The problem is that Visa and MasterCard together have pretty much a monopoly on international online payments. They own our payment infrastructure, and therefore they can decide what we can do with our money. That's just not an acceptable situation. Our payment infrastructure needs to be neutral, and not corporate owned.
Can we report on more ways to help Wikileaks please?
What I'd like to see is an open, international credit card system that's not at the mercy of two semi-monopolists. It's practically impossible to do reliable payments online without the approval of MasterCard and Visa, and clearly they don't always approve. That's a problem, and it needs to be fixed. We've become too dependent on these two companies, and it turns out they're not the neutral infrastructure that we expected them to be.
We need neutral payment infrastructure. Preferably one where the recipient doesn't need a separate contract with every single credit card company, but only with a single bank. And then everybody with a credit card can automatically pay money to that bank. You can have multiple banks, multiple credit cards, etc, all on the same universal, open system. And if a single bank decides not to do business with you, then you can simply switch to another. If your credit card provider decides not to let you send money to someone, you can just get a different credit card that's on the same system. It's the only good way of handling this, I think.
Now only to get some international banks and credit cards on board with this idea.
Scala isn't the same as Java. Yes, it runs on the JVM, but so does JRuby. The advantage of Scala is that it still offers concise, expressive code with many Ruby-like dynamic features, but without the overhead of actual dynamic typing. And it can outperform Java in parallel processing.
However, THIS time, he warns that he has pretty dire information about financial institutions and THEN shit suddenly hits the fan. The clear point here being that it's the FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS that are putting the screws to him.
I'm not entirely sure how the financial institutions think this is going to help them. Do they think WikiLeaks might not publish the dirt if they boycott them? Or are they trying to show their corruption right now, so people won't be as shocked when WikiLeaks publishes about it?
We definitely made the bed and now we're stuck lying in it. Good point. But it still doesn't un-crazy the Iranian theocracy. Crazy US foreign policy gave them the vehicle to come to power but those nutjobs are doing fine being crazy all on their own now.
Well put. That's exactly my point. I do think overthrowing governments, especially from the outside, has a tendency to bring the crazies out, though.
And I, for one, welcome our new Amazon.com overlords.
I don't. I'm still trying to boycott them because of the WikiLeaks thing. Added bonus is that I might support local brick & mortar shops a bit more, and it sounds like they can use that support. I guess the worst thing that can happen to them is that someone is browsing through their shop, finds something interesting, examines it, checks online for the reviews, finds it way cheaper there, and decides he can wait a few days for the cheaper option to be delivered.
It's hard to say that the US isn't at least partially to blame for Iran's problems. It was a democracy until 1953, when, with the help of the CIA and the ayatollahs, the government was overthrown and the Shah placed in power. And it went downhill from there.
Iran is not a crazy banana republic with raving mad leaders.
Yes it is. Iran has a lot of very reasonable, smart, educated and enlightened people, but its leaders are stark raving mad. Get rid of the theocracy and have some real elections for a change. Go back to the democracy of before 1953.
The US and Israel wants an excuse to invade, just as the lies about Iraq WMD was used to fool the world.
The US would sell its own mother to not have to invade Iran. They're already embroiled in two neverending wars. They don't want a third.
It doesnt matter if Iran stops its (for now) civilian nuclear program, some other excuse will be made. Iran sadly needs nuclear weapons to protect itself from the US and Israel.
How is Israel going to attack Iran? The only reason for Israel to ever do so is if Iran is a direct threat to Israel's continued existence. Israel too has enough crap on their hands after upsetting Turkey and the EU with their seizing ships at sea and the continued repression of Palestinians.
I admit Israel's self-destructiveness rivals that of Iran's current leadership, so you never know you never know what kind of crazy stunt they're going to pull next, but invading Iran goes way beyond that. A bombing strike on the nuclear facilities, sure. But other than that, Israel is only really interested in harassing Palestinians and taking their land.
Do you seriously think Iran would launch a first strike at Israel knowing it would turn every square inch of Iran into a parking space?
With Ahmadinejad at the helm? I consider it a distinct possibility.
Up until today Israel and the US has been far more aggressive against other countries than Iran, who furthermore has had to defend themselves from US weapons, chemical weapons and money through Saddam back when he was US best buddy.
I'm not going to dispute that. The US has a lot of blood on their hands, as does Israel. But at the moment, Israel is only really a threat to the continued existence of the Palestinians. They're not a threat to anyone else, unless they get in the way (which they might). And the US is really a lot more likely to invade Iran because they're about to get a nuke, than they'd be if Iran didn't get a nuke.
Iran needs nuclear weapons to be sure US and Israel wont invade. Those two knows that the minute Iran has nuclear weapons as a deterrent, they cant invade. This is an endless loop where Usrael says invasion is the only solution because Iran is trying to get nuclears to deter an invasion.
The only really path to getting Iran off the path to nuclears are that the US and Israel promises to not invade Iran.
If they're that serious about invasion, US and Israel would invade before Iran has their nukes ready. What they're afraid of is that if they don't invade, Iran will simply launch the nukes at Israel, because that's the kind of guy Ahmadinejad is. Or seems to be, at least. The nukes might force the US and Israel to do something against Iran even when they'd rather not.
And all of that capability means nothing if the people using it aren't willing to cause enormous civilian casualties,
Well, it's a good thing the US is perfectly willing (eager even) to cause enormous civilian casualties, isn't it? Makes you wonder why the war still hasn't been won.
How exactly does String Theory help? QM and Relativity only conflict in their predictions in areas we can't observe. In exchange we get String Theory which doesn't predict anything. Except for this, and it's been refuted.
I agree with the summary, this isn't the defeat of String Theory. It is a chance to refine and improve it.
Why would you? This was the only ever testable prediction from String Theory, and it failed. Finally String Theory has its coveted falsifiability, and now you want to take it away again? People have been refining and improving string theory for decades, so far with nothing to show for it. Maybe we need to look elsewhere. (Loop Quantum Mechanics looks promising, if I understand The Big Bang Theory correctly.)
The real security in bank cards is the secrecy of the algorithm. Which is probably over 20 years old by now.
If any criminal had access to the algorithm, it would of course be trivial to run through the 10000 possible options to find the pin number that goes with the stolen bank card, but fortunately in the past 20 years nobody has ever been able to bribe anyone for access to that algorithm. We're safe, guys.
And then you only need to figure out how to sync those various keyrings across multiple PCs, browsers, OSs and smartphones. Easy as pie, right?
As you can probably guess, I use the same, simple password for every single web forum. I use complex passwords only for stuff that matters: my computers, my banking site, my PayPal account (until I canceled it), etc.
What really pisses me off, by the way, is when sites want to restrict my choice of password. The most stupid example is my bank, that doesn't allow (most?) non-alphanumeric characters in a password. Then there are completely unimportant webfora that insist my password has to be at least 8 characters long and contain letters, numbers and non-alphanumeric characters.
It's still a stupid rule. Higher prices in my country are causing a lot of people to import from cheaper countries (the US, Germany). Allow unauthorized imports, and you get more local trade and better prices. Everybody wins (except for the official importer and/or the producer).
Slashdot Mirror
The problem is that Visa and MasterCard together have pretty much a monopoly on international online payments. They own our payment infrastructure, and therefore they can decide what we can do with our money. That's just not an acceptable situation. Our payment infrastructure needs to be neutral, and not corporate owned.
Can we report on more ways to help Wikileaks please?
What I'd like to see is an open, international credit card system that's not at the mercy of two semi-monopolists. It's practically impossible to do reliable payments online without the approval of MasterCard and Visa, and clearly they don't always approve. That's a problem, and it needs to be fixed. We've become too dependent on these two companies, and it turns out they're not the neutral infrastructure that we expected them to be.
We need neutral payment infrastructure. Preferably one where the recipient doesn't need a separate contract with every single credit card company, but only with a single bank. And then everybody with a credit card can automatically pay money to that bank. You can have multiple banks, multiple credit cards, etc, all on the same universal, open system. And if a single bank decides not to do business with you, then you can simply switch to another. If your credit card provider decides not to let you send money to someone, you can just get a different credit card that's on the same system. It's the only good way of handling this, I think.
Now only to get some international banks and credit cards on board with this idea.
Can we stop posting every bit wikileaks minutiae and get back to real news for nerds?
And if we do post it, let's pos it while it's still news, and not a week later, okay?
wikileaks almost has nothing to do with tech anyways, and this tidbit is almost certainly not stuff that matters.
Blocking online transactions has something to do with your rights online, though. And that's where this story is.
Google Wave isn't dead. It just changed its name to Apache Wave.
Scala isn't the same as Java. Yes, it runs on the JVM, but so does JRuby. The advantage of Scala is that it still offers concise, expressive code with many Ruby-like dynamic features, but without the overhead of actual dynamic typing. And it can outperform Java in parallel processing.
However, THIS time, he warns that he has pretty dire information about financial institutions and THEN shit suddenly hits the fan. The clear point here being that it's the FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS that are putting the screws to him.
I'm not entirely sure how the financial institutions think this is going to help them. Do they think WikiLeaks might not publish the dirt if they boycott them? Or are they trying to show their corruption right now, so people won't be as shocked when WikiLeaks publishes about it?
Too bad Wikileaks is not an international drug running or firearms smuggling organization, they appear to be more befitting "internal policies".
Of course they are. Lots of money involved in smuggling. Not so much money involved in free press.
We definitely made the bed and now we're stuck lying in it. Good point. But it still doesn't un-crazy the Iranian theocracy. Crazy US foreign policy gave them the vehicle to come to power but those nutjobs are doing fine being crazy all on their own now.
Well put. That's exactly my point. I do think overthrowing governments, especially from the outside, has a tendency to bring the crazies out, though.
I often have crappy reception in supermarkets.
And I, for one, welcome our new Amazon.com overlords.
I don't. I'm still trying to boycott them because of the WikiLeaks thing. Added bonus is that I might support local brick & mortar shops a bit more, and it sounds like they can use that support. I guess the worst thing that can happen to them is that someone is browsing through their shop, finds something interesting, examines it, checks online for the reviews, finds it way cheaper there, and decides he can wait a few days for the cheaper option to be delivered.
It's hard to say that the US isn't at least partially to blame for Iran's problems. It was a democracy until 1953, when, with the help of the CIA and the ayatollahs, the government was overthrown and the Shah placed in power. And it went downhill from there.
Iran is not a crazy banana republic with raving mad leaders.
Yes it is. Iran has a lot of very reasonable, smart, educated and enlightened people, but its leaders are stark raving mad. Get rid of the theocracy and have some real elections for a change. Go back to the democracy of before 1953.
The US and Israel wants an excuse to invade, just as the lies about Iraq WMD was used to fool the world.
The US would sell its own mother to not have to invade Iran. They're already embroiled in two neverending wars. They don't want a third.
It doesnt matter if Iran stops its (for now) civilian nuclear program, some other excuse will be made. Iran sadly needs nuclear weapons to protect itself from the US and Israel.
How is Israel going to attack Iran? The only reason for Israel to ever do so is if Iran is a direct threat to Israel's continued existence. Israel too has enough crap on their hands after upsetting Turkey and the EU with their seizing ships at sea and the continued repression of Palestinians.
I admit Israel's self-destructiveness rivals that of Iran's current leadership, so you never know you never know what kind of crazy stunt they're going to pull next, but invading Iran goes way beyond that. A bombing strike on the nuclear facilities, sure. But other than that, Israel is only really interested in harassing Palestinians and taking their land.
Do you seriously think Iran would launch a first strike at Israel knowing it would turn every square inch of Iran into a parking space?
With Ahmadinejad at the helm? I consider it a distinct possibility.
Up until today Israel and the US has been far more aggressive against other countries than Iran, who furthermore has had to defend themselves from US weapons, chemical weapons and money through Saddam back when he was US best buddy.
I'm not going to dispute that. The US has a lot of blood on their hands, as does Israel. But at the moment, Israel is only really a threat to the continued existence of the Palestinians. They're not a threat to anyone else, unless they get in the way (which they might). And the US is really a lot more likely to invade Iran because they're about to get a nuke, than they'd be if Iran didn't get a nuke.
Iran needs nuclear weapons to be sure US and Israel wont invade. Those two knows that the minute Iran has nuclear weapons as a deterrent, they cant invade. This is an endless loop where Usrael says invasion is the only solution because Iran is trying to get nuclears to deter an invasion.
The only really path to getting Iran off the path to nuclears are that the US and Israel promises to not invade Iran.
If they're that serious about invasion, US and Israel would invade before Iran has their nukes ready. What they're afraid of is that if they don't invade, Iran will simply launch the nukes at Israel, because that's the kind of guy Ahmadinejad is. Or seems to be, at least. The nukes might force the US and Israel to do something against Iran even when they'd rather not.
And all of that capability means nothing if the people using it aren't willing to cause enormous civilian casualties,
Well, it's a good thing the US is perfectly willing (eager even) to cause enormous civilian casualties, isn't it? Makes you wonder why the war still hasn't been won.
It's not just France. The US and most of Europe aren't any different in that respect. Being only slightly better than China seems to be the goal.
It almost seems like anything that isn't "kid's book level" or "PHD degree" gets lumped into intermediate.
I think that's a perfectly fine distinction.
Old people don't like sweeping generalizations.
Yeah, by "amazing" I meant it's amazing in how archaic, cobbled together and badly thought through it is. Not that it's actually any good.
Their interface sucks too.
How exactly does String Theory help? QM and Relativity only conflict in their predictions in areas we can't observe. In exchange we get String Theory which doesn't predict anything. Except for this, and it's been refuted.
I agree with the summary, this isn't the defeat of String Theory. It is a chance to refine and improve it.
Why would you? This was the only ever testable prediction from String Theory, and it failed. Finally String Theory has its coveted falsifiability, and now you want to take it away again? People have been refining and improving string theory for decades, so far with nothing to show for it. Maybe we need to look elsewhere. (Loop Quantum Mechanics looks promising, if I understand The Big Bang Theory correctly.)
The real security in bank cards is the secrecy of the algorithm. Which is probably over 20 years old by now.
If any criminal had access to the algorithm, it would of course be trivial to run through the 10000 possible options to find the pin number that goes with the stolen bank card, but fortunately in the past 20 years nobody has ever been able to bribe anyone for access to that algorithm. We're safe, guys.
That's also an option. I was wondering if this was about preventing SQL injection, and they'd never heard of parameterized queries.
I've got a 15 year-old piece of paper with codes that I need to enter when I want to transfer money.
It's quite an amazing system.
And then you only need to figure out how to sync those various keyrings across multiple PCs, browsers, OSs and smartphones. Easy as pie, right?
As you can probably guess, I use the same, simple password for every single web forum. I use complex passwords only for stuff that matters: my computers, my banking site, my PayPal account (until I canceled it), etc.
What really pisses me off, by the way, is when sites want to restrict my choice of password. The most stupid example is my bank, that doesn't allow (most?) non-alphanumeric characters in a password. Then there are completely unimportant webfora that insist my password has to be at least 8 characters long and contain letters, numbers and non-alphanumeric characters.
It's still a stupid rule. Higher prices in my country are causing a lot of people to import from cheaper countries (the US, Germany). Allow unauthorized imports, and you get more local trade and better prices. Everybody wins (except for the official importer and/or the producer).