:) I got another -1 off topic, and I'm still excellent. This may be the last post in the thread, as this will just be more trouble than it's worth to see how many times I can get modded down slightly.:)
That's funny, I've been marked Troll and Offtopic. My karma is still "Excellent"
I guess the folks with mod points today didn't like me poking fun at the mod system.:) I post with +2, so it takes a few to knock me down below 0Since I'm laughing about it, I'm sure a few folks will mod me down over it. Not to say that all folks who get mod points are real rocket scientists. I get points about once a week, so I actually (per the rules) go and work on modding people up, not down.
Aw come on, you haven't read some of my posts. I range from condescending to being a complete asshole, depending on my mood. There's good reasons though. Check the most recent entry in my journal.
I'm sure this thread will get us modded down at least a little bit.:)
Post more good stuff. Mine's been "Excellent" for years, and a few of my posts have been modded down for whatever reason. But hey, screw 'em if they don't have a sense of humor.:)
Come on. This is an industry that stations an old man with a worn out pistol at the door (where they still do), to provide physical security where they're distributing cash. Why would you think the rest of the industry is any better. They never have to worry, if they lose money, they'll collect it back from the depositor and the fed. Hell, they can't even go out of business, they're covered by the gov't.
That was some of the confusion. He said 6 meters of pipe, but didn't indicate if that was the subterranean level, or the total pipe used in the project.
6 feet (or 6 meters, as indicated in the story) aren't really deep enough. It would work better at more like 30 feet deep. There are charts that show ground temperatures. The deeper you go, the more stable the temperature is. It works well, as long as you're not in an active geothermal area.
In one capacity, I would say "I need...", and they'd either get it for me, or give me the money for it. For laptops, it was usually cash (or a check made out to me), and I purchased what I wanted. By the time I "needed" a new laptop, it's because the old one wouldn't even boot.:) The laptop was outright mine, and there were no questions asked. As long as I did my work, everyone was pleased. When they terminated me, I was at home, and they didn't ask for anything to be returned. It didn't matter much. The last laptop they bought me died, and I paid for my own. I still had a stack of nonfunctional laptops at the house for parts, but they didn't want them either.
At another employer, if they paid for it, they owned it. Everything, including your free time and soul, belonged to the company. I was escorted to my desk, at my request, to collect my personal property. I put my stuff into a box, and their stuff into piles on the desk. The HR person overseeing me didn't have a clue to what was what, so I could have walked out with all kinds of stuff. I did walk out with a box of stuff that belonged to an ex-coworker (he was fired a month before me), but they weren't willing to talk to him, and I have been in communication with him, so it was in his best interest. Unfortunately for him, they were concerned that he may do something malicious, so he was walked to the door, and some of his stuff was stolen. (EZpass, satellite radio, etc)
Basically, you have to know your employer, and what they are going to do. If it's their property and they are going to want it back, don't do anything personal on it. If it's yours, and there's no chance that there will be no demands on it being returned, it's fair game.
I didn't mind handling things like harddrive and memory upgrades on my laptop, since I knew it would still be mine. For the company who made it clear that it was theirs, anything including little upgrades were handled through them. I'm not sticking $50 worth of memory in a laptop that may not be mine in a year. The day they ask you into the conference room for a meeting may be the last time you ever see your hardware. It's all fine and dandy, including encrypted drives, but if you left it running because you thought it was just a short impromptu meeting, you'll find that someone will be pouring over your data before they shut it down.
I know someone who had her purse stolen. She wasn't aware it was gone for an hour, and then called the police immediately. One of 6 credit card issuers called because the people made strange high dollar purchases. And yes, they used all the cards in the span of the hour. The bank that did call, called after she started calling all of the banks notifying them that the cards were stolen.
I've only ever been called once ever. I took my girlfriend and her daughter out shopping, so I had a few hundred dollars of teenager clothing store purchases.
I've always expected a phonecall for some of my traveling. In one week, I may purchase stuff in New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Canada and Mexico. Ya, I've had some long weeks.:) Still, I've never received the call from those for suspicious activity on my account, even though one purchase was in LA, and the next (in the same day) was in another country for a $1000 computer.
You have to figure, if a bank has say 500,000 accounts, they can be used anywhere at any time. It would take a huge staff to track the behavior of every client to make sure their activity is legitimate. They do maintain a staff, but look for the glaring red flags before they'll call. In 28 years of having credit cards, I've only been called once, and I would consider some of my purchases suspicious (like the one noted above).
I love the localized dating ads. I just saw one yesterday. An attractive woman, and the text said something like "I'm a lonely model traveling the country doing photo shoots. I just landed in [this city], and will be here for 3 days." The funny part is, they named the small town I'm in. There's no airport. She was distinctly out of place. Not to say there aren't attractive women here (there are plenty), but she had the LA look, not the look for here.
I knew someone who did those ads years ago. They were the first ads like that, that I saw. He used GeoIP to determine the city, and would automatically populate the variable. The silly part of these ads are when I travel, sometimes it doesn't know where I am, so it'll leave a blank, or still show the variable.
"I'm just into $city and want to meet you":)
I'll give her a call as soon as I get to $city. ha.
That 2.7% is just "other", which could be people from anywhere. I'd suspect the black population would be significantly less than 2.7%.
But, if we assume that the 2.7% are others, that still means that if you have a group of 100 people, you'll have 2 or 3 blacks, and the rest whites. While it could be possible to have a white, black, and asian in a meeting, it's less likely, and therefore the image is more "foreign" as someone else said.
Your marketing should make it seem that "Oh, they're just like us", so you'll be more prone to buy the products. It's fun to travel around, and pay attention to the differences in marketing materials. Alcohol, cigarette, and vehicle ads are great for it.
I find vehicle ads more interesting. If you're in a rural area, where farms prevail, you'll find more ads with trucks, frequently showing them moving a heavy load (oohh, my truck is stronger!). As you work your way out from white collar metro areas, you'll spot ads for farm equipment rather. Even looking at vehicle dealerships, while they may have sports cars and economy cars, the lots will have more trucks. Why? Because in a rural farming area, the customers are buying trucks to suit their needs. Some of the ads simply have different models in an almost identical ad, simply because they're tailoring the ad to the demographic. If you're in a predominantly white area of farmers, you'll see white people with trucks. If you're in a predominantly black urban area, it will be targeted to them. It's the same with any group, I'm simply showing a few examples.
Some places are terribly racial, so having the wrong demographic portrayed in the advertising material have a negative impact. Think about an area like this, where they're selling Brand X beer. If you showed three black people drinking Brand X beer, that would indicate it's a black drink, and sales would drop. In areas where racial boundaries don't exist or aren't clearly defined, you could have racial mix on the signs, and sales would do well.
Marketing relies heavily on understanding your target market. Back to the original posting, if 97.3% of the people are white, and the majority of decision makers are white, you'd want to focus on them. I'm glad I'm not in marketing. I don't like to see lines based on race or sex. Myself, I see people as people. Still, I'd understand you can't focus on compact car sales in a farming community.:)
Polish 96.7%, German 0.4%, Belarusian 0.1%, Ukrainian 0.1%, other and unspecified 2.7% (2002 census)
2.7% doesn't seem like a lot.
Someone else mentioned that they should have ditched the Asian also. Maybe they simply wanted a majority white, rather than 33% white. Or maybe the asian was far enough out of the focus of the image that they didn't really care.
It's all about marketing though. I'm sure they've done more market research than we could possibly speculate on. But, being that this is Slashdot, we'll speculate anyways.
Dammit, my mom gave away our old mechanical typewriter. I guess I just have to stay away from Microsoft products, and I'll be fine. I'm doing pretty good with that so far.:)
Maybe. Maybe not. You, with your sporting good store, may have suppliers in other countries. You may go to their site. You may go on a trip elsewhere. While you're out, you can trust that the interim manager can handle everything, or you can look in on your bank accounts while you're gone. I know, it's not the best idea in the world, but no one ever said business owners always follow best security practices.
If you were locked out of the account while you were overseas, you'd probably call and bitch the bank out (at $5/min for the phone charges). Not all businesses have the luxury of being mom & pop shops, and only ever doing business from their office line. Geo-locating the IP isn't exactly fool proof either. Depending on the line I'm on any day, I've been located in several states around the US, China, and Europe. All of those have been within one state, and generally just a handful of cities. It's not a failure on the ISP's part, it's a failure on the folks who are maintaining the geo-locating databases being used. Well, not exactly a failure, since they give a percentage of accuracy in their advertising.
I just checked the IP I'm on today with MaxMind's site (the providers of GeoIP). The result was close, but still the wrong city. What if I told them to only expect traffic from City X and determine anything from anywhere else was fraud? Now I'm going to be considered an attacker. Wheee. I hope the feds don't come knocking my door down. Well, I am sitting by the pool, sipping some pretty serious rum drinks right now, but that's what happens when you're on vacation.:)
But, that's the type of technical support headache that they've been trying to get away from, with virtual POS terminals, using the web page instead of their custom app, etc, etc. Even if your live CD worked on every machine ever known to man, when something flakes out, they're calling the bank first. Come on, how many times have you fixed a "my computer can't get on the Internet" because they accidentally unplugged the network cable? Or maybe they didn't even turn it on. Anyone who's worked in any kind of office where the management found out that you really now everything about computers, will bug the shit out of you to fix theirs (and their home machine, and the kids machine, and grand auntie Gertrude's machine too, even though she's legally blind and can't figure out what to do with a mouse).
I've spent the last month or two touring the country, going from site to site on demand to fix everything. You wouldn't believe how many "best practices" have been completely ignored. Even when you say "there was malware that intercepted everything done online. They have all of your usernames and passwords, credit card numbers, and account numbers. Call the bank and cancel every credit card you've used online, and change every password that you have", they say they'll get around to it sometime and won't actually do it.
I got a call today. It was a machine that I worked on two months ago, where I removed more viruses than I care to remember. Someone uninstalled the antivirus software that I installed, but they were kind enough to click through every way to get a new virus. 3 hours later it's clean again. I'll be getting the same call in a month.
Your edge cases aren't edge cases. I'm afraid they'd be pretty damned close to 50%. The first banks that tried to force it would go out of business, because the customers would go to another bank that's "easier to work with".
I know back in the day, there were more interesting methods of security, just as you mentioned. They may need to use a special app, dial up or have a leased line, and then do the transactions directly. I can't say that I've seen that in years with any small or medium size business. I personally hold a business account at a large bank. My choices for interfacing with them are to show up at the teller, go to the web site, or call the CS department who will run me around for 30+ minutes confirming my identity before I get anything resembling an answer that is usually wrong.
Well, there's another option, the CC POS terminal. But I don't have one.:) That doesn't give your balance or transaction history anyways.
I'm not terribly concerned about *my* business account. It has $4.68 in it, and that's been like that for 6 months. Good luck if you get my account info, you'll have wasted your time.:)
Ya, I caught that too. Get on a computer that can't browse to web sites, and then browse to http://mybank.example.com/ . Brilliant advice.
Since 99.99[ad nauseum]% of the users wouldn't know a hardened secure computer (I'm pretty sure Windows is categorically eliminated), I'm not sure who they were suggesting that to. I have the only Linux virus I've ever seen, and it's safely tucked away on a floppy disk, in a concrete vault, underground, at a location that I forgot.:) Dammit, I knew I shouldn't have left the map in the vault. Most "bank customers" wouldn't keep a dedicated machine just to check their bank balance with. Hell, they'll call out on the company PBX and give their credit card information over the phone to any arbitrary business, with coworkers happily writing it down and the phone admin recording the call.
Users are their own worst enemy. Hmm, wasn't there a story today saying something to that effect? I once found a bank card (w/ Visa logo) on top of an ATM. For some reason, they set it down and forgot it there. Brilliant. Since there was no one around to claim it, I called the bank. It took me an hour to convince them that I found it and that the card should be canceled. They "couldn't release any information on the card holder until...." I told them, "I'm holding the card in my hand. I guess that makes me the card holder." Finally, they told me "Oh, just bring it to a branch on Monday", at which point they finally canceled it. I knew the people at the branch, so they knew I was legitimate, and they confirmed that it hadn't been canceled. The account hadn't even been noted that I called in to report it. What if I wasn't a nice guy? I would have had 2 days or more to charge anything I wanted. If you can't get a person to maintain control over a little physical piece of plastic, why should you they think that they're going to do any better elsewhere?
I didn't list them, because I don't know them. But, someone else was kind enough to oblige you with a couple examples.
If you've ever taken standardized tests, including IQ tests, you should know that "always" and "every" are words that indicate usually (ahhh, avoiding always again).
True or False - Water is always wet.
Well, obviously true. But the state wasn't mentioned, so it could be water vapor or ice, and in both cases, it can be felt as not "wet" exactly. If you're standing in a desert, and there's 5% humidity, you're sure as heck going to say it's dry, regardless that there is some water content in the air.
But, at the question at hand, can you apply a generalization to all hardware? Have you tested it on all hardware? I seriously doubt it.:)
Well, I'd say "just about every", because you know there's always some exception.:)
I've actually played this game a few times lately. My ex and her mom bought brand new laptops. One was a Toshiba, and one was a Sony. They had Vista, and they were almost set to cripple the machine. 5% CPU utilization and a very dim screen when running on batteries out of the box. Plugging it in helped a lot.:)
I was getting very annoyed that I couldn't run just a few applications without it feeling like a 386, so I went into the power configuration, and turned up the throttles. It was still allowed to throttle, it just wasn't forced to. If I need 100% CPU utilization, I want 100% of the CPU to be available. Of course, by doing that, it cut my battery life way down. It was something like 10 hours on each, which then dropped to about 1hr 30min. Maybe I'm a CPU hog at times, but it's worth it. I'd rather have a 1.5hr battery life, than spend 10 hours doing what should have only taken me 1.5 hours.
On a few machines, I've swapped out Windows for Linux. Generally, I get better battery life under Linux, but then again, I compile my kernel without extra crap, and yes, I do enable tickless. I don't get into the manual tuning of the CPU throttling, because I'm happy with how it works out of the box (well, as built from a plain vanilla kernel). I won't say this is a perfect world. Some distros are heavier, because they install stuff you don't want or need. I prefer Slackware, so there's less cleanup after the install, and everything generally works.
To which part? That there are easily usable systems which forward phone calls, and you can chain those, or that you can disable the GPS on most cell phones (like, really disable, not just turn an option off).
I guess it could be considered "thrill". It started out as a observation of how life decisions made me untrackable. Various people I've been with (when I pop up) note "You pay with cash for everything?" or "Who's car are you driving today?" Someone commented (on the phone) a few days ago that I have more phone numbers than the Dell support centers.:) It's not that I *have* the numbers, it's just that I change them frequently enough that anything they store won't be good too long after that. I've lightened up my life so I can pack two suitcases, and be mobile for months. That started with work, but applied very nicely to life. The two suitcases are a luxury, where I'll have enough clothes for a couple weeks without washing anything.:) Once a friend said "you're driving another car every time I see you." It's an interesting way to spice things up. It's all perfectly legal. I don't have to be "at home" every day. There's no law that dictates it, at least for now. I don't "go home", because "home" is anywhere I want to be, and where a friend may be.
I'm not hiding from anything. I needed to speak with law enforcement several days ago, so I planned to end up in the right city at the right time, talked to them, and left. It's ok, it's nothing criminal.:) If "they" wanted to find me, "they" had the perfect opportunity.
BTW, my life decisions have moved me yet again, so even the location references I gave yesterday aren't even close to valid. 8 hours of driving at an average of 60mph changes my location by 540 miles. It's hard to date this way, but I'm too busy right now to maintain a good relationship, so I don't need it.
It's more of a game, and it keeps things interesting. I've seen more of the country in a few months than most people see in years, where they're tied down to "go to work, go home and sleep, go back to work.". I have a line on a "solid" job, where I'd work remotely. There's no harm in it. I can work from anywhere. I may be in New York one day, Los Angeles a few days later, and everywhere I can get a network connection in between is my "office". I could opt to fly to Europe (by boat is too slow), and continue wandering from there. There's no harm in it, and keeps things interesting. I may be working from New York, and visit the city in my spare time. Next week, it may from near the Grand Canyon in a few weeks, and I'll have a wonderful view after work.:) I won't run out of places to go anytime soon. I had settled down once. Well, a few times. It gets boring after a while. You see the same house, and the same neighbors. Who needs that. It's more interesting to see new things all the time. I'm always learning something. Maybe it's the history of an area, or new experiences from a new friend. Sometimes it's learning a new work trick from someone who I wouldn't have otherwise encountered. There's a lot to learn for anyone, and no single job, location, or friend, will ever teach it to you.
He wasn't hiding very well if he still showed up to the same job. The cops are more than happy to walk into your office, throw you on the floor, and arrest in front of all your coworkers, just as much as they are willing to arrest you in the privacy of your own home.
Isn't it easier to explain to the coworkers that you were out "sick" for a few days, rather than trying to explain the arrest at work?
Brilliant.
How about this. With an attorney, you go to the investigator DIRECTLY and explain the situation. "Never happened, wasn't there, didn't know the guy." They get bogus complaints all the time, and know how to filter them. No body, no witnesses (except one loon), no missing persons report, then there was no murder. That's not even enough to get a warrant (usually) to search for physical evidence.
I actually knew some people that claimed they were serial killers. They didn't know each other, and would sometimes claim to have done the same crimes, with different descriptions. They'd take credit for crimes, even though they were never anywhere near where the crimes happened. From what I understand, the police get false confessions all the time, from people who want the attention.
BTW, did I mention I knew the shooters involved in the Kennedy assassination? I was there and had drinks with them. George and Felix were interesting fellows. Maybe I can be famous too.
(Note: I got that information from publicly available conspiracy theories. I wasn't even born when the Kennedy assassination happened.)
Big deal. I fall "off the grid" all the time. That's where I am right now, not for any particular reason, other than I can. I'm not using any credit cards. I have a prepaid credit card, but rarely use it. The phone number everyone knows forwards three times, and ends up on a prepaid cell with no GPS capabilities. If I have the urge, I just pick up a new prepaid phone, and change the forwarding. I can change the last hop, or several of them.
I occasionally pop up in an unexpected city. I'll buy gas with the prepaid card. I'll tell someone to meet me in a particular location. I always pick a location close to them, so if I were being followed, they'd have to get to the city first before they could intercept me. Before they could get a flight half way there, I'd already be on the move. Gas is paid in cash. I sleep in my car, acquaintances houses, or less desirable hotels that I can pay cash at and give a false name for. "Sorry, someone stole my wallet with my drivers license. I'm from Nebraska, and can't get it replaced until I get back there." I'm driving a borrowed car from an old but obscure friend. It's not actually his car, but it belongs to another friend of his (who I know even know) that said he can use it for anything he wants. Voila. A vehicle that's safe to drive, that no one would recognize.:)
When I talk to friends, I tell them each different cities. There are a few official reasons that I'd reappear, which I have as necessary. Otherwise, I'm "off the grid" doing odd jobs. Getting another "real" job is almost impossible these days. Free access points are abundant. I use them for a few minutes, check my mail, read Slashdot, and move again. Only I know my schedule, and only the people I'm doing work for know when I'm going to be anywhere. They don't know each other, and don't know that I'm playing "off grid". They wouldn't have anyone to report it to anyways.
I drive routes I wouldn't normally drive, making "wrong" turns and letting the GPS redirect me through alternative routes.
I've been this way for a couple months now.
I popped "on grid" today. 5 people who know me saw me. I ran a credit card transaction for gas. Now, I'm 500 miles from there, and will be even more by morning. I'm maintaining a nondescript, nonthreatening look, and driving the speed limits. The police won't stop me, but if they do and run my drivers license, I'll pop off grid just as fast as I appeared.
If someone doesn't want to be found, they won't be. If someone wanted to find me, they'd always be looking in the wrong decoy cities. If I told you I was sitting in Atlanta, and had driven near Atlanta International Airport sometime today, what does that tell you? Nothing. I'm in an area with 5.3 million people. The odds that you'll spot me are minimal at best.
The target of the article is in a large metro area (San Francisco). He's thrown himself in front of a large crowd, begging to be caught. There may be a few Wired readers, and a few Slashdot readers there. Someone's going to want the $5k. I'm not going to bother. It's not worth my time or energy to go out there to find him. Maybe for $50k I'd find him in a few days, but otherwise, it's no worth it.
Slashdot Mirror
That's funny, I've been marked Troll and Offtopic. My karma is still "Excellent"
I guess the folks with mod points today didn't like me poking fun at the mod system. :) I post with +2, so it takes a few to knock me down below 0Since I'm laughing about it, I'm sure a few folks will mod me down over it. Not to say that all folks who get mod points are real rocket scientists. I get points about once a week, so I actually (per the rules) go and work on modding people up, not down.
Aw come on, you haven't read some of my posts. I range from condescending to being a complete asshole, depending on my mood. There's good reasons though. Check the most recent entry in my journal.
I'm sure this thread will get us modded down at least a little bit. :)
-10 really off topic
Post more good stuff. Mine's been "Excellent" for years, and a few of my posts have been modded down for whatever reason. But hey, screw 'em if they don't have a sense of humor. :)
Come on. This is an industry that stations an old man with a worn out pistol at the door (where they still do), to provide physical security where they're distributing cash. Why would you think the rest of the industry is any better. They never have to worry, if they lose money, they'll collect it back from the depositor and the fed. Hell, they can't even go out of business, they're covered by the gov't.
That was some of the confusion. He said 6 meters of pipe, but didn't indicate if that was the subterranean level, or the total pipe used in the project.
6 feet (or 6 meters, as indicated in the story) aren't really deep enough. It would work better at more like 30 feet deep. There are charts that show ground temperatures. The deeper you go, the more stable the temperature is. It works well, as long as you're not in an active geothermal area.
I've been in this situation on both sides.
In one capacity, I would say "I need...", and they'd either get it for me, or give me the money for it. For laptops, it was usually cash (or a check made out to me), and I purchased what I wanted. By the time I "needed" a new laptop, it's because the old one wouldn't even boot. :) The laptop was outright mine, and there were no questions asked. As long as I did my work, everyone was pleased. When they terminated me, I was at home, and they didn't ask for anything to be returned. It didn't matter much. The last laptop they bought me died, and I paid for my own. I still had a stack of nonfunctional laptops at the house for parts, but they didn't want them either.
At another employer, if they paid for it, they owned it. Everything, including your free time and soul, belonged to the company. I was escorted to my desk, at my request, to collect my personal property. I put my stuff into a box, and their stuff into piles on the desk. The HR person overseeing me didn't have a clue to what was what, so I could have walked out with all kinds of stuff. I did walk out with a box of stuff that belonged to an ex-coworker (he was fired a month before me), but they weren't willing to talk to him, and I have been in communication with him, so it was in his best interest. Unfortunately for him, they were concerned that he may do something malicious, so he was walked to the door, and some of his stuff was stolen. (EZpass, satellite radio, etc)
Basically, you have to know your employer, and what they are going to do. If it's their property and they are going to want it back, don't do anything personal on it. If it's yours, and there's no chance that there will be no demands on it being returned, it's fair game.
I didn't mind handling things like harddrive and memory upgrades on my laptop, since I knew it would still be mine. For the company who made it clear that it was theirs, anything including little upgrades were handled through them. I'm not sticking $50 worth of memory in a laptop that may not be mine in a year. The day they ask you into the conference room for a meeting may be the last time you ever see your hardware. It's all fine and dandy, including encrypted drives, but if you left it running because you thought it was just a short impromptu meeting, you'll find that someone will be pouring over your data before they shut it down.
They could. They won't though.
I know someone who had her purse stolen. She wasn't aware it was gone for an hour, and then called the police immediately. One of 6 credit card issuers called because the people made strange high dollar purchases. And yes, they used all the cards in the span of the hour. The bank that did call, called after she started calling all of the banks notifying them that the cards were stolen.
I've only ever been called once ever. I took my girlfriend and her daughter out shopping, so I had a few hundred dollars of teenager clothing store purchases.
I've always expected a phonecall for some of my traveling. In one week, I may purchase stuff in New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Canada and Mexico. Ya, I've had some long weeks. :) Still, I've never received the call from those for suspicious activity on my account, even though one purchase was in LA, and the next (in the same day) was in another country for a $1000 computer.
You have to figure, if a bank has say 500,000 accounts, they can be used anywhere at any time. It would take a huge staff to track the behavior of every client to make sure their activity is legitimate. They do maintain a staff, but look for the glaring red flags before they'll call. In 28 years of having credit cards, I've only been called once, and I would consider some of my purchases suspicious (like the one noted above).
I love the localized dating ads. I just saw one yesterday. An attractive woman, and the text said something like "I'm a lonely model traveling the country doing photo shoots. I just landed in [this city], and will be here for 3 days." The funny part is, they named the small town I'm in. There's no airport. She was distinctly out of place. Not to say there aren't attractive women here (there are plenty), but she had the LA look, not the look for here.
I knew someone who did those ads years ago. They were the first ads like that, that I saw. He used GeoIP to determine the city, and would automatically populate the variable. The silly part of these ads are when I travel, sometimes it doesn't know where I am, so it'll leave a blank, or still show the variable.
"I'm just into $city and want to meet you" :)
I'll give her a call as soon as I get to $city. ha.
You haven't looked around America much, have you?
But for entertainment, go park in front of McDonalds or Walmart for an hour, and keep track of the demographics of folks walking in and out. :)
That 2.7% is just "other", which could be people from anywhere. I'd suspect the black population would be significantly less than 2.7%.
But, if we assume that the 2.7% are others, that still means that if you have a group of 100 people, you'll have 2 or 3 blacks, and the rest whites. While it could be possible to have a white, black, and asian in a meeting, it's less likely, and therefore the image is more "foreign" as someone else said.
Your marketing should make it seem that "Oh, they're just like us", so you'll be more prone to buy the products. It's fun to travel around, and pay attention to the differences in marketing materials. Alcohol, cigarette, and vehicle ads are great for it.
I find vehicle ads more interesting. If you're in a rural area, where farms prevail, you'll find more ads with trucks, frequently showing them moving a heavy load (oohh, my truck is stronger!). As you work your way out from white collar metro areas, you'll spot ads for farm equipment rather. Even looking at vehicle dealerships, while they may have sports cars and economy cars, the lots will have more trucks. Why? Because in a rural farming area, the customers are buying trucks to suit their needs. Some of the ads simply have different models in an almost identical ad, simply because they're tailoring the ad to the demographic. If you're in a predominantly white area of farmers, you'll see white people with trucks. If you're in a predominantly black urban area, it will be targeted to them. It's the same with any group, I'm simply showing a few examples.
Some places are terribly racial, so having the wrong demographic portrayed in the advertising material have a negative impact. Think about an area like this, where they're selling Brand X beer. If you showed three black people drinking Brand X beer, that would indicate it's a black drink, and sales would drop. In areas where racial boundaries don't exist or aren't clearly defined, you could have racial mix on the signs, and sales would do well.
Marketing relies heavily on understanding your target market. Back to the original posting, if 97.3% of the people are white, and the majority of decision makers are white, you'd want to focus on them. I'm glad I'm not in marketing. I don't like to see lines based on race or sex. Myself, I see people as people. Still, I'd understand you can't focus on compact car sales in a farming community. :)
According to the CIA World Factbook:
Polish 96.7%,
German 0.4%,
Belarusian 0.1%, Ukrainian 0.1%,
other and unspecified 2.7% (2002 census)
2.7% doesn't seem like a lot.
Someone else mentioned that they should have ditched the Asian also. Maybe they simply wanted a majority white, rather than 33% white. Or maybe the asian was far enough out of the focus of the image that they didn't really care.
It's all about marketing though. I'm sure they've done more market research than we could possibly speculate on. But, being that this is Slashdot, we'll speculate anyways.
or to paraphrase, "market to your demographic". If our customer base is white, show white people in the advertising.
I've noticed that billboards in black neighbors show blacks. In Hispanic neighborhoods, they show Hispanics. etc, etc, etc.
This was just a poor attempt at getting something out the door to fit the job, rather than doing another shoot with fresh models.
Dammit, my mom gave away our old mechanical typewriter. I guess I just have to stay away from Microsoft products, and I'll be fine. I'm doing pretty good with that so far. :)
Maybe. Maybe not. You, with your sporting good store, may have suppliers in other countries. You may go to their site. You may go on a trip elsewhere. While you're out, you can trust that the interim manager can handle everything, or you can look in on your bank accounts while you're gone. I know, it's not the best idea in the world, but no one ever said business owners always follow best security practices.
If you were locked out of the account while you were overseas, you'd probably call and bitch the bank out (at $5/min for the phone charges). Not all businesses have the luxury of being mom & pop shops, and only ever doing business from their office line. Geo-locating the IP isn't exactly fool proof either. Depending on the line I'm on any day, I've been located in several states around the US, China, and Europe. All of those have been within one state, and generally just a handful of cities. It's not a failure on the ISP's part, it's a failure on the folks who are maintaining the geo-locating databases being used. Well, not exactly a failure, since they give a percentage of accuracy in their advertising.
I just checked the IP I'm on today with MaxMind's site (the providers of GeoIP). The result was close, but still the wrong city. What if I told them to only expect traffic from City X and determine anything from anywhere else was fraud? Now I'm going to be considered an attacker. Wheee. I hope the feds don't come knocking my door down. Well, I am sitting by the pool, sipping some pretty serious rum drinks right now, but that's what happens when you're on vacation. :)
But, that's the type of technical support headache that they've been trying to get away from, with virtual POS terminals, using the web page instead of their custom app, etc, etc. Even if your live CD worked on every machine ever known to man, when something flakes out, they're calling the bank first. Come on, how many times have you fixed a "my computer can't get on the Internet" because they accidentally unplugged the network cable? Or maybe they didn't even turn it on. Anyone who's worked in any kind of office where the management found out that you really now everything about computers, will bug the shit out of you to fix theirs (and their home machine, and the kids machine, and grand auntie Gertrude's machine too, even though she's legally blind and can't figure out what to do with a mouse).
I've spent the last month or two touring the country, going from site to site on demand to fix everything. You wouldn't believe how many "best practices" have been completely ignored. Even when you say "there was malware that intercepted everything done online. They have all of your usernames and passwords, credit card numbers, and account numbers. Call the bank and cancel every credit card you've used online, and change every password that you have", they say they'll get around to it sometime and won't actually do it.
I got a call today. It was a machine that I worked on two months ago, where I removed more viruses than I care to remember. Someone uninstalled the antivirus software that I installed, but they were kind enough to click through every way to get a new virus. 3 hours later it's clean again. I'll be getting the same call in a month.
Your edge cases aren't edge cases. I'm afraid they'd be pretty damned close to 50%. The first banks that tried to force it would go out of business, because the customers would go to another bank that's "easier to work with".
That's an exception, not a rule.
I know back in the day, there were more interesting methods of security, just as you mentioned. They may need to use a special app, dial up or have a leased line, and then do the transactions directly. I can't say that I've seen that in years with any small or medium size business. I personally hold a business account at a large bank. My choices for interfacing with them are to show up at the teller, go to the web site, or call the CS department who will run me around for 30+ minutes confirming my identity before I get anything resembling an answer that is usually wrong.
Well, there's another option, the CC POS terminal. But I don't have one. :) That doesn't give your balance or transaction history anyways.
I'm not terribly concerned about *my* business account. It has $4.68 in it, and that's been like that for 6 months. Good luck if you get my account info, you'll have wasted your time. :)
Ya, I caught that too. Get on a computer that can't browse to web sites, and then browse to http://mybank.example.com/ . Brilliant advice.
Since 99.99[ad nauseum]% of the users wouldn't know a hardened secure computer (I'm pretty sure Windows is categorically eliminated), I'm not sure who they were suggesting that to. I have the only Linux virus I've ever seen, and it's safely tucked away on a floppy disk, in a concrete vault, underground, at a location that I forgot. :) Dammit, I knew I shouldn't have left the map in the vault. Most "bank customers" wouldn't keep a dedicated machine just to check their bank balance with. Hell, they'll call out on the company PBX and give their credit card information over the phone to any arbitrary business, with coworkers happily writing it down and the phone admin recording the call.
Users are their own worst enemy. Hmm, wasn't there a story today saying something to that effect? I once found a bank card (w/ Visa logo) on top of an ATM. For some reason, they set it down and forgot it there. Brilliant. Since there was no one around to claim it, I called the bank. It took me an hour to convince them that I found it and that the card should be canceled. They "couldn't release any information on the card holder until...." I told them, "I'm holding the card in my hand. I guess that makes me the card holder." Finally, they told me "Oh, just bring it to a branch on Monday", at which point they finally canceled it. I knew the people at the branch, so they knew I was legitimate, and they confirmed that it hadn't been canceled. The account hadn't even been noted that I called in to report it. What if I wasn't a nice guy? I would have had 2 days or more to charge anything I wanted. If you can't get a person to maintain control over a little physical piece of plastic, why should you they think that they're going to do any better elsewhere?
I didn't list them, because I don't know them. But, someone else was kind enough to oblige you with a couple examples.
If you've ever taken standardized tests, including IQ tests, you should know that "always" and "every" are words that indicate usually (ahhh, avoiding always again).
True or False - Water is always wet.
Well, obviously true. But the state wasn't mentioned, so it could be water vapor or ice, and in both cases, it can be felt as not "wet" exactly. If you're standing in a desert, and there's 5% humidity, you're sure as heck going to say it's dry, regardless that there is some water content in the air.
But, at the question at hand, can you apply a generalization to all hardware? Have you tested it on all hardware? I seriously doubt it. :)
Well, I'd say "just about every", because you know there's always some exception. :)
I've actually played this game a few times lately. My ex and her mom bought brand new laptops. One was a Toshiba, and one was a Sony. They had Vista, and they were almost set to cripple the machine. 5% CPU utilization and a very dim screen when running on batteries out of the box. Plugging it in helped a lot. :)
I was getting very annoyed that I couldn't run just a few applications without it feeling like a 386, so I went into the power configuration, and turned up the throttles. It was still allowed to throttle, it just wasn't forced to. If I need 100% CPU utilization, I want 100% of the CPU to be available. Of course, by doing that, it cut my battery life way down. It was something like 10 hours on each, which then dropped to about 1hr 30min. Maybe I'm a CPU hog at times, but it's worth it. I'd rather have a 1.5hr battery life, than spend 10 hours doing what should have only taken me 1.5 hours.
On a few machines, I've swapped out Windows for Linux. Generally, I get better battery life under Linux, but then again, I compile my kernel without extra crap, and yes, I do enable tickless. I don't get into the manual tuning of the CPU throttling, because I'm happy with how it works out of the box (well, as built from a plain vanilla kernel). I won't say this is a perfect world. Some distros are heavier, because they install stuff you don't want or need. I prefer Slackware, so there's less cleanup after the install, and everything generally works.
To which part? That there are easily usable systems which forward phone calls, and you can chain those, or that you can disable the GPS on most cell phones (like, really disable, not just turn an option off).
I guess it could be considered "thrill". It started out as a observation of how life decisions made me untrackable. Various people I've been with (when I pop up) note "You pay with cash for everything?" or "Who's car are you driving today?" Someone commented (on the phone) a few days ago that I have more phone numbers than the Dell support centers. :) It's not that I *have* the numbers, it's just that I change them frequently enough that anything they store won't be good too long after that. I've lightened up my life so I can pack two suitcases, and be mobile for months. That started with work, but applied very nicely to life. The two suitcases are a luxury, where I'll have enough clothes for a couple weeks without washing anything. :) Once a friend said "you're driving another car every time I see you." It's an interesting way to spice things up. It's all perfectly legal. I don't have to be "at home" every day. There's no law that dictates it, at least for now. I don't "go home", because "home" is anywhere I want to be, and where a friend may be.
I'm not hiding from anything. I needed to speak with law enforcement several days ago, so I planned to end up in the right city at the right time, talked to them, and left. It's ok, it's nothing criminal. :) If "they" wanted to find me, "they" had the perfect opportunity.
BTW, my life decisions have moved me yet again, so even the location references I gave yesterday aren't even close to valid. 8 hours of driving at an average of 60mph changes my location by 540 miles. It's hard to date this way, but I'm too busy right now to maintain a good relationship, so I don't need it.
It's more of a game, and it keeps things interesting. I've seen more of the country in a few months than most people see in years, where they're tied down to "go to work, go home and sleep, go back to work.". I have a line on a "solid" job, where I'd work remotely. There's no harm in it. I can work from anywhere. I may be in New York one day, Los Angeles a few days later, and everywhere I can get a network connection in between is my "office". I could opt to fly to Europe (by boat is too slow), and continue wandering from there. There's no harm in it, and keeps things interesting. I may be working from New York, and visit the city in my spare time. Next week, it may from near the Grand Canyon in a few weeks, and I'll have a wonderful view after work. :) I won't run out of places to go anytime soon. I had settled down once. Well, a few times. It gets boring after a while. You see the same house, and the same neighbors. Who needs that. It's more interesting to see new things all the time. I'm always learning something. Maybe it's the history of an area, or new experiences from a new friend. Sometimes it's learning a new work trick from someone who I wouldn't have otherwise encountered. There's a lot to learn for anyone, and no single job, location, or friend, will ever teach it to you.
He wasn't hiding very well if he still showed up to the same job. The cops are more than happy to walk into your office, throw you on the floor, and arrest in front of all your coworkers, just as much as they are willing to arrest you in the privacy of your own home.
Isn't it easier to explain to the coworkers that you were out "sick" for a few days, rather than trying to explain the arrest at work?
Brilliant.
How about this. With an attorney, you go to the investigator DIRECTLY and explain the situation. "Never happened, wasn't there, didn't know the guy." They get bogus complaints all the time, and know how to filter them. No body, no witnesses (except one loon), no missing persons report, then there was no murder. That's not even enough to get a warrant (usually) to search for physical evidence.
I actually knew some people that claimed they were serial killers. They didn't know each other, and would sometimes claim to have done the same crimes, with different descriptions. They'd take credit for crimes, even though they were never anywhere near where the crimes happened. From what I understand, the police get false confessions all the time, from people who want the attention.
BTW, did I mention I knew the shooters involved in the Kennedy assassination? I was there and had drinks with them. George and Felix were interesting fellows. Maybe I can be famous too.
(Note: I got that information from publicly available conspiracy theories. I wasn't even born when the Kennedy assassination happened.)
Big deal. I fall "off the grid" all the time. That's where I am right now, not for any particular reason, other than I can. I'm not using any credit cards. I have a prepaid credit card, but rarely use it. The phone number everyone knows forwards three times, and ends up on a prepaid cell with no GPS capabilities. If I have the urge, I just pick up a new prepaid phone, and change the forwarding. I can change the last hop, or several of them.
I occasionally pop up in an unexpected city. I'll buy gas with the prepaid card. I'll tell someone to meet me in a particular location. I always pick a location close to them, so if I were being followed, they'd have to get to the city first before they could intercept me. Before they could get a flight half way there, I'd already be on the move. Gas is paid in cash. I sleep in my car, acquaintances houses, or less desirable hotels that I can pay cash at and give a false name for. "Sorry, someone stole my wallet with my drivers license. I'm from Nebraska, and can't get it replaced until I get back there." I'm driving a borrowed car from an old but obscure friend. It's not actually his car, but it belongs to another friend of his (who I know even know) that said he can use it for anything he wants. Voila. A vehicle that's safe to drive, that no one would recognize. :)
When I talk to friends, I tell them each different cities. There are a few official reasons that I'd reappear, which I have as necessary. Otherwise, I'm "off the grid" doing odd jobs. Getting another "real" job is almost impossible these days. Free access points are abundant. I use them for a few minutes, check my mail, read Slashdot, and move again. Only I know my schedule, and only the people I'm doing work for know when I'm going to be anywhere. They don't know each other, and don't know that I'm playing "off grid". They wouldn't have anyone to report it to anyways.
I drive routes I wouldn't normally drive, making "wrong" turns and letting the GPS redirect me through alternative routes.
I've been this way for a couple months now.
I popped "on grid" today. 5 people who know me saw me. I ran a credit card transaction for gas. Now, I'm 500 miles from there, and will be even more by morning. I'm maintaining a nondescript, nonthreatening look, and driving the speed limits. The police won't stop me, but if they do and run my drivers license, I'll pop off grid just as fast as I appeared.
If someone doesn't want to be found, they won't be. If someone wanted to find me, they'd always be looking in the wrong decoy cities. If I told you I was sitting in Atlanta, and had driven near Atlanta International Airport sometime today, what does that tell you? Nothing. I'm in an area with 5.3 million people. The odds that you'll spot me are minimal at best.
The target of the article is in a large metro area (San Francisco). He's thrown himself in front of a large crowd, begging to be caught. There may be a few Wired readers, and a few Slashdot readers there. Someone's going to want the $5k. I'm not going to bother. It's not worth my time or energy to go out there to find him. Maybe for $50k I'd find him in a few days, but otherwise, it's no worth it.