On a side note, why are people suddenly so in love with the term "infographic"? Can't we call it a "graph" or "chart"?
First, infographics isn't a new term, it's a been around since the early 1990s, at least.
Second, infographics is a more inclusive category than charts or graphs. Charts and graphs tend to be quantitative in nature. A good example of an infographic is a map: calling a subway map a chart is a stretch. (Yes, I'm aware of nautical and aeronautical charts.)
So, when Dan suggests that Flash has legitimate uses for infographics, I think that's a perfectly legitimate use of the term.
Will you feel the same way when a Republican POTUS uses these powers the Progressives are attempting to usurp?
Honestly? If George Bush supported his FCC bringing ISPs under the control of title II as common carriers (which is now being proposed), I wouldn't have cared, or at least not for partisan reasons.
Can you explain how classifying ISPs under Title II will lead towards partisan government control of the internet? I don't see your point here.
I saw this story [philly.com] earlier today and now I'm more convinced than ever the whole thing is BS. Look carefully at the photograph (provided by the parents, I might add.) Who goes to sleep with their laptop turned on and the camera pointed right at their face, so that it's perfectly centered in the frame and just well lit enough to show it clearly? If you've ever seen real photographs taken by peeping toms with hidden cameras, they're always grainy and show subjects in unflattering lighting conditions. This picture is just to perfect to be real.
I think that's a silly argument, the same sort of logic and amateur forensics lead many birthers to the conclusion that Obama wasn't born in Hawaii.
If this image was fake, I'm sure the judge in the case would be furious. IANAL, but I'm sure that lying to the media about evidence in an ongoing case is somewhat unethical...
More likely: The image was cropped, maybe by the news organization or the family. Sure, it does have good composition, but to assume that the image is uncropped and too good (and therefore must be fraudulent!) needs a great big jump to conclusions mat.
Oh and...
If you've ever seen real photographs taken by peeping toms with hidden cameras, they're always grainy and show subjects in unflattering lighting conditions.
That might just be the most disturbing thing I've read on Slashdot all day. I'm hoping you simply didn't consider your words carefully...
I have been telling people for YEARS how unwise it is to have or use a "debit" card with a Visa/MC logo on it. My bank kept INSISTING that I use one, and I would have to send it back and tell them to please send me a regular debit/ATM card. Many of the same people that thought I was "paranoid" and "obsessive" or just plain strange don't think so anymore.
You are paranoid. And ignorant. As long as you report the theft to your financial institution as soon as you learn about it, there are strong protections in place. It's simply not true that it's up to YOU to track down your money. It's up to your financial institution. They are required by law to credit you in the case of errors or unauthorized purchases, and are even required to issue a provisional credit in many cases before the investigation is complete.
A Visa Debit card carries the same protections as a Visa Credit card for signature based-transactions. PIN based transactions are still covered by Regulation E, which protects the consumer.
And there's no such thing as a perfectly good ATM card: with a skimmer, a fraudster can clone your ATM card and have your PIN. Fraudulent PIN based transactions are MUCH harder to refute. People call up all the time and say, "I have no idea how that person got my PIN number, I've never given it to ANYONE!" We (my bank) pull the ATM video, and sure enough it's their son/daughter. The consumer sheepishly admits, "Oh, well, I just told them my PIN once, months ago..." Given the choice between turning the video over to the police or rescinding the claim of unauthorized use, many people will choose the latter.
Credit cards are limited by U.S. law to a maximum of $50 liability to the cardholder. Debit cards losses are usually covered by the bank, but they are under no legal obligation to do so.
The rules for provisional credit on debit cards is very well established. They fall under Regulation E, section 205.11. The bank has ten days to get you a provisional refund, and can take up to 45 days in certain circumstances to complete their investigation and finalize the credit.
Make sure you get them a notice in writing! Once you do, they have ten days to credit you, and many banks will do it much faster. If the bank drags their feet, just tell them "I want provisional credit within the mandated timeline per Regualtion E".
The protection for misuse of debit cards is strong, you just need to know what to do. If your bank isn't responsive, Move Your Money to a smaller institution that cares.
The Second War Powers Act of 1942 temporarily repealed that protection [census confidentiality] to assist in the roundup of Japanese-Americans for imprisonment in internment camps in California and six other states during the war.
According to the same article, the Census Bureau denied this for decades.
It's true that in response, the privacy of the census was further codified:
The legal confidentiality of census information dates to 1910, and in 1954 it became part of Title 13 of the U.S. Code
After doing some research, it's clear that the Slashdot summary is accurate. If the "summary reads as is [sic] those protections were disregarded in that roundup", it's because they were. I pity the mods that fell for you.
Also, try to pack all that electronics into such a small package, including feedback cancellation (that really loud whine that older hearing aids were prone to produce) and and it has to be able to run on a single battery for at least a few hours at a time.
I bet Apple could do it.
If Google has a philanthropic arm (google.org), why can't Apple?
Yep, because idiots think their linux nat appliances are routers just because they use them in an 'office', and those of us who've worked in telecom laugh at them decisively.
That's odd, I always thought they were routers because they connected two different networks and routed packets between them. *shrugs*
Microsoft is based in Seattle. We tend to be quite liberal and supportive of civil rights out here. Hell, I had two jobs with two lesbian managers in a row -- in IT! How often does that happen?
Microsoft learned about this the hard way in 2005: Originally opposed to a gay rights bill in Washington state, they quickly changed position.
Said Balmer at the time:
"After looking at the question from all sides, I've concluded that diversity in the workplace is such an important issue for our business that it should be included in our legislative agenda," Ballmer wrote. Ballmer said he did not want to "rehash the events" that led to the company taking a position of neutrality. But he did say the company was implementing changes to make sure the mistakes were not repeated.
I read that as "our employees [probably smart, talented, and many quite senior in the company] threw a fucking fit over our ignorance."
True to their word, in 2009 Microsoft donated $100k to support partnership rights in Washington.
I agree with other commenters that this is a civil rights issue, and seriously doubt Microsoft will screw the pooch on gay rights ever again.
The other is that greedy operators like ARCO will skim $0.45 off the top of every debit card transaction.
Ha! What an entitled thing to say. You're American, eh? If you think ARCO is being greedy, your ignorance is showing.
The fee they're charging is to reimburse them for the cost of the debit card transaction, called an interchange fee. What started as a way for financial institutions to reimburse each other for the cost of transactions quickly turned into a way to profit. For ARCO, $.45 on a cheap-gas fill-up is a lot! That could blow the margin right there.
When faced with debit card fees, ARCO has several options. They can either integrate the fee into their gasoline prices, subsidising the fee by prices which affect cash customers as well. Or, they can be up front and let consumers decide if the cost of the debit transaction is worth it to them. If it's not, the customer can go somewhere else, or bring cash.
Most other businesses don't do this because they sell items on a higher margin. Gasoline is no such business. People use ARCO because they like cheap gas. If ARCO didn't charge the fee, gas wouldn't be as cheap.
As an aside, if you see someone charging fees for Visa signature-based transactions, it's against the rules, and Visa would love to know about it.
It wouldn't take too much hardware or programming effort to build a detection system into cop cars, at least a 2 receiver triangulation device to pinpoint bluetooth transmitters would do it.
You are aware that Bluetooth transmitters are used for, uhhh, other things aren't you?
Thanks for taking the time to respond to slashdot comments. I truly hope Comcast keeps this up, and stays involved in community forums to support web standards and disseminate accurate technical information.
Say what you will about their business practices, customer service, reliability, whatever... But when it comes to IPv6 and being involved in the technical community, they're kicking ass and taking names.
Comcast's services (High Speed Internet, digital TV, etc) are being rebranded Xfinity.
So, class, let's use 'Xfinity' in a sentence. Repeat after me: "When you have no other competitors in your local area, you pick up a phone and order Xfinity from Comcast."
when it comes to complex, interesting questions of language design, very few people are even vaguely qualified to comment, and when it comes to issues of whitespace every idiot on the planet has an opinion
Ahhh! The old bikeshed metaphor! I've been using this one a lot as a web developer...
Some people have commented that the amount of noise generated by a change is inversely proportional to the complexity of the change.
Yes, in the US this is a standard practice. No financial institution I know of will keep a spare key to a safe deposit box. (The exception being those institutions which have switched to electronic locks, that technology doesn't easily allow for an institution to lock themselves out intentionally.)
That second key the bank possesses is known as a guard key. It's there to prevent what banks call "box hopping/jumping" where you sign-in on one box, and use a separate key to access another box unaudited. (eg if one has physical access to a safe deposit key, but isn't legally authorized to access the box).
If you were offering people the ability to store possessions of unknown value for a small fee, would you want a spare key, knowing the liabilities that having access to that box would bring?
Indeed. I started crying like an eight year old girl when I heard he was leaving WaPo. His coverage has been excellent, especially on things like banking security, the Heartland breach, etc.
I stopped sobbing when I heard he was going to start blogging instead.
Really? Have you recent facts to back that claim up? It may have been true in the 1950s, but is it still true in today's world, where a hacker can gain essentially "insider" authority?
It's true, and still truer than ever. Insider losses are on the rise,
The difference between insider attacks and outsider attacks are much different than what an outsider obtains through cracking and privilege escalation. Just because you own a system (or all of them), doesn't mean you can do what an insider can.
An insider attack at a financial institution normally involves a misuse of funds, embezzlement, unauthorized wire activity, etc. The attacks are stealthy. A bank keeps their finances through hundreds of ledger accounts, and rely on internal controls to keep everything straight. As anyone who works inside an organization knows, it's this insider knowledge which allows cracks in the internal controls to be found. Find the cracks and a way to manipulate the money's path through ledger accounts, and insider attacks become complex (and maybe hard to find) very quickly.
Hell, (I wish I could find a link), an employee at an institution was caught selling fake investments recently. They would sell the phony securities to other institutions (in their employer's name), and embezzle that money that came in. It went on for a while: That's what an insider can do.
This is why bank employees/officers need to take mandatory uninterrupted vacations: if you're gone for two weeks, you can't keep your thumb on the scale anymore.
Insider attacks are much different than outsider attacks.
For many projects out there $100 would be a lot of money. In many cases project web pages have "Donate" links which work through paypal. So I suggest you list a few OSS products you use. Take a couple of hundred dollars out of petty cash (call it software licensing) and donate it to those projects.
The OP can't do this. If you think state governments in the US have anything close to petty cash funds, you're probably mistaken. They're too ripe for abuse.
At $JOB-- (public university), we had a pair of redundant firewalls running OpenBSD that saved us thousands, and made us very happy.
It was easy to get approval to buy the OpenBSD CD sets with each release. It was only a few hundred dollars over the course of several years, cheap for us, and better-than-nothing for Theo et al.
Check to see if the devs have any documentation (O'Reilly books, pay PDFs, etc) for sale. This is another good place to kick in a few bucks, documentation is a legitimate expense and worthwhile investment.
What bothers me is that some companies (eg ZenOSS) make support SOOOO expensive when you jump from the open-source to commercial version. The price jump for a small business is insane, especially if they're fine without 24/7 support and the features they have already.
A cheque paid into a business account is not free either..
In the US, it most certainly is in many cases. If you're a big enough business that the bank knows they might lose money on you, they'll charge a nominal per-check fee (~$.05 or so).
Most banks would much rather have you on board with a nice big line of credit, and the income that comes with it, than dick around charging you for check clearing.
Slashdot Mirror
You should have told Edward Tufte this years ago, it would have saved him a lot of trouble.
Instead of naming his seminal classic, "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information", he could have just called it "Charts and Graphs."
First, infographics isn't a new term, it's a been around since the early 1990s, at least.
Second, infographics is a more inclusive category than charts or graphs. Charts and graphs tend to be quantitative in nature. A good example of an infographic is a map: calling a subway map a chart is a stretch. (Yes, I'm aware of nautical and aeronautical charts.)
So, when Dan suggests that Flash has legitimate uses for infographics, I think that's a perfectly legitimate use of the term.
Honestly? If George Bush supported his FCC bringing ISPs under the control of title II as common carriers (which is now being proposed), I wouldn't have cared, or at least not for partisan reasons.
Can you explain how classifying ISPs under Title II will lead towards partisan government control of the internet? I don't see your point here.
I think that's a silly argument, the same sort of logic and amateur forensics lead many birthers to the conclusion that Obama wasn't born in Hawaii.
If this image was fake, I'm sure the judge in the case would be furious. IANAL, but I'm sure that lying to the media about evidence in an ongoing case is somewhat unethical...
More likely: The image was cropped, maybe by the news organization or the family. Sure, it does have good composition, but to assume that the image is uncropped and too good (and therefore must be fraudulent!) needs a great big jump to conclusions mat.
Oh and...
That might just be the most disturbing thing I've read on Slashdot all day. I'm hoping you simply didn't consider your words carefully...
You are paranoid. And ignorant. As long as you report the theft to your financial institution as soon as you learn about it, there are strong protections in place. It's simply not true that it's up to YOU to track down your money. It's up to your financial institution. They are required by law to credit you in the case of errors or unauthorized purchases, and are even required to issue a provisional credit in many cases before the investigation is complete.
A Visa Debit card carries the same protections as a Visa Credit card for signature based-transactions. PIN based transactions are still covered by Regulation E, which protects the consumer.
And there's no such thing as a perfectly good ATM card: with a skimmer, a fraudster can clone your ATM card and have your PIN. Fraudulent PIN based transactions are MUCH harder to refute. People call up all the time and say, "I have no idea how that person got my PIN number, I've never given it to ANYONE!" We (my bank) pull the ATM video, and sure enough it's their son/daughter. The consumer sheepishly admits, "Oh, well, I just told them my PIN once, months ago..." Given the choice between turning the video over to the police or rescinding the claim of unauthorized use, many people will choose the latter.
That simply isn't true. See Regulation E.
IAABG (I am a banking geek).
The rules for provisional credit on debit cards is very well established. They fall under Regulation E, section 205.11. The bank has ten days to get you a provisional refund, and can take up to 45 days in certain circumstances to complete their investigation and finalize the credit.
Make sure you get them a notice in writing! Once you do, they have ten days to credit you, and many banks will do it much faster. If the bank drags their feet, just tell them "I want provisional credit within the mandated timeline per Regualtion E".
Here's more on this topic:
http://www.bankersonline.com/technology/guru2008/gurus_tech022508c.html
http://usa.visa.com/personal/security/visa_security_program/zero_liability.html
http://finsolinc.com/Reg%20E%20EFTA%20Error%20Resolution%20Flowchart.pdf
The protection for misuse of debit cards is strong, you just need to know what to do. If your bank isn't responsive, Move Your Money to a smaller institution that cares.
No, good sir, what you write is indeed bullshit.
Says Says Scientific American in 2007:
According to the same article, the Census Bureau denied this for decades.
It's true that in response, the privacy of the census was further codified:
After doing some research, it's clear that the Slashdot summary is accurate. If the "summary reads as is [sic] those protections were disregarded in that roundup", it's because they were. I pity the mods that fell for you.
I bet Apple could do it.
If Google has a philanthropic arm (google.org), why can't Apple?
That's odd, I always thought they were routers because they connected two different networks and routed packets between them. *shrugs*
Microsoft is based in Seattle. We tend to be quite liberal and supportive of civil rights out here. Hell, I had two jobs with two lesbian managers in a row -- in IT! How often does that happen?
Microsoft learned about this the hard way in 2005: Originally opposed to a gay rights bill in Washington state, they quickly changed position.
Said Balmer at the time:
I read that as "our employees [probably smart, talented, and many quite senior in the company] threw a fucking fit over our ignorance."
True to their word, in 2009 Microsoft donated $100k to support partnership rights in Washington.
I agree with other commenters that this is a civil rights issue, and seriously doubt Microsoft will screw the pooch on gay rights ever again.
Ha! What an entitled thing to say. You're American, eh? If you think ARCO is being greedy, your ignorance is showing.
The fee they're charging is to reimburse them for the cost of the debit card transaction, called an interchange fee. What started as a way for financial institutions to reimburse each other for the cost of transactions quickly turned into a way to profit. For ARCO, $.45 on a cheap-gas fill-up is a lot! That could blow the margin right there.
When faced with debit card fees, ARCO has several options. They can either integrate the fee into their gasoline prices, subsidising the fee by prices which affect cash customers as well. Or, they can be up front and let consumers decide if the cost of the debit transaction is worth it to them. If it's not, the customer can go somewhere else, or bring cash.
Most other businesses don't do this because they sell items on a higher margin. Gasoline is no such business. People use ARCO because they like cheap gas. If ARCO didn't charge the fee, gas wouldn't be as cheap.
As an aside, if you see someone charging fees for Visa signature-based transactions, it's against the rules, and Visa would love to know about it.
You are aware that Bluetooth transmitters are used for, uhhh, other things aren't you?
Chris,
Thanks for taking the time to respond to slashdot comments. I truly hope Comcast keeps this up, and stays involved in community forums to support web standards and disseminate accurate technical information.
Probably because they aren't rebranding their corporate entity.
Also, if you think this is the first cool thing Comcast has done in support of the internet, you're dead wrong. They have some very talented and involved engineers working hard on IPv6, publishing IETF drafts on IPv6 transition strategies, making nice after their BitTorrent escapades, etc.
Say what you will about their business practices, customer service, reliability, whatever... But when it comes to IPv6 and being involved in the technical community, they're kicking ass and taking names.
No, they don't. Comcast will still be Comcast.
Comcast's services (High Speed Internet, digital TV, etc) are being rebranded Xfinity.
So, class, let's use 'Xfinity' in a sentence. Repeat after me: "When you have no other competitors in your local area, you pick up a phone and order Xfinity from Comcast."
Ahhh! The old bikeshed metaphor! I've been using this one a lot as a web developer...
Some people have commented that the amount of noise generated by a change is inversely proportional to the complexity of the change.
I think the bikeshed should be white
Yes, in the US this is a standard practice. No financial institution I know of will keep a spare key to a safe deposit box. (The exception being those institutions which have switched to electronic locks, that technology doesn't easily allow for an institution to lock themselves out intentionally.)
That second key the bank possesses is known as a guard key. It's there to prevent what banks call "box hopping/jumping" where you sign-in on one box, and use a separate key to access another box unaudited. (eg if one has physical access to a safe deposit key, but isn't legally authorized to access the box).
If you were offering people the ability to store possessions of unknown value for a small fee, would you want a spare key, knowing the liabilities that having access to that box would bring?
Indeed. I started crying like an eight year old girl when I heard he was leaving WaPo. His coverage has been excellent, especially on things like banking security, the Heartland breach, etc.
I stopped sobbing when I heard he was going to start blogging instead.
Not since 1996 (and probably earlier) when RFC 2045 was written.
The last century called, they want their Mutt-grasping curmudgeon back.
It's true, and still truer than ever. Insider losses are on the rise,
The difference between insider attacks and outsider attacks are much different than what an outsider obtains through cracking and privilege escalation. Just because you own a system (or all of them), doesn't mean you can do what an insider can.
An insider attack at a financial institution normally involves a misuse of funds, embezzlement, unauthorized wire activity, etc. The attacks are stealthy. A bank keeps their finances through hundreds of ledger accounts, and rely on internal controls to keep everything straight. As anyone who works inside an organization knows, it's this insider knowledge which allows cracks in the internal controls to be found. Find the cracks and a way to manipulate the money's path through ledger accounts, and insider attacks become complex (and maybe hard to find) very quickly.
Hell, (I wish I could find a link), an employee at an institution was caught selling fake investments recently. They would sell the phony securities to other institutions (in their employer's name), and embezzle that money that came in. It went on for a while: That's what an insider can do.
This is why bank employees/officers need to take mandatory uninterrupted vacations: if you're gone for two weeks, you can't keep your thumb on the scale anymore.
Insider attacks are much different than outsider attacks.
The OP can't do this. If you think state governments in the US have anything close to petty cash funds, you're probably mistaken. They're too ripe for abuse.
At $JOB-- (public university), we had a pair of redundant firewalls running OpenBSD that saved us thousands, and made us very happy.
It was easy to get approval to buy the OpenBSD CD sets with each release. It was only a few hundred dollars over the course of several years, cheap for us, and better-than-nothing for Theo et al.
Check to see if the devs have any documentation (O'Reilly books, pay PDFs, etc) for sale. This is another good place to kick in a few bucks, documentation is a legitimate expense and worthwhile investment.
What bothers me is that some companies (eg ZenOSS) make support SOOOO expensive when you jump from the open-source to commercial version. The price jump for a small business is insane, especially if they're fine without 24/7 support and the features they have already.
That's utterly untrue. No bank I've ever heard of charges 'points on check clearing. At most you're talking a small fixed fee, less than a dime.
Compare that with 5% on a $1000 purchase.
In the US, it most certainly is in many cases. If you're a big enough business that the bank knows they might lose money on you, they'll charge a nominal per-check fee (~$.05 or so).
Most banks would much rather have you on board with a nice big line of credit, and the income that comes with it, than dick around charging you for check clearing.