In the case of providian first I called the bank, they said I'd have to call providian.
I called Providian, they said I'd have to call the bank because they couldn't talk to me in regards to her account even if they charged her bill to my bank account without authorization from either me or her. When she called them they said the charge had been made by an authorized party (despite being unauthorized on my account) and that they could tell HER who it was, they said we'd have to work with the bank.
I finally called the bank back, went through 3 supervisors and finally got someone to give me to the fraud department. The fraud department wanted to investigate the issue. Naturally I pointed them to their own online records saying the charge had come through under name x and that name x wasn't on my account and they don't have authorization to release funds to name x whether name x claims I said ok or not. After drilling them for awhile they finally admitted that the charge should never have been paid and that getting their money back from Providian was their problem not mine and refunded it 2 days later.
"Finally, do you use cash? Its value is primarily based on the government's recognition of it."
Unfortunately your right on that one, once upon a time it was actually backed by gold and silver and it's primary purpose was to be easier to carry. Those days are long gone, we don't even have enough assets total to cover all the cash floating around, let alone enough gold and silver.
Somewhat offtopic, but while your bank will not freeze your account at the request of a random third party.
Something fairly nasty that they will do, is automatically debit your account and pay any company who runs through a check-by-phone type transfer. All that is needed is the information on the bottom of your check and no authorization whatsoever. It's happened to me 3 times now, each time for somewhere between $250-$500.
This is 100% automated. The first time I did a check by phone to pay my monthly providian bill, not only did they charge that, they also charged me for the full $500 balance of my mother-in-law's bill (she lived with me and I guess they figured I'd surely want to pay the credit card bills of everyone!).
Sure enough, the charge came through automatically, no review, not even so much as a check to verify that the name it was put through under was on the account!
I've switched banks twice since and had check by phone frauds nail me at each bank (and yes, the providian thing was the first and only time I actually used a check by phone legitimately) because they ALL process them automatically with NO review and no authorization. Anybody you write a check can charge your account without signiture for up to your full account balance plus whatever the bank will cover for you.
I thought the primary purpose of a bank was to lock my money up and insure in every possible manner that your money can only be removed with your authorization?
To some degree. You won't find many grandparents who will claim they learn as fast as they used to.
Although I believe the human race is evolving (more and more rapidly with each generation, coupled with an increased accumulated knowledgebase and availability of information) and that the eldest of each generation will be more up on current events than the previous generation I doubt the general rule will change.
The general rule is quite simple, the older you are the more accumlated knowledge you have. Subject to illnesses more likely to affect the elderly, they are not any less adept at using that knowledge or reasoning. But hand in hand, as you age you learn new information more slowly than you used to. A 60yr old who learns as fast as a 20yr old likely learned MUCH faster than that 20yr old does when THEY were 20yrs old. This scales, a 15yr old doesn't absorb information as fast a 3yr old, not nearly as fast.
Accumulated base knowledge is important in technology without a doubt. But the most important thing in technology is learning fast. By the time the 20-25yr olds of today are 60, what we are learning now won't be new anymore, it won't be the latest and greatest of tech any longer. Some learn fast enough now, that they'll be able to keep up then but if you find that technology moves fast now, your probably not one of them.
What is tech today, won't be tech tomorrow. The younger slashdotters today will be the equivelent of hams radio operators tommorow. There are still suprises now and then out of ham and radio technology, but not really. Radio is old, it's not new tech anymore. Some are adapting (largely the younger hams who don't mind learning new things) and merging the new concepts of computers and internet with the old concepts of radio.
So when we are all grandpas and grandmas, we'll likely be tech savvy still by todays standards but it's doubtful most of us will by the younger generations of the day's standards.
All just my 2 cents of course. Show me a grandmother who isn't amazed at the way her grandchild's (non-damaged in any fashion) mind absorbs new things and I'll yield the point:)
Show me a grandmother who doesn't have more experience and built up knowledge in general than the grandchild I'll yield the other point;)
"Remember, MS is an 800-lb gorilla. It takes her a while to get running, but once she's up to speed (i.e. sick of security problems, buggy drivers, bad PR, etc.), watch out..."
ummm yeah, we'll I've never seen that MS gorilla come out yet. But I've seen something comparible in their applications. Like the gorilla their bloated as hell, and they run kinda wobbly.
"You know, unlike Apple, Microsoft is quite capable of writing a very advanced kernel on their own. The NT codebase (not the Win32 API,.NET, the registry, etc.) is actually quite modern, and in fact, surpasses Linux (and old-skool Unix) in many respects. It's a shame, because what you advocate would essentially be a step backwards."
First, Microsoft didn't write the NT Kernel, check your history again;) Second, in what fashion is it more modern than the linux kernel? Moving to a linux kernel would hardly be a step backwards, since the linux kernel IS more advanced than the NT kernel. Microsoft neither wrote the NT kernel to begin with, nor have they improved upon it in any significant fashion.
I'll grant you that at the time of writing the NT kernel was more advanced than the linux kernel but now... the linux kernel has improved by leaps and bounds and now surpasses the NT kernel in almost every imaginable respect. In contrast the NT kernel has remained pretty much stagnant.
ok, a few things to note. unlike you I didn't qualify my statement. Who said anything about "long running". I mean across the board, or I suppose anything in which APPLICATION performance is an issue (as opposed to device performance or tasks which require so little speed compared to the hardware that speed is irrelevant, ie "hello world!").
I know java fans like to believe java is fast, well if your comparing java to a random perception, maybe it is fast to you.
If you compare java to other languages with VM's it's not bad either.
If however you broaden the comparison to include traditional programming languages, java and all languages in it's class (including C#) don't even begin to get in the ballpark. Hell even VB outstripes Java and VB compared to other traditional languages is dog arse slow and bloated.
In my mind at least the benchmark to look for is C, since I've never seen another high level language outperform C, some other high level languages come close to matching C (python in some cases, perl in many cases, C++ in many cases, Pascal in a few cases). Compared with C code Java doesn't even hold a candle.
What I mean by significantly and consistantly faster than Java is seeing the program in cases where the code used is virtually identitical (simple things, like counting instances of the letter c in a 2gb text file stored on a ramdrive raid on a 486dx with 8mb ram). If I can see performance across the board match say, pascal, or even VB (although you admittedly couldn't do that particular test with VB), then I'd say the language is ready to replace most apps.
Until then, there is a reason we aren't exactly seeing much Java or any comparable vm language outside the Valley and buzzword industries.
lol did I post in the wrong thread? I though we were talking about nanobot granted immortality here;)
The same applies to the grail to though I suppose. And yes, more young men on pointless and deathly adventures means less competition for the chicks here... think about it;P
"I don't believe in that Religious nonsense but I've studied the doctrine, and the doctrine actually says that truely believing your failure to adhere to teachings of the bible have been forgiven by Christ is what makes you a true christian."
Quoting my post to which you replied. Translation of the above statement:
"Your almost right. Only thing though is believing in Christ as your savior, not the fact of believing in failure to adhere to the teachings of the Bible, makes you saved and a christian......"
The reason Christ is your savior (if your a Christian) is he is saving you from defaulting to hell if you break the rules which are in the bible aka sins. He suffered the punishment for breaking the rules for you and ultimately proved that even God on earth couldn't adhere to them (at least that's one theory of "father why hast thou forsaken me").
Perhaps you misread my post? You've said the same thing I have only in different words.
A multi-platform OS, it can run standalone, as a virtual machine on every major OS (including every linux distro) and give full blown access to the system? Plus it can run in a sort of transparent mode so you can port your app to it and have your app appear to be a native app?
From the description it sounds like it's multi-threaded and designed with distributed systems (read cluster) in mind.
Plus it already has a language designed by the fathers of C and C cross compiler (wonder how well it works, also being designed by the fathers of C).
So in one sweep we have a solution suitable (sounds like it carries 1mb ram overhead) for most applications. Anything written for it magically runs on every major platform, it's highly scriptable and carries most of the magic of Unix packed with it wherever it's run from.
If it's significantly faster than Java I'd say we have a solution to the multi-distro problem as far as apps go.
"Features Compact Runs on devices with as little as 1MB of RAM
Complete Development Environment Including Acme IDE, compilers, shell, UNIX like commands & graphical debugger
Limbo An advanced modular, safe, concurrent programming language with C like syntax.
Library Modules Limbo modules for networking, graphics (including GUI toolkit), security and more...
JIT Compilation Improves application performance by compiling object code on the fly (Just In Time).
Namespaces Powerful resource representation using a single communication protocol. Import and export resources completely transparently.
Full Source Code Full source code for the whole system and applications, subject to licence terms
And more...
# Online manual pages # Full unicode support # Dynamic modules # Advanced GUI toolkit # Javascript 1.1 web browser # C cross compiler suite # Remote Debugging # Games, Demos & Utilities"
Most relevant on the list is the C cross compiler suite. Theres at least one language other than Limbo you can code in (although it seems limbo is designed by many of the guys who wrote C and other minor items of note such as Unix).
If there is one language any developer you'd really want on the playing field knows, it's C.
Actually if the nanobots are set to work producing healthy cells and are replaced annually.
Unlike the regular cells in the human body which age, the nanocell producers will be replaced fresh... no sagging, no wrinkles, no problems.
Heart gets too old? no problem, we just grow a new one using your own DNA, and then use nanobots to replace the scar tissue with healthy tissue after the transplant.
If all goes well, eventually the entire human body will be repairable/replaceable/modular. Rather than Death, you'll just have routine maintainence.
Improving the genetic pool of the human species through genocide is frowned upon. But what about improving it via granting virtual immortality to those who have traits we want to encourage. Giving them the opportunity to have offspring, after offspring after offspring.
I sure hope this isn't someone's 2gb release of test3 and is the real deal.
It would be really depressing to find I'm downloading at a rate that MIGHT get me this thing before tuesday just to find out I could have downloaded at full speed and had it in two hours come Tues.
When I look at the other peers I see a long list of nobody getting crap for speed and then 3 or 4 who are getting anywhere from 100k to 500+k.
I have a theory as to why bittorrent sucks. Most people with fast download have slow upload. So the download links greatly outweight the upload the links.
12 people with 512 down and 256 up cannot all serve eachother at max speed, it just doesn't add up, even if the host server is 512 up it still doesn't add up. And it especially doesn't add up if they are limiting their upload rate.
"which is then used to again deliver a much longer shock than is possible through home-made methods"
It may deliver a longer shock than a capacitor can deliver. But nonetheless it's best to always remember, there is nothing a commercial product can do that cannot be made at home.
Slashdot Mirror
In the case of providian first I called the bank, they said I'd have to call providian.
I called Providian, they said I'd have to call the bank because they couldn't talk to me in regards to her account even if they charged her bill to my bank account without authorization from either me or her. When she called them they said the charge had been made by an authorized party (despite being unauthorized on my account) and that they could tell HER who it was, they said we'd have to work with the bank.
I finally called the bank back, went through 3 supervisors and finally got someone to give me to the fraud department. The fraud department wanted to investigate the issue. Naturally I pointed them to their own online records saying the charge had come through under name x and that name x wasn't on my account and they don't have authorization to release funds to name x whether name x claims I said ok or not. After drilling them for awhile they finally admitted that the charge should never have been paid and that getting their money back from Providian was their problem not mine and refunded it 2 days later.
Explain to me again why the project can't continue without donations in the meantime?
Is there anyone who actually volunteers to work on this project WITHOUT getting paid?
"Finally, do you use cash? Its value is primarily based on the government's recognition of it."
Unfortunately your right on that one, once upon a time it was actually backed by gold and silver and it's primary purpose was to be easier to carry. Those days are long gone, we don't even have enough assets total to cover all the cash floating around, let alone enough gold and silver.
Somewhat offtopic, but while your bank will not freeze your account at the request of a random third party.
Something fairly nasty that they will do, is automatically debit your account and pay any company who runs through a check-by-phone type transfer. All that is needed is the information on the bottom of your check and no authorization whatsoever. It's happened to me 3 times now, each time for somewhere between $250-$500.
This is 100% automated. The first time I did a check by phone to pay my monthly providian bill, not only did they charge that, they also charged me for the full $500 balance of my mother-in-law's bill (she lived with me and I guess they figured I'd surely want to pay the credit card bills of everyone!).
Sure enough, the charge came through automatically, no review, not even so much as a check to verify that the name it was put through under was on the account!
I've switched banks twice since and had check by phone frauds nail me at each bank (and yes, the providian thing was the first and only time I actually used a check by phone legitimately) because they ALL process them automatically with NO review and no authorization. Anybody you write a check can charge your account without signiture for up to your full account balance plus whatever the bank will cover for you.
I thought the primary purpose of a bank was to lock my money up and insure in every possible manner that your money can only be removed with your authorization?
I never write checks anymore, I'm afraid to.
"Nor should it be...they make no claim to be a bank, so why use them as one?"
Last I checked paypal definately implies they are a bank and even has money market accounts and issues debit cards.
ok except for one thing, SUSE failed and was ultimately bought out cheap.
Redhat on the other hand open'd all of their useful "glue" and it's used widely and Redhat remains the leading commercial Linux distribution.
The theory is nice, but the end results aren't working in your favor.
To some degree. You won't find many grandparents who will claim they learn as fast as they used to.
:)
;)
Although I believe the human race is evolving (more and more rapidly with each generation, coupled with an increased accumulated knowledgebase and availability of information) and that the eldest of each generation will be more up on current events than the previous generation I doubt the general rule will change.
The general rule is quite simple, the older you are the more accumlated knowledge you have. Subject to illnesses more likely to affect the elderly, they are not any less adept at using that knowledge or reasoning. But hand in hand, as you age you learn new information more slowly than you used to. A 60yr old who learns as fast as a 20yr old likely learned MUCH faster than that 20yr old does when THEY were 20yrs old. This scales, a 15yr old doesn't absorb information as fast a 3yr old, not nearly as fast.
Accumulated base knowledge is important in technology without a doubt. But the most important thing in technology is learning fast. By the time the 20-25yr olds of today are 60, what we are learning now won't be new anymore, it won't be the latest and greatest of tech any longer. Some learn fast enough now, that they'll be able to keep up then but if you find that technology moves fast now, your probably not one of them.
What is tech today, won't be tech tomorrow. The younger slashdotters today will be the equivelent of hams radio operators tommorow. There are still suprises now and then out of ham and radio technology, but not really. Radio is old, it's not new tech anymore. Some are adapting (largely the younger hams who don't mind learning new things) and merging the new concepts of computers and internet with the old concepts of radio.
So when we are all grandpas and grandmas, we'll likely be tech savvy still by todays standards but it's doubtful most of us will by the younger generations of the day's standards.
All just my 2 cents of course. Show me a grandmother who isn't amazed at the way her grandchild's (non-damaged in any fashion) mind absorbs new things and I'll yield the point
Show me a grandmother who doesn't have more experience and built up knowledge in general than the grandchild I'll yield the other point
"Remember, MS is an 800-lb gorilla. It takes her a while to get running, but once she's up to speed (i.e. sick of security problems, buggy drivers, bad PR, etc.), watch out..."
.NET, the registry, etc.) is actually quite modern, and in fact, surpasses Linux (and old-skool Unix) in many respects. It's a shame, because what you advocate would essentially be a step backwards."
;) Second, in what fashion is it more modern than the linux kernel? Moving to a linux kernel would hardly be a step backwards, since the linux kernel IS more advanced than the NT kernel. Microsoft neither wrote the NT kernel to begin with, nor have they improved upon it in any significant fashion.
ummm yeah, we'll I've never seen that MS gorilla come out yet. But I've seen something comparible in their applications. Like the gorilla their bloated as hell, and they run kinda wobbly.
"You know, unlike Apple, Microsoft is quite capable of writing a very advanced kernel on their own. The NT codebase (not the Win32 API,
First, Microsoft didn't write the NT Kernel, check your history again
I'll grant you that at the time of writing the NT kernel was more advanced than the linux kernel but now... the linux kernel has improved by leaps and bounds and now surpasses the NT kernel in almost every imaginable respect. In contrast the NT kernel has remained pretty much stagnant.
I always though it was disk duplicate myself
ok, a few things to note. unlike you I didn't qualify my statement. Who said anything about "long running". I mean across the board, or I suppose anything in which APPLICATION performance is an issue (as opposed to device performance or tasks which require so little speed compared to the hardware that speed is irrelevant, ie "hello world!").
I know java fans like to believe java is fast, well if your comparing java to a random perception, maybe it is fast to you.
If you compare java to other languages with VM's it's not bad either.
If however you broaden the comparison to include traditional programming languages, java and all languages in it's class (including C#) don't even begin to get in the ballpark. Hell even VB outstripes Java and VB compared to other traditional languages is dog arse slow and bloated.
In my mind at least the benchmark to look for is C, since I've never seen another high level language outperform C, some other high level languages come close to matching C (python in some cases, perl in many cases, C++ in many cases, Pascal in a few cases). Compared with C code Java doesn't even hold a candle.
What I mean by significantly and consistantly faster than Java is seeing the program in cases where the code used is virtually identitical (simple things, like counting instances of the letter c in a 2gb text file stored on a ramdrive raid on a 486dx with 8mb ram). If I can see performance across the board match say, pascal, or even VB (although you admittedly couldn't do that particular test with VB), then I'd say the language is ready to replace most apps.
Until then, there is a reason we aren't exactly seeing much Java or any comparable vm language outside the Valley and buzzword industries.
lol did I post in the wrong thread? I though we were talking about nanobot granted immortality here ;)
;P
The same applies to the grail to though I suppose.
And yes, more young men on pointless and deathly adventures means less competition for the chicks here... think about it
"I don't believe in that Religious nonsense but I've studied the doctrine, and the doctrine actually says that truely believing your failure to adhere to teachings of the bible have been forgiven by Christ is what makes you a true christian."
Quoting my post to which you replied. Translation of the above statement:
"Your almost right. Only thing though is believing in Christ as your savior, not the fact of believing in failure to adhere to the teachings of the Bible, makes you saved and a christian......"
The reason Christ is your savior (if your a Christian) is he is saving you from defaulting to hell if you break the rules which are in the bible aka sins. He suffered the punishment for breaking the rules for you and ultimately proved that even God on earth couldn't adhere to them (at least that's one theory of "father why hast thou forsaken me").
Perhaps you misread my post? You've said the same thing I have only in different words.
Everything those gentlemen have produced thus far has been too good to be true. C, Unix, etc. Why should this be any different?
Is this what I think it is?
A multi-platform OS, it can run standalone, as a virtual machine on every major OS (including every linux distro) and give full blown access to the system? Plus it can run in a sort of transparent mode so you can port your app to it and have your app appear to be a native app?
From the description it sounds like it's multi-threaded and designed with distributed systems (read cluster) in mind.
Plus it already has a language designed by the fathers of C and C cross compiler (wonder how well it works, also being designed by the fathers of C).
So in one sweep we have a solution suitable (sounds like it carries 1mb ram overhead) for most applications. Anything written for it magically runs on every major platform, it's highly scriptable and carries most of the magic of Unix packed with it wherever it's run from.
If it's significantly faster than Java I'd say we have a solution to the multi-distro problem as far as apps go.
You've obviously never seen the devil girl. I'm a linux man myself but a couple more runins with her when the wife isn't around and I may convert ;)
From the website:
"Features
Compact
Runs on devices with as little as 1MB of RAM
Complete Development Environment
Including Acme IDE, compilers, shell, UNIX like commands & graphical debugger
Limbo
An advanced modular, safe, concurrent programming language with C like syntax.
Library Modules
Limbo modules for networking, graphics (including GUI toolkit), security and more...
JIT Compilation
Improves application performance by compiling object code on the fly (Just In Time).
Namespaces
Powerful resource representation using a single communication protocol. Import and export resources completely transparently.
Full Source Code
Full source code for the whole system and applications, subject to licence terms
And more...
# Online manual pages
# Full unicode support
# Dynamic modules
# Advanced GUI toolkit
# Javascript 1.1 web browser
# C cross compiler suite
# Remote Debugging
# Games, Demos & Utilities"
Most relevant on the list is the C cross compiler suite. Theres at least one language other than Limbo you can code in (although it seems limbo is designed by many of the guys who wrote C and other minor items of note such as Unix).
If there is one language any developer you'd really want on the playing field knows, it's C.
Well the obvious solution is to grant me immortality first. And then leave me to give the final approval as to who else can be granted immortality.
;)
Let's see, do I approve of me, yes. There see, process works great!
Actually if the nanobots are set to work producing healthy cells and are replaced annually.
Unlike the regular cells in the human body which age, the nanocell producers will be replaced fresh... no sagging, no wrinkles, no problems.
Heart gets too old? no problem, we just grow a new one using your own DNA, and then use nanobots to replace the scar tissue with healthy tissue after the transplant.
If all goes well, eventually the entire human body will be repairable/replaceable/modular. Rather than Death, you'll just have routine maintainence.
Improving the genetic pool of the human species through genocide is frowned upon. But what about improving it via granting virtual immortality to those who have traits we want to encourage. Giving them the opportunity to have offspring, after offspring after offspring.
I sure hope this isn't someone's 2gb release of test3 and is the real deal.
It would be really depressing to find I'm downloading at a rate that MIGHT get me this thing before tuesday just to find out I could have downloaded at full speed and had it in two hours come Tues.
Thanks for the tip, I have it limited though.
When I look at the other peers I see a long list of nobody getting crap for speed and then 3 or 4 who are getting anywhere from 100k to 500+k.
I have a theory as to why bittorrent sucks. Most people with fast download have slow upload. So the download links greatly outweight the upload the links.
12 people with 512 down and 256 up cannot all serve eachother at max speed, it just doesn't add up, even if the host server is 512 up it still doesn't add up. And it especially doesn't add up if they are limiting their upload rate.
I've never gotten decent speeds on bittorrent, at best I've gotten medicore speeds.
This time I'm not even getting medicore speeds, once in a great while I get 1k/s. Most of the time I'm getting nothing.
My client shows connection to 20 peers and 0 seeds, and I do have the ports forwarded.
FC1 to FC2 also means a fully functional upgrade to the 2.6 kernel and that is one HELL of an obvious improvement.
If you've never made the transition from 2.4 to 2.6 you wouldn't understand. The speed difference is incredible.
Those are test3, this is supposed to be final release.
"which is then used to again deliver a much longer shock than is possible through home-made methods"
It may deliver a longer shock than a capacitor can deliver. But nonetheless it's best to always remember, there is nothing a commercial product can do that cannot be made at home.
If they can build it, you can build it.
Bah, getting rid of the Engines would work better. If you get rid of the engines you'll get rid of the passengers and pilots in the same swipe.
You'll also have pretty much eliminated the Terror potential since the plane can't be used as a weapon anymore and there are no hostages.