince them that your number is "right" or "more correct" than their number.
Unfortunately, spot-on; and thanks to the USSC, you can't even file for class action in suing them for using BS numbers. Enjoy your binding "arbitration" by an "unbiased" 3rd party (paid for and chosen by your ISP).
Getting time to move to the civilized world... America reached its prime 65 years ago, and has gone downhill ever since.
Dude, I hardly net out to a loss; for the extra $40k tuition cost I'll make up at least a few hundred thousand even if I never get past white-collar work;
Nonono, you took that the wrong way - Not you personally, you as a liberal arts major at school X. Engineers make the school money; English majors, not so much (possibly counting as an actual loss to the school, since most universities budget under the assumption that the majority of their operating income will come from sources other than tuition).
As for useless major... that's a different argument. A lot of my lib arts friends got their training in career-type skills after they graduated, often on the job. It's the mental muscle building (and stuff like better-than-average literacy and writing skills) that is valuable later in life
I absolutely agree... And if you can squeeze enough sciences into an English Lit BA to call it "pre-med", more power to you; If not... Well, as I said, "why bother"? Higher education should prepare you for a skilled, usually white-collar, career; You don't need Nietzsche to dig ditches and flip burgers.
Because, while you sit out on the quad exposing valuable and fragile organic matter to sunlight and moisture and engaging in mental masturbation over the use of dwarves in Spencer...
The "much more expensive" engineering students work their butts off in labs developing school-owned IP that the school can then license. The engineering grad students spend their weekends searching and applying for sweet grants, half of which goes straight into the school coffers. The engineering students will then go on to someday develop your next car, airplane, refrigerator, television, while you in 20 years will simply join your students on the quad for the sole purpose of perpetuating a useless major.
You cost less on the short term, but both to the school and to society, you net out to a loss; The engineers cost more on the short term, but actually make the school money, and improve our world (DOD contractors notwithstanding) with their careers.
Don't get me wrong, I very much value a solid liberal arts background for everyone, especially engineers; But if you don't take those underpinnings and apply them to a real set of useful skills... Why bother?
Correction... without free POLITICAL speech, there can be no democratic society.
Um, no. Sorry. Free speech necessarily extends beyond "political speech", if only because what I care about in a government, you might have no interest (and vice-versa). To me, the whole abortion issue has no place in politics, while for all I know you might care strongly about the president's favorite color of Fruit-Loop.
Are tobacco ads in the public interest?
Do any ads serve the public interest? And why stop at tobacco - Heart disease kills more people than cancer, yet I can probably find a McDonalds ad playing somewhere on the dial every minute of every hour of every day. You can't just say "cigarettes = bad; obesity = lifestyle choice".
Obviously many apps for the iPhone REQUIRE location information because that's the whole point of the app.
They need to know my current location. Period. My every step for the past six months, not so much.
Not to say I can't think of uses that do need to record your movements (apps like jogging logs come to mind), but those don't apply to the vast majority of people and, once installed, can do their own - user initiated - tracking.
If you feel differently, then click the "don't allow" button when prompted.
Does the iPhone actually have such a button (in general, not just relating to tagging pictures)? If so, I would agree with you that this amounts to nothing but clueless end-users. I do not suspect that as the case, however.
Well seeing as you don't say 'some mac people' or even 'most mac people', but just plainly 'mac people' which refers to all of them (Which is exactly what that means, no matter if you intended it or not)
...Unless, perhaps, I wrote it as commentary regarding a link that gave an actual breakdown of each category. Then, a reasonable reader might plausibly have prefaced my words with the implied "as described by TFA". Though others, of course, likely didn't bother to read the linked article, and thus wouldn't realize the implied qualifier.
Seeing as 2 of my 12 home computers are macs, and even 2 of the 250 computers I administer at work are macs, I am a mac user by your definition. However by your stereotype you think I do not use macs.
Excellent example - TFA clearly asked people to self-identify their PC/Mac/Otherness, which you would have known had you read even its first sentence.
I'm sure that is quite confusing for you, but it basically means I can categorize you as a bigot purely due to the bigotry comments you make, and not by other unrelated aspects about you such as your possessions or skin color or race.
...Then again, some (usually posting anonymously) merely want to rant, and would find a way to twist a picture of kittens and babies into a diatribe on racial and socioeconomic "privilege" in Middle America.
That's not surprising at all. Here, am I talking politics or electronics?
I do find it somewhat surprising that the Mac people's preferences basically fit every stereotype you can think of. They prefer a Vespa to a Harley, bistro-fries to normal french fries, hummus to a Hero, Indie films to blockbuster...
I think the really telling point comes last... Mac people read Mac World, while PC people don't tend to read any platform-specific magazines. Mac people fit these stereotypes not by coincidence, but because they see their choice of computer not merely as a tool to use, but as an important component of their lifestyle.
As a side note, I find it odd that with only 2% more Mac users than "Others" in the survey, they didn't show the same breakdown for those Others.
Many.com websites were unnecessarily down for hours since nobody had thought to plan for a outage. I am sure quite a few architecture meetings where held the following day addressing disaster recovery.
Y'know, call me crazy, but I didn't even notice the outage.
I mean, yeah, I read about it on a number of sites (all still up and runing just fine), but honestly can't say I tried to visit even a single site actually unavailable because of the downtime.
I dunno, perhaps this mostly affected ad hosts and I didn't notice because I already block them?
Typically they require a signature from somebody of legal age in whatever jurisdiction.
To what do you refer here? I have never had to sign for a delivery from Amazon (well over 90% of the time, they just leave it on the porch, the delivery guy never even sees me).
If you meant beer or smokes, then okay (in fact, in my state, as an adult I can't legally get alcohol shipped to me). But Games? Music? Movies (even pornos)? Nope. No one cares about, much less bothers to check, the buyer's age.
I laugh at your naive assessment that competing/alternate Linux vendors/contributors will support something that isn't theirs. If SuSe or Red Hat goes belly up tomorrow, or it's announced it will no longer be supported, you seriously expect that someone will *100% for sure* support it to the level required by an enterprise customer?
Yup. Because if RedHat won't, and Novell won't... I will.
That counts as one of the best features of Linux. Company-X might not have any desire to help you keep an old box running and secure. But unlike EOL'd Windows versions, if we hear about a new critical vulnerability today, by tomorrow a patch will exist; and unlike Windows (EOL'd or not), it doesn't matter if that vulnerability affects Solitaire or the deepest recesses of the kernel, a sufficiently knowledgeable user still has the power (and legal right) to repair it.
So yeah, in many cases, it might make more sense to upgrade to a newer version. But if you absolutely, positively need to keep an old Caldera 2.2 box up and running, and have enough money to throw at me, we can keep that sucker up and running until the Sun swallows the Earth.
With the exception of things legally forbidden to children (alcohol and tobacco), kids can get anything they want online. It amazes me that brick-and-mortar retailers bother even trying to enforce "industry standard" self-regulation (then again, compare their sales, and it doesn't look so surprising).
And before someone points out the obvious (but wrong) problem with the above - Visa gift cards. Greatest things ever.
Apple and MS will fight this tooth and nail on the mobile front.
"Hey, let's deliberately prevent our users from accessing the single largest content provider in the world as part of our pissing contest with Google over meaningless more-or-less identical (to the end user) media formats - That should boost our market share!"
As much as I COMPLETELY disagree with the mentality, and almost everything it stands for, I do understand that the people ruled by their king don't have some sort of inherent need NOT to be ruled
Of course they do - sure, most people just want their bread and circuses... But some people (myself included) would rather rule hell than serve in heaven.
If you tell me "yeah, so God appointed the king, do what he said or else", I'd consider it nothing short of a personal challenge to test that theology by dedicating my (possibly short) life to seeing what happens if you shoot God's messenger.
Of course, I say that living in a democratic country, but make no mistake, I by no means consider democracy as somehow the be-all-end-all of political ideologies. Just one more flawed attempt at packing too many primates into too small a space and expecting them not to rip one another to shreds.
That said, I see your point, but I think you underestimate just how stubbornly some of us primates can behave, even in the face of our own deaths. "More weight!"
Look, there's nothing Blackberry can do about it and it's not their job.
Of course they can do something about it - They can say "no".
That, however, might cost them a few markets that allow overt suppression of free speech. Most of the civilized (western) world's governments might ask, but can't really get away with telling them they can't do business otherwise (can you picture that press conference? "Yeah, so we have this great new product, but Obama says we can't sell it in the US unless we BCC all your messages to Homeland Security").
Or, if RIM lacks the balls to actually stand up to oppressive governments, they could simply allow 3rd-party crypto plugins instead of insisting you run an end-to-end RIM stack. That way, those who actually care can have their privacy, and those who don't... deserve what they get.
FedEx knows who you are, even if there's no signature involved.
How, exactly, do they magically know my identity?
They require proof that I represent the intended recipient. A printout of the invoice showing the tracking number will suffice for that - And if the clerk gives you shit, just say "fine, send it back" and watch them squirm as they try to reconcile somehow taking your word (as the obvious proper recipient) to return the item to the sender, but not actually giving it to you.
As for a PO box - Yes, you need to show ID to get one. That doesn't magically transfer from me entering "John Q. Recipient, PO Box 427, Anytown USA 12345" on your webpage into you knowing anything about me beyond that. Hell, the post office already knows where I really live. It doesn't make a whole lot of difference if they know that I happen to own PO Box 427 (and they also don't care what name it has on it, just the box number).
Visa gift cards are virtual cash, but to get one someone has to either show up at a store that sells them, or order them over the net, and that means using a real credit card or other form of identifying payment.
See my other followup in this thread - They won't let you buy those with plastic - Cash or cash-equivalent only. And ID? I can see you've never actually bought one, because they just don't give two shakes of a rat's ass about the buyer. Now, you can fairly say that yes, they probably have me on camera checking out at the same time as the purchase. Whoop-de-frickin'-doo, unless I somehow use that gift card to commit murder, no one will ever look at that tape in the 14 days before they erase it.
May I ask where/how you get them? I have looked into Visa gift cards as a way to make anonymous purchases on the internet and have not found a way to buy them without being asked for a name, address, and/or SSN.
The local grocery store - Any of them. They actually insist you buy them with cash (or check, maybe, though I don't use checks for anything), and I have yet to have anyone ask me for ID unless, Zeus forbid, I (with my graying hair) try to buy a six-pack at the same time.
Since when have legitimate businesses allowed transactions with anonymous people?
Very very few businesses care about your actual identity. They care that you provide a valid delivery address and a valid credit card.
The former, for small things, can consist of a PO box; For larger things, you can just pick them up in person from FedEx/UPS. For the latter, prepaid - and effectively anonymous - Visa gift cards have (at least for me) revolutionized the number of semi-sketchy places with which I'll willingly do business (since I can cap my worst-case losses at $50-$100 simply by only having that much on the card).
So yes, you can indeed participate mostly-anonymously in the eMarketplace.
Y'know, while it pleases me to see all the major browsers implementing this, and even having some shred of FTC support, it still doesn't amount to a kernel of corn in a mountain of turd for one simple reason...
Namely, the real abusers of our privacy don't give a damn about what we want. And don't think that only includes the likes of Ralsky - Every single company that thinks they can get away with harvesting your data by using a "third party affiliate" or offshore host, will do whatever they can get away with.
We have one, and only one, means of maintaining our privacy online - Lie, lie, lie, lie, lie. Filter your response headers, never use your real name, address, phone number, or even your real dog's name as the answer to a site's security questions.
I have a FB account - Which I use solely as a photo album for my pets. It has no personally identifying information whatsoever (unless you can tell my two-tone grey tigerstriped cat from a million other lookalike two-tone grey tigerstriped cats).
My parents have a FB account - Which they use solely to look at pictures of my pets (and a few other relatives' kids). I made sure they set their account up with no personally identifying information.
My employer has a FB account, which they use solely in a sad attempt to look relevant to the modern online world (I would worry about that more if our core business didn't involve a real, physical, necessarily-local product).
I have a handful of relatives - All older women - Who actually do "use" FB, but for nothing more than a place to chat and play cheesy flash games. They could move to a totally non-social site like Kongregate tomorrow without missing a thing.
So yeah, FB may well have more accounts than humans on this planet - But how many of those actually lead back to a real live human truly interested in networking with their thousands of never-actually-met "friends"? From personal experience, I'd peg it at less than 10%, but YMMV.
or otherwise dismissing what is happening here as hysteria or science illiteracy?
Because a spade by any other name...
we're talking about the end of nuclear power in japan, and perhaps elsewhere if you don't understand why, you really are in denial, and you don't understand risk analysis
I think we understand all too well "why", thus the vitriol toward the ignorant.
As for risk analysis, nuclear has nothing on coal - Fewer direct casualties of accidents, fewer long-term casualties of accidents, fewer long-term casualties of normal operations, lower environmental impact of mining, lower environmental impact of disposing of the waste, fewer heavy metals pumped into the air, fewer greenhouse gas emissions... And my favorite, lower radiation emissions (over time)! Yep, you got that right, a coal plant puts more nukular baddies into the air than a similar capacity fission power plant!
So yeah, I'll stand up proud to belittle any fools fretting about the dangers of an industry that has, in its entire history, had three notable disasters. I feel awful for the residents of Fukushima, just as I feel awful for the (former) residents of Centralia, PA, but the occasional "perfect storm" shouldn't sway our opinion of the viability of a given technology.
Slashdot Mirror
Wait, you actually think water is disappearing, going poof? Where do you think this water is going?
You might want to Google "photosynthesis". Major rivers no longer reach the ocean because we've diverted them for use in industrial agriculture. And yes, that water really does cease to exist as water.
Of course, realistically, most of it ends up going to waste, either soaking into the ground or evaporating; Yes, we can theoretically reduce those losses drastically, but as it stands, for both human consumption and TFA's electrical generation purposes, we no longer have access to that water in any meaningful, useful way.
Strange... I didn't hear about Darl McBride joining the Oracle executive board.
Your ISP is likely not counting bytes that transfer through a connection to your modem.
Actually, not only do they likely do exactly that, they also most likely expect your modem to report its own usage. Why load up their routers when your CPE will kindly do the dirty work for them?
I have had a capped plan for quite a while now, and the modem keeps an accurate (within 1-2% of what my router says) local tally of my traffic. The modem itself also enforces service degradation when I go over my (daily) cap, though AT&T et al would much rather charge you than throttle you.
You will not be able to convince them that your number is "right" or "more correct" than their number.
Unfortunately, spot-on; and thanks to the USSC, you can't even file for class action in suing them for using BS numbers. Enjoy your binding "arbitration" by an "unbiased" 3rd party (paid for and chosen by your ISP).
Getting time to move to the civilized world... America reached its prime 65 years ago, and has gone downhill ever since.
Dude, I hardly net out to a loss; for the extra $40k tuition cost I'll make up at least a few hundred thousand even if I never get past white-collar work;
Nonono, you took that the wrong way - Not you personally, you as a liberal arts major at school X. Engineers make the school money; English majors, not so much (possibly counting as an actual loss to the school, since most universities budget under the assumption that the majority of their operating income will come from sources other than tuition).
As for useless major... that's a different argument. A lot of my lib arts friends got their training in career-type skills after they graduated, often on the job. It's the mental muscle building (and stuff like better-than-average literacy and writing skills) that is valuable later in life
I absolutely agree... And if you can squeeze enough sciences into an English Lit BA to call it "pre-med", more power to you; If not... Well, as I said, "why bother"? Higher education should prepare you for a skilled, usually white-collar, career; You don't need Nietzsche to dig ditches and flip burgers.
Because, while you sit out on the quad exposing valuable and fragile organic matter to sunlight and moisture and engaging in mental masturbation over the use of dwarves in Spencer...
The "much more expensive" engineering students work their butts off in labs developing school-owned IP that the school can then license. The engineering grad students spend their weekends searching and applying for sweet grants, half of which goes straight into the school coffers. The engineering students will then go on to someday develop your next car, airplane, refrigerator, television, while you in 20 years will simply join your students on the quad for the sole purpose of perpetuating a useless major.
You cost less on the short term, but both to the school and to society, you net out to a loss; The engineers cost more on the short term, but actually make the school money, and improve our world (DOD contractors notwithstanding) with their careers.
Don't get me wrong, I very much value a solid liberal arts background for everyone, especially engineers; But if you don't take those underpinnings and apply them to a real set of useful skills... Why bother?
Correction... without free POLITICAL speech, there can be no democratic society.
Um, no. Sorry. Free speech necessarily extends beyond "political speech", if only because what I care about in a government, you might have no interest (and vice-versa). To me, the whole abortion issue has no place in politics, while for all I know you might care strongly about the president's favorite color of Fruit-Loop.
Are tobacco ads in the public interest?
Do any ads serve the public interest? And why stop at tobacco - Heart disease kills more people than cancer, yet I can probably find a McDonalds ad playing somewhere on the dial every minute of every hour of every day. You can't just say "cigarettes = bad; obesity = lifestyle choice".
Obviously many apps for the iPhone REQUIRE location information because that's the whole point of the app.
They need to know my current location. Period. My every step for the past six months, not so much.
Not to say I can't think of uses that do need to record your movements (apps like jogging logs come to mind), but those don't apply to the vast majority of people and, once installed, can do their own - user initiated - tracking.
If you feel differently, then click the "don't allow" button when prompted.
Does the iPhone actually have such a button (in general, not just relating to tagging pictures)? If so, I would agree with you that this amounts to nothing but clueless end-users. I do not suspect that as the case, however.
Well seeing as you don't say 'some mac people' or even 'most mac people', but just plainly 'mac people' which refers to all of them (Which is exactly what that means, no matter if you intended it or not)
...Unless, perhaps, I wrote it as commentary regarding a link that gave an actual breakdown of each category. Then, a reasonable reader might plausibly have prefaced my words with the implied "as described by TFA". Though others, of course, likely didn't bother to read the linked article, and thus wouldn't realize the implied qualifier.
...Then again, some (usually posting anonymously) merely want to rant, and would find a way to twist a picture of kittens and babies into a diatribe on racial and socioeconomic "privilege" in Middle America.
Seeing as 2 of my 12 home computers are macs, and even 2 of the 250 computers I administer at work are macs, I am a mac user by your definition. However by your stereotype you think I do not use macs.
Excellent example - TFA clearly asked people to self-identify their PC/Mac/Otherness, which you would have known had you read even its first sentence.
I'm sure that is quite confusing for you, but it basically means I can categorize you as a bigot purely due to the bigotry comments you make, and not by other unrelated aspects about you such as your possessions or skin color or race.
That's not surprising at all. Here, am I talking politics or electronics?
I do find it somewhat surprising that the Mac people's preferences basically fit every stereotype you can think of. They prefer a Vespa to a Harley, bistro-fries to normal french fries, hummus to a Hero, Indie films to blockbuster...
I think the really telling point comes last... Mac people read Mac World, while PC people don't tend to read any platform-specific magazines. Mac people fit these stereotypes not by coincidence, but because they see their choice of computer not merely as a tool to use, but as an important component of their lifestyle.
As a side note, I find it odd that with only 2% more Mac users than "Others" in the survey, they didn't show the same breakdown for those Others.
Many .com websites were unnecessarily down for hours since nobody had thought to plan for a outage. I am sure quite a few architecture meetings where held the following day addressing disaster recovery.
Y'know, call me crazy, but I didn't even notice the outage.
I mean, yeah, I read about it on a number of sites (all still up and runing just fine), but honestly can't say I tried to visit even a single site actually unavailable because of the downtime.
I dunno, perhaps this mostly affected ad hosts and I didn't notice because I already block them?
Typically they require a signature from somebody of legal age in whatever jurisdiction.
To what do you refer here? I have never had to sign for a delivery from Amazon (well over 90% of the time, they just leave it on the porch, the delivery guy never even sees me).
If you meant beer or smokes, then okay (in fact, in my state, as an adult I can't legally get alcohol shipped to me). But Games? Music? Movies (even pornos)? Nope. No one cares about, much less bothers to check, the buyer's age.
I laugh at your naive assessment that competing/alternate Linux vendors/contributors will support something that isn't theirs. If SuSe or Red Hat goes belly up tomorrow, or it's announced it will no longer be supported, you seriously expect that someone will *100% for sure* support it to the level required by an enterprise customer?
Yup. Because if RedHat won't, and Novell won't... I will.
That counts as one of the best features of Linux. Company-X might not have any desire to help you keep an old box running and secure. But unlike EOL'd Windows versions, if we hear about a new critical vulnerability today, by tomorrow a patch will exist; and unlike Windows (EOL'd or not), it doesn't matter if that vulnerability affects Solitaire or the deepest recesses of the kernel, a sufficiently knowledgeable user still has the power (and legal right) to repair it.
So yeah, in many cases, it might make more sense to upgrade to a newer version. But if you absolutely, positively need to keep an old Caldera 2.2 box up and running, and have enough money to throw at me, we can keep that sucker up and running until the Sun swallows the Earth.
"Amazon".
With the exception of things legally forbidden to children (alcohol and tobacco), kids can get anything they want online. It amazes me that brick-and-mortar retailers bother even trying to enforce "industry standard" self-regulation (then again, compare their sales, and it doesn't look so surprising).
And before someone points out the obvious (but wrong) problem with the above - Visa gift cards. Greatest things ever.
Apple and MS will fight this tooth and nail on the mobile front.
"Hey, let's deliberately prevent our users from accessing the single largest content provider in the world as part of our pissing contest with Google over meaningless more-or-less identical (to the end user) media formats - That should boost our market share!"
errr., steal the user's wallet at on the subway, during rush hour, and you have the same info. Bad analogy.
I didn't say "where". I said "when".
Your wallet doesn't reveal that every Thursday night you go to Grandma's house from 6-9pm for dinner and socializing.
It's not like someone is going to break into your house to steal your iphone location logs.
Probably not.
After stealing your iPhone on the subway, however, they know exactly when to find your house unoccupied (at least, of you) and ripe for the robbing.
As much as I COMPLETELY disagree with the mentality, and almost everything it stands for, I do understand that the people ruled by their king don't have some sort of inherent need NOT to be ruled
Of course they do - sure, most people just want their bread and circuses... But some people (myself included) would rather rule hell than serve in heaven.
If you tell me "yeah, so God appointed the king, do what he said or else", I'd consider it nothing short of a personal challenge to test that theology by dedicating my (possibly short) life to seeing what happens if you shoot God's messenger.
Of course, I say that living in a democratic country, but make no mistake, I by no means consider democracy as somehow the be-all-end-all of political ideologies. Just one more flawed attempt at packing too many primates into too small a space and expecting them not to rip one another to shreds.
That said, I see your point, but I think you underestimate just how stubbornly some of us primates can behave, even in the face of our own deaths. "More weight!"
Look, there's nothing Blackberry can do about it and it's not their job.
Of course they can do something about it - They can say "no".
That, however, might cost them a few markets that allow overt suppression of free speech. Most of the civilized (western) world's governments might ask, but can't really get away with telling them they can't do business otherwise (can you picture that press conference? "Yeah, so we have this great new product, but Obama says we can't sell it in the US unless we BCC all your messages to Homeland Security").
Or, if RIM lacks the balls to actually stand up to oppressive governments, they could simply allow 3rd-party crypto plugins instead of insisting you run an end-to-end RIM stack. That way, those who actually care can have their privacy, and those who don't... deserve what they get.
FedEx knows who you are, even if there's no signature involved.
How, exactly, do they magically know my identity?
They require proof that I represent the intended recipient. A printout of the invoice showing the tracking number will suffice for that - And if the clerk gives you shit, just say "fine, send it back" and watch them squirm as they try to reconcile somehow taking your word (as the obvious proper recipient) to return the item to the sender, but not actually giving it to you.
As for a PO box - Yes, you need to show ID to get one. That doesn't magically transfer from me entering "John Q. Recipient, PO Box 427, Anytown USA 12345" on your webpage into you knowing anything about me beyond that. Hell, the post office already knows where I really live. It doesn't make a whole lot of difference if they know that I happen to own PO Box 427 (and they also don't care what name it has on it, just the box number).
Visa gift cards are virtual cash, but to get one someone has to either show up at a store that sells them, or order them over the net, and that means using a real credit card or other form of identifying payment.
See my other followup in this thread - They won't let you buy those with plastic - Cash or cash-equivalent only. And ID? I can see you've never actually bought one, because they just don't give two shakes of a rat's ass about the buyer. Now, you can fairly say that yes, they probably have me on camera checking out at the same time as the purchase. Whoop-de-frickin'-doo, unless I somehow use that gift card to commit murder, no one will ever look at that tape in the 14 days before they erase it.
May I ask where/how you get them? I have looked into Visa gift cards as a way to make anonymous purchases on the internet and have not found a way to buy them without being asked for a name, address, and/or SSN.
The local grocery store - Any of them. They actually insist you buy them with cash (or check, maybe, though I don't use checks for anything), and I have yet to have anyone ask me for ID unless, Zeus forbid, I (with my graying hair) try to buy a six-pack at the same time.
Since when have legitimate businesses allowed transactions with anonymous people?
Very very few businesses care about your actual identity. They care that you provide a valid delivery address and a valid credit card.
The former, for small things, can consist of a PO box; For larger things, you can just pick them up in person from FedEx/UPS. For the latter, prepaid - and effectively anonymous - Visa gift cards have (at least for me) revolutionized the number of semi-sketchy places with which I'll willingly do business (since I can cap my worst-case losses at $50-$100 simply by only having that much on the card).
So yes, you can indeed participate mostly-anonymously in the eMarketplace.
is the fact that the public sector will be charged with creating a secure, robust, dependable system.
Hah! You did see in the summary where it said this baby comes from the security-geniuses at the TSA?
I at least trust the private sector to implement it as well as necessary to make a buck; The TSA doesn't even have that requirement.
Y'know, while it pleases me to see all the major browsers implementing this, and even having some shred of FTC support, it still doesn't amount to a kernel of corn in a mountain of turd for one simple reason...
Namely, the real abusers of our privacy don't give a damn about what we want. And don't think that only includes the likes of Ralsky - Every single company that thinks they can get away with harvesting your data by using a "third party affiliate" or offshore host, will do whatever they can get away with.
We have one, and only one, means of maintaining our privacy online - Lie, lie, lie, lie, lie. Filter your response headers, never use your real name, address, phone number, or even your real dog's name as the answer to a site's security questions.
More like a shitton of marketing accounts.
This.
I have a FB account - Which I use solely as a photo album for my pets. It has no personally identifying information whatsoever (unless you can tell my two-tone grey tigerstriped cat from a million other lookalike two-tone grey tigerstriped cats).
My parents have a FB account - Which they use solely to look at pictures of my pets (and a few other relatives' kids). I made sure they set their account up with no personally identifying information.
My employer has a FB account, which they use solely in a sad attempt to look relevant to the modern online world (I would worry about that more if our core business didn't involve a real, physical, necessarily-local product).
I have a handful of relatives - All older women - Who actually do "use" FB, but for nothing more than a place to chat and play cheesy flash games. They could move to a totally non-social site like Kongregate tomorrow without missing a thing.
So yeah, FB may well have more accounts than humans on this planet - But how many of those actually lead back to a real live human truly interested in networking with their thousands of never-actually-met "friends"? From personal experience, I'd peg it at less than 10%, but YMMV.
or otherwise dismissing what is happening here as hysteria or science illiteracy?
Because a spade by any other name...
we're talking about the end of nuclear power in japan, and perhaps elsewhere
if you don't understand why, you really are in denial, and you don't understand risk analysis
I think we understand all too well "why", thus the vitriol toward the ignorant.
As for risk analysis, nuclear has nothing on coal - Fewer direct casualties of accidents, fewer long-term casualties of accidents, fewer long-term casualties of normal operations, lower environmental impact of mining, lower environmental impact of disposing of the waste, fewer heavy metals pumped into the air, fewer greenhouse gas emissions... And my favorite, lower radiation emissions (over time)! Yep, you got that right, a coal plant puts more nukular baddies into the air than a similar capacity fission power plant!
So yeah, I'll stand up proud to belittle any fools fretting about the dangers of an industry that has, in its entire history, had three notable disasters. I feel awful for the residents of Fukushima, just as I feel awful for the (former) residents of Centralia, PA, but the occasional "perfect storm" shouldn't sway our opinion of the viability of a given technology.