The top and bottom of it is, you don't want to be dependent upon someone else's platform incase they decide to later cut you out of the market.
But instead of pushing for and promoting open platforms, companies are happy to be dependent on someone else's platform while the owner of that platform isn't trying to compete with them - and then act all surprised when that platform owner steals the lunch they laid out under their nose. The platform owner is a business too, if they see you making a good profit on a platform they control of course they're going to leverage their position to take that profit for themselves.
If you want to be able to run your business in an open market, you need open platforms on which to do so.
Anyone can create a piece of "music" and distribute a million copies of it for negligible cost, many people do with varying degrees of quality. Once the first copy is created, infinite copies can be created and distributed for free. Anyone can create a piece of software and distribute a million copies of it for negligible cost. many people do with varying degrees of quality. Once the first copy is created, infinite copies can be created and distributed for free.
It is much harder to create and distribute a piece of hardware, while anyone could in theory design a piece of hardware actually manufacturing it requires tooling and raw materials. Even after the initial design phase, each subsequent unit will still cost something to produce.
There was blackberry, symbian, windows mobile... Apple succeeded because their product was vastly superior to these existing offerings in various ways.
Actually it's more like saying someone has monopolized diesel distribution, when the majority of cars use gas... You are free to choose a diesel car knowing these restrictions, or you can just as easily buy a gas car.
Alt+tab, then while holding tab use the arrow keys (including up and down).
Better, but still quite crude compared to alt+number to go direct to a virtual screen that's already laid out for a specific purpose.
The part I hate is when my mouse grabs focus while I'm alt tabbing.
I hate when applications steal focus, if an application wants to ask me something it should wait until i decide to look at that application, not draw focus away from whatever i'm doing and shove a requester in my face.
It might work fine, but it's also inefficient when you have lots of windows open... Many non windows systems also implement alt+tab because users are familiar with it, while also offering other solutions (eg multiple workspaces being my personal favorite)...
Just because something works doesn't mean it couldn't be done better another way... And just because a new way is now being offered, doesn't mean the old functionality is going to be removed.
As primarily a linux/mac user, i find the alt+tab (and its equivalents) quite crude and ineffective when you're running a large number of applications (having to cycle through a large number of applications one by one)... I generally have multiple virtual workspaces which are each setup for a specific purpose (usually multiple apps laid out in each) and then switch directly to the numbered workspace that i require.
When i've seen people heavily using alt+tab it's usually on systems where a very small number of applications are in use (maybe 3-4), they are running maximized and the user is switching between them. From my desk right now i can see another user doing this with a browser, a mail client and a spreadsheet.
Yes, because cash is anonymous the banks are required to perform anti money laundering checks on large deposits and they will pass these costs onto their customers.
According to a quick google search, the average life expectancy in the US is 78.69 years, and this guy was clearly already in poor health so the news won't have come as a shock to him.
Also just because he was 78 doesn't mean he's unfamiliar with technology, people of his generation started the information age. Donald Knuth is 81 for instance, while Ken Thompson is 76...
Still, about 20 to 30% of the company wanted a paper check and then would immediately go to a check-cashing facility, paying a whopping 7% of their paycheck to turn it into cash.
There is an entire segment of the population that does not accept banks or anything other than cash. To them cash is real money. Force them into cashless models and you hurt that group that's just not culturally ready to accept these types of financial systems.
You don't "hurt" that group, you force them to wake up to their own stupidity... These people usually aren't on very high incomes to begin with, and then they throw 7% of their salary away every month? They are hurting themselves. There's no reason they can't setup a direct deposit and then withdraw the cash from the bank or using an ATM, same end result without incurring the 7% fee. In some places it's difficult to find a usable ATM on payday as they've all been drained and the network is overloaded.
ATMs owned by your bank or your bank's teller probably won't charge you a fee, but that's very inconvenient if you don't have a bank located right next to wherever you're doing your shopping.
And why would you use an ATM to take cash for your shopping? Surely it makes more sense to just use the debit card to pay for the shopping directly, thus avoiding any ATM fees.
In many countries, ATMs don't charge fees - at least for domestic users.
This is already the case in many countries (eg in europe)... You can get a basic account into which you can deposit funds and to which is attached a debit card you can use for purchases. The basic operations of depositing funds, receiving/sending transfers, making card payments or using an atm are free. You don't get any form of credit, you can't spend any money you haven't already deposited into the account.
They might, but i don't get a 3% discount if i pay with cash so why would i care? The retailer sets their prices taking into account the cost of processing transactions. Handling cash is also not free, depending on the retailer it might cost more than the 3% to handle cash (losses due to theft, risk of theft, cost of transporting cash and acquiring small change etc). As a visitor to a foreign country, the FX rates provided by card operators are MUCH better than i can get by exchanging cash, which makes paying by card much cheaper for me, I also don't end up with piles of useless change at the end of my trip.
Cards are massively more convenient from an end user perspective, the only reason to use cash for a customer is if you're concerned about privacy, and you'll also be trying to avoid all the cctv in and around the store.
Cash being stolen deprives you of the cash permanently... Card fraud you report and in 99% of cases the bank will sort it out and refund you. Financial loss vs minor inconvenience.
Also cards have to be fraudulently used somewhere, which leaves a trail for law enforcement to follow. Cash is much harder to trace once it's gone.
It's faster because the store can have more of them and keep them permanently open, whereas its uneconomical to keep cashiers on standby waiting for customers so there will usually be a queue. Some stores also have a system whereby you use a handheld scanner (or your phone) to tally up the items in advance before putting them in your cart, then you only have to pay which eliminates many of the steps you've highlighted above.
The lazy clerks playing on their cellphones or having idle non work related chats also occur with those who are supposed to be cashiers. I walked out of a store in disgust recently because the only cashier was chatting to her friends on a phone (she was loud enough everyone could hear her conversation) while a large queue was forming.
Your card should reject the payment if there is insufficient funds in the account, if you have agreed an overdraft with the bank which includes high fees thats your fault.
Aside from adding the physical hardware for cash handling, you will also have to pay for a cash transportation service to empty out the larger bills and restock the small change regularly. These services aren't cheap.
Only handling cash is not free, and in many cases can be more expensive than the card processing fees...
You need to transport the cash to the bank, which takes someone's time and carries a risk of robbery or you have to pay a dedicated cash transport service. You have to get small change from the bank so you can provide change to customers, which isn't free either. You incur extra costs from mistakes (over changing etc). You can incur costs due to theft by staff. You lose money due to forged cash, and also have to invest in mechanisms to check for forged cash. You have to provide security to cover large amounts of cash on the premises, and pay for insurance. Cash transactions take more time if your staff and/or the customer are counting out change.
Then there is the inconvenience for the customer of having to carry and use cash.
Cash is inconvenient, you have to plan in advance how much you'll need and always carry extra incase of unforseen problems. Carrying around lots of cash is potentially dangerous as it makes you an attractive target for thieves.
Cash is also a big hassle for people who travel, many cards offer far better FX rates than you'll ever get at a money changer shop, and taking cash from an ATM often incurs punitive fees. Plus you have to take more cash than you need just incase, and are likely to end up with a pile of useless change once you leave the country.
Businesses are out to make profit... If it were possible to pay women less than men but otherwise achieve the same standard of work, don't you think that all companies would be exclusively hiring women?
Indeed people today in western majority-white countries are far less racist than other countries, it just happens to be more widely publicised because the media and/or authorities might actually do something about it. In many non white countries, racism simply happens and is part of daily life and you have no recourse against it whatsoever. It's also mostly white countries that have allowed mass immigration, and mostly white countries where immigrants can gain the same citizenship rights as those born locally.
Keeping these devices under wraps is actually detrimental, as you put them out of reach of legitimate white hat security researchers. As a result, the only people acquiring these devices and performing research on them will be well funded blackhat groups like organised crime and government agencies who will keep any exploits they find for their own use.
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The top and bottom of it is, you don't want to be dependent upon someone else's platform incase they decide to later cut you out of the market.
But instead of pushing for and promoting open platforms, companies are happy to be dependent on someone else's platform while the owner of that platform isn't trying to compete with them - and then act all surprised when that platform owner steals the lunch they laid out under their nose. The platform owner is a business too, if they see you making a good profit on a platform they control of course they're going to leverage their position to take that profit for themselves.
If you want to be able to run your business in an open market, you need open platforms on which to do so.
Anyone can create a piece of "music" and distribute a million copies of it for negligible cost, many people do with varying degrees of quality. Once the first copy is created, infinite copies can be created and distributed for free.
Anyone can create a piece of software and distribute a million copies of it for negligible cost. many people do with varying degrees of quality. Once the first copy is created, infinite copies can be created and distributed for free.
It is much harder to create and distribute a piece of hardware, while anyone could in theory design a piece of hardware actually manufacturing it requires tooling and raw materials. Even after the initial design phase, each subsequent unit will still cost something to produce.
There was blackberry, symbian, windows mobile...
Apple succeeded because their product was vastly superior to these existing offerings in various ways.
Actually it's more like saying someone has monopolized diesel distribution, when the majority of cars use gas... You are free to choose a diesel car knowing these restrictions, or you can just as easily buy a gas car.
Alt+tab, then while holding tab use the arrow keys (including up and down).
Better, but still quite crude compared to alt+number to go direct to a virtual screen that's already laid out for a specific purpose.
The part I hate is when my mouse grabs focus while I'm alt tabbing.
I hate when applications steal focus, if an application wants to ask me something it should wait until i decide to look at that application, not draw focus away from whatever i'm doing and shove a requester in my face.
It might work fine, but it's also inefficient when you have lots of windows open...
Many non windows systems also implement alt+tab because users are familiar with it, while also offering other solutions (eg multiple workspaces being my personal favorite)...
Just because something works doesn't mean it couldn't be done better another way... And just because a new way is now being offered, doesn't mean the old functionality is going to be removed.
As primarily a linux/mac user, i find the alt+tab (and its equivalents) quite crude and ineffective when you're running a large number of applications (having to cycle through a large number of applications one by one)...
I generally have multiple virtual workspaces which are each setup for a specific purpose (usually multiple apps laid out in each) and then switch directly to the numbered workspace that i require.
When i've seen people heavily using alt+tab it's usually on systems where a very small number of applications are in use (maybe 3-4), they are running maximized and the user is switching between them. From my desk right now i can see another user doing this with a browser, a mail client and a spreadsheet.
Yes, because cash is anonymous the banks are required to perform anti money laundering checks on large deposits and they will pass these costs onto their customers.
Although the prevalence of embarrassing data leaks seems to be waking some people up to the importance of privacy and security...
According to a quick google search, the average life expectancy in the US is 78.69 years, and this guy was clearly already in poor health so the news won't have come as a shock to him.
Also just because he was 78 doesn't mean he's unfamiliar with technology, people of his generation started the information age. Donald Knuth is 81 for instance, while Ken Thompson is 76...
Many people simply have no alternative to comcast, they know the service sucks and is overpriced but the alternative is dialup.
Still, about 20 to 30% of the company wanted a paper check and then would immediately go to a check-cashing facility, paying a whopping 7% of their paycheck to turn it into cash.
There is an entire segment of the population that does not accept banks or anything other than cash. To them cash is real money. Force them into cashless models and you hurt that group that's just not culturally ready to accept these types of financial systems.
You don't "hurt" that group, you force them to wake up to their own stupidity...
These people usually aren't on very high incomes to begin with, and then they throw 7% of their salary away every month? They are hurting themselves.
There's no reason they can't setup a direct deposit and then withdraw the cash from the bank or using an ATM, same end result without incurring the 7% fee. In some places it's difficult to find a usable ATM on payday as they've all been drained and the network is overloaded.
ATMs owned by your bank or your bank's teller probably won't charge you a fee, but that's very inconvenient if you don't have a bank located right next to wherever you're doing your shopping.
And why would you use an ATM to take cash for your shopping? Surely it makes more sense to just use the debit card to pay for the shopping directly, thus avoiding any ATM fees.
In many countries, ATMs don't charge fees - at least for domestic users.
This is already the case in many countries (eg in europe)... You can get a basic account into which you can deposit funds and to which is attached a debit card you can use for purchases. The basic operations of depositing funds, receiving/sending transfers, making card payments or using an atm are free.
You don't get any form of credit, you can't spend any money you haven't already deposited into the account.
They might, but i don't get a 3% discount if i pay with cash so why would i care? The retailer sets their prices taking into account the cost of processing transactions.
Handling cash is also not free, depending on the retailer it might cost more than the 3% to handle cash (losses due to theft, risk of theft, cost of transporting cash and acquiring small change etc).
As a visitor to a foreign country, the FX rates provided by card operators are MUCH better than i can get by exchanging cash, which makes paying by card much cheaper for me, I also don't end up with piles of useless change at the end of my trip.
Cards are massively more convenient from an end user perspective, the only reason to use cash for a customer is if you're concerned about privacy, and you'll also be trying to avoid all the cctv in and around the store.
Cash being stolen deprives you of the cash permanently...
Card fraud you report and in 99% of cases the bank will sort it out and refund you.
Financial loss vs minor inconvenience.
Also cards have to be fraudulently used somewhere, which leaves a trail for law enforcement to follow. Cash is much harder to trace once it's gone.
It's faster because the store can have more of them and keep them permanently open, whereas its uneconomical to keep cashiers on standby waiting for customers so there will usually be a queue.
Some stores also have a system whereby you use a handheld scanner (or your phone) to tally up the items in advance before putting them in your cart, then you only have to pay which eliminates many of the steps you've highlighted above.
The lazy clerks playing on their cellphones or having idle non work related chats also occur with those who are supposed to be cashiers. I walked out of a store in disgust recently because the only cashier was chatting to her friends on a phone (she was loud enough everyone could hear her conversation) while a large queue was forming.
Your card should reject the payment if there is insufficient funds in the account, if you have agreed an overdraft with the bank which includes high fees thats your fault.
Aside from adding the physical hardware for cash handling, you will also have to pay for a cash transportation service to empty out the larger bills and restock the small change regularly. These services aren't cheap.
Only handling cash is not free, and in many cases can be more expensive than the card processing fees...
You need to transport the cash to the bank, which takes someone's time and carries a risk of robbery or you have to pay a dedicated cash transport service.
You have to get small change from the bank so you can provide change to customers, which isn't free either.
You incur extra costs from mistakes (over changing etc).
You can incur costs due to theft by staff.
You lose money due to forged cash, and also have to invest in mechanisms to check for forged cash.
You have to provide security to cover large amounts of cash on the premises, and pay for insurance.
Cash transactions take more time if your staff and/or the customer are counting out change.
Then there is the inconvenience for the customer of having to carry and use cash.
You may not be able to get a credit card because noone would lend you money, but there's no reason you shouldn't be able to get a debit card.
Cash is inconvenient, you have to plan in advance how much you'll need and always carry extra incase of unforseen problems. Carrying around lots of cash is potentially dangerous as it makes you an attractive target for thieves.
Cash is also a big hassle for people who travel, many cards offer far better FX rates than you'll ever get at a money changer shop, and taking cash from an ATM often incurs punitive fees. Plus you have to take more cash than you need just incase, and are likely to end up with a pile of useless change once you leave the country.
Businesses are out to make profit...
If it were possible to pay women less than men but otherwise achieve the same standard of work, don't you think that all companies would be exclusively hiring women?
Indeed people today in western majority-white countries are far less racist than other countries, it just happens to be more widely publicised because the media and/or authorities might actually do something about it.
In many non white countries, racism simply happens and is part of daily life and you have no recourse against it whatsoever.
It's also mostly white countries that have allowed mass immigration, and mostly white countries where immigrants can gain the same citizenship rights as those born locally.
Keeping these devices under wraps is actually detrimental, as you put them out of reach of legitimate white hat security researchers.
As a result, the only people acquiring these devices and performing research on them will be well funded blackhat groups like organised crime and government agencies who will keep any exploits they find for their own use.