You actually think they're trying to track you with your zip code? It's for the same damn purpose of the pumps. You're probably confusing the fuck out of your credit card company giving them 99501.
No, if it were actually used for verification then giving 99501 would cause the verification to fail. Because it's not failing, it's a safe bet that it's used for tracking - whether or not it's at the individual customer level is another story.
Erm, how is the number that's *on the card* more secure for a card-present transaction than a number that (at minimum) takes some minimal time and effort to track down?
Why does it take so long for someone to finally challenge crap like this? Every time someone asks me for this kind of information at the register it just makes me mad... with so many other ways to validate my identity there is zero excuse for exposing this kind of data to retailers.
Here's to hoping this cascades to other states... who am I kidding, somewhere a lobbyist is talking with a CA state senator about when and how quickly they can amend the law.
-rt
A zip code is a legitimate way to help prove that you're the owner of the card you're carrying, . I think more at issue is the way that the store subsequently went on to retain and use the information in a way that was not related to verifying the credit card transaction -- effectively leading to this decision, which does increase the risk of credit card fraud. (If they're asking for more than zip code, you can just say "no thanks". I mean you could also be obnoxious about it, but the cashier is just asking the questions s/he's required to ask; not h(is|er) fault. )
Decades? No, even for a moment? Why are some people so afraid of words? If there's anything people need to be taught, it's that you do not need to be offended by mere words, and indeed, it is far more efficient not to be. If you made a mistake, don't make the same one again. If you didn't, shrug it off. Whining about things (especially words) and getting offended doesn't change anything.
I'm sure your ego is iron-clad and not subject to the same frailties that most mortals have to contend with*. We get it, you're secure and don't care about anyone's opinions. Good on ya, bully for you, et cetera. But believe it or not, a large number of folks (teens, younger, and *gasp* even some older) do care about the opinions held by people they respect - and when younger, especially those opinions of authority figures.
*Anecdotal tidbit -- the people I've known who most vehemently proclaim their immunity to such foolishness are the ones who've coincidentally been exposed to the most negative feedback in their past; and several are among the least secure people I've known.
This is true only to an extent. How did those price points get arrived at in the first place? When speaking of luxury items (games, high end cars, food choices) the prices settled where they are because that's what people are willing to pay. And that does create a market void for those not willing to pay it. Enter independent game studios, music artists, low-end car manufacturers (first Hyundai -- then when they got too expensive, Kia). If you look at games in particular: if you have to have the newest game, you're willing to pay -- that $40-60 price point is what YOU the consumer has repeatedly paid. On the other hand, for those who want a game (or music, or whatever) and are willing to wait a few months -- we get it new on the discount rack for $10, or (now) on a Steam sale.
For necessities, your model holds much more true; though I would argue in the case of many necessities, government over-regulation hampers much real competition.
Remind me of that the next time I get a video driver update auto-downloaded that breaks Xorg and sends me to the console for three hours trying to track down what happened links2 -- only to find that my wifi connectivity is for some reason tied to the UI launch, so I have to first connect to my wired network before I can even begin my textual research adventures. (Seriously, that happened to me a couple of years ago on Ubuntu... not one of its shining moments. )
Actually, this will confuse the home builders perhaps, and gaming system purchases. Most of the rest of the computer-purchasing public will be completely unaware of the issue, so I'd expect it to have minimum impact on sales.
Please answer these honestly: As a parent, would you be willing to take full responsibility for any injury your child sustained while doing "science"?
As a parent, yes. Because as a parent, it's also MY responsibility to educate my son, sit with him while he does experiments until I'm comfortable that he understands what he can and can't do, and why; and ensure they're both educational and fun. a parent accepting full responsibility, that means *full* responsibility -- which starts long before the dire consequences you predict here. It begins with working to avoid the negative consequences by guiding him in thinking his actions through, and encouraging the positive ones in the same way. This starts years before I even order a science kit for him.
Would you be willing to, out of your own pocket, cover the full cost of any medical treatment?
Even if I didn't have health insurance, a thousand times yes -- that goes hand in hand with accepting full responsibility.
Likewise, would you be willing to, out of your own pocket again, cover the full cost of any damage they may do to the property of others?
Um, again, see above.
, I think you'd see the appeal in launching a lawsuit against the science kit manufacturer. You sure aren't going to be able to pay back nearly a million dollars worth of damages on your lowly $40,000 a year salary
Seriously? While that may be interesting insight into the way your brain works, it is antithetical to the very concept of accepting responsibility for yourself and your family. Given this statement, I see that there's literally no hope of anything I write here showing you what it truly means to "accept responsibility".
Enjoy your watered-down science kits, your labels imparting such critical information as "this beverage is hot", "plastic bags are not toys", and "CAUTION: small parts are a choking hazard!"; teach your children well the value of letting others keep them safe by taking decisions out of their hands, and how that always provides somebody else for them to blame for their (and your) shortcomings.
As for my wife and me -- we'll take our chances with letting our child explore under our guidance, teaching him to think for himself and understanding important concepts such as responsibility and consequences.
There is a certain satisfaction to be found in it, isn't there?
It's even better when it happens repeatedly. On a long drive, you'll see the same people passing you many times. And the more I watch them, the more I believe that they're absolutely *convinced* that they're passing everyone on the road -- completely unaware that they're only passing the same 20-30 cars repeatedly while they're driving half again the distance of everyone else, using almost twice the gas.
Honestly, I can't think of any other way they justify it than to delude themselves into thinking they're getting ahead and staying there.
I think I'll hold off judgement for a bit longer on this one.
I'm with you on that,
Personally, I won't be buying anything more from Sony after this. If they think that they can treat me like this they can pretty much just fuck themselves with the longest, pointiest, hottest poker they can find.
These are all very good things to do in Mario Kart. In the highway, you've probably seen someone like him: that maniac who zooms past you when you're already going 10 over, swerves a foot in front of you to avoid rear-ending a semi, and vanishes on the horizon.
Not quite. Usually that maniac zooms past you, swerve a foot in front of you, then abruptly slams on his brakes because he failed to look past the end of his hood and realize there was a *reason* for the speed you were going;)
ver the weekend, I attempted two different "Lemmings" apps which were both garbage - all the reviews said they were garbage and I left my own saying the same thing. When an app gets nothing but negative reviews, it should go.
As long as people continue to download them (and pay for them) in spite of negative reviews, they're unlikely to get removed - they're making money for both google and the developer.
Erm, started? Dude, they've been doing this for at *least* a couple of years. The plugin CustomizeGoogle removed clicktracking javascript dating back to 2005, which is also the first reference I could find to google's usage of the practice . The plugin has since been replaced with OptimizeGoogle.l
Hopefully you didn't think your google clicks were anonymous before you discovered it recently;) You can take a look at google web history to see just how much they've tracked. In theory you can turn it off, but there's no way of knowing how reliable/honest they are in doing so -- you only know that you can't see the history anymore yourself.
Once again, someone immediately jumps on to imply that this hasn't been thought out because he s/he doesn't fit into the target demographic; and/or because s/he assumes that the researchers are morons who didn't think of something so basic.
Something like this only has to be valid fora certain percentage of users in order for it to be useful. For you (and your stationary mouse) and me (and my constant text highlighting twitchiness, often highlighting text at random on a page while I read elsewhere), obviously this won't work. For the first user sample they selected ("Cursor and gaze coordinates were collected in an eye-tracking study of 38 participants (21 female, 17 male) performing Web searches. Participants were recruited from a user study pool. They ranged in age between 26 and 60 years (mean = 45.5, = 8.2)," the gaze/mouse correlation was pretty strong. Which let them roll it out to a larger internal population:
Data were accumulated from a random sample of Microsoft
employees’ searches on the commercial Web search engine
used between May 12, 2010 and June 6, 2010. In total, we
recorded 7,500,429 cursor events from 366,473 queries
made by 21,936 unique cookies; the actual number of users
may be fewer since multiple cookies could belong to a single
user
The results of that larger study showed a pretty conclusive correlation between mouse movements and hesitations in predicting what users spend their time reading, how long they take to do it, and how that correlates to where they click.
The negativity to every new idea here gets irritating after a while. It's almost like people are just envious at not having thought of the idea themselves, and so need to discredit it as soon as possible in order to feel better about themselves. Unfortunately, the attempts to "discredit" it are invariably pointing out simple and obvious flaws that - while potentially valid - have very likely been taken into account already. (Especially when you've reached the point of a ~20k user study, in this instance)
Slashdot Mirror
American providers typically run on a 1-2 year cycle/contract; Canadian 2-3 year. Never heard of a 3-4 year.
But sometimes, it's not about what you need.
Logic often fails in these situations - pain is emotional, and emotions seldom heed the rules of logic. .
You actually think they're trying to track you with your zip code? It's for the same damn purpose of the pumps. You're probably confusing the fuck out of your credit card company giving them 99501.
No, if it were actually used for verification then giving 99501 would cause the verification to fail. Because it's not failing, it's a safe bet that it's used for tracking - whether or not it's at the individual customer level is another story.
Erm, how is the number that's *on the card* more secure for a card-present transaction than a number that (at minimum) takes some minimal time and effort to track down?
Why does it take so long for someone to finally challenge crap like this? Every time someone asks me for this kind of information at the register it just makes me mad... with so many other ways to validate my identity there is zero excuse for exposing this kind of data to retailers.
Here's to hoping this cascades to other states... who am I kidding, somewhere a lobbyist is talking with a CA state senator about when and how quickly they can amend the law.
-rt
A zip code is a legitimate way to help prove that you're the owner of the card you're carrying, . I think more at issue is the way that the store subsequently went on to retain and use the information in a way that was not related to verifying the credit card transaction -- effectively leading to this decision, which does increase the risk of credit card fraud. (If they're asking for more than zip code, you can just say "no thanks". I mean you could also be obnoxious about it, but the cashier is just asking the questions s/he's required to ask; not h(is|er) fault. )
Decades? No, even for a moment? Why are some people so afraid of words? If there's anything people need to be taught, it's that you do not need to be offended by mere words, and indeed, it is far more efficient not to be. If you made a mistake, don't make the same one again. If you didn't, shrug it off. Whining about things (especially words) and getting offended doesn't change anything.
I'm sure your ego is iron-clad and not subject to the same frailties that most mortals have to contend with*. We get it, you're secure and don't care about anyone's opinions. Good on ya, bully for you, et cetera. But believe it or not, a large number of folks (teens, younger, and *gasp* even some older) do care about the opinions held by people they respect - and when younger, especially those opinions of authority figures.
*Anecdotal tidbit -- the people I've known who most vehemently proclaim their immunity to such foolishness are the ones who've coincidentally been exposed to the most negative feedback in their past; and several are among the least secure people I've known.
Erm, wait. Don't answer that.
For necessities, your model holds much more true; though I would argue in the case of many necessities, government over-regulation hampers much real competition.
Remind me of that the next time I get a video driver update auto-downloaded that breaks Xorg and sends me to the console for three hours trying to track down what happened links2 -- only to find that my wifi connectivity is for some reason tied to the UI launch, so I have to first connect to my wired network before I can even begin my textual research adventures. (Seriously, that happened to me a couple of years ago on Ubuntu... not one of its shining moments. )
Alternatively you could plan for it and leave a PCI slot open for an add in card.
Actually, this will confuse the home builders perhaps, and gaming system purchases. Most of the rest of the computer-purchasing public will be completely unaware of the issue, so I'd expect it to have minimum impact on sales.
I probably did waste my time. Or was successfully trolled... Cool links, thanks for posting them.
Funny, I live in the USA and don't live in this country w/ the backwards medical system that you're talking about.
Please answer these honestly: As a parent, would you be willing to take full responsibility for any injury your child sustained while doing "science"?
As a parent, yes. Because as a parent, it's also MY responsibility to educate my son, sit with him while he does experiments until I'm comfortable that he understands what he can and can't do, and why; and ensure they're both educational and fun. a parent accepting full responsibility, that means *full* responsibility -- which starts long before the dire consequences you predict here. It begins with working to avoid the negative consequences by guiding him in thinking his actions through, and encouraging the positive ones in the same way. This starts years before I even order a science kit for him.
Would you be willing to, out of your own pocket, cover the full cost of any medical treatment?
Even if I didn't have health insurance, a thousand times yes -- that goes hand in hand with accepting full responsibility.
Likewise, would you be willing to, out of your own pocket again, cover the full cost of any damage they may do to the property of others?
Um, again, see above.
, I think you'd see the appeal in launching a lawsuit against the science kit manufacturer. You sure aren't going to be able to pay back nearly a million dollars worth of damages on your lowly $40,000 a year salary
Seriously? While that may be interesting insight into the way your brain works, it is antithetical to the very concept of accepting responsibility for yourself and your family. Given this statement, I see that there's literally no hope of anything I write here showing you what it truly means to "accept responsibility".
Enjoy your watered-down science kits, your labels imparting such critical information as "this beverage is hot", "plastic bags are not toys", and "CAUTION: small parts are a choking hazard!"; teach your children well the value of letting others keep them safe by taking decisions out of their hands, and how that always provides somebody else for them to blame for their (and your) shortcomings.
As for my wife and me -- we'll take our chances with letting our child explore under our guidance, teaching him to think for himself and understanding important concepts such as responsibility and consequences.
Assuming they're members of FB in the first place -- since the profiles are publicly available.
I'm an insensitive clod, you insensitive clod!
It's even better when it happens repeatedly. On a long drive, you'll see the same people passing you many times. And the more I watch them, the more I believe that they're absolutely *convinced* that they're passing everyone on the road -- completely unaware that they're only passing the same 20-30 cars repeatedly while they're driving half again the distance of everyone else, using almost twice the gas.
Honestly, I can't think of any other way they justify it than to delude themselves into thinking they're getting ahead and staying there.
I think I'll hold off judgement for a bit longer on this one.
I'm with you on that,
Personally, I won't be buying anything more from Sony after this. If they think that they can treat me like this they can pretty much just fuck themselves with the longest, pointiest, hottest poker they can find.
Well, so much for that.
These are all very good things to do in Mario Kart. In the highway, you've probably seen someone like him: that maniac who zooms past you when you're already going 10 over, swerves a foot in front of you to avoid rear-ending a semi, and vanishes on the horizon.
Not quite. Usually that maniac zooms past you, swerve a foot in front of you, then abruptly slams on his brakes because he failed to look past the end of his hood and realize there was a *reason* for the speed you were going ;)
ver the weekend, I attempted two different "Lemmings" apps which were both garbage - all the reviews said they were garbage and I left my own saying the same thing. When an app gets nothing but negative reviews, it should go.
As long as people continue to download them (and pay for them) in spite of negative reviews, they're unlikely to get removed - they're making money for both google and the developer.
Except the changes to /. seem to automatically convert my link to my comment... to a link to the parent comment. Nice...
Instead of re-posting my rant, allow me to self-reference
Hopefully you didn't think your google clicks were anonymous before you discovered it recently ;) You can take a look at google web history to see just how much they've tracked. In theory you can turn it off, but there's no way of knowing how reliable/honest they are in doing so -- you only know that you can't see the history anymore yourself.
Something like this only has to be valid fora certain percentage of users in order for it to be useful. For you (and your stationary mouse) and me (and my constant text highlighting twitchiness, often highlighting text at random on a page while I read elsewhere), obviously this won't work. For the first user sample they selected ("Cursor and gaze coordinates were collected in an eye-tracking study of 38 participants (21 female, 17 male) performing Web searches. Participants were recruited from a user study pool. They ranged in age between 26 and 60 years (mean = 45.5, = 8.2)," the gaze/mouse correlation was pretty strong. Which let them roll it out to a larger internal population:
Data were accumulated from a random sample of Microsoft employees’ searches on the commercial Web search engine used between May 12, 2010 and June 6, 2010. In total, we recorded 7,500,429 cursor events from 366,473 queries made by 21,936 unique cookies; the actual number of users may be fewer since multiple cookies could belong to a single user
The results of that larger study showed a pretty conclusive correlation between mouse movements and hesitations in predicting what users spend their time reading, how long they take to do it, and how that correlates to where they click.
The negativity to every new idea here gets irritating after a while. It's almost like people are just envious at not having thought of the idea themselves, and so need to discredit it as soon as possible in order to feel better about themselves. Unfortunately, the attempts to "discredit" it are invariably pointing out simple and obvious flaws that - while potentially valid - have very likely been taken into account already. (Especially when you've reached the point of a ~20k user study, in this instance)