In Australia, merchant banks will only accept transactions encrypted to 3DES. This was a fairly recent change. Retailers (including the very large one I helped through the PIN pad changeover) spent rather a lot of money on the changeover, and had no complaints about the investment. Nobody watches the till quite like a grocer...
Love that one. Ask them what their favorite fundamental algorithm is.
Then ask them how a bubble sort works, and filter out anyone who doesn't say "Why could you possibly want to know about that?
Not all experienced programmers are good programmers. I once encountered a programmer who'd developed a hydrology program in Pascal over some years, and encoded his entire database into an enumerated data type. I only found out about it when he'd run out of cardinality.
I think we'll re-arrange the planets into a Kemplerer Rosette and head out toward the galactic rim, myself. We won't need a sun by then, even if we do replace RV's with stepping discs.
I'd say he added valuable input to the community in the profession he followed. If I were a Cisco exec, I'd be pleased to take credit for it and honour his disclaimer. IANAL but sometimes I try to think like one.
Could you tell me how I can short out the brakes on my car?
Just take a section out of that little tube that goes from the brakes and disappears into the engine compartment. Just an inch or two, nobody will notice it's missing.
...is there any rational reason... for the huge focus on the damned planes?
Not really, no. While we focus on aircraft they'll focus on something else while we're distracted.
What about an entirely different commerce disruption activity, such as threatening communications (e.g. recent undersea cable mystery) or even critical infrastructure points (e.g. the California Aqueduct)? Are we spending sufficient of our anti-terror effort on things that the enemy have not drawn our attention toward?
Look at the Secret Service guarding the President. They don't all stare at they guy they're guarding, or the place where the last attempt was made. They're looking everywhere and they're trained to cover the zones. If we fixate on aircraft as a point of vulnerability we're in danger of ignoring the other possibilities. We need to think, not react.
The system I heard about that runs in Hong Kong sounds like it could be better than either the US or Australian system (and I'm a big fan of the Australian system). You get a smart card that you recharge from an ATM-like kiosk (they're everywhere) and use it for pretty much everything as a swipe card, until the balance recorded in the card is depleted.
There's an interesting local variation that dedicates a small sum near depletion that can only be used for public transport. So, you can charge up, get too drunk to use the recharge kiosk, and still get home without becoming road kill. May not be entirely applicable in a larger country, but it's still interesting and a good solution for the HK locals.
Having the cancelled cheque for a receipt would be nice, but I can't imagine how much that costs to process and post back, and that would have to come out of bank fees I'd think.
Here the cc account is different from the cheque account, despite having the same number. PIN is required for cheque account transactions, not cc. Credit accounts are subject to the normal credit card controls (i.e. max liability on theft) and they can't be used against your cheque account without the PIN being entered. Several attempts at a wrong PIN will get your account locked, and if at an ATM it will result in the card being swallowed too. So I think it's fairly safe as long as you use a non-trivial PIN.
My PIN number is 1234, which nobody will ever guess due to a bit of verrra clever persycholology~.
Electronic Funds Transfer (at the) Point Of Sale.
I'm guessing....
You win. In Australia "eftpos" has become a sort of common noun/verb (and possibly the only non-"ing" gerund I've ever encountered). There's an "eftpos" logo affixed to most store windows and cash registers along with logos of the credit & debit cards accepted. Because of this familiarity, the term has gone from obscure acronym to something pronounced and in general usage, awkward as it is. Good old Ingenico pin-pads, choose account and enter your PIN number. Cheque usage is very rare and infrequent here now, there's no way to spend funds you don't have in your cheque account since it's basically a hand-held ATM next to a cash register. It's also less of a hassle to get cash-out over and above the purchase price because the stores prefer to have the money in the bank rather than in the till.
A side effect is a rather huge capability in OLTP locally -- that's a lot of database transactions.
I agree. But why send back the cheques at all? We haven't done that in Australia for years. But then we're mostly eftpos for everything above a newspaper purchase so we're not quite so addicted to posting paper. Most money travels via SWIFT, about three trillion per year.
So it's taken me 2 hours just to install BASIC multimedia functionality, some decent fonts and...
You're quite right, it's a pain. However, think of Vista or XP, excellent alternatives -- except for a few odd security dialogue boxes and thirty or so update downloads (most of which work) even on a new box, and the only difference between your effort and that of the great unwashed is, well, that you may have had to think a little bit. Frustrating stuff, thinking, can't get the map folded right afterwards.
I think you might be right, though. Not all customers of the PC or laptop are intellectually curious, they just want a TV with a few more knobs on it, so to speak.
I wanted to invent a ][ "Irony" tag, but it's strangely reminiscent of... never mind.
The air you breath is free, but I doubt Joe Sixpack considers it worthless. I just spoke to Joe Sixpack, and he *does* consider the air you breathe to be worthless.
My father, the concrete mixer driver turned jeweller used to say "If you can't move a piece, raise the price until it does. Always works."
Fractal structures and neural networks are fun, if I remember my Minsky at all. The secret we need to uncover is how to get nanobots to communicate along synaptic lines without dissipating the signal beyond one or two atomata. I think it's these communications and feedback structures that are key to the idea of layered abstraction of neural networks that provide the summarising signals necessary to work toward artificial consciousness. (Or I could be entirely full of snot, depending on the associativity index of this last thought.)
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In Australia, merchant banks will only accept transactions encrypted to 3DES. This was a fairly recent change. Retailers (including the very large one I helped through the PIN pad changeover) spent rather a lot of money on the changeover, and had no complaints about the investment. Nobody watches the till quite like a grocer...
Sorry, what is this "pension" thing you speak of? I'm in IT...
Sorry, what is this "company loyalty" thing you speak of? Is it like that "school spirit" thing that went on in the 50's?
Get off my lawn.
Love that one. Ask them what their favorite fundamental algorithm is.
Then ask them how a bubble sort works, and filter out anyone who doesn't say "Why could you possibly want to know about that?
Not all experienced programmers are good programmers. I once encountered a programmer who'd developed a hydrology program in Pascal over some years, and encoded his entire database into an enumerated data type. I only found out about it when he'd run out of cardinality.
(Dodges ballistic vegetable matter)
Check out "Fun with peripherals" on bloggica.wordpress.com. It's about fabbers.
I'd expect an Outsider to think like that.
I think we'll re-arrange the planets into a Kemplerer Rosette and head out toward the galactic rim, myself. We won't need a sun by then, even if we do replace RV's with stepping discs.
I am an anaerobic life form, you insensitive clod!
I'd say he added valuable input to the community in the profession he followed. If I were a Cisco exec, I'd be pleased to take credit for it and honour his disclaimer. IANAL but sometimes I try to think like one.
Why not? I'd love to have clean lungs again.
Just take a section out of that little tube that goes from the brakes and disappears into the engine compartment. Just an inch or two, nobody will notice it's missing.
Not really, no. While we focus on aircraft they'll focus on something else while we're distracted.
What about an entirely different commerce disruption activity, such as threatening communications (e.g. recent undersea cable mystery) or even critical infrastructure points (e.g. the California Aqueduct)? Are we spending sufficient of our anti-terror effort on things that the enemy have not drawn our attention toward?
Look at the Secret Service guarding the President. They don't all stare at they guy they're guarding, or the place where the last attempt was made. They're looking everywhere and they're trained to cover the zones. If we fixate on aircraft as a point of vulnerability we're in danger of ignoring the other possibilities. We need to think, not react.
There's an interesting local variation that dedicates a small sum near depletion that can only be used for public transport. So, you can charge up, get too drunk to use the recharge kiosk, and still get home without becoming road kill. May not be entirely applicable in a larger country, but it's still interesting and a good solution for the HK locals.
Having the cancelled cheque for a receipt would be nice, but I can't imagine how much that costs to process and post back, and that would have to come out of bank fees I'd think.
Oh, wait a minute, that can't even keep Castro in top form!
He's 81 and he smoked a lot of cigars, give him a break. And say what you want about the bastard, Cuban medical care is good.
My PIN number is 1234, which nobody will ever guess due to a bit of verrra clever persycholology~.
You win. In Australia "eftpos" has become a sort of common noun/verb (and possibly the only non-"ing" gerund I've ever encountered). There's an "eftpos" logo affixed to most store windows and cash registers along with logos of the credit & debit cards accepted. Because of this familiarity, the term has gone from obscure acronym to something pronounced and in general usage, awkward as it is. Good old Ingenico pin-pads, choose account and enter your PIN number. Cheque usage is very rare and infrequent here now, there's no way to spend funds you don't have in your cheque account since it's basically a hand-held ATM next to a cash register. It's also less of a hassle to get cash-out over and above the purchase price because the stores prefer to have the money in the bank rather than in the till.
A side effect is a rather huge capability in OLTP locally -- that's a lot of database transactions.
I agree. But why send back the cheques at all? We haven't done that in Australia for years. But then we're mostly eftpos for everything above a newspaper purchase so we're not quite so addicted to posting paper. Most money travels via SWIFT, about three trillion per year.
Well, we tried Tom Jones here in the south but it led to a rather interesting pollution problem.
You're quite right, it's a pain. However, think of Vista or XP, excellent alternatives -- except for a few odd security dialogue boxes and thirty or so update downloads (most of which work) even on a new box, and the only difference between your effort and that of the great unwashed is, well, that you may have had to think a little bit. Frustrating stuff, thinking, can't get the map folded right afterwards.
I think you might be right, though. Not all customers of the PC or laptop are intellectually curious, they just want a TV with a few more knobs on it, so to speak.
I wanted to invent a ][ "Irony" tag, but it's strangely reminiscent of... never mind.
My father, the concrete mixer driver turned jeweller used to say "If you can't move a piece, raise the price until it does. Always works."
Oh and I'm an engineer and a programmer, too =). But you have two years on me (/salute)
Fractal structures and neural networks are fun, if I remember my Minsky at all. The secret we need to uncover is how to get nanobots to communicate along synaptic lines without dissipating the signal beyond one or two atomata. I think it's these communications and feedback structures that are key to the idea of layered abstraction of neural networks that provide the summarising signals necessary to work toward artificial consciousness. (Or I could be entirely full of snot, depending on the associativity index of this last thought.)
Arrrr.
Kind of glad I don't have mod points at the moment. I'd go nuts trying to choose between interesting, insightful or informative.