Could that be why I said; "Here I thought Slashdot was a crowd of folks who prefer scientifically (and technically) correct jargon over localized slang."?
It's used in a slightly humorous manner when one person wants to have a light attitude about something. 'Boobs' is in the dictionary as a synonym for 'breasts' and has been in use since ~1929.
Yes, I realize it's in the (North) American dictionaries and I'm aware of its entymology thanks. When one or two people use it, yes, it's a slighly humorous usage and is understood. What I was commenting on, however, was the fact that the word has all but replaced the genetic term for the body parts in question.
Somebody has a signature that's priceless; "Try reading my posts. It's fun - It's like reading; but of my posts!"
Re:"The silent majority" is uninformed.
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I'd also have to think that the group would find a whole new slew of anoyances with Linux as well. Especially if they can't playback music or watch videos
Yes, I hear this argument all the time. "Wah, the latest codec my pirate video source is using that was written exclusively by and for Microsoft doesn't work under Linux! Linux is useless as a desktop OS!"
For the record, I haven't found a video file yet that VLC Player has had a problem with.
(does YouTube work w/Linux?).
Yes. I think you'll also find that Solitaire, Minesweeper, and a text editor also work under Linux. You can even play MP3s now! (That functionality was added ATLEAST a month ago! I think Linus wrote it... )
What I find interesting is that average Canadians pay almost 50% income tax.
WHOA! Really? If that's the case based on my present take-home I'm making a helluva lot more gross income than my employer is telling me about. I'll have to thank him for bringing me that far into the 6 figure mark this year.:)
This year I'll likely wind up somewhere in the neighborhood of 25-28% at the top end before deductions (standard as well as my regular write-offs) which will bring my tax burden down to or below the 20% marker.
Yes, there is a reason for that. It's called Boobs.
Actually, they're called breasts.
I'm surprised. I don't know exactly why, but this is the third story in two days where the female anatomy has come to the focus of the discussion and it seems to be the norm around here to refer to "boobs" rather than "breasts". Here I thought Slashdot was a crowd of folks who prefer scientifically (and technically) correct jargon over localized slang.
It could just be a reaction based on the fact that we used the word "boobs" around here when we were young (less than 10) and generally followed it up with "tee hee!", so seeing it on a forum that's normally so pedantic and, eh-hem, proper takes me aback. I've even seen (self professed) women use the term in these threads! Stranger and stranger.
Anything that takes away functionality like the alcohol detecting system or software locks that limit horsepower or top speed based on car model are bad in my opinion.
Oh, so cars in Canada should be able to travel at more than twice the maximum posted speed limit of any road in the country? Why should people be able to travel at 160+ KPH when the maximum legal speed on any roadway is 100KPH?
For the record, at 49KPH or greater above the posted limit there is no set fine. It's automatic impound of your vehicle and mandatory court appearance. Penalty (dollar figure fine, points against your license, and possibly jail time) to be determined by the judge. The electronic governors on cars sold in this country allow you to do 11KPH over and above this legal limitation. Sounds pretty generous to me.
BTW - can you comprehend the amount of collateral damage that'll be done by a 3000LB+ vehicle after an impact at 200KPH (125MPH)?
In some places a charge of DUI can only be given if a positive sample is taken using the breath-analyser at a police station, the initial roadside test is performed to allow the police to get this second sample. Having a reading taken at the side of the road is not enough to give you a DUI charge.
Here in Ontario, Canada the law gets a little snaky when it comes to roadside tests. Technically, it's not legally required to provide a breath sample at the side of the road but if you refuse you get charged with refusal to provide a sample. If you're fussy about it, you can demand to provide blood/urine instead of a breath sample citing inaccuracies of same and you'll be ok.
The initial breath sample, yes, is used to determine if you're fit to drive or not. 'Round here you're taken into custody, your vehicle towed and impounded and you're brought to the station (quickly) to provide another sample if you blow higher than 0.050 which will result in a 12 hour suspension. Somebody other than you has to provide their driving license to get your vehicle out of impound in the meantime, partly because your license remains at the station, stapled to your suspension notice, until you pick it up the next day.
If you blow greater than 0.080, you're taken to the station to blow another sample at which point if the sample is confirmed you're formally charged with DUI.
Now some roadside meters are a little less conclusive indicating instead one of three conditions; green (okay), yellow (warning) or red (intoxicated). These are only designed as quick warning levels and don't stand up in court as evidence, only as reasonable cause to demand a proper sample at the station.
For the record I've given a sample at a RIDE program twice in my life. I've been stopped a couple dozen times, but only twice after drinking. The first time after having a pint of beer with dinner over about a 2 hour period I blew a 0.000. The second time I'd had about three pints and one shot of hard liquor and blew a 0.034. That's about as inebriated as I've ever been behind the wheel and I was considerably below the 12 hour limit.
Oddly enough, and to get back a bit towards the topic, my problem after a night at the bar tends not to be the alcohol in my bloodstream but moreso drowsiness. Usually I'm at the bar after a 9-10 hour shift at work, I spend another 2-4 hours at the bar and by that time I'm just ready for bed. Even if I nurse a single pint all night with wings, fries, etc. I'm still almost bad off enough to require a taxi. The systems proposed, if they work as advertised, are better off than the blow-tests imposed by the Ontario government for repeat DUI offenders. It doesn't matter if your BAL is 0.000 if you're too damn tired to keep your eyes open. A system to tell you to take a 15 minute "power nap" at the roadside would be wonderful.
Maybe it doesn't appeal to your minimalist aesthetic tastes, but I can dial my Samsung A690 in the car without causing a major traffic accident.
How about not doing that at all. It's a car, not a phone booth.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but bad drivers are bad drivers. Regardless of the crutch of the day (cell phones, food, drinks, smoking, loud stereos, laptops, PDAs, friends, babies, make-up, HWD, stress, lack of sleep, whatever) these people are going to find a way to cause a collision one day no matter what we say, do or legislate about the matter.
I think that statement is over-generalized, and has hidden implications. I don't see any evidence that motherboards that have a PS/2 port are less stable than ones that don't.
More code, more overhead.
"legacy" in this context simply means technology that's been replaced with different, but not necessarily any better technology.
See my comment earlier about fuel injection versus carburetors.
Why? The old one works just fine. If you chase technology just because "it's newer", you'll just wind up wasting a lot of money for nothing. I look for advantages in new technology, and I see none for PS/2 keyboards and mice.
Because you're clinging to legacy technology that's clearly being obsoleted? You said earlier that you would go out of your way to purchase a new computer that supports PS/2 ports. So you're going to compromise a several hundreds (or thousands) dollar purchase to accomodate a $30 peripheral and an old keyboard?
As to the advantages of USB keyboard/mouse over PS/2 equivalents; a common port for all peripherals rather than a distinct port for each type of connection. If you want to get pedantic, another advantage is the fact you can use a USB keyboard that functions as a hub and connect your digital camera, mouse, etc. right on your desktop. So there you have it. Two advantages. Now what are the advantages of the PC mentality of grasping on to legacy technology until it's a decade past its best-before date?
Old doesn't mean inferior, that's a new (and often incorrect) idea.
However maintaining legacy technology adds unnecessary overhead and can lead to unstable products and is therefore bad.
There's plenty of devices that require a serial port to plug into. Also, how are USB keyboards/mice better than the PS/2 versions? I've got a KVM switch that uses PS/2 ports, not USB, so I simply wouldn't buy a computer without it.
I don't have much use for PATA, a floppy drive, or a parallel port. For a server I wouldn't buy one without a floppy drive (BIOS flashing, driver disks).
Use a bootable CD for flashing your BIOS and most driver disks nowadays come on floppy disks. For that matter, isn't it just that much more convenient to take 20 drivers and concatenate them all onto a single CD-R for each workstation?
The floppy and ps2 ports are unlikely to die any time soon.
I recently purchased a couple new Dell computers for my company and couldn't justify paying extra for a floppy drive or hunting the site for a model with PS/2 ports. Instead I got 6 USB2.0 ports.
ISA ports, serial/paralell ports, PS/2 ports, floppy drives, PATA; it's all old technology. Let it go already. Much like cars gave up on carburetors, houses gave up wood-based heating, etc. so must computers give up the antique technologies we cling to so dearly.
Oh and old people are any better? If anything kids are more intensly curious than adults. And adults are far more closed minded and unable to think rationally when it conflicts with their biases.
Actually I'd say it goes the other way around. I can't count how many teenagers I heard talk about the movie Brokeback Mountain with utter disdain even though none of their friends had seen it but they certainly wouldn't watch it because, well, you know.
Kids/teens tend to do or not do things based on what their friends believe. Groupthink is more prevalent with teens today than ever because of these social networks. It's faster and easier to find out what we hate now - the why is typically unimportant.
every time you request a packet you have to ACKnowledge its receipt
TCP has supported Selective Acknowledgement for a very long time now. It's even on by default in Windows (since 2000, I believe). Essentially, this TCP option allows the receiver to ACK a range of packets received with a single ACK packet. It even allows multiple ranges to be ACKed, so the sender knows exactly which packets to retransmit. I would assume Linunx and BSD support it as well.
You'll note that I never said every packet has to be individually acknowledged, only that every packet has to be acknowledged. The problem with torrent networks is that they provide so much backscatter and generate so many packets they quickly outstrip home user grade Internet connections.
But thanks for the reference. I'm sure some readers found it useful.;)
But my company insists I work 10-6 anyway, rather than 12-8)
Ten? Hell, you get to sleep in every day. My company insists on 7:30 to 4.
This is a misconception I deal with all the time. My co-workers all gripe when I show up at work at 11, but then when they all leave at 5PM I remind them that I'll be there for another 4 hours. By the time they've run errands, cooked dinner and sat down to some TV watching I'll be just locking up the shop and heading for my car.
Second - it's my understanding that as you saturate the uplink connection (max out uploading a file) on a consumer-grade connection/router, you interrupt the normal control-channel "Chatter" of web browsing. Basically, the "I got it" packets are stuck due to the saturated uplink, and you don't get the next packet until the acknowledgement makes it.
Actually you're absolutely right. Any TCP (connection based) protocol will suffer from a saturated uplink to the point where it can become unusable depending on how greedy that client is about your outbound packet flow for exactly that reason; every time you request a packet you have to ACKnowledge its receipt. If enough packets go unacknowledged the sender will stop transmitting to give you a chance to catch up. At the point where you have your outbound 100% utilized, your connection becomes useless for even the simplest of tasks.
The reason residential connections tend to be asymmetrical is the fact that ack packets are much smaller than received data and the nature of the Internet nowadays (even with our media rich content) is that people are downloading files in the 100s of megabytes (a 720p movie trailer on Apple's website will generally run about 120 meg) but only need to send 1/10th or less back to the sender to acknowledge receipt.
Some time ago my room mate got heavily into filesharing networks. Upon trying out a new client he found he was getting better speeds. Well, that's because his download speed was based on a ratio to his upload speed and the limits I'd set in his old client naturally were not set in the new one.
I tried to connect to my home server from work to check my e-mail and found that the connection was slower than a 14.4k dialup modem. I ssh'd in, found the source of the traffic and promptly shut down all direct-to-Internet traffic from his machine and poof! No more link saturation!
For bitching when you try to make more of a profit (or less of a loss in the case of the people who can't figure out how to run a profitable coffeeshop in the first place) by profiting off someone else's work... suck it up when you're finally asked to pay or move to the free option that, admittedly, won't let you profit in quite the same way anymore.
Thing is, cover bands playing in bars and coffee shops has been a part of Canadian / American culture for decades. Only now are these organizations attempting to extort money out of people who are just doing what their parents and their parents parents have been doing for their entire adult lives but now, with the scapegoat of Internet piracy, they're extorting money out of every source possible in order to regain the profits they believe they rightly deserve.
What the recording industries need to learn is that profit is not a guaranteed right in a capitalist society. You do not have the right to guarantee your own profitability by destroying that of other, smaller businesses.
Let's look at the poor, poor coffee house that has the MNF theme playing; the MNF theme (and Monday Night Football itself) is licensed for home viewing. When you're taking that broadcast and then playing it in a commercial venue, the business is violating the license--this is where the "express permission of ESPN and the NFL" thing comes in.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't sports broadcasts (Footbal et al.) have a very large portion of their time taken up by commercials? Isn't it beneficial for the broadcasters to have their commercials put in front of hundreds of consumers? It's not like bars/restaurants mute the TV or change the channel or use PVR "commercial skip" measures during commercial breaks. The volume is also typically quite loud so the broadcast can be heard over the normal bar banter so what's the problem?
Further to this, commercials broadcast during a football game are generally geared towards the very demographic of those patrons in the bar. 20-50 year old males with a propensity towards alcohol, women, social activities, cars/trucks, etc. so the commercials are being broadcast directly into a testosterone filled den of the core target audience. Moreover, you know if these men are at a bar they have the disposable income with which to purchase the promoted products so they're more likely to have a positive input for the advertisers and therefore the network(s) broadcasting the event.
It's actually an interesting question... The police have successfully put out honeypot cars (attractive and maybe a bit easier to steal than normal) to catch car thieves, and those convictions have been upheld AFAIK.
There's a fundamental difference. The police don't stand beside the cars and entice passers-by to steal them. They place cars, generally attractive (customized with skirts, rims, performance tires, stereo equipment, etc.) in high theft areas. They surveil the vehicle and monitor the theft system.
Now, what's the difference between the police parking a Pimped Honda in a parking lot and Joe Citizen parking HIS Pimped Honda in a parking lot? If a thief is going to steal one, it might as well be the one that belongs to the local constabulary so we wind up with one less car thief on the road.
That, and the video footage and later explanation by the would-be thieves is priceless stuff.:)
You know those deals "0% financing or $1500 cash back"? Well, that's basically a way of increasing the effective interest rate. Essentially, you're prepaying $1500 in interest by going with that "0% financing", so it's not really 0% financing at all.
So you'd take the $1500 in savings against a $30,000 car loan and pay it back at bank rates (prime + 2% typically, so about 8%)? Do you know what your cost of borrowing will be over the next 5 years? Hint: It's about four times the amount you "saved" by not taking the 0% financing. Brilliant. Or save money by securing a depreciating asset against your home for a lower rate? More financial savvy!
By the way; a cash alternative doesn't mean you're pre-paying for the interest. The artificial 0% APR scam comes from the dealer "buying down" the bank rate by RAISING the price of the car above the MSRP ("sticker price"). Which, where I come from, is illegal.
Truth be told the manufacturer/dealer would rather you take the $1500 alternative. Why? Because it costs a lot more to buy down your rate to 0% for you than it does to simply reduce your selling price by $1500. So g'head. Use your logic and put more money in the pockets of the people you're trying to screw over.:)
Oh good grief. You got a low interest rate because you paid more for the car up front. You also have to carry more insurance on the car because it is owned by the finance company, not you. The car dealer is much better at getting money out of you than you think.
Boy, these myths are getting really boring to debunk. People still believe these?!?
No, you did not pay "more for the car"; you paid based on a negotiated discount from MSRP. The alternative will often come in the form of a cash rebate. (Alternate meaning in lieu of the low APR financing). Often the cash rebate will only amount to $1000-3000. Now, take this savings and factor it against how much interest you could earn on your investments and make a decision which is the wiser course of action. I know that my savings at an approx. rate of return of 12.5% will net me more than $3000 in interest on $30,000 principal over a 5 year period. (n.b. anybody who buys a car for "cash" by borrowing from a line of credit is, I'm sorry to say, very unwise. (I'll refrain from using the word 'stupid')). Of course, looking at the situation from such a simple perspective will possibly cost you a significant cost savings. In any vehicle purchase there's always a tipping point where say the equity in your trade in combined with the cash rebate will make the cash purchase, financed at bank rates (8-9.5%) a more attractive option than even 0% APR financing. But that's just math and logic.:P
You are not paying more for insurance, you're covering your new vehicle with collision, comprehensive and liability insurance which is a wise move anyways. What happens if your $30k automobile, paid for in cash, incurs $15k worth of accident damage 6 months down the road? That's a pretty high risk for a few hundred dollars in insurance savings if you ask me.
The only one you're correct on is #3. Yes, the car dealer is better at The Game than you are.
That is how most people feel interests work. Not so with debts! Interests are cumulated over time.
Case in point; you're arguing the merits of understanding the finer points of how debt works from the point of view of an economist yet you still get the terminology wrong. It's "interest", "compound interest", and "interest charges".
For the record, by the way, most people do understand how debt works to some degree. They just either don't care or don't take the time to understand the impact their decisions will have on their lives. You'll find that many people in debt will look first to other solutions that centre around debt to help their debtload all the while incurring more unsecured debt in the process.
People are also generally too lazy to learn about something that will affect their entire lives. How did I learn about credit, debt and money management? I talked to friends, family members and other trusted sources (financial advisor) who know more about it than I do. I got pointers which I then further researched at the library and on the Internet. I gathered several useful tips, tricks and strategies and have applied them to find myself with a fantastic credit rating and virtually zero interest and absolutely no penalties paid in the past several years.
Several steps to cleaning up your debt situation;
Pay off and close small loans first. These tend to get forgotten and the money paid towards them is better applied to larger loans.
Make more than your minimum payments on all loans. When you pay off one loan, do NOT take that money and use it towards your lifestyle; instead apply it towards increasing your other loan payments.
Fast track the payments to your highest interest loans more than other loans. Common sense here. Pay off the most damaging loan first and pay less overall interest.
Save. All the while, make sure you devote a portion of your income towards personal savings. Always always always do this FIRST. Your goal is to have atleast 3 months expenses saved up. Don't stop when you acheive this; make savings a regular part of your monthly expenses.
Pay your loans more frequently to save more interest. If you're paid semi-monthly, bi-weekly or even weekly make your payments on the same frequency. Pay debts from each and every pay cheque.
Don't make purchases on credit unless you have the money to pay for it in cash. Use credit as a tool, not a crutch. Ferexample; don't buy a $6000 home theatre system on a "Don't Pay For xx Days!" special unless you CAN pay for it RIGHT NOW. Use the xxx days (being 90, 1 year, 2 years, whatever) to earn interest on your money. Keep it for emergency situations (real emergencies; not the release of a new ${gadget} that you just have to have!!!). Make regular payments to these loans anyways. Remember that not many people have the discipline to pay $6000 in one large lump sum before the end of the term (and before that 28.8% APR hits you like a sack of bricks)
Get used to paying off your credit card each and every month or, better still, each and every pay cheque. Banks offer online statements. Use them to pay off your card before the bill arrives. Use your card(s) for daily purchases you'd make anyways (gas, groceries, cigarettes, take-out meals, etc.) and pay it off completely when your next paycheque arrives. Don't try to play the "I still have x days grace on y amount of purchases so I'll wait... " game - you'll never win.
Never make impulse purchase decisions. The deal will still be there tomorrow. Think about what you're buying. If you don't need it and weren't going to buy it anyways it's not a "deal". Remember; 40% "off" is 60% "on".
Unless it will LITERALLY save somebody's LIFE, do not EVER use a payday advance loan service! EVER!!!! It's not that bad! It's never that bad! You do not need to climb on that treadmill. Before you know it you'll be
Now, if 200 years worth of bankers, politicians, and accountants haven't been able to solve that problem-
Is it really a "problem" to them? It keeps them in business.
What's a real problem to them are those of us who've figured out how to use the system properly. It'll take some real ingenuity on their parts to ruin that for us and turn it into profit.
We get it. The system sucks. It is, however, what it is. As you say it's centuries old. If it's not changing; why is our personal debt situation worsening? Why in the age of information are we seemingly unable to cope with something as simple as debt management?
Oh yeah, the instant gratification of being able to purchase something that one would never otherwise be able to afford on their regular income is far more tempting than personal fiscal responsibility. It's like sex, but with money.
But it's so easy to blame those who have no control over the financial system which exploits them. That way you never have to question the powerful politicians, bankers, and investment moguls running the scam.
I firmly believe that many (if not most) people with poor credit are in that situation not because of the system, but because they don't understand it. There are a lot of terms being bandied about in this thread including the "live within your means" statement; well, there are people out there who believe that when they have a $5000 credit card that is part of their "means"!
I assure you there was no silver spoon in my mouth when I grew up. In fact, I've lived on my own since it was legally permissible for my parents and I to go our separate ways. Right now, however, my credit rating far exceeds that of almost all of my friends, I have more luxury items, more liquid cash, and more freedom than any of them. Why? Because I used the credit system and the banks' tools for MY gain, not theirs. I was in a bad way credit wise very early on but I read, researched and learned how to beat it and caught it quickly enough that my recovery was swift and completely painless.
Have I worked two and three jobs at a time to sustain my lifestyle? Yep. Have I lived on cash for several years of my adult life? You betcha. Do I now live somewhat below my means? You're darn skippy I do. Am I comfortable and stress free as a result? Damn right I am!
Yes, there is a portion of the populace that's just screwed from the get-go and they get buried so far they can't find their way out. Then there are the people who are buried but still have credit available so while they could dig themselves out and be stronger for it they accept their lot in life and buy more on credit to enjoy their mediocre position without remorse.
Have you ever seen the show "Till Debt Do Us Part"? If not, find a way to watch the episodes. That lady paints some damn scary pictures for people and shows them simple ways to turn their credit and as a result their lives around in the process.
I am not seeing the line you are drawing between the credit bureaus and real estate appraisers. Perhaps I am wearing my stupid shoes. Please elaborate on how funny math on real estate has anything to do with credit reporting at one of the bureaus.
Easy. I'll field this one.
Mortgages (first, second, third,... ) are based on LTV - Loan To Value. Most lenders will go to 85% (or some other arbitrary number. Generally higher if your credit is solid and you're proven to be stable).
So, if the client is mortgaged to $187,000 and they want an additional $23,000, their house "needs" to be valued at $247,000 or above. So if you can get an appraiser to stamp a value of $250k on the home you can even lend them an extra couple thousand for incidentals. How's that thing go? 3)... Profit!
If the house is actually worth $225 or thereabouts on the open market, you've just buried them right around their eyeballs, but hey, if they're even slightly in a position to pay off the loan the banks win.
Banks don't like people like me. I pay things early and I pay them in full. I borrow only to further strengthen my credit score and to give me more free cash flow. That's why the games begin. Payment holidays, extensions to my credit limits, further loan offers, etc. All designed to push me over that magical brink where my debt load takes over my income and I spend all my days working to pay my minimums and their interest premiums start rolling in. The further buried a bank can get and keep you the happier they are. Pay your 3% every month and your credit will be increased until you don't know what to do with the money any more.
Banks are in the business of money and they want to start people early. It can actually be easier in a lot of cases for an unemployed college student to get a credit card than a full-time employee out in the workforce. Sure, the limit will be low ($500-1000 in most cases) but it's enough to get the person used to using it and, inevitably, maxing it out. Once they finish school the limit gets increased.
Why do they do this? Because they want to get you into that rut before you're smart enough to learn how to use their system against them. They want to get and keep you in the sub-prime class so they can walk all over you and make you feel like you're not worthy of any good deals.
I work in sales. Sub-prime clients are, I hate to say, some of the biggest pushovers in the marketplace. They're conditioned to accept whatever's shoved down their throats in the interest of rebuilding their credit. Know the problem with that? All their debt is at such exorbitantly high rates of interest they can never get out from under it! Their DSR's (Debt to Service Ratio's) are so finely balanced with each new loan that any straw that breaks will throw the whole system off kilter and put them right back where they started with overdue loans, credit agency phone calls and the whole ball of wax. It's disgusting.
I try my best to talk to friends and family in a non-confrontational, non-judgemental way about how to manage and maintain a good credit score but sadly human nature and their own habits tend to take over and they wind up sobbing about how badly their situation sucks.
The system is designed to get and keep people down. Banks don't make their money off the rich; they make it off the working class ignorant.
no, she'll have a camera, a card reader, etc at hand and promptly make the relevant copies. at least thats a rough idea of where i'd start if i was going to do it.
I'm so sure somebody can look at dozens of IDs all day and then pick one of them from memory and re-iterate a 15 character license number, full name, address, birthdate, issue date and expiry date, all the while recalling and re-creating the very same individual's credit card, getting the security digits from the back and making a reasonable likeness of their signature during a particular 15 second transaction.
... all without the slightest inkling of something awry by the cardholder.
Please, stand still so I can take a picture of you, your ID, and your credit card. Don't mind the second card reader sir; it's just procedure.
As to the doorman who can recite pieces of information after viewing an ID? Yeah, great party trick. I know people who can do that too. Now, show them about 200 drivers licenses over the course of an eight hour shift and then have them recall all the details about number 74. Uh-huh. Thought not.
Credit card companies warn against letting a server walk away with your card so that it will be swiped away from your presence. It is, however, much more difficult to accomplish all this while the customer is standing in front of you; especially if the customer is already aware enough that their ID is being checked.
For the record; I'm carded all the time at the beer store. Not related to the fact that I'm using my credit card to pay, but because I have a very young face so I've been ID'd constantly for the past ten years. My ID remains in my hand, the person behind the counter takes a quick visual scan then proceeds to ring in the transaction. It's not rocket science and I've never been worried about my identity being stolen.
You black helicopter folks can put down the X-Files DVDs and join us here in the real world where people don't scan your identity with their bionic eyes. You're more likely to have your credit card number stolen in a computer/database security breech than you are by being double-swiped in front of your eyes. (Reference the recent 'Winners' breech that netted theives several hundred thousands credit card numbers, etc.)
If there is a disputed charge of any amount the credit agency sends a notice to the seller. The seller MUST provide signature evidence related to the transaction within a period of several days or the charge is automatically reversed (charge-back).
Close, but not quite. If/when there's a dispute, the credit card company reverses all disputed funds and then demands signatory proof. If there's no electronic swipe of the card on record, they also demand an imprint to go along with the signature.
When I was working for a pizza delivery restaurant (mom & pop shop) they had a customer who ordered about $40-50 worth of food about 3-4 nights a week. Pretty much the same stuff each time; fried foods, milk shakes, cans of pop, stuff like that. After about 12-15 orders, Visa reversed the funds for all of his orders and demanded proof; the customer had called 'fraud'. Due to different drivers at different times (and their respective attitudes towards being thorough) the store had let's say 12 receipts with only 9 imprints. A couple of the imprints were deemed illegible so only 7 of the 12 charges were allowed to go through.
The contention of the store, and it took a lot of fighting to get this point across, was that the orders came from the same phone number (verified with caller ID), followed the same pattern, came at the same time of day (late at night), went to the same address and obviously if the first 7 were correct then why not the other 5?!?
It was later discovered that this individual (a casual drug user who had a Sherrif's notice of eviction on his apartment door, incidentally) had recently been sent the card in one of those "You're Pre-Approved!" style mail-outs, activated it for however many thousand dollars they'd give him then started going wild ordering from several restaurants. Basically anybody who'd deliver to his crummy building. I'm not sure what happened to him in the end but for the pain he put the merchants through and the money he cost the Visa fraud team and the credit he blew through on that card I'd hope that he's atleast a guest of the Province for the next 5 years of his life, but hey, what can you do right?
Slashdot Mirror
Could that be why I said; "Here I thought Slashdot was a crowd of folks who prefer scientifically (and technically) correct jargon over localized slang."?
Yes, I realize it's in the (North) American dictionaries and I'm aware of its entymology thanks. When one or two people use it, yes, it's a slighly humorous usage and is understood. What I was commenting on, however, was the fact that the word has all but replaced the genetic term for the body parts in question.
Somebody has a signature that's priceless; "Try reading my posts. It's fun - It's like reading; but of my posts!"
Yes, I hear this argument all the time. "Wah, the latest codec my pirate video source is using that was written exclusively by and for Microsoft doesn't work under Linux! Linux is useless as a desktop OS!"
For the record, I haven't found a video file yet that VLC Player has had a problem with.
Yes. I think you'll also find that Solitaire, Minesweeper, and a text editor also work under Linux. You can even play MP3s now! (That functionality was added ATLEAST a month ago! I think Linus wrote it ... )
WHOA! Really? If that's the case based on my present take-home I'm making a helluva lot more gross income than my employer is telling me about. I'll have to thank him for bringing me that far into the 6 figure mark this year. :)
This year I'll likely wind up somewhere in the neighborhood of 25-28% at the top end before deductions (standard as well as my regular write-offs) which will bring my tax burden down to or below the 20% marker.
Actually, they're called breasts.
I'm surprised. I don't know exactly why, but this is the third story in two days where the female anatomy has come to the focus of the discussion and it seems to be the norm around here to refer to "boobs" rather than "breasts". Here I thought Slashdot was a crowd of folks who prefer scientifically (and technically) correct jargon over localized slang.
It could just be a reaction based on the fact that we used the word "boobs" around here when we were young (less than 10) and generally followed it up with "tee hee!", so seeing it on a forum that's normally so pedantic and, eh-hem, proper takes me aback. I've even seen (self professed) women use the term in these threads! Stranger and stranger.
Carry on though, nothing to see here.
Oh, so cars in Canada should be able to travel at more than twice the maximum posted speed limit of any road in the country? Why should people be able to travel at 160+ KPH when the maximum legal speed on any roadway is 100KPH?
For the record, at 49KPH or greater above the posted limit there is no set fine. It's automatic impound of your vehicle and mandatory court appearance. Penalty (dollar figure fine, points against your license, and possibly jail time) to be determined by the judge. The electronic governors on cars sold in this country allow you to do 11KPH over and above this legal limitation. Sounds pretty generous to me.
BTW - can you comprehend the amount of collateral damage that'll be done by a 3000LB+ vehicle after an impact at 200KPH (125MPH)?
Here in Ontario, Canada the law gets a little snaky when it comes to roadside tests. Technically, it's not legally required to provide a breath sample at the side of the road but if you refuse you get charged with refusal to provide a sample. If you're fussy about it, you can demand to provide blood/urine instead of a breath sample citing inaccuracies of same and you'll be ok.
The initial breath sample, yes, is used to determine if you're fit to drive or not. 'Round here you're taken into custody, your vehicle towed and impounded and you're brought to the station (quickly) to provide another sample if you blow higher than 0.050 which will result in a 12 hour suspension. Somebody other than you has to provide their driving license to get your vehicle out of impound in the meantime, partly because your license remains at the station, stapled to your suspension notice, until you pick it up the next day.
If you blow greater than 0.080, you're taken to the station to blow another sample at which point if the sample is confirmed you're formally charged with DUI.
Now some roadside meters are a little less conclusive indicating instead one of three conditions; green (okay), yellow (warning) or red (intoxicated). These are only designed as quick warning levels and don't stand up in court as evidence, only as reasonable cause to demand a proper sample at the station.
For the record I've given a sample at a RIDE program twice in my life. I've been stopped a couple dozen times, but only twice after drinking. The first time after having a pint of beer with dinner over about a 2 hour period I blew a 0.000. The second time I'd had about three pints and one shot of hard liquor and blew a 0.034. That's about as inebriated as I've ever been behind the wheel and I was considerably below the 12 hour limit.
Oddly enough, and to get back a bit towards the topic, my problem after a night at the bar tends not to be the alcohol in my bloodstream but moreso drowsiness. Usually I'm at the bar after a 9-10 hour shift at work, I spend another 2-4 hours at the bar and by that time I'm just ready for bed. Even if I nurse a single pint all night with wings, fries, etc. I'm still almost bad off enough to require a taxi. The systems proposed, if they work as advertised, are better off than the blow-tests imposed by the Ontario government for repeat DUI offenders. It doesn't matter if your BAL is 0.000 if you're too damn tired to keep your eyes open. A system to tell you to take a 15 minute "power nap" at the roadside would be wonderful.
How about not doing that at all. It's a car, not a phone booth.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but bad drivers are bad drivers. Regardless of the crutch of the day (cell phones, food, drinks, smoking, loud stereos, laptops, PDAs, friends, babies, make-up, HWD, stress, lack of sleep, whatever) these people are going to find a way to cause a collision one day no matter what we say, do or legislate about the matter.
More code, more overhead.
See my comment earlier about fuel injection versus carburetors.
Because you're clinging to legacy technology that's clearly being obsoleted? You said earlier that you would go out of your way to purchase a new computer that supports PS/2 ports. So you're going to compromise a several hundreds (or thousands) dollar purchase to accomodate a $30 peripheral and an old keyboard?
As to the advantages of USB keyboard/mouse over PS/2 equivalents; a common port for all peripherals rather than a distinct port for each type of connection. If you want to get pedantic, another advantage is the fact you can use a USB keyboard that functions as a hub and connect your digital camera, mouse, etc. right on your desktop. So there you have it. Two advantages. Now what are the advantages of the PC mentality of grasping on to legacy technology until it's a decade past its best-before date?
However maintaining legacy technology adds unnecessary overhead and can lead to unstable products and is therefore bad.
So buy a new KVM switch?
Use a bootable CD for flashing your BIOS and most driver disks nowadays come on floppy disks. For that matter, isn't it just that much more convenient to take 20 drivers and concatenate them all onto a single CD-R for each workstation?
I recently purchased a couple new Dell computers for my company and couldn't justify paying extra for a floppy drive or hunting the site for a model with PS/2 ports. Instead I got 6 USB2.0 ports.
ISA ports, serial/paralell ports, PS/2 ports, floppy drives, PATA; it's all old technology. Let it go already. Much like cars gave up on carburetors, houses gave up wood-based heating, etc. so must computers give up the antique technologies we cling to so dearly.
Actually I'd say it goes the other way around. I can't count how many teenagers I heard talk about the movie Brokeback Mountain with utter disdain even though none of their friends had seen it but they certainly wouldn't watch it because, well, you know.
Kids/teens tend to do or not do things based on what their friends believe. Groupthink is more prevalent with teens today than ever because of these social networks. It's faster and easier to find out what we hate now - the why is typically unimportant.
TCP has supported Selective Acknowledgement for a very long time now. It's even on by default in Windows (since 2000, I believe). Essentially, this TCP option allows the receiver to ACK a range of packets received with a single ACK packet. It even allows multiple ranges to be ACKed, so the sender knows exactly which packets to retransmit. I would assume Linunx and BSD support it as well.
You'll note that I never said every packet has to be individually acknowledged, only that every packet has to be acknowledged. The problem with torrent networks is that they provide so much backscatter and generate so many packets they quickly outstrip home user grade Internet connections.
But thanks for the reference. I'm sure some readers found it useful. ;)
Ten? Hell, you get to sleep in every day. My company insists on 7:30 to 4.
This is a misconception I deal with all the time. My co-workers all gripe when I show up at work at 11, but then when they all leave at 5PM I remind them that I'll be there for another 4 hours. By the time they've run errands, cooked dinner and sat down to some TV watching I'll be just locking up the shop and heading for my car.
Actually you're absolutely right. Any TCP (connection based) protocol will suffer from a saturated uplink to the point where it can become unusable depending on how greedy that client is about your outbound packet flow for exactly that reason; every time you request a packet you have to ACKnowledge its receipt. If enough packets go unacknowledged the sender will stop transmitting to give you a chance to catch up. At the point where you have your outbound 100% utilized, your connection becomes useless for even the simplest of tasks.
The reason residential connections tend to be asymmetrical is the fact that ack packets are much smaller than received data and the nature of the Internet nowadays (even with our media rich content) is that people are downloading files in the 100s of megabytes (a 720p movie trailer on Apple's website will generally run about 120 meg) but only need to send 1/10th or less back to the sender to acknowledge receipt.
Some time ago my room mate got heavily into filesharing networks. Upon trying out a new client he found he was getting better speeds. Well, that's because his download speed was based on a ratio to his upload speed and the limits I'd set in his old client naturally were not set in the new one.
I tried to connect to my home server from work to check my e-mail and found that the connection was slower than a 14.4k dialup modem. I ssh'd in, found the source of the traffic and promptly shut down all direct-to-Internet traffic from his machine and poof! No more link saturation!
Thing is, cover bands playing in bars and coffee shops has been a part of Canadian / American culture for decades. Only now are these organizations attempting to extort money out of people who are just doing what their parents and their parents parents have been doing for their entire adult lives but now, with the scapegoat of Internet piracy, they're extorting money out of every source possible in order to regain the profits they believe they rightly deserve.
What the recording industries need to learn is that profit is not a guaranteed right in a capitalist society. You do not have the right to guarantee your own profitability by destroying that of other, smaller businesses.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't sports broadcasts (Footbal et al.) have a very large portion of their time taken up by commercials? Isn't it beneficial for the broadcasters to have their commercials put in front of hundreds of consumers? It's not like bars/restaurants mute the TV or change the channel or use PVR "commercial skip" measures during commercial breaks. The volume is also typically quite loud so the broadcast can be heard over the normal bar banter so what's the problem?
Further to this, commercials broadcast during a football game are generally geared towards the very demographic of those patrons in the bar. 20-50 year old males with a propensity towards alcohol, women, social activities, cars/trucks, etc. so the commercials are being broadcast directly into a testosterone filled den of the core target audience. Moreover, you know if these men are at a bar they have the disposable income with which to purchase the promoted products so they're more likely to have a positive input for the advertisers and therefore the network(s) broadcasting the event.
Am I missing something here?
There's a fundamental difference. The police don't stand beside the cars and entice passers-by to steal them. They place cars, generally attractive (customized with skirts, rims, performance tires, stereo equipment, etc.) in high theft areas. They surveil the vehicle and monitor the theft system.
Now, what's the difference between the police parking a Pimped Honda in a parking lot and Joe Citizen parking HIS Pimped Honda in a parking lot? If a thief is going to steal one, it might as well be the one that belongs to the local constabulary so we wind up with one less car thief on the road.
That, and the video footage and later explanation by the would-be thieves is priceless stuff. :)
So you'd take the $1500 in savings against a $30,000 car loan and pay it back at bank rates (prime + 2% typically, so about 8%)? Do you know what your cost of borrowing will be over the next 5 years? Hint: It's about four times the amount you "saved" by not taking the 0% financing. Brilliant. Or save money by securing a depreciating asset against your home for a lower rate? More financial savvy!
By the way; a cash alternative doesn't mean you're pre-paying for the interest. The artificial 0% APR scam comes from the dealer "buying down" the bank rate by RAISING the price of the car above the MSRP ("sticker price"). Which, where I come from, is illegal.
Truth be told the manufacturer/dealer would rather you take the $1500 alternative. Why? Because it costs a lot more to buy down your rate to 0% for you than it does to simply reduce your selling price by $1500. So g'head. Use your logic and put more money in the pockets of the people you're trying to screw over. :)
Boy, these myths are getting really boring to debunk. People still believe these?!?
The only one you're correct on is #3. Yes, the car dealer is better at The Game than you are.
Case in point; you're arguing the merits of understanding the finer points of how debt works from the point of view of an economist yet you still get the terminology wrong. It's "interest", "compound interest", and "interest charges".
For the record, by the way, most people do understand how debt works to some degree. They just either don't care or don't take the time to understand the impact their decisions will have on their lives. You'll find that many people in debt will look first to other solutions that centre around debt to help their debtload all the while incurring more unsecured debt in the process.
People are also generally too lazy to learn about something that will affect their entire lives. How did I learn about credit, debt and money management? I talked to friends, family members and other trusted sources (financial advisor) who know more about it than I do. I got pointers which I then further researched at the library and on the Internet. I gathered several useful tips, tricks and strategies and have applied them to find myself with a fantastic credit rating and virtually zero interest and absolutely no penalties paid in the past several years.
Several steps to cleaning up your debt situation;
Is it really a "problem" to them? It keeps them in business.
What's a real problem to them are those of us who've figured out how to use the system properly. It'll take some real ingenuity on their parts to ruin that for us and turn it into profit.
We get it. The system sucks. It is, however, what it is. As you say it's centuries old. If it's not changing; why is our personal debt situation worsening? Why in the age of information are we seemingly unable to cope with something as simple as debt management?
Oh yeah, the instant gratification of being able to purchase something that one would never otherwise be able to afford on their regular income is far more tempting than personal fiscal responsibility. It's like sex, but with money.
I firmly believe that many (if not most) people with poor credit are in that situation not because of the system, but because they don't understand it. There are a lot of terms being bandied about in this thread including the "live within your means" statement; well, there are people out there who believe that when they have a $5000 credit card that is part of their "means"!
I assure you there was no silver spoon in my mouth when I grew up. In fact, I've lived on my own since it was legally permissible for my parents and I to go our separate ways. Right now, however, my credit rating far exceeds that of almost all of my friends, I have more luxury items, more liquid cash, and more freedom than any of them. Why? Because I used the credit system and the banks' tools for MY gain, not theirs. I was in a bad way credit wise very early on but I read, researched and learned how to beat it and caught it quickly enough that my recovery was swift and completely painless.
Have I worked two and three jobs at a time to sustain my lifestyle? Yep. Have I lived on cash for several years of my adult life? You betcha. Do I now live somewhat below my means? You're darn skippy I do. Am I comfortable and stress free as a result? Damn right I am!
Yes, there is a portion of the populace that's just screwed from the get-go and they get buried so far they can't find their way out. Then there are the people who are buried but still have credit available so while they could dig themselves out and be stronger for it they accept their lot in life and buy more on credit to enjoy their mediocre position without remorse.
Have you ever seen the show "Till Debt Do Us Part"? If not, find a way to watch the episodes. That lady paints some damn scary pictures for people and shows them simple ways to turn their credit and as a result their lives around in the process.
Easy. I'll field this one.
Mortgages (first, second, third, ... ) are based on LTV - Loan To Value. Most lenders will go to 85% (or some other arbitrary number. Generally higher if your credit is solid and you're proven to be stable).
So, if the client is mortgaged to $187,000 and they want an additional $23,000, their house "needs" to be valued at $247,000 or above. So if you can get an appraiser to stamp a value of $250k on the home you can even lend them an extra couple thousand for incidentals. How's that thing go? 3) ... Profit!
If the house is actually worth $225 or thereabouts on the open market, you've just buried them right around their eyeballs, but hey, if they're even slightly in a position to pay off the loan the banks win.
Banks don't like people like me. I pay things early and I pay them in full. I borrow only to further strengthen my credit score and to give me more free cash flow. That's why the games begin. Payment holidays, extensions to my credit limits, further loan offers, etc. All designed to push me over that magical brink where my debt load takes over my income and I spend all my days working to pay my minimums and their interest premiums start rolling in. The further buried a bank can get and keep you the happier they are. Pay your 3% every month and your credit will be increased until you don't know what to do with the money any more.
Banks are in the business of money and they want to start people early. It can actually be easier in a lot of cases for an unemployed college student to get a credit card than a full-time employee out in the workforce. Sure, the limit will be low ($500-1000 in most cases) but it's enough to get the person used to using it and, inevitably, maxing it out. Once they finish school the limit gets increased.
Why do they do this? Because they want to get you into that rut before you're smart enough to learn how to use their system against them. They want to get and keep you in the sub-prime class so they can walk all over you and make you feel like you're not worthy of any good deals.
I work in sales. Sub-prime clients are, I hate to say, some of the biggest pushovers in the marketplace. They're conditioned to accept whatever's shoved down their throats in the interest of rebuilding their credit. Know the problem with that? All their debt is at such exorbitantly high rates of interest they can never get out from under it! Their DSR's (Debt to Service Ratio's) are so finely balanced with each new loan that any straw that breaks will throw the whole system off kilter and put them right back where they started with overdue loans, credit agency phone calls and the whole ball of wax. It's disgusting.
I try my best to talk to friends and family in a non-confrontational, non-judgemental way about how to manage and maintain a good credit score but sadly human nature and their own habits tend to take over and they wind up sobbing about how badly their situation sucks.
The system is designed to get and keep people down. Banks don't make their money off the rich; they make it off the working class ignorant.
I'm so sure somebody can look at dozens of IDs all day and then pick one of them from memory and re-iterate a 15 character license number, full name, address, birthdate, issue date and expiry date, all the while recalling and re-creating the very same individual's credit card, getting the security digits from the back and making a reasonable likeness of their signature during a particular 15 second transaction.
... all without the slightest inkling of something awry by the cardholder.
Please, stand still so I can take a picture of you, your ID, and your credit card. Don't mind the second card reader sir; it's just procedure.
As to the doorman who can recite pieces of information after viewing an ID? Yeah, great party trick. I know people who can do that too. Now, show them about 200 drivers licenses over the course of an eight hour shift and then have them recall all the details about number 74. Uh-huh. Thought not.
Credit card companies warn against letting a server walk away with your card so that it will be swiped away from your presence. It is, however, much more difficult to accomplish all this while the customer is standing in front of you; especially if the customer is already aware enough that their ID is being checked.
For the record; I'm carded all the time at the beer store. Not related to the fact that I'm using my credit card to pay, but because I have a very young face so I've been ID'd constantly for the past ten years. My ID remains in my hand, the person behind the counter takes a quick visual scan then proceeds to ring in the transaction. It's not rocket science and I've never been worried about my identity being stolen.
You black helicopter folks can put down the X-Files DVDs and join us here in the real world where people don't scan your identity with their bionic eyes. You're more likely to have your credit card number stolen in a computer/database security breech than you are by being double-swiped in front of your eyes. (Reference the recent 'Winners' breech that netted theives several hundred thousands credit card numbers, etc.)
Close, but not quite. If/when there's a dispute, the credit card company reverses all disputed funds and then demands signatory proof. If there's no electronic swipe of the card on record, they also demand an imprint to go along with the signature.
When I was working for a pizza delivery restaurant (mom & pop shop) they had a customer who ordered about $40-50 worth of food about 3-4 nights a week. Pretty much the same stuff each time; fried foods, milk shakes, cans of pop, stuff like that. After about 12-15 orders, Visa reversed the funds for all of his orders and demanded proof; the customer had called 'fraud'. Due to different drivers at different times (and their respective attitudes towards being thorough) the store had let's say 12 receipts with only 9 imprints. A couple of the imprints were deemed illegible so only 7 of the 12 charges were allowed to go through.
The contention of the store, and it took a lot of fighting to get this point across, was that the orders came from the same phone number (verified with caller ID), followed the same pattern, came at the same time of day (late at night), went to the same address and obviously if the first 7 were correct then why not the other 5?!?
It was later discovered that this individual (a casual drug user who had a Sherrif's notice of eviction on his apartment door, incidentally) had recently been sent the card in one of those "You're Pre-Approved!" style mail-outs, activated it for however many thousand dollars they'd give him then started going wild ordering from several restaurants. Basically anybody who'd deliver to his crummy building. I'm not sure what happened to him in the end but for the pain he put the merchants through and the money he cost the Visa fraud team and the credit he blew through on that card I'd hope that he's atleast a guest of the Province for the next 5 years of his life, but hey, what can you do right?