I have had credit card fraud on a card of mine that had a chip and pin. The crim racked up $25k in flights in a couple of hours. I got a call from my bank asking me about the transactions as it had set off alarms, I said it wasn't anything I had done. Card got cancelled immediately, new card arrived 3 days later and the $25k was immediately refunded. The bank then went through every transaction for the last 3 months and flagged ones they thought were suspicious and once I confirmed they were nothing to do with me those too were refunded.
My experience has always been very positive when it comes to issues with my cards.
I suspect you're Australian.
We kept the laws that state banks are responsible for security, so in order to blame you for fraud, they need clear evidence that you either co-operated with the crooks or allowed the crooks to get access to your details through an act of gross stupidity (and by this I mean beyond Tony Abbott levels of gross stupidity).
However in the US, it's part of a push by credit issuers to shift the responsibility for security from them to merchants and users.
As a side note, I find it alarming that so many Australians are victims of credit card fraud. Its obvious why though, Australians just dont take care with their cards. they'll happliy stick it in anywhere, into any hole without a second thought. Sure you get the money back but having gone through the process for a mere $40 it's a complete pain in the arse (especially since they cancel your card immediately and you have to wait for them to send you a new one, and GE Money aren't quick about it either)
Lol. Given that chip and signature is no longer allowed in Australia it seems kinda funny that the US is moving to a system that was abandoned because it wasn't secure enough.
When my new Shitibank card arrived, it didn't even have a magstripe. Just some grey coloured plastic where the magstipe used to go.
Your next creditcard (in a couple years) will probably have a chip-and-pin system, which can not be easily cloned as the magstripes of today can.
The analysts cited believe fraud will escalate soon, while most people still DON'T have a chip-and-pin card, since defrauding those people will be harder in a couple years.
All of this relies on the notion that the majority of credit card fraud is from cloned cards, not organised criminals using card numbers for online transactions in vast quantities.
I love people perpetuating myths. Have you looked at any recent data? American vehicles have also recently been showing better quality numbers than Euro cars.
I love when people dont know what they're on about.
Since when has a Honda Civic been a European car? Even the UK built FN2 Type R was designed in Japan (as bad as it was compared to previous Type R's and the FD2).
If you want something that will last 20 years on its original parts, buy Japanese. Also, most American cars aren't sold in countries that aren't the United States because most countries dont consider a performance car with a live rear axle to be any good. Even Australia has had independent rear multi-link or double wishbone suspension for well over a decade.
with my Infiniti being the exception
Well is a V35/36 Nissan Skyline that costs twice as much. Of course it's reliable.
The phrase that makes me roll my eyes is "survival of the fittest." That's not what natural selection is. It's a gradual increase in variation with the death of the unfit.
"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change. In the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals because they succeed in adapting themselves best to their environment"
- Charles Darwin.
In the modern context, "fittest" is wrong as what we consider to be the fittest people are the least adaptable to changes in their environment. However back in Darwin's day, the meaning was a little different.
But put into the context of the full quote, we can easily see that "fittest" means most adaptable/innovative.
An organism doesn't have to be "the fittest," it just has to find an unoccupied niche. Thus the various "strategies" different organisms will take for survival -- be it cooperation, selfishness, or some combination of the two -- will vary depending on the organism.
I'd argue that these organisms would need to be the most adaptable. As the environment changes, niches appear and disappear. The same as it is in business, a business that occupies a niche will never grow very big so an organism that occupies an environmental niche will always be closer to extinction due to low numbers alone than one that competes across a wide range of environments but can sustain high numbers. If an environment changes, an organism that thrives in multiple environments and
Ultimately, the key to survival is the ability to procreate. This means having sufficient resources to breed and raise young. Very few species survive by being completely selfish. Even most predators like sharks and lions work together.
It is "much more difficult to get pinched smoking a doobie while driving around". Hogwash. As a regular smoker, you are probably not aware how long the smell lingers inside your vehicle and on your clothes, but you should be aware that you are quite vulnerable to random search by LEOs in your vehicle driving down the road.
I live in Australia where pot use isn't demonised and getting caught with pot attracts a fine at worst.
I've never met a stoner who smokes in their car and I've met a lot of stoners. Most wont even drive after getting stoned. Also, the smell of pot doesn't linger as long as the smell of cigarette smoke and it doesn't deaden your sense of smell in the same way.
And my experience is the opposite. High drivers are paranoid about being high and having an accident, hence they drive at half the normal speed and look everywhere.
Alcohol alters your judgment so that you feel better than you are. Pot alters it so that you feel less competent than you actually are.
So as you say. I know from experience that pot affects people's ability to drive. But not the same way for everybody maybe.
As someone who's actually used pot (it's not a mortal sin in my country and you wont go to jail for having some on your person) you dont feel less competent, you just require far less stimuli to get the same effect. So doing 30 KPH stoned is gives you the same buzz as doing 90KPH drunk (in a 60 KPH zone).
What you dont get from pot is the false confidence you get from drinking. So you'll be less likely to think you're capable of picking up the keys and going for a drive, it takes a lot of booze and a lot of self awareness/introspection to realise that your impaired from alcohol, in my experience I have to consciously tell myself that I feel capable, but I'm not until I've passed the half way point on a bottle of vodka. After a single bong, my body is telling me I'm too tired to drive and should just make some nachos at home.
I wouldn't want to risk the equivalent of a 25-thousand-Euro judgment because my internet was slow or other reasons. It's important to see the other side in court, because when they lie you can immediately nail them and that leaves a heck of an impression. Doing it in slo-mo over the internet, not so much.
I read the article, I know thats a cardinal sin here on/. but still.
Looks like they're not changing anything about the small claims dispute process, they're just allowing it to occur over the interwebs. This means you still submit the same evidence and arguments to the same kind of judge who weighs the evidence and arguments. At worse you may have to have a telephone conversation or conference, but that's it. This is a good thing as it will save you from having to take a day off work to go to court, save expensive court rooms for more important cases and that the judge can now do his job in his undies.
This also means the judge doesn't have to put up with rambling amateur legal arguments from people who pronounce "specifically" as "pacificly".
The article made it quite clear that telephone will be an option as web conferencing isn't always reliable.
Yelps business involves getting companies to pay them in order to quash negative reviews and promote positive ones, of course they're going to have a problem with a different company offering the same service.
However if this service is illegal, that makes Yelp itself illegal as they do the same thing. Same with Trip Advisor, Urbanspoon and any other "review" site. All of them take money to improve ratings/reviews.
This. Even in Australia the Soup Nazi would not be illegal. Sure he wouldn't stay in business, but he's doing nothing illegal.
The law is very specific about the reasons CAN'T use to deny service, not about the reasons you CAN use. I can put a sign up saying "This establishment reserves the right to refuse service for any reason" and tell customers to naff off entirely out of whimsy. However if I put up a sign saying "This establishment reserves the right to deny entry to Gingers" and only told Gingers to naff off, then I'd have a problem.
A business owner has the right to refuse service to drunk customers, abusive or angry customers, even ones that are dirty and dishevelled or that a business owner believes wont be able to pay. Only a few businesses have to serve everyone and these businesses normally have special laws that offer them protections above what is normally afforded to other businesses in exchange (I.E. banks and taxi services). You can even be banned from a supermarket (although if you get banned from every supermarket in town, this normally means the court needs to "help" you).
Most pirated games go through the Steam client. Valve obviously wants people to buy games on Steam, not use Steam to play pirated games.
Most pirated games deliberately avoid using the steam client because the steam client likes to screw around with games and this has some bad effects with pirated games (I.E. replacing a cracked.exe with the DRM'd original).
If you take care of them, cars last a long time. I'm *still* driving a 2001 Chrysler convertible, and it not only has a CD player, but also a cassette tape!
Sweet Jeebus,
I drive a 2001 Nissan 200sx (that would be an S15 that was never made in wrong hand drive). The car is ostensibly 90's and even that didn't come with a tape deck. Of course the first thing I did was rip out the original CD player and put in a MP3 capable head unit.
But I get what you're saying. The fact replacing my stereo was a 30 minute job is because it was just a stereo and not connected to the CANBUS or anything stupid like that. Would have been nice if Nissan used an ISO connector but that was easily overcome with some $5 adapters.
However the reason I like my car is because its a car made for people who like driving. I can imagine that someone who thinks driving is a chore with their mouths of meal will complain that it's too hard, too low, too fast too impractical, there isn't enough boot space and cant see why anyone would need a car like that... but that's their problem. I like to be able to take my car to a track and use the drivers side window as the windscreen.
Fantasy, unless it's well and thoroughly regulated. Capitalism when free incentivizes monopolization and centralization of power and eliminates competition. Seems like everything else does too. We're doomed.
Which is why most successful nations run mixed economies (both capitalist and socialist policies), even China is a mixed economy (hence the saying "China is communist in name only")
It turns out that never smokers cost more to insure than smokers. They tend to decline and die fast when it all catches up with them. The non-smokers tend to hang on longer at the end when they have many healthcare expenses. You'll be happy to fork over that higher premium now, won't you? Because fair's fair, right?
Actually its the opposite.
Smokers tend to start needing medical assistance in their 50's where as non smokers dont need the same level of care until their late 60's if not their 70's. Smokers tend to have the most expensive illnesses (cancer, emphysema) where as non smokers tend to die from heart disease (which is relatively cheap). Also smokers tend to require transplants more than non smokers.
Beyond this, it's not unusual for smokers to hang around until their late 70's thanks to medical intervention earlier in their lives.
I'm a person who enjoys a pipe or a cigar once a month. I smoke alone on my balcony, so the smoke dissipates in the wind quickly and doesn't seem to bother anyone else. Any health effects incurred on me, I'm sure it's not as bad as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day.
There is a huge distinction between someone who has the odd cigar in the privacy of their own home and someone who smokes a pack or two a day. I would say that it would almost make you qualify as a non smoker (I'm a non smoker and have the odd cigar ever few months).
One of the big differences is that you wouldn't be inconsiderate enough to smoke in a restaurant, at a crowded bus stop or blow smoke into the faces of non smokers. Its almost entirely due to the inconsiderate nature of smokers. Beyond this, cigars and pipe tobacco are designed to have a pleasant aroma, cigarettes aren't because a smokers sense of smell is pretty much deadened. Almost all the anti-smoking laws in Australia came about because the smokers became arrogant, dug in their heels and shouted "ITS MY RIGHT, MY RIGHT, MY RIGHT" rather being considerate and moving away from the door when smoking, so the law came about that they had to be more than 5 metres away from the entrance to a building when smoking.
However banning tobacco is a terrible idea because as you said, prohibition doesn't work. We really need to target smoking uptake and let natural attrition deal with people who already smoke.
As much as I hate to admit it as someone strongly opposed to smoking, GP is right. While they do use some additional health care, the net effect is that smokers cost less because of early death. As far as I remember, the primary reason is that old-age health care is so very expensive and they statistically don't get there too often.
Actually no,
Not every old person is a cripple that need constant care. In fact people who smoke for their entire life need a higher level of care at an earlier age. Smokers just dont get sick and die overnight. Their health and mobility slowly degrade over time and this is far more expensive than someone who lead a somewhat healthy life.
The idea that smokers cost less than non smokers because they die sooner is ludicrous, it is the invention of smokers to try to deflect from the fact that a lot of them die in the most expensive way possible (cancer) and almost all of them need regular medical care long before non smokers. A non smoker who drinks and is a bit overweight will live a normal life in their 50's and 60's when smokers start to need medical assistance.
If it is so bad then why not ban tobacco? The problem with tobacco is that it is so widely available, making getting off the stuff so hard. I certainly would not visit a dealer to get illegal baccy.
Sorry, but you would visit a dodgy dealer to get illegal smokes. In fact there is already an illegal tobacco industry in Australia.
Banning things simply does not work because it forces the users to go underground. When you're talking about drug users, people who have a chemical dependency on the substance its even harder because they will go to extraordinary lengths to satiate their cravings.
So if you want to discourage the activity, you need to target people starting, not people who are already addicted. When you force an activity to go underground you lose all influence over it.
To the credit of the Australian government, smoking uptake rates over the last two decades have declined.
The reality is that governments are addicted to the tax income. 11 billion a year in Australia.
Smoking is estimated (conservatively estimated) to cost the Australian public in excess of $31 billion per year. So it's not nearly enough.
Source: ABS
Alcohol abuse (which is pretty bad in Oz) only costs $15 Billion and Obesity only costs $8.3 Billion. The costs of smokers exceed the two next worst health issues in Australia combined.
The main reason why the B-52 continues to hang around is that it is a relatively cost effective bomb truck. It can carry a huge assortment and amount of ordinance, and loiter overhead for hours, delivering what's needed on call.
And never faced an enemy capable of fighting back.
The B52 wasn't used over Serbia and Kosovo because they had weapons that could easily take one down. There's a reason other nations aren't building heavy bombers like that.
Much like the battleship, they are nothing more than a symbol of national pride and no-one wants to be the one known for killing a symbol of national pride.
I assure you I know quite a LOT about battleships, and though all are decommissioned that doesn't mean the design or concept is obsolete. They are out of service in the US for purely political/lobbying reasons. They are out of the service in the rest of the world because everyone else gone with a sea denial strategy.
No, you dont know much about battleships if you think that is the case.
In case you dont remember, every single nation stopped building battleships and every single nation except the US started to decommission them. Why?
Simple, they were expensive and not very useful. The battleship was vulnerable to aircraft and submarines which were produced and maintained at a fraction of the cost. During WWII, the battleship did nothing of note, even in WWI they did nothing of note. In WWII, ship to ship engagement occurred between smaller ships or aircraft carriers outside of the range of the best guns. The only battle of note was between the Bismarck and Hood, the Hood was a ship from the 20's where as the Bismarck had just been commissioned. The Bismarck was hunted by the RN using aircraft carriers and had its rudder disabled by a Fairy Swordfish biplane, unable to manoeuvre, the writing was on the wall for the Bismarck. The best battleship afloat was disabled and ultimately destroyed by a single torpedo dropped from a plane that was 20 years obsolete. That is why they stopped making them.
You dont know much about battleships, you simply have a romantic notion about them.
Want to bet that the 150 drones can be produced for less than $1.8 billion?
And this is the crux of it.
War on an industrial scale depends on how much you can produce and how quickly. This is the lesson learned between the Sherman and the Tiger. The Tiger tank was superior in almost every way, it could destroy 5 Shermans, the problem it had is that there were always 10 Shermans for every 1 tiger. Big ships are expensive and vulnerable but in previous wars (as in WWII) we had no choice as few other options were available for projecting power across the ocean.
If we have another total war in the near future and somehow avoid nuclear Armageddon, the weapons we produce now will be nothing like the ones made for war. The Jets and ships we make now are ideal peace time weapons but are too expensive and too complex for wartime application. Going back to WWII, in 1945 a Supermarine Spitfire cost GBP 12500 and a P51 Mustang cost US$51,000.... Adjusting for inflation they're both under US$1,000,000 of todays money (GBP 490,000 and US$670,000 respectively). A FA18 F costs 66 million USD and a Eurofighter Typhoon costs 125 million pounds (sterling), we will need to produce something cheaper and more reliable en masse. Even the Chinese J10 will be way too expensive to keep making (US$27 million).
The traditional submarine isn't the only weapon we'll see obsolete in the next war, the heavy bomber will go, unmanned patrol craft will take the place of attack helicopters and other CAS aircraft. In the same way WWI saw the end of carefully lined up infantry regiments and WWII saw the end of the big gun battleship.
...to put on your tinfoil hat before you get out of your bed from your lead-lined walled bedroom....
It's not tinfoil-hatism when it's true. Big brother issues aside, there's a very valid point in his post: Why pay for all those extra electronics/failure points when all you want is a display device. Personally, all I want is a screen and speakers with enough ports on the back for my various systems.
Yep, less to go wrong.
These days I find myself more tempted by the cheap Chinese/Korean "unkown" brands like Conia and Kogan here in Australia. They're often the same panels bought direct from Samsung and Meizu and LG but have less "smarts" and a different brand slapped on the front. If all you care about is a panel, you may as well ignore the major brands.
Get a friend and accept that you're different. There is nothing wrong with being different.
The problem isn't their friends, the problem is the people who they aren't friends with but have to deal with on a daily basis. Work colleagues, salespeople, service staff, you'd be surprised how quickly the person at McD's turns into a judgemental arsehole when you have trouble communicating.
One of the big reason people with Austisic Spectrum Disorders order the exact same thing all the time is because they've practised ordering it. Having to make decisions on the fly can easily stress them out. Think about how much trouble the average person has deciding what to eat for lunch... then multiply it by 10 to get the problems people with Aspergers have. One of the best things their friends can do for them is to gently encourage them to try new things.
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Rubbish.
I have had credit card fraud on a card of mine that had a chip and pin. The crim racked up $25k in flights in a couple of hours. I got a call from my bank asking me about the transactions as it had set off alarms, I said it wasn't anything I had done. Card got cancelled immediately, new card arrived 3 days later and the $25k was immediately refunded. The bank then went through every transaction for the last 3 months and flagged ones they thought were suspicious and once I confirmed they were nothing to do with me those too were refunded.
My experience has always been very positive when it comes to issues with my cards.
I suspect you're Australian.
We kept the laws that state banks are responsible for security, so in order to blame you for fraud, they need clear evidence that you either co-operated with the crooks or allowed the crooks to get access to your details through an act of gross stupidity (and by this I mean beyond Tony Abbott levels of gross stupidity).
However in the US, it's part of a push by credit issuers to shift the responsibility for security from them to merchants and users.
As a side note, I find it alarming that so many Australians are victims of credit card fraud. Its obvious why though, Australians just dont take care with their cards. they'll happliy stick it in anywhere, into any hole without a second thought. Sure you get the money back but having gone through the process for a mere $40 it's a complete pain in the arse (especially since they cancel your card immediately and you have to wait for them to send you a new one, and GE Money aren't quick about it either)
Lol. Given that chip and signature is no longer allowed in Australia it seems kinda funny that the US is moving to a system that was abandoned because it wasn't secure enough.
When my new Shitibank card arrived, it didn't even have a magstripe. Just some grey coloured plastic where the magstipe used to go.
Australian BTW.
Your next creditcard (in a couple years) will probably have a chip-and-pin system, which can not be easily cloned as the magstripes of today can. The analysts cited believe fraud will escalate soon, while most people still DON'T have a chip-and-pin card, since defrauding those people will be harder in a couple years.
All of this relies on the notion that the majority of credit card fraud is from cloned cards, not organised criminals using card numbers for online transactions in vast quantities.
I love when people dont know what they're on about.
Since when has a Honda Civic been a European car? Even the UK built FN2 Type R was designed in Japan (as bad as it was compared to previous Type R's and the FD2).
If you want something that will last 20 years on its original parts, buy Japanese. Also, most American cars aren't sold in countries that aren't the United States because most countries dont consider a performance car with a live rear axle to be any good. Even Australia has had independent rear multi-link or double wishbone suspension for well over a decade.
Well is a V35/36 Nissan Skyline that costs twice as much. Of course it's reliable.
Using the prisoner's dillemma doesn't account for the other prisoner's shanking you if you get to be too big of a prick
Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma is very different to Irritated Prisoner's Dilemma.
Lets not consider Lonely Prisoner's Dilemma.
The phrase that makes me roll my eyes is "survival of the fittest." That's not what natural selection is. It's a gradual increase in variation with the death of the unfit.
"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change. In the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals because they succeed in adapting themselves best to their environment"
- Charles Darwin.
In the modern context, "fittest" is wrong as what we consider to be the fittest people are the least adaptable to changes in their environment. However back in Darwin's day, the meaning was a little different.
But put into the context of the full quote, we can easily see that "fittest" means most adaptable/innovative.
An organism doesn't have to be "the fittest," it just has to find an unoccupied niche. Thus the various "strategies" different organisms will take for survival -- be it cooperation, selfishness, or some combination of the two -- will vary depending on the organism.
I'd argue that these organisms would need to be the most adaptable. As the environment changes, niches appear and disappear. The same as it is in business, a business that occupies a niche will never grow very big so an organism that occupies an environmental niche will always be closer to extinction due to low numbers alone than one that competes across a wide range of environments but can sustain high numbers. If an environment changes, an organism that thrives in multiple environments and
Ultimately, the key to survival is the ability to procreate. This means having sufficient resources to breed and raise young. Very few species survive by being completely selfish. Even most predators like sharks and lions work together.
It is "much more difficult to get pinched smoking a doobie while driving around". Hogwash. As a regular smoker, you are probably not aware how long the smell lingers inside your vehicle and on your clothes, but you should be aware that you are quite vulnerable to random search by LEOs in your vehicle driving down the road.
I live in Australia where pot use isn't demonised and getting caught with pot attracts a fine at worst.
I've never met a stoner who smokes in their car and I've met a lot of stoners. Most wont even drive after getting stoned. Also, the smell of pot doesn't linger as long as the smell of cigarette smoke and it doesn't deaden your sense of smell in the same way.
And my experience is the opposite. High drivers are paranoid about being high and having an accident, hence they drive at half the normal speed and look everywhere.
Alcohol alters your judgment so that you feel better than you are. Pot alters it so that you feel less competent than you actually are.
So as you say. I know from experience that pot affects people's ability to drive. But not the same way for everybody maybe.
As someone who's actually used pot (it's not a mortal sin in my country and you wont go to jail for having some on your person) you dont feel less competent, you just require far less stimuli to get the same effect. So doing 30 KPH stoned is gives you the same buzz as doing 90KPH drunk (in a 60 KPH zone).
What you dont get from pot is the false confidence you get from drinking. So you'll be less likely to think you're capable of picking up the keys and going for a drive, it takes a lot of booze and a lot of self awareness/introspection to realise that your impaired from alcohol, in my experience I have to consciously tell myself that I feel capable, but I'm not until I've passed the half way point on a bottle of vodka. After a single bong, my body is telling me I'm too tired to drive and should just make some nachos at home.
Romanization of Asian languages always sucks. Best in the original Hangul. Koreans can also read Chinese characters.
Yes, but you cant appreciate the true sound of their name until you've read it in the original Klingon.
I wouldn't want to risk the equivalent of a 25-thousand-Euro judgment because my internet was slow or other reasons. It's important to see the other side in court, because when they lie you can immediately nail them and that leaves a heck of an impression. Doing it in slo-mo over the internet, not so much.
I read the article, I know thats a cardinal sin here on /. but still.
Looks like they're not changing anything about the small claims dispute process, they're just allowing it to occur over the interwebs. This means you still submit the same evidence and arguments to the same kind of judge who weighs the evidence and arguments. At worse you may have to have a telephone conversation or conference, but that's it. This is a good thing as it will save you from having to take a day off work to go to court, save expensive court rooms for more important cases and that the judge can now do his job in his undies.
This also means the judge doesn't have to put up with rambling amateur legal arguments from people who pronounce "specifically" as "pacificly".
The article made it quite clear that telephone will be an option as web conferencing isn't always reliable.
Yelps business involves getting companies to pay them in order to quash negative reviews and promote positive ones, of course they're going to have a problem with a different company offering the same service.
However if this service is illegal, that makes Yelp itself illegal as they do the same thing. Same with Trip Advisor, Urbanspoon and any other "review" site. All of them take money to improve ratings/reviews.
This. Even in Australia the Soup Nazi would not be illegal. Sure he wouldn't stay in business, but he's doing nothing illegal.
The law is very specific about the reasons CAN'T use to deny service, not about the reasons you CAN use. I can put a sign up saying "This establishment reserves the right to refuse service for any reason" and tell customers to naff off entirely out of whimsy. However if I put up a sign saying "This establishment reserves the right to deny entry to Gingers" and only told Gingers to naff off, then I'd have a problem.
A business owner has the right to refuse service to drunk customers, abusive or angry customers, even ones that are dirty and dishevelled or that a business owner believes wont be able to pay. Only a few businesses have to serve everyone and these businesses normally have special laws that offer them protections above what is normally afforded to other businesses in exchange (I.E. banks and taxi services). You can even be banned from a supermarket (although if you get banned from every supermarket in town, this normally means the court needs to "help" you).
Most pirated games go through the Steam client. Valve obviously wants people to buy games on Steam, not use Steam to play pirated games.
Most pirated games deliberately avoid using the steam client because the steam client likes to screw around with games and this has some bad effects with pirated games (I.E. replacing a cracked .exe with the DRM'd original).
And thats one of the more benign effects.
If you take care of them, cars last a long time. I'm *still* driving a 2001 Chrysler convertible, and it not only has a CD player, but also a cassette tape!
Sweet Jeebus,
I drive a 2001 Nissan 200sx (that would be an S15 that was never made in wrong hand drive). The car is ostensibly 90's and even that didn't come with a tape deck. Of course the first thing I did was rip out the original CD player and put in a MP3 capable head unit.
But I get what you're saying. The fact replacing my stereo was a 30 minute job is because it was just a stereo and not connected to the CANBUS or anything stupid like that. Would have been nice if Nissan used an ISO connector but that was easily overcome with some $5 adapters.
However the reason I like my car is because its a car made for people who like driving. I can imagine that someone who thinks driving is a chore with their mouths of meal will complain that it's too hard, too low, too fast too impractical, there isn't enough boot space and cant see why anyone would need a car like that... but that's their problem. I like to be able to take my car to a track and use the drivers side window as the windscreen.
Fantasy, unless it's well and thoroughly regulated. Capitalism when free incentivizes monopolization and centralization of power and eliminates competition. Seems like everything else does too. We're doomed.
Which is why most successful nations run mixed economies (both capitalist and socialist policies), even China is a mixed economy (hence the saying "China is communist in name only")
It turns out that never smokers cost more to insure than smokers. They tend to decline and die fast when it all catches up with them. The non-smokers tend to hang on longer at the end when they have many healthcare expenses. You'll be happy to fork over that higher premium now, won't you? Because fair's fair, right?
Actually its the opposite.
Smokers tend to start needing medical assistance in their 50's where as non smokers dont need the same level of care until their late 60's if not their 70's. Smokers tend to have the most expensive illnesses (cancer, emphysema) where as non smokers tend to die from heart disease (which is relatively cheap). Also smokers tend to require transplants more than non smokers.
Beyond this, it's not unusual for smokers to hang around until their late 70's thanks to medical intervention earlier in their lives.
The myth that smokers are cheaper needs to die.
There is a huge distinction between someone who has the odd cigar in the privacy of their own home and someone who smokes a pack or two a day. I would say that it would almost make you qualify as a non smoker (I'm a non smoker and have the odd cigar ever few months).
One of the big differences is that you wouldn't be inconsiderate enough to smoke in a restaurant, at a crowded bus stop or blow smoke into the faces of non smokers. Its almost entirely due to the inconsiderate nature of smokers. Beyond this, cigars and pipe tobacco are designed to have a pleasant aroma, cigarettes aren't because a smokers sense of smell is pretty much deadened. Almost all the anti-smoking laws in Australia came about because the smokers became arrogant, dug in their heels and shouted "ITS MY RIGHT, MY RIGHT, MY RIGHT" rather being considerate and moving away from the door when smoking, so the law came about that they had to be more than 5 metres away from the entrance to a building when smoking.
However banning tobacco is a terrible idea because as you said, prohibition doesn't work. We really need to target smoking uptake and let natural attrition deal with people who already smoke.
As much as I hate to admit it as someone strongly opposed to smoking, GP is right. While they do use some additional health care, the net effect is that smokers cost less because of early death. As far as I remember, the primary reason is that old-age health care is so very expensive and they statistically don't get there too often.
Actually no,
Not every old person is a cripple that need constant care. In fact people who smoke for their entire life need a higher level of care at an earlier age. Smokers just dont get sick and die overnight. Their health and mobility slowly degrade over time and this is far more expensive than someone who lead a somewhat healthy life.
The idea that smokers cost less than non smokers because they die sooner is ludicrous, it is the invention of smokers to try to deflect from the fact that a lot of them die in the most expensive way possible (cancer) and almost all of them need regular medical care long before non smokers. A non smoker who drinks and is a bit overweight will live a normal life in their 50's and 60's when smokers start to need medical assistance.
If it is so bad then why not ban tobacco? The problem with tobacco is that it is so widely available, making getting off the stuff so hard. I certainly would not visit a dealer to get illegal baccy.
Sorry, but you would visit a dodgy dealer to get illegal smokes. In fact there is already an illegal tobacco industry in Australia.
Banning things simply does not work because it forces the users to go underground. When you're talking about drug users, people who have a chemical dependency on the substance its even harder because they will go to extraordinary lengths to satiate their cravings.
So if you want to discourage the activity, you need to target people starting, not people who are already addicted. When you force an activity to go underground you lose all influence over it.
To the credit of the Australian government, smoking uptake rates over the last two decades have declined.
The reality is that governments are addicted to the tax income. 11 billion a year in Australia.
Smoking is estimated (conservatively estimated) to cost the Australian public in excess of $31 billion per year. So it's not nearly enough. Source: ABS
Alcohol abuse (which is pretty bad in Oz) only costs $15 Billion and Obesity only costs $8.3 Billion. The costs of smokers exceed the two next worst health issues in Australia combined.
And never faced an enemy capable of fighting back.
The B52 wasn't used over Serbia and Kosovo because they had weapons that could easily take one down. There's a reason other nations aren't building heavy bombers like that.
Much like the battleship, they are nothing more than a symbol of national pride and no-one wants to be the one known for killing a symbol of national pride.
I assure you I know quite a LOT about battleships, and though all are decommissioned that doesn't mean the design or concept is obsolete. They are out of service in the US for purely political/lobbying reasons. They are out of the service in the rest of the world because everyone else gone with a sea denial strategy.
No, you dont know much about battleships if you think that is the case.
In case you dont remember, every single nation stopped building battleships and every single nation except the US started to decommission them. Why?
Simple, they were expensive and not very useful. The battleship was vulnerable to aircraft and submarines which were produced and maintained at a fraction of the cost. During WWII, the battleship did nothing of note, even in WWI they did nothing of note. In WWII, ship to ship engagement occurred between smaller ships or aircraft carriers outside of the range of the best guns. The only battle of note was between the Bismarck and Hood, the Hood was a ship from the 20's where as the Bismarck had just been commissioned. The Bismarck was hunted by the RN using aircraft carriers and had its rudder disabled by a Fairy Swordfish biplane, unable to manoeuvre, the writing was on the wall for the Bismarck. The best battleship afloat was disabled and ultimately destroyed by a single torpedo dropped from a plane that was 20 years obsolete. That is why they stopped making them.
You dont know much about battleships, you simply have a romantic notion about them.
Want to bet that the 150 drones can be produced for less than $1.8 billion?
And this is the crux of it.
War on an industrial scale depends on how much you can produce and how quickly. This is the lesson learned between the Sherman and the Tiger. The Tiger tank was superior in almost every way, it could destroy 5 Shermans, the problem it had is that there were always 10 Shermans for every 1 tiger. Big ships are expensive and vulnerable but in previous wars (as in WWII) we had no choice as few other options were available for projecting power across the ocean.
If we have another total war in the near future and somehow avoid nuclear Armageddon, the weapons we produce now will be nothing like the ones made for war. The Jets and ships we make now are ideal peace time weapons but are too expensive and too complex for wartime application. Going back to WWII, in 1945 a Supermarine Spitfire cost GBP 12500 and a P51 Mustang cost US$51,000.... Adjusting for inflation they're both under US$1,000,000 of todays money (GBP 490,000 and US$670,000 respectively). A FA18 F costs 66 million USD and a Eurofighter Typhoon costs 125 million pounds (sterling), we will need to produce something cheaper and more reliable en masse. Even the Chinese J10 will be way too expensive to keep making (US$27 million).
The traditional submarine isn't the only weapon we'll see obsolete in the next war, the heavy bomber will go, unmanned patrol craft will take the place of attack helicopters and other CAS aircraft. In the same way WWI saw the end of carefully lined up infantry regiments and WWII saw the end of the big gun battleship.
Sweden would like to remind you that the entire country is a wang.
...to put on your tinfoil hat before you get out of your bed from your lead-lined walled bedroom....
It's not tinfoil-hatism when it's true. Big brother issues aside, there's a very valid point in his post: Why pay for all those extra electronics/failure points when all you want is a display device. Personally, all I want is a screen and speakers with enough ports on the back for my various systems.
Yep, less to go wrong.
These days I find myself more tempted by the cheap Chinese/Korean "unkown" brands like Conia and Kogan here in Australia. They're often the same panels bought direct from Samsung and Meizu and LG but have less "smarts" and a different brand slapped on the front. If all you care about is a panel, you may as well ignore the major brands.
Get a friend and accept that you're different. There is nothing wrong with being different.
The problem isn't their friends, the problem is the people who they aren't friends with but have to deal with on a daily basis. Work colleagues, salespeople, service staff, you'd be surprised how quickly the person at McD's turns into a judgemental arsehole when you have trouble communicating.
One of the big reason people with Austisic Spectrum Disorders order the exact same thing all the time is because they've practised ordering it. Having to make decisions on the fly can easily stress them out. Think about how much trouble the average person has deciding what to eat for lunch... then multiply it by 10 to get the problems people with Aspergers have. One of the best things their friends can do for them is to gently encourage them to try new things.