Given how the population of the US is ~319 million, 45 million is almost 15% of the total US population. Therefore, I'm not sure what the summary (or the article itself, which doesn't provide any further detail) is trying to achieve by stating that almost 15% of people "in states like NY and California" use ad blockers -- saying they are statistically average compared to the other 48 states seems to add no value. To me, it would be more interested to know how much variation there is between states.
in case you missed the last twenty years, they're specifically talking about the Monsanto crops which are a: terminal (they do not produce viable seed), b: specifically resistant to insect and disease strains that have already adapted to the resistant strain crops such as triticale (a hybrid of wheat and rye), and most importantly c: as synthetic strains, are patented, hence with marker genes can be traced into the wild and used to shut down farmers who refuse to buy Monsanto strains by litigating them to death when those marked strains are found sprouting in their hedgerows.
Aren't a and c mutually exclusive? I am not a farmer, so if I have a gross conceptual error here please correct me, but if the crops are terminal, how are the farmers "illegally" getting seeds to plant without paying royalties? Someone has to buy the seeds from Monsanto if they are not viable on their own, right?
Would the Nokia "design and branding" actually still be viewed as a net contributor to product value?? I've never had a Nokia phone myself, but I always had the perception that they haven't been any good for a while (Windows 8 for Phones probably contributing to that impression...)
You are wrong about merchant liability and signatures The merchant is under no obligation to check the signature, not now and not in the future with a chipped card. The signature is simply used as an acknowledgment. In fact, as a merchant I am not allowed to check the signature or ask for identification, even if the back of the card has wording in the signature area asking to check the identification. Doing so is a violation of the merchant agreement with Visa, Mastercard, Discover, and Amex. As long as the transaction is approved and the customer acknowledges it, the transaction is considered valid.
This is not true. Since it has been a while since I've looked up these rules, I double checked my memory againstthe MasterCard Transaction Processing Rules (I did not check the other three major issuers). There is a procedure to follow if the credit card is not signed -- see page 66. In short, the merchant is required to get authorization from the bank that issued the card, AND require the customer to sign the credit card. "The Merchant must not complete the Transaction if the Cardholder refuses to sign the Card."
Of course, I have rarely seen this rule enforced to the letter...
My KitKat Nexus 4 was advertising an update for a few weeks. I ignored it, since I'd heard there were some issues with Lollipop.
Now, my Nexus 4 isn't even advertising the update, and it says my system is up-to-date. So I'm not sure why, but apparently the Lollipop update is no longer available to me for some reason. Yes, I'm sure I could go manually download the update and push it to my phone, but frankly I'm not that motivated.
If they want people to upgrade, not only do they need to push the upgrade through carriers to users, but keep it available to those who waited for all the bugs to be worked out!
Cue the endless prompts I have seen from various web sites telling me to "Please enter a new password". Here are some examples:
Your password must be between eight and sixteen characters.
Your password must contain at least one lower case letter, one upper case letter, one number, and one special character (#, @, or $).
Your password cannot start or end with a number.
Your password contains an invalid character.
You cannot reuse any of your last 24 passwords.
This becomes an even more entertaining game when the web site only tells you the first rule that you have broken.
It very quickly becomes non-trivially difficult to create an easy to remember hard password.
The Economist had an article about thorium reactors recently too. It was a bit rosier than this one.
Anyway, all this press I've seen recent about thorium reactors reminds me of an article Admiral Rickover wrote in 1953 about the difference between academic and practical reactors. It's a good read, and there are definitely parallels here.
The thing is the signature on the back of the card isn't for verification by a merchant. The stated purpose of the signature block is that you agree to the terms that come with the credit card. By the rules of Visa and MasterCard a merchant should not accept a card that is blank or has something like see ID.
Of course almost no merchant follows this part of their agreement.
It's amazing to me how many people don't realize this, and think it is somehow safer to leave the card unsigned.
Back when I worked as a cashier (at Target, of all places), I actually had people get offended when I would ask to see their ID because their credit card was unsigned. But I know many/most of my co-workers didn't check...
Also in the category of things the store should check but rarely does -- The merchant is supposed to call the credit card's issuing bank before letting someone else use the card -- this also angered people when I would tell them I had to call the bank to let them use their spouse's card.
Throughout the entire franchise, no matter the distance of the trip, the turbolift takes exactly the same length of time: the precise time needed for the passengers to complete their conversation.
Spock was by himself, so I'd say the turbolift was working exactly as designed.
But per the merchant's agreement, they cannot require a picture ID to complete a credit card purchase.
Not entirely true (former Target employee speaking here). The store has an obligation to ensure that the person using the credit card is the person whose name appears on the card. Normally, that is supposed to be done by comparing the signature on the card to the signed receipt. But if the credit card isn't signed, the store has to see a picture ID. Now, I will certainly agree that a lot of stores don't do this (or don't check signatures), but this is what the stores are technically required to do.
What I was told as an employee was that this prevented a customer from protesting the charge on the basis that someone else used their card. It's the same reason that cashiers are supposed to call the telephone number on the back of a CC card if the card has a spouse's name printed on it -- have to make sure the customer didn't just steal a card and claim to be the spouse.
Bad analogy. Let me modify it:
DRM is more like a padlock on a homeowner's breaker box or water heater, requiring the average, unskilled person to pay an employee of the manufacturer of the device to enable him to change his house voltage from 110VAC to 40VAC, or get hot water from his own property at 99 degrees Celsius.
In other words, stuff that "the average Joe" isn't really likely to do, and quite possibly not even stuff the majority of/. readers are likely to do.
I really think DRM is intended to, and mostly does, deter the casual thief, just like the lock on your house. Sometimes you lock yourself out, and yes that's a pain, but no one screams "I only live in houses which aren't kept locked so as to really allow me to enter and leave freely and in the manner I choose." That would be foolish.
Well, it seems as if Europeans, after rejecting the constitution that EU elitists KNEW would be adopted by huge margins, they now seem to be rejecting the impaired "XP Lite" that the EU elitists KNEW would be wildly in demand.
Anyone else think that, just maybe, the EU leadership isn't really in touch with their constituents?
Those who file multiple complaints which are *not* justified should also be subject to the jackhammer sodomization before I sign on to this plan.
But I do agree 100% that secret regulations (I doubt there is a *law* that is secret... an agency-imposed secret *regulation* is much more likely) are a bad idea on principle.
Things like EZ-Pass or the Mobil Speedpass are RFID systems that many people would be familiar with. I think the majority of Americans would recognize these systems, even if they personally do not use them.
I noticed that the PTC has a "File a Complaint" Link on their web page. Could some/most/all of the complaints filed by the PTC really be from people who just filled out their form rather than find the real thing?
Just speculating.
Which makes it even more surprising that Intel wasn't really hyping this themselves. You'd think they would want every reason to get people to switch back to them for high-end tasks where 64 bits could be useful.
This is exactly why I just roll my eyes when people talk about the greatness of Mozilla, Linux, or many of the other similar non-MS, non-mainstream software products out there.
When someone asks how to do something in Mozilla or Linux, the answer is often one of two things: "Why would you want to do that?", or it's something like what we have here: "hacking JavaScript and messing with lots of configs."
The first answer, to me, is demeaning because it suggests that the way we are accustomed to doing something is wrong. Sure, Mozilla's tabbed browsing is nice, but when I can't figure out how to get features to behave the way I want them to people get frustrated and switch back to what I know how to work. I think one of IE's initial strengths was that it included built-in help specifically for helping users of the then-dominant Netscape switch to IE. Mozilla needs a similar guide to help IE users if it wants to become more mainstream.
And there's the other 'feature' of Mozilla/Linux that will really prevent its mainstream adoption. With Windows/IE, you can do almost anything and configure it almost completely (within its limits, of course) through the mouse and the menus. With Mozilla/Linux, things invariably do steer towards recompliling code or editing script or something similarly arcane on the command line. Heck, I couldn't even get SETI@Home to run on my Linux machine without doing a Google search and entering what seemed like a string of totally random characters into the command line. Regardless of the potential of Mozilla/Linux, that isn't intuitive and it isn't something even many advanced PC users could figure out on their own.
To me, these two flaws are the reasons why, despite some very good efforts by people who genuinely do like Mozilla and Linux, these two non-MS products can never really go mainstream. Users just get too frustrated trying to do simple tasks that they don't care about the unique features like tabbed browsing that Mozilla and Linux have to offer. The 'average user' isn't aiming to support Microsoft, but he does correctly see Windows and IE as the easiest way to get something done and (somewhat reliably) working.
Of course, it could also be asked why should the authors participate in this process if they don't make any profits?
Writing a textbook is not an easy feat, and posting them online for free download doesn't give the author any sort of compensation for their work other than the satisfaction of making students happy.
Also, I find it unlikely that this will really catch on, simply because most of the professors I've dealt with simply would not consider a textbook like this, or wouldn't even be aware of it. The publishing industry does market itself really well - professors get sample books which often end up being used for classes. A prof might see an online book as being somehow of lesser caliber (in terms of factual accuracy, author credentials, or otherwise) than an actual printed book.
I would imagine there would also be legal liability issues involved in this, suh as if the text accidentally contained false information.
It's a good idea, but I don't think it's the way to go. Low-cost textbook distribution needs to happen, but I don't think no-cost will work -- at least not yet.
Re:Photo and PIN on Cash Card / Credit Card??
on
RFID MasterCard
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· Score: 1
But unless you actually sign the back of the card in addition to writing "Ask for ID," the card is technically not valid. I worked for several summers in a Target, and had a lot of these cases or people who thought leaving the signature area of the card completely blank was the safest way to carry it. Then there's people who try to use a parent's card, or a spouse's card (to use a card, your name MUST be printed on the card). All of these things are technically prohibited by the card issuers, but very, very few merchants actually enforce them, meaning people would get very angry when I told them they couldn't use a card for whatever reason.
The RFID system, though certainly a time-saving idea, does little to help protect customers and merchants from credit card mis-use like this. Not requiring a signature for certain purchases is just inviting someone to make a bunch of small purchases, throw their card away, and claim it was stolen - there is no signature record to prove otherwise. Similarly, I can see customers getting angry if, for larger purchases with these cards, they are asked by the cashier to see the card to verify a signature.
Sadly, people are very ignorant about the plastic they carry. I suspect that RFID-enabled cards will only make this problem worse.
But then who is it to determine what a legitimate reason is for wanting the information? After all, someone who is researching the tunnels for a civil engineering paper may have a very valid reason, but is everyone going to think that? The Freedom of Information Act is meant to let you have access to this information without necessarily saying what it is or isn't going to be used for... it prevent's the government from arbitrarily saying "you can't know that" in most cases.
Granted, in the post-9/11 world, it has become a lot harder to draw the line between security and the free flow of information, but I believe the policy should still basically be one where the government must show why you *don't* need (non-classified, obviously) information, as opposed to you showing why you should be allowed to have it.
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Given how the population of the US is ~319 million, 45 million is almost 15% of the total US population. Therefore, I'm not sure what the summary (or the article itself, which doesn't provide any further detail) is trying to achieve by stating that almost 15% of people "in states like NY and California" use ad blockers -- saying they are statistically average compared to the other 48 states seems to add no value. To me, it would be more interested to know how much variation there is between states.
in case you missed the last twenty years, they're specifically talking about the Monsanto crops which are a: terminal (they do not produce viable seed), b: specifically resistant to insect and disease strains that have already adapted to the resistant strain crops such as triticale (a hybrid of wheat and rye), and most importantly c: as synthetic strains, are patented, hence with marker genes can be traced into the wild and used to shut down farmers who refuse to buy Monsanto strains by litigating them to death when those marked strains are found sprouting in their hedgerows.
Aren't a and c mutually exclusive? I am not a farmer, so if I have a gross conceptual error here please correct me, but if the crops are terminal, how are the farmers "illegally" getting seeds to plant without paying royalties? Someone has to buy the seeds from Monsanto if they are not viable on their own, right?
Would the Nokia "design and branding" actually still be viewed as a net contributor to product value?? I've never had a Nokia phone myself, but I always had the perception that they haven't been any good for a while (Windows 8 for Phones probably contributing to that impression...)
The French might disagree with you, as their carrier Charles de Gualle is nuclear-powered.
You are wrong about merchant liability and signatures The merchant is under no obligation to check the signature, not now and not in the future with a chipped card. The signature is simply used as an acknowledgment. In fact, as a merchant I am not allowed to check the signature or ask for identification, even if the back of the card has wording in the signature area asking to check the identification. Doing so is a violation of the merchant agreement with Visa, Mastercard, Discover, and Amex. As long as the transaction is approved and the customer acknowledges it, the transaction is considered valid.
This is not true. Since it has been a while since I've looked up these rules, I double checked my memory againstthe MasterCard Transaction Processing Rules (I did not check the other three major issuers). There is a procedure to follow if the credit card is not signed -- see page 66. In short, the merchant is required to get authorization from the bank that issued the card, AND require the customer to sign the credit card. "The Merchant must not complete the Transaction if the Cardholder refuses to sign the Card." Of course, I have rarely seen this rule enforced to the letter...
My KitKat Nexus 4 was advertising an update for a few weeks. I ignored it, since I'd heard there were some issues with Lollipop.
Now, my Nexus 4 isn't even advertising the update, and it says my system is up-to-date. So I'm not sure why, but apparently the Lollipop update is no longer available to me for some reason. Yes, I'm sure I could go manually download the update and push it to my phone, but frankly I'm not that motivated.
If they want people to upgrade, not only do they need to push the upgrade through carriers to users, but keep it available to those who waited for all the bugs to be worked out!
Cue the endless prompts I have seen from various web sites telling me to "Please enter a new password". Here are some examples:
Your password must be between eight and sixteen characters.
Your password must contain at least one lower case letter, one upper case letter, one number, and one special character (#, @, or $).
Your password cannot start or end with a number.
Your password contains an invalid character.
You cannot reuse any of your last 24 passwords.
This becomes an even more entertaining game when the web site only tells you the first rule that you have broken.
It very quickly becomes non-trivially difficult to create an easy to remember hard password.
The Economist had an article about thorium reactors recently too. It was a bit rosier than this one. Anyway, all this press I've seen recent about thorium reactors reminds me of an article Admiral Rickover wrote in 1953 about the difference between academic and practical reactors. It's a good read, and there are definitely parallels here.
The thing is the signature on the back of the card isn't for verification by a merchant. The stated purpose of the signature block is that you agree to the terms that come with the credit card. By the rules of Visa and MasterCard a merchant should not accept a card that is blank or has something like see ID.
Of course almost no merchant follows this part of their agreement.
It's amazing to me how many people don't realize this, and think it is somehow safer to leave the card unsigned.
Back when I worked as a cashier (at Target, of all places), I actually had people get offended when I would ask to see their ID because their credit card was unsigned. But I know many/most of my co-workers didn't check...
Also in the category of things the store should check but rarely does -- The merchant is supposed to call the credit card's issuing bank before letting someone else use the card -- this also angered people when I would tell them I had to call the bank to let them use their spouse's card.
Throughout the entire franchise, no matter the distance of the trip, the turbolift takes exactly the same length of time: the precise time needed for the passengers to complete their conversation.
Spock was by himself, so I'd say the turbolift was working exactly as designed.
But per the merchant's agreement, they cannot require a picture ID to complete a credit card purchase.
Not entirely true (former Target employee speaking here). The store has an obligation to ensure that the person using the credit card is the person whose name appears on the card. Normally, that is supposed to be done by comparing the signature on the card to the signed receipt. But if the credit card isn't signed, the store has to see a picture ID. Now, I will certainly agree that a lot of stores don't do this (or don't check signatures), but this is what the stores are technically required to do. What I was told as an employee was that this prevented a customer from protesting the charge on the basis that someone else used their card. It's the same reason that cashiers are supposed to call the telephone number on the back of a CC card if the card has a spouse's name printed on it -- have to make sure the customer didn't just steal a card and claim to be the spouse.
Bad analogy. Let me modify it: DRM is more like a padlock on a homeowner's breaker box or water heater, requiring the average, unskilled person to pay an employee of the manufacturer of the device to enable him to change his house voltage from 110VAC to 40VAC, or get hot water from his own property at 99 degrees Celsius. In other words, stuff that "the average Joe" isn't really likely to do, and quite possibly not even stuff the majority of /. readers are likely to do.
I really think DRM is intended to, and mostly does, deter the casual thief, just like the lock on your house. Sometimes you lock yourself out, and yes that's a pain, but no one screams "I only live in houses which aren't kept locked so as to really allow me to enter and leave freely and in the manner I choose." That would be foolish.
Well, it seems as if Europeans, after rejecting the constitution that EU elitists KNEW would be adopted by huge margins, they now seem to be rejecting the impaired "XP Lite" that the EU elitists KNEW would be wildly in demand. Anyone else think that, just maybe, the EU leadership isn't really in touch with their constituents?
Those who file multiple complaints which are *not* justified should also be subject to the jackhammer sodomization before I sign on to this plan. But I do agree 100% that secret regulations (I doubt there is a *law* that is secret... an agency-imposed secret *regulation* is much more likely) are a bad idea on principle.
Things like EZ-Pass or the Mobil Speedpass are RFID systems that many people would be familiar with. I think the majority of Americans would recognize these systems, even if they personally do not use them.
I noticed that the PTC has a "File a Complaint" Link on their web page. Could some/most/all of the complaints filed by the PTC really be from people who just filled out their form rather than find the real thing? Just speculating.
Which makes it even more surprising that Intel wasn't really hyping this themselves. You'd think they would want every reason to get people to switch back to them for high-end tasks where 64 bits could be useful.
This is exactly why I just roll my eyes when people talk about the greatness of Mozilla, Linux, or many of the other similar non-MS, non-mainstream software products out there.
When someone asks how to do something in Mozilla or Linux, the answer is often one of two things: "Why would you want to do that?", or it's something like what we have here: "hacking JavaScript and messing with lots of configs."
The first answer, to me, is demeaning because it suggests that the way we are accustomed to doing something is wrong. Sure, Mozilla's tabbed browsing is nice, but when I can't figure out how to get features to behave the way I want them to people get frustrated and switch back to what I know how to work. I think one of IE's initial strengths was that it included built-in help specifically for helping users of the then-dominant Netscape switch to IE. Mozilla needs a similar guide to help IE users if it wants to become more mainstream.
And there's the other 'feature' of Mozilla/Linux that will really prevent its mainstream adoption. With Windows/IE, you can do almost anything and configure it almost completely (within its limits, of course) through the mouse and the menus. With Mozilla/Linux, things invariably do steer towards recompliling code or editing script or something similarly arcane on the command line. Heck, I couldn't even get SETI@Home to run on my Linux machine without doing a Google search and entering what seemed like a string of totally random characters into the command line. Regardless of the potential of Mozilla/Linux, that isn't intuitive and it isn't something even many advanced PC users could figure out on their own.
To me, these two flaws are the reasons why, despite some very good efforts by people who genuinely do like Mozilla and Linux, these two non-MS products can never really go mainstream. Users just get too frustrated trying to do simple tasks that they don't care about the unique features like tabbed browsing that Mozilla and Linux have to offer. The 'average user' isn't aiming to support Microsoft, but he does correctly see Windows and IE as the easiest way to get something done and (somewhat reliably) working.
Of course, it could also be asked why should the authors participate in this process if they don't make any profits?
Writing a textbook is not an easy feat, and posting them online for free download doesn't give the author any sort of compensation for their work other than the satisfaction of making students happy.
Also, I find it unlikely that this will really catch on, simply because most of the professors I've dealt with simply would not consider a textbook like this, or wouldn't even be aware of it. The publishing industry does market itself really well - professors get sample books which often end up being used for classes. A prof might see an online book as being somehow of lesser caliber (in terms of factual accuracy, author credentials, or otherwise) than an actual printed book.
I would imagine there would also be legal liability issues involved in this, suh as if the text accidentally contained false information.
It's a good idea, but I don't think it's the way to go. Low-cost textbook distribution needs to happen, but I don't think no-cost will work -- at least not yet.
But unless you actually sign the back of the card in addition to writing "Ask for ID," the card is technically not valid. I worked for several summers in a Target, and had a lot of these cases or people who thought leaving the signature area of the card completely blank was the safest way to carry it. Then there's people who try to use a parent's card, or a spouse's card (to use a card, your name MUST be printed on the card). All of these things are technically prohibited by the card issuers, but very, very few merchants actually enforce them, meaning people would get very angry when I told them they couldn't use a card for whatever reason.
The RFID system, though certainly a time-saving idea, does little to help protect customers and merchants from credit card mis-use like this. Not requiring a signature for certain purchases is just inviting someone to make a bunch of small purchases, throw their card away, and claim it was stolen - there is no signature record to prove otherwise. Similarly, I can see customers getting angry if, for larger purchases with these cards, they are asked by the cashier to see the card to verify a signature.
Sadly, people are very ignorant about the plastic they carry. I suspect that RFID-enabled cards will only make this problem worse.
But then who is it to determine what a legitimate reason is for wanting the information? After all, someone who is researching the tunnels for a civil engineering paper may have a very valid reason, but is everyone going to think that? The Freedom of Information Act is meant to let you have access to this information without necessarily saying what it is or isn't going to be used for... it prevent's the government from arbitrarily saying "you can't know that" in most cases.
Granted, in the post-9/11 world, it has become a lot harder to draw the line between security and the free flow of information, but I believe the policy should still basically be one where the government must show why you *don't* need (non-classified, obviously) information, as opposed to you showing why you should be allowed to have it.