"Cashless" is also a giant vacuum sucking service fees back to the banks and so on. Retailers pay a certain amount per transaction to a payment processor, even if you the customer don't pay directly. Think that doesn't come out of your pocket in the end through higher prices?

Just imagine how much money you would have if you got a penny for every transaction conducted in every North American Wal-mart for just one day -- you could retire several times over and still afford fuel for your yachts!

Are we really in that much of a hurry to keep giving more money to the banks?

From the article:
 
  Biometrics will also make fraud virtually impossible â" identification is yours and yours alone, and therefore very hard to copy.
 
And impossible to change if it is somehow copied. (See: Fingerprints made from gummy bears", for example.)
 
How is this a good idea again?

I beg to disagree.

The largest collection of human knowledge ever assembled is right here on your desktop, and mine. I live in a rural area, and I can immediately look up pretty much anything that I'm interested in finding out, and get more information about it in more formats than were ever available to ANYONE in the 20th century or before, regardless of whether they were at a university or not.

There is absolutely no need to run to a library or purchase a book that may already be out of date.

Earlier today I watched a video demonstrating how a synchro-mesh transmission works. Never knew that before; never knew how a transmission worked at all, in fact. Now I do. Does that change my world view? Is it an earth-shattering accomplishment? No.

However, what I learn by reading and viewing thing online do enrich my life to a huge extent. How to write a computer program. How to waterproof a basement. When I'm reading a book (ebook) and come across a reference to Hadrian's Wall, I can immediately look it up and read more about that if I'm interested. And so on.

When provided with this huge pool of available knowledge, some folks use it to read about Brittany Spears. But that's not the only thing it's good for.

It's never been easier, cheaper and simpler to be an autodidact than it is today. You don't have to walk past your front door, unless you want to.

Does it work on Linux, specifically Centos/RHEL? is any particular video card required or should it work with what I already have (Intel graphic something built into the motherboard).

I'm not into gaming but I do like the idea of a bigger desktop and workspace!

But why should the support staff waste their time repetitively answering a question that is already answered in a customer forum?
 
Because that's their job and the paying customers require that service as part of what they have paid for.

The license that is required for showing motion pictures to prison inmates in the USA is available here:

http://institutions.swankmp.co...

But it's a TOWER of faulty computers.

The benefit to the public is that you and I should (would) have the same right to use the results of that research for commercial enterprise (or anything else) too.

Note that I didn't ask if this is a public or a private university; that's irrelevant to the issue at hand. I asked if it's being taxpayer subsidized. I suspect that you would be hard pressed to find a "significant" university in the USA (or anywhere else) that isn't taxpayer subsidized, frankly. Therefore, their research should be placed in the public domain.

That's my opinion; you're free to disagree, of course.

Is this university taxpayer subsidized? If so, why is the research not being made available for use by those who have already paid for it, i.e. the taxpayers?

Tax-funded research should be in the public domain.

Period.

The folks using these things will argue that they're operating on the side of the "good guys", so they still fit within the parameters of that license.

I thought that any bolt-ons for apps had to be sold through the Apple Store so they could collect their 30% cut.

Not that I've paid much attention to Apple stuff in general, but I did get that impression from somewhere.

I use tuxcards. I used gnote for quite a while but I find tuxcards makes it easier for me to visualize what I have.

I don't keep huge piles of notes in it, though -- mostly things like to-do lists.

I bought one of those with my allowance when I was about the same age. It's currently occupying space on a shelf about six feet away from where I'm sitting now. It works as well today as it did when I first bought it.

I don't think your link has the complete story. You can find lots of information about this issue with a google search for facta (the name of a new US law that's trying to pull more people into the IRS dragnet) but here is one article that lays it out fairly succinctly:

U.S. citizens on the other hand, have an ongoing obligation to declare and report their worldwide income to the U.S.A., regardless of where they reside. U.S. citizens who have permanently departed the U.S.A. and have become full-time permanent residents of Canada are still required to file U.S. income taxes on an annual basis with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The only way for U.S. citizens to avoid this would be to go through a process to renounce their U.S. citizenship, which is not practical or desirable for most people. Therefore, a U.S. citizen who resides in Canada is essentially subject to the same U.S. filing requirements as they would if they continued to reside in the U.S.A. This means filing U.S. Form 1040 every year, and reporting worldwide income.

The bottom line for U.S. citizen residents of Canada is that they must file two returns each year â" a Canadian income tax return because they reside in Canada, and a U.S. return based on being a U.S. citizen. The Tax Treaty between Canada and U.S.A. has several mechanisms available know as foreign tax credits, to make sure the person does not have to pay duplicate taxes to both countries.

Original article here