I've got my Pan Am Moon First Flight Club membership card!

See the subject line.

Sure, I want to:

- give up the free 30-day "float" I enjoy by using credit cards
- subject my checking account to daily fluctuations rather than dealing with my financial business once a month
- give up the ability to access credit when making a purchase
- give up any recourse if the merchant screws me
- expose my bank account directly to potential fraudulent activity
- give up my privacy
- bank like a poor person
- trust these weasels who are the most exploitative merchants in the U.S.

I had given some thought to the form of protest that might be most effective. I imagined consumers walking up to CVS counters with a stack of stuff, trying to pay for it with Apple Pay, and then leaving it on the counter when told they couldn't use Apple Pay.

But I've got something better. It's an alternative system of payment. It's green. It's made of paper. And it has the lowest transaction cost. Most merchants - at least if they were smart - love this form of payment, although they do give up any ability to track customers through their payments.

I'd suggest that, as a protest, we set a day when everybody uses this alternative form of payment, called "paper money". Let's save up all our purchases for a week or a month, and then go out on a big splurge to stock-up - by taking these so-called "greenbacks" to the merchants who have NOT joined this anti-consumer coalition, as thanks for not going along with these greedy boobs.

Um. Didn't Esquire or GQ or some glossy magazine of that sort in need of editorial filler profile 2600? Like.... 20 years or so ago?

OK, so maybe the profiled Captain Crunch. Same difference.

I vaguely recall, but the dementia seems to be kicking-in.

| None of this would be an issue if Apple would allow for alternative stores

They do. You can set-up an Enterprise store.

However, it is only for your own Enterprise. Currently, you can't even have an app that is for use by, say, clients or suppliers to some Enterprise.

I expect this policy to change. I think that the purchase of TestFlight is a precursor.

No, I don't expect to see "alternative stores" for the public. But I think they will be more flexible about Enterprise apps, such that partners can use the apps as well.

I liked Slashdot when the stuff pushed on us was just from nerds with strong opinions who happened to be in control of the site.

Don't want your carrier messing with your traffic?

Use HTTPS.

| I can't really see soldering their stuff in uncontrolled atmosphere either, you need clean room conditions

Huh?

When I worked at Widcomm, we did a lot of prototype assembly with these kinds of parts. We hired a part time worker who came in after her day job soldering this stuff all day. The little workstation in the corner of our lab worked just fine. You need to get proper equipment and somebody who knows how to use it.

But, yea, the budget is ridiculously inadequate.

These speed tests are basically meaningless. There are too many factors that might affect the throughput and latency from your desktop or device to any given site.

Meaningful tests might include:

- local link test to neighborhood node, Internet access point - your ISP would need to install test servers in local (neighborhood, at least for cable setups) nodes and wherever traffic exits their network to the Internet. This would allow you to test latency and throughput within your ISPs own system. Obviously, this ultimately limits possible Internet speeds. Your ISP almost certainly already has these kinds of test servers. But they may or may not expose them or advertise them to users.

- A test employing MULTIPLE SIMULTANEOUS test servers. This would at least attempt to assess your available bandwidth "to the Internet".

You should not have any reasonable expectation of achieving the maximum theoretical throughput of your "Internet connection" to any given site. Or any one site at all. I do not know why people obsess so over these meaningless tests.

The order is roughly reversed, the bottom two are already dead. And we can only hope that the third from the bottom would die but it won't.

No real justification is made, save for a couple of code examples for each language that the author finds somehow absurd. Oh, and he marched out the Twitter argument for Ruby. Yes, it's true: not every language is suitable for every purpose! No, Ruby was not appropriate to use for EVERYTHING to bring Twitter to scale.

While putting .net on the list won't make it die, I wish the author would put Java on the list. It won't die either, but we can hope.

| Your point is absurd. How does a parent giving blood assess the capability of a child in a way comparable to an academic test?

It demonstrates supportive parents. This probably correlates with the student future success in school. It demonstrates a willingness and desire to advance.

| It's entirely possible that one child of a family will be Harvard-worthy, and the other totally useless. Not to mention that a hard-working individual from an unambitious family absolutely shouldn't be held back by that.

That's great if you have a wealthy educational system as we have (or had) in the U.S.

A hard-working individual from an unambitious family will likely have other opportunities to get a little extra credit. Or, at least, one would hope so.

Oh, while it isn't clear from the article I linked, a local TV news story this morning said that they were apparently targeting medical research data.

And (as was mentioned in the article) the attack apparently came from China via hacked systems in S. Korea.

http://www.utsandiego.com/news...

This goes back 2 years, but just hit the news wires today:

LA JOLLA — UC San Diego has been targeted by a series of cyber attackers seeking access to sensitive research and other data since 2012 and officials say the so-called advanced persistent threat has prompted the campus to take steps to bolster its security.

The initial security breach, detected in June 2012, involved the use of stolen passwords by hackers targeting computer servers. University information technology security director John Denune said that no work was lost and no critical research data was accessed.

I actually got a letter from a dentist saying that their office was broken into and medical records taken. I believe that's a HIPAA requirement.

It's easy to poke fun at this, but maybe it's not so silly.

How much is a "point" worth? (What is the point scale?) If it's a 100-point scale, this might push somebody over the line by a half-grade (in our typical U.S. grading system).

If the parent gives blood as a result, it might mean that they are a good citizen looking out for the welfare of everyone, and that they are concerned about their child's future. This would seem positive for the child's education. If a child is teetering on the edge of some grade category or entrance requirement, then who's to say this isn't as valid as knowledge testing.

Well, it IS an entrance requirement, and so the intent must be to predict future results. So, it seems to have some relevance to me. Sure, it's a bit arbitrary and clearly tied to some unrelated state goal. But might be predictive of future results. The family goes along with the system and pitches-in to help, and so the child will likely do better in school.

It's not much different than considering non-grade aspects for entrance. Yes, the very idea of an entrance requirement for high school (other than making an appearance for n years) is foreign to westerners. But we also do have some tradition of giving some little "extra credit" or recognition for community participation - e.g. clubs and activities, etc. for entrance to college, or to some selective schools, etc. How is this that much different? Yea, it's about the parent, not the child, but I think it is seen as more of a family unit.