That's part of why they don't want buyers and sellers to be exchanging email addresses, they want to have a record of all communications so they can review them for such abuses if claimed. (the other part of course is they want to prevent people from making deals outside ebay so they don't have to give ebay a cut, but that's just part of the biz)
If you put your email address in a message to seller or buyer, ebay will refuse to send the message. (easy to get around, but they aren't going to fight hard to prevent it, just discourage it)
Again drawing on the biology model, I would expect a collective NOT to become more generalized, but instead to become more specialized. Like we have skin cells and liver cells and blood cells etc. Our society is already far down that road, we have plumbers and farmers and bakers and teachers. We, even as individuals, aren't able to do a good job at a very wide variety of things that our lives depend on. We have already gotten pretty specialized. I just see this as a trend that will become more and more pronounced as time passes, especially with how so much of our lives is becoming automated. A few decades from now, the average person may be as skilled at cooking a meal as the average person today is at sewing. And that's a pretty tame example.
Everyone's going to be a specialist, and nobody's going to be a generalist.
It's not so much a loss of control but a loss of individuality. No different than how your billions of cells have given up "control" as they are part of the collective of your body.
It's easy to argue that your body is capable of accomplishing things several orders of magnitude more complex than any of your individual cells can accomplish. I think almost by definition it's impossible for us to begin to imagine what a collective of people is capable of.
Favoring our own individuality over what we're capable of as a collective is an incredibly selfish desire, although it's one we by our nature all have;)
Not really, they've just got their own unique qualities.
There are essentially three kinds of security: - "Something you know" : like a passcode - "Something you have" : like a key - "Something you are" : biometrics
The BEST security combines all three of these aspects. That's when you see the general in the movie walk up to the big door, swipe his card (something he has), type a code into the pin pad (somthing he knows), and then scan his iris or face (something he is).
Each method has its own benefits and drawbacks. Using more than one method at a time helps overcome some of the deficiencies, although it also negates some of the benefits. The big benefits of biometrics are ease of use and reliability. It's reliable in the sense that you can forget a passcode or lose a key, but you can't lose or forget your retina. Access to things you need to authenticate many times a day really benefit form biometrics because ease of use is a high priority. The low security of the method is less important for a cell phone, compared to say your house or car. Biometrics on a car would be a terrible idea. On a phone though, they make perfect sense. Then just imagine if you needed a physical object (like a key) to unlock your phone? But we're OK with that for a house or a car. But needing a key for an ATM is impractical and would be terrible for security, since many people need to use it. And low security of biometrics would also be a terrible idea. So we use a pin code/ (something we know)
It's all about using the method of security that's appropriate for the application. There is no universal "best" type of security..
Though it's useful to offer more than one kind of security, so users can decide what's appropriate for them. The average soccer mom will do just fine with a fingerprint scanner on her phone. A business's IT department will probably turn that off on their corporate phones, and enforce the phones to require long PINs. Same device, but different security/convenience requirements. Again, there IS no one best way. Pick the right tool for the job.
Since available bandwidth is fixed, they have to slow someone down to speed someone else up. So yes, that's pretty much the definition of violating NN.
They didn't just express "optimism". They stated as fact that the overstock "will be corrected", when in fact they had no plan to fix the problem.
And it's a good thing for them they didn't have a plan! What they provided shareholders and potential investors with was a forecast... a statement of what they anticipated would occur in the future, as a result of factors they obviously did not have full control over. I can say I hope to win the lottery in tomorrow's drawing, and that's not a lie. And you'd be a fool to take it as a statement of fact or truth. If on the other hand they stated they guaranteed the correction would occur, then you'd have something to complain about. They didn't say they'd make it happen, their words were carefully chosen. "will be corrected". By who? When? And then at the bottom is their standard disclaimer, basically reiterating that anything in the release that wasn't a statement of past history or current condition is merely a forecast and is not a certainty or promise. (they usually also add that you shouldn't make ANY financial decisions based solely on the report)
If they described a plan, (or at least stated they were taking steps to help insure the correction occurs) then maybe you can start to get some traction, and get them for failing to execute their plan effectively, or incompetence in designing the plan. But I didn't see a plan. They played it smart and didn't give you enough rope to hang them with.
Investors that have blind faith in company forecasts are getting what they deserve. They are legally obligated to report past and current, but they will always dream of an amazing future. Do your homework before buying stock.
"But they LIED to us when they said they expected things would improve!!" No, optimism is not lying. Thank you for your money, now go home.
between 1980 and 1985, the company shelled out an eye-popping $45 billion in capital investment. Despite that spending, its global market share rose by but a single percentage point, to 22%.
There is a hidden assumption here that corrupts that statistic. "If GM had not made the investment, there would have been NO change in their global market share."
This is important, because without considering that, "22%" has no point of reference. The assumption is the reference is 0% - "no change". The likely reality here though is that their competitors (new and existing) were also automating, and had they not done so also, they would have lost market share. Ignoring this makes it look like the $45B was wasted with almost zero return. The reality is that at least some of that money helped them maintain their market share. GM's investment looks a lot more intelligent if you assume instead they would have, for example, lost 15% market share had they not made that investment.
And this is just one of many ways people like with statistics.
Too bad their efficiency sucks. I've worked a lot with them, they've gotten quite cheap in the last few years. The first one I bought to experiment with was $22. Now you can get ten for about that. You can thank the public for dropping the price on them with their demand for those 12v portable coolers that plug into cigarette lighters.
What a lot of people didn't realize though is the little buggers draw about 2 amps of power (at 12vdc) to create a ~ 30 degree temperature gradient. Which isn't really that much, and it generates 25 watts of heat (plus whatever heat it's moved out of the cooler) on the external heat sink, so it really tends to warm up its surroundings.
Only VERY recently have I seen much in the way of reverse-use. You can buy cell phone chargers now that you sit by the campfire when you're out on a camping trip, to charge your cel phone with the power of the camp fire. Not all that efficient, but in that setting, efficiency isn't important, as you're sitting next to a stupidly large wasted heat source (where cooling isn't an issue) anyway.
I'd like to see this tech evolve more than finding new packaging for old technology. They need to find something besides the peltier. Efficient waste heat energy recovery and universal material recyclers are the TWO technologies that can change the world in the way the transistor did. So I'm not sure if I'm happy or sad to see this - yes it's better than what we've got now, but you're just rehashing old tech rather than finding better tech. This is the "acorn tube / nuvistor" of its time. We don't need better tubes, we need something better than tubes.
Don't forget that she was probably in high school in the late 1930's / early 1940's (bio says she was 93 years old).
It held on a lot longer than that. My mother was born in 1953, and SHE also for some reason decided to get on board the Latin Train. (yes, again with FIVE years of it...) On the plus side, you can ask her what pretty much any word means and she can get you started in the general direction by ripping it apart, regardless of how many syllables it has. (actually, the more, the better)
So for her anyway, five years of latin means she doesn't need to keep a dictionary around the house. Nice I suppose, but not that good of a trade for all the time sunk in what could have been math or something else more universally useful as a life-skill.
she requested to take a second year of algebra instead of a fifth year of Latin. When she made the appeal, she recounted in a 2017 interview with NPR that the guidance counselor wasn't supportive of her dream to become a scientist.
I don't understand what teachers or councilors like that are thinking. School is to prepare you for adulthood, help you find your direction in life, and give you skills that will get you employment when you graduate. What on earth is FIVE years of latin going to get you? Sure there's a few niche jobs that it'd be useful in - clergy, archeology, maybe museum... but MATH, that will open hundreds of doors for you.
As far as services like hair salons, I find that it is widely appreciated by service workers if you tip in cash even when paying with a credit card.
That's because tips are taxable income. And it's very common for employees to "skim" some of their tips into their pockets and not record the full amount of their tips for the evening. This saves them some income tax. If you add your tip to the receipt when you settle your bill, that gets recorded and can't really be skimmed, and so they only take home a percentage of your $2 tip. Pay in green on the table and it likely will all go into their wallet.
The key word here is "DEBT". In this context, "debt" refers to one of two things: Either something that you owe due to process (like taxes - ie "public debt") or due to the seller/provider having extended you (long OR short term) credit for goods they are unwilling or unable to accept a return on. ("private debt") Example like being allowed to pump gas, consume food, or experience entertainment are things that are impractical or impossible to return. You can either demand payment in advance (in which case you can restrict the form of payment you will accept, you CAN refuse to accept cash) OR you are extending the consumer credit, even if it is very short term. (like when you pay for a meal at a restaurant after eating... but try that one at mcdonalds... vendors are NOT obligated to extend even short term credit)
So if they extend credit to you, then your greenbacks become legal tender for settling that private debt, as specified on the bill and backed by your link from the feds.
The angle I find interesting is that coins seem to be refusable to settle large debts. I think we've all seen stories of disgruntled people paying tickets and fines with wheelbarrows of pennies or nickels, and the discussion that follows, that some (usually government agencies) refuse to accept payment in small coin. I suspect this is due to coins technically not being quite the "legal tender" that bills are?
Getting back to the hair-salon problem... if you do not want to accept cash payment after rendering services, then you'd better get your payment in advance of providing the service. Because after you've extended credit and the consumer has been provided with a non-returnable service, your rights are very limited. You can accept the cash, you can forgive the debt, (let them walk away without paying, permanently nullifying the debt), or you can try to negotiate some other form of payment or credit extension, such as going home to get your purse. You have no legal right to refuse cash and demand a specific form of settlement for a debt, and no legal right to force the consumer to accept some other specific payment arrangement. If they don't want to walk to the car to get their purse, and they thrust cash at you, that's their right and you're down to "take-it-or-leave-it". You're not obligated to provide change, but you are also not entitled to refuse the cash without forgiving the debt.
20th anniversary? ugh. I remember when that first came out, I showed it to everyone at work. There was no content, just that loud repeating song and these little figures twirling around on the entire page. It was like nothing we'd ever seen before. We were just wondering, "Is there a point to it?" "Are they tryin to send some kind of message?" Web pages were all just so literal back then, like nobody had realized you could just DO stuff to have fun, that there didn't HAVE to be a point to it. I think that's what made it so popular for its few day of fame.
I also recall all those spinning characters really hurting the web browser and machine, like 100% CPU usage to get them good enough to only just stutter a little bit. Some of the computers couldn't handle it at all. But back then it was somewhat unusual to see ANY animation on a web page, let alone the entire page. And it didn't matter how big your monitor was, you could full-screen the window and it STILL filled the page with twirling hamsters.
I live in central Iowa, in a city that has lots of trees and (in the 1980's anyway) had large areas of the city that were not heavily developed and basically had little islands of forrest in the middle of the city. Around 1985, I got to see an incredible sight. The monarch migration passed right through town, specifically stopping to rest at a wooded area not 300 feet from my apartment.
There were lots of older trees there, mainly maples, that stood 70-100ft tall, and they were dripping with butterflies. Every leaf had several butterflies on it, all of them slowly flexing their wings, making the entire tree look like it was breathing, in a shimmering silver-brown color. There was no green to be seen anywhere in the canopy, everything was covered with monarchs. The branches were even getting visibly weighed down from weight of butterflies, some branches that normally were ten feet off the ground were within hand's reach. You could reach up and slowly brush your hand through a living curtain of butterflies. It was amazing!
This went on for about three days. There were monarchs flying lazily around all over the place, and if you walked slowly though the area, you'd have several of them landing on you as you walked or stopped to stare at them. Monarchs are very large butterflies too. I wouldn't even want to attempt to count how many there were. I did't own a camera back then, but I wish I did. I would have taken so many pictures. But back then I was pretty young, and didn't recognize that this was a sight I would probably never get to see again, so all I have of it are the memories of the trees filled with butterflies.
We had a fair amount of "ditch weed" (milkweek) in the area, especially in the ditches along the gravel roads outside town. I used to go to the empty lots where there was still a lot of "prairie" type land between the neighborhoods, where milkweed could be plentiful, and see if I could find the vibrantly colored monarch caterpillars. They're striped yellow, white, and black. Sometimes if I found one I'd take it home along with some milkweed, and raise it. I'd have to go back and pick more milkweed from time to time. Then it would stop eating and climb to a stick in the jar and make a chrysalis and I'd have to wait a month or so for it to hatch and fly away. it started out a very interesting shape, colored green to match the milkweed, but with a ring of gold (like jewelwry gold) spots around the top crown area, like someone had painted drops of gold paint in a halo around the top of it (like https://naturetime.files.wordp...) A week or so before it hatched, the chrysalis would become transparent, and you could see the gold wings folded up inside, sometimes moving a little.
Nowadays, there are still quite a few trees in town, most yards have a tree, but there are very few vacant grass lots or clumps of trees inside town. Outside town, it's all farmland now, so again not much in the way of woods. But still lots of milkweed in the ditches around town, and I do see a monarch from time to time, but they're pretty rare. I've been considering planting some milkweed in my front yard now, to see if I can attract some monarchs. We don't really consider it a problem weed here in town. The plants are pretty solitary and don't spread fast like some other "weed" do. They have a somewhat attractive large flower also. Not something you want to eat though, they produce a large volume of a very thick white milky sap if you break off a leaf. Monarch caterpillars are one of the few insects that can eat them, and they retain the toxin as butterflies also, which is why the caterpillars and adults are so brightly colored - they're a toxic meal for most birds.
i was JUST thinking that. I worked at a school several years ago when they decided to mess with DST hours. About 100 computers running an older OS were not going to get an update to correct the DST change, so we had to manually change 100 clocks. Then (2 weeks?) later we had to fix them again, because the OS changed them when it shouldn't because there was no way to stop it from trying to adjust for DST.
It won't be the end of the world, but it it WILL be a big headache for some, and in many cases, an unexpected headache, especially for businesses. Bus schedules, time clocks, time LOCKS, answering services... the list just goes on and on and on. Very difficult to anticipate everything because coordinated time is just something you take for granted in so many places.
"eh, this patch only fixes *four* four critical vulnerabilities, I think I can just ignore that, I'll hold out for AT LEAST six before I bother to update." - said no one, ever.
Even after ignoring the fact that almost no one reads the fine details on what got patched, by far the biggest "disincentives" to patching are (A) annoyingly over-frequent (can you say FLASH?), and (B) device reboots / downtime for the update. You want to improve and speed adoption of security updates? That's what you need to be focusing on, not more detailed release notes.
I'll admit I had a similar kneejerk response to this, "closed is bad". But there's another important facet to the problem that makes this angle seriously worth looking at. When any organization gets big it requires a "ruling body" of some sort. It could be a government, a committee, a board, whatever. Those people either each represent groups of their members, or are all supposed to represent all of their members in their own way. Regardless of how it works, differing opinions are always a good thing, making sure that even unpopular ideas get their due consideration.
But the other half of this strength is in the solidarity of the board. Any "command structure", be it civil, corporate, or military, requires that once a decision has been made, (regardless of the process) it's important that "everyone is on board". This is easy if you agree with the decision, but it's hard if you don't agree and wanted something different. BUT if the board has arrived at a decision, they need everyone's support. The board must move as a group, so that they can quickly and efficiently execute the plan that's been decided on. Continuing to publicly push for a different direction after it's been made fails the "do unto others as you'd have done unto you". Flip the tables and this quickly becomes a distasteful thing.
I don't entirely like the idea of "confidentiality", but the point is that the members can't all move in the same direction if different opinions are still being voiced after the direction has been decided by the board. Otherwise you have chaos as members that agreed with one of the minority board members want to either go in that direction or start back up the discussion to try to get the board to change its mind.
Maybe a middle-ground is best here, but it requires a good deal of thoughtful behavior by the board. It's a bit like how the SCOTUS has "minority opinions" published after some decisions, in particular the 5-4's. The minority opinion usually explains BOTH sides of the story, points out differences, and goes into some detail as to why the dissenting judges didn't side with the majority. Nowhere there does it call for further discussion on the matter, or in any way state that the lower courts should consider their minority opinion. I think this minority opinion takes it as absolutely as far as it should go. Most of the 6/3's and below don't even publish an opinion, in the interest of solidarity.
Also look at any military organization. Behind closed doors you're usually encouraged to voice your opinions, giving your commander options and possibly trying to sway his decision. BUT once he has come to a decision, you DO NOT argue with him over it in front of the troops. The military expects their people to go all-in, and doesn't tolerate public disagreement with decisions that have been made, because moving as a unit is paramount.
So there are two pretty much opposite sides of the story there with their justifications. I think trying to label board solidarity as "censorship" is a desperate attempt to call an apple an orange in the hopes of winning an argument they've already lost. (and I don't even know what they're arguing about!) Censorship is stopping an idea from being seen by the public. I would be astounded if the ideas these minority board members have are some stunning revelations that nobody has seen before or that nobody else is talking about. This isn't about an idea being suppressed, it's about the opinions of an individual, whose primary duty is to the board. And after the board has made a decision, it's their duty to "be the public face of that decision". Trying to display your disagreements to the public after the board has arrived at a decision is contrary to your responsibility to those members. It's sad if the board has to resort to passing rules to encourage its directors to do their job. That may not have been the best route to take though - dissenting directors that refuse to get on board and publicly sup
The article talks about people under 45 being "vulnerable". Sorry, if you're in your 30s-40s (or even really mid 20s) and are still "vulnerable" to scams, your parents have failed spectacularly in preparing you for life in the real world. Perhaps it's just a form of natural selection at work. Parents that fail to educate their kids deseve a little penalty to their gene pool.
Well it sometimes follows the "throw it all on the wall and see what sticks". IE "add all sorts of features, and then only keep the best" It's difficult to predict what will be a hit and what will work well, vs what sounded good but nobody liked and what would be great if you could pull it off but never came together.
Bigger orgs like MS have problems with this, they seem to have a problem with bloat. I suspect it's a cultural / organizational thing where there's too much "feature set by committee" and nobody has enough power to say "kill that". That's exactly what the video I linked above is mocking.
I also hope this doesn't happen. I'm tired of seeing stadiums, rate tracks, and all sorts of other highly visible cultural centerpoints being corporate-logod.
That's just it - this isn't a Facebook problem, it's a Mob Justice problem.
It seems pretty clear to me that these people would have used whatever "vehicle" happened to come popular first to coordinate and execute their mob justice social tendencies.
So getting rid of facebook won't fix the problem any more than getting rid of cocaine will fix the drug problem. They'll just find another way to do what they feel like doing.
Slashdot Mirror
That's part of why they don't want buyers and sellers to be exchanging email addresses, they want to have a record of all communications so they can review them for such abuses if claimed. (the other part of course is they want to prevent people from making deals outside ebay so they don't have to give ebay a cut, but that's just part of the biz)
If you put your email address in a message to seller or buyer, ebay will refuse to send the message. (easy to get around, but they aren't going to fight hard to prevent it, just discourage it)
Again drawing on the biology model, I would expect a collective NOT to become more generalized, but instead to become more specialized. Like we have skin cells and liver cells and blood cells etc. Our society is already far down that road, we have plumbers and farmers and bakers and teachers. We, even as individuals, aren't able to do a good job at a very wide variety of things that our lives depend on. We have already gotten pretty specialized. I just see this as a trend that will become more and more pronounced as time passes, especially with how so much of our lives is becoming automated. A few decades from now, the average person may be as skilled at cooking a meal as the average person today is at sewing. And that's a pretty tame example.
Everyone's going to be a specialist, and nobody's going to be a generalist.
It's not so much a loss of control but a loss of individuality. No different than how your billions of cells have given up "control" as they are part of the collective of your body.
It's easy to argue that your body is capable of accomplishing things several orders of magnitude more complex than any of your individual cells can accomplish. I think almost by definition it's impossible for us to begin to imagine what a collective of people is capable of.
Favoring our own individuality over what we're capable of as a collective is an incredibly selfish desire, although it's one we by our nature all have ;)
Not really, they've just got their own unique qualities.
There are essentially three kinds of security:
- "Something you know" : like a passcode
- "Something you have" : like a key
- "Something you are" : biometrics
The BEST security combines all three of these aspects. That's when you see the general in the movie walk up to the big door, swipe his card (something he has), type a code into the pin pad (somthing he knows), and then scan his iris or face (something he is).
Each method has its own benefits and drawbacks. Using more than one method at a time helps overcome some of the deficiencies, although it also negates some of the benefits. The big benefits of biometrics are ease of use and reliability. It's reliable in the sense that you can forget a passcode or lose a key, but you can't lose or forget your retina. Access to things you need to authenticate many times a day really benefit form biometrics because ease of use is a high priority. The low security of the method is less important for a cell phone, compared to say your house or car. Biometrics on a car would be a terrible idea. On a phone though, they make perfect sense. Then just imagine if you needed a physical object (like a key) to unlock your phone? But we're OK with that for a house or a car. But needing a key for an ATM is impractical and would be terrible for security, since many people need to use it. And low security of biometrics would also be a terrible idea. So we use a pin code/ (something we know)
It's all about using the method of security that's appropriate for the application. There is no universal "best" type of security..
Though it's useful to offer more than one kind of security, so users can decide what's appropriate for them. The average soccer mom will do just fine with a fingerprint scanner on her phone. A business's IT department will probably turn that off on their corporate phones, and enforce the phones to require long PINs. Same device, but different security/convenience requirements. Again, there IS no one best way. Pick the right tool for the job.
without there also being a slow lane
Since available bandwidth is fixed, they have to slow someone down to speed someone else up. So yes, that's pretty much the definition of violating NN.
And it's a good thing for them they didn't have a plan! What they provided shareholders and potential investors with was a forecast... a statement of what they anticipated would occur in the future, as a result of factors they obviously did not have full control over. I can say I hope to win the lottery in tomorrow's drawing, and that's not a lie. And you'd be a fool to take it as a statement of fact or truth. If on the other hand they stated they guaranteed the correction would occur, then you'd have something to complain about. They didn't say they'd make it happen, their words were carefully chosen. "will be corrected". By who? When? And then at the bottom is their standard disclaimer, basically reiterating that anything in the release that wasn't a statement of past history or current condition is merely a forecast and is not a certainty or promise. (they usually also add that you shouldn't make ANY financial decisions based solely on the report)
If they described a plan, (or at least stated they were taking steps to help insure the correction occurs) then maybe you can start to get some traction, and get them for failing to execute their plan effectively, or incompetence in designing the plan. But I didn't see a plan. They played it smart and didn't give you enough rope to hang them with.
Like they say about fools and their money...
Investors that have blind faith in company forecasts are getting what they deserve. They are legally obligated to report past and current, but they will always dream of an amazing future. Do your homework before buying stock.
"But they LIED to us when they said they expected things would improve!!" No, optimism is not lying. Thank you for your money, now go home.
There is a hidden assumption here that corrupts that statistic. "If GM had not made the investment, there would have been NO change in their global market share."
This is important, because without considering that, "22%" has no point of reference. The assumption is the reference is 0% - "no change". The likely reality here though is that their competitors (new and existing) were also automating, and had they not done so also, they would have lost market share. Ignoring this makes it look like the $45B was wasted with almost zero return. The reality is that at least some of that money helped them maintain their market share. GM's investment looks a lot more intelligent if you assume instead they would have, for example, lost 15% market share had they not made that investment.
And this is just one of many ways people like with statistics.
Too bad their efficiency sucks. I've worked a lot with them, they've gotten quite cheap in the last few years. The first one I bought to experiment with was $22. Now you can get ten for about that. You can thank the public for dropping the price on them with their demand for those 12v portable coolers that plug into cigarette lighters.
What a lot of people didn't realize though is the little buggers draw about 2 amps of power (at 12vdc) to create a ~ 30 degree temperature gradient. Which isn't really that much, and it generates 25 watts of heat (plus whatever heat it's moved out of the cooler) on the external heat sink, so it really tends to warm up its surroundings.
Only VERY recently have I seen much in the way of reverse-use. You can buy cell phone chargers now that you sit by the campfire when you're out on a camping trip, to charge your cel phone with the power of the camp fire. Not all that efficient, but in that setting, efficiency isn't important, as you're sitting next to a stupidly large wasted heat source (where cooling isn't an issue) anyway.
I'd like to see this tech evolve more than finding new packaging for old technology. They need to find something besides the peltier. Efficient waste heat energy recovery and universal material recyclers are the TWO technologies that can change the world in the way the transistor did. So I'm not sure if I'm happy or sad to see this - yes it's better than what we've got now, but you're just rehashing old tech rather than finding better tech. This is the "acorn tube / nuvistor" of its time. We don't need better tubes, we need something better than tubes.
It held on a lot longer than that. My mother was born in 1953, and SHE also for some reason decided to get on board the Latin Train. (yes, again with FIVE years of it...) On the plus side, you can ask her what pretty much any word means and she can get you started in the general direction by ripping it apart, regardless of how many syllables it has. (actually, the more, the better)
So for her anyway, five years of latin means she doesn't need to keep a dictionary around the house. Nice I suppose, but not that good of a trade for all the time sunk in what could have been math or something else more universally useful as a life-skill.
I don't understand what teachers or councilors like that are thinking. School is to prepare you for adulthood, help you find your direction in life, and give you skills that will get you employment when you graduate. What on earth is FIVE years of latin going to get you? Sure there's a few niche jobs that it'd be useful in - clergy, archeology, maybe museum... but MATH, that will open hundreds of doors for you.
That's because tips are taxable income. And it's very common for employees to "skim" some of their tips into their pockets and not record the full amount of their tips for the evening. This saves them some income tax. If you add your tip to the receipt when you settle your bill, that gets recorded and can't really be skimmed, and so they only take home a percentage of your $2 tip. Pay in green on the table and it likely will all go into their wallet.
The key word here is "DEBT". In this context, "debt" refers to one of two things: Either something that you owe due to process (like taxes - ie "public debt") or due to the seller/provider having extended you (long OR short term) credit for goods they are unwilling or unable to accept a return on. ("private debt") Example like being allowed to pump gas, consume food, or experience entertainment are things that are impractical or impossible to return. You can either demand payment in advance (in which case you can restrict the form of payment you will accept, you CAN refuse to accept cash) OR you are extending the consumer credit, even if it is very short term. (like when you pay for a meal at a restaurant after eating... but try that one at mcdonalds... vendors are NOT obligated to extend even short term credit)
So if they extend credit to you, then your greenbacks become legal tender for settling that private debt, as specified on the bill and backed by your link from the feds.
The angle I find interesting is that coins seem to be refusable to settle large debts. I think we've all seen stories of disgruntled people paying tickets and fines with wheelbarrows of pennies or nickels, and the discussion that follows, that some (usually government agencies) refuse to accept payment in small coin. I suspect this is due to coins technically not being quite the "legal tender" that bills are?
Getting back to the hair-salon problem... if you do not want to accept cash payment after rendering services, then you'd better get your payment in advance of providing the service. Because after you've extended credit and the consumer has been provided with a non-returnable service, your rights are very limited. You can accept the cash, you can forgive the debt, (let them walk away without paying, permanently nullifying the debt), or you can try to negotiate some other form of payment or credit extension, such as going home to get your purse. You have no legal right to refuse cash and demand a specific form of settlement for a debt, and no legal right to force the consumer to accept some other specific payment arrangement. If they don't want to walk to the car to get their purse, and they thrust cash at you, that's their right and you're down to "take-it-or-leave-it". You're not obligated to provide change, but you are also not entitled to refuse the cash without forgiving the debt.
20th anniversary? ugh. I remember when that first came out, I showed it to everyone at work. There was no content, just that loud repeating song and these little figures twirling around on the entire page. It was like nothing we'd ever seen before. We were just wondering, "Is there a point to it?" "Are they tryin to send some kind of message?" Web pages were all just so literal back then, like nobody had realized you could just DO stuff to have fun, that there didn't HAVE to be a point to it. I think that's what made it so popular for its few day of fame.
I also recall all those spinning characters really hurting the web browser and machine, like 100% CPU usage to get them good enough to only just stutter a little bit. Some of the computers couldn't handle it at all. But back then it was somewhat unusual to see ANY animation on a web page, let alone the entire page. And it didn't matter how big your monitor was, you could full-screen the window and it STILL filled the page with twirling hamsters.
I live in central Iowa, in a city that has lots of trees and (in the 1980's anyway) had large areas of the city that were not heavily developed and basically had little islands of forrest in the middle of the city. Around 1985, I got to see an incredible sight. The monarch migration passed right through town, specifically stopping to rest at a wooded area not 300 feet from my apartment.
There were lots of older trees there, mainly maples, that stood 70-100ft tall, and they were dripping with butterflies. Every leaf had several butterflies on it, all of them slowly flexing their wings, making the entire tree look like it was breathing, in a shimmering silver-brown color. There was no green to be seen anywhere in the canopy, everything was covered with monarchs. The branches were even getting visibly weighed down from weight of butterflies, some branches that normally were ten feet off the ground were within hand's reach. You could reach up and slowly brush your hand through a living curtain of butterflies. It was amazing!
This went on for about three days. There were monarchs flying lazily around all over the place, and if you walked slowly though the area, you'd have several of them landing on you as you walked or stopped to stare at them. Monarchs are very large butterflies too. I wouldn't even want to attempt to count how many there were. I did't own a camera back then, but I wish I did. I would have taken so many pictures. But back then I was pretty young, and didn't recognize that this was a sight I would probably never get to see again, so all I have of it are the memories of the trees filled with butterflies.
We had a fair amount of "ditch weed" (milkweek) in the area, especially in the ditches along the gravel roads outside town. I used to go to the empty lots where there was still a lot of "prairie" type land between the neighborhoods, where milkweed could be plentiful, and see if I could find the vibrantly colored monarch caterpillars. They're striped yellow, white, and black. Sometimes if I found one I'd take it home along with some milkweed, and raise it. I'd have to go back and pick more milkweed from time to time. Then it would stop eating and climb to a stick in the jar and make a chrysalis and I'd have to wait a month or so for it to hatch and fly away. it started out a very interesting shape, colored green to match the milkweed, but with a ring of gold (like jewelwry gold) spots around the top crown area, like someone had painted drops of gold paint in a halo around the top of it (like https://naturetime.files.wordp...) A week or so before it hatched, the chrysalis would become transparent, and you could see the gold wings folded up inside, sometimes moving a little.
Nowadays, there are still quite a few trees in town, most yards have a tree, but there are very few vacant grass lots or clumps of trees inside town. Outside town, it's all farmland now, so again not much in the way of woods. But still lots of milkweed in the ditches around town, and I do see a monarch from time to time, but they're pretty rare. I've been considering planting some milkweed in my front yard now, to see if I can attract some monarchs. We don't really consider it a problem weed here in town. The plants are pretty solitary and don't spread fast like some other "weed" do. They have a somewhat attractive large flower also. Not something you want to eat though, they produce a large volume of a very thick white milky sap if you break off a leaf. Monarch caterpillars are one of the few insects that can eat them, and they retain the toxin as butterflies also, which is why the caterpillars and adults are so brightly colored - they're a toxic meal for most birds.
I miss those days!
that prince said something bad would happen if I didn't help him cash in that inheritance
i was JUST thinking that. I worked at a school several years ago when they decided to mess with DST hours. About 100 computers running an older OS were not going to get an update to correct the DST change, so we had to manually change 100 clocks. Then (2 weeks?) later we had to fix them again, because the OS changed them when it shouldn't because there was no way to stop it from trying to adjust for DST.
It won't be the end of the world, but it it WILL be a big headache for some, and in many cases, an unexpected headache, especially for businesses. Bus schedules, time clocks, time LOCKS, answering services... the list just goes on and on and on. Very difficult to anticipate everything because coordinated time is just something you take for granted in so many places.
"eh, this patch only fixes *four* four critical vulnerabilities, I think I can just ignore that, I'll hold out for AT LEAST six before I bother to update." - said no one, ever.
Even after ignoring the fact that almost no one reads the fine details on what got patched, by far the biggest "disincentives" to patching are (A) annoyingly over-frequent (can you say FLASH?), and (B) device reboots / downtime for the update. You want to improve and speed adoption of security updates? That's what you need to be focusing on, not more detailed release notes.
I'll admit I had a similar kneejerk response to this, "closed is bad". But there's another important facet to the problem that makes this angle seriously worth looking at. When any organization gets big it requires a "ruling body" of some sort. It could be a government, a committee, a board, whatever. Those people either each represent groups of their members, or are all supposed to represent all of their members in their own way. Regardless of how it works, differing opinions are always a good thing, making sure that even unpopular ideas get their due consideration.
But the other half of this strength is in the solidarity of the board. Any "command structure", be it civil, corporate, or military, requires that once a decision has been made, (regardless of the process) it's important that "everyone is on board". This is easy if you agree with the decision, but it's hard if you don't agree and wanted something different. BUT if the board has arrived at a decision, they need everyone's support. The board must move as a group, so that they can quickly and efficiently execute the plan that's been decided on. Continuing to publicly push for a different direction after it's been made fails the "do unto others as you'd have done unto you". Flip the tables and this quickly becomes a distasteful thing.
I don't entirely like the idea of "confidentiality", but the point is that the members can't all move in the same direction if different opinions are still being voiced after the direction has been decided by the board. Otherwise you have chaos as members that agreed with one of the minority board members want to either go in that direction or start back up the discussion to try to get the board to change its mind.
Maybe a middle-ground is best here, but it requires a good deal of thoughtful behavior by the board. It's a bit like how the SCOTUS has "minority opinions" published after some decisions, in particular the 5-4's. The minority opinion usually explains BOTH sides of the story, points out differences, and goes into some detail as to why the dissenting judges didn't side with the majority. Nowhere there does it call for further discussion on the matter, or in any way state that the lower courts should consider their minority opinion. I think this minority opinion takes it as absolutely as far as it should go. Most of the 6/3's and below don't even publish an opinion, in the interest of solidarity.
Also look at any military organization. Behind closed doors you're usually encouraged to voice your opinions, giving your commander options and possibly trying to sway his decision. BUT once he has come to a decision, you DO NOT argue with him over it in front of the troops. The military expects their people to go all-in, and doesn't tolerate public disagreement with decisions that have been made, because moving as a unit is paramount.
So there are two pretty much opposite sides of the story there with their justifications. I think trying to label board solidarity as "censorship" is a desperate attempt to call an apple an orange in the hopes of winning an argument they've already lost. (and I don't even know what they're arguing about!) Censorship is stopping an idea from being seen by the public. I would be astounded if the ideas these minority board members have are some stunning revelations that nobody has seen before or that nobody else is talking about. This isn't about an idea being suppressed, it's about the opinions of an individual, whose primary duty is to the board. And after the board has made a decision, it's their duty to "be the public face of that decision". Trying to display your disagreements to the public after the board has arrived at a decision is contrary to your responsibility to those members. It's sad if the board has to resort to passing rules to encourage its directors to do their job. That may not have been the best route to take though - dissenting directors that refuse to get on board and publicly sup
we have a group of "bicycle mobile"'s here, most of them were on the 2m repeater but we've moved mainly to DMR now.
decades ago a group of us kids had CB radios on our bicycles, it was good times :)
The article talks about people under 45 being "vulnerable". Sorry, if you're in your 30s-40s (or even really mid 20s) and are still "vulnerable" to scams, your parents have failed spectacularly in preparing you for life in the real world. Perhaps it's just a form of natural selection at work. Parents that fail to educate their kids deseve a little penalty to their gene pool.
Well it sometimes follows the "throw it all on the wall and see what sticks". IE "add all sorts of features, and then only keep the best" It's difficult to predict what will be a hit and what will work well, vs what sounded good but nobody liked and what would be great if you could pull it off but never came together.
Bigger orgs like MS have problems with this, they seem to have a problem with bloat. I suspect it's a cultural / organizational thing where there's too much "feature set by committee" and nobody has enough power to say "kill that". That's exactly what the video I linked above is mocking.
"A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." -- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
An oldie but a goodie perfectly demonstrates how adding features can be a slippery slope into the dump: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
I also hope this doesn't happen. I'm tired of seeing stadiums, rate tracks, and all sorts of other highly visible cultural centerpoints being corporate-logod.
That's just it - this isn't a Facebook problem, it's a Mob Justice problem.
It seems pretty clear to me that these people would have used whatever "vehicle" happened to come popular first to coordinate and execute their mob justice social tendencies.
So getting rid of facebook won't fix the problem any more than getting rid of cocaine will fix the drug problem. They'll just find another way to do what they feel like doing.
Focus on the problem, not the tool.