Whores will gladly accept money from anyone -- especially staid old companies looking for one last fling before The Inevitable comes and claims them.

Didn't the English have a room in London where *every*single*wire* coming into the country went through? Weren't they reading each and every cablegram coming in and going out?

That was in WWI.

Yes, technology advances make it exponentially easier now, but don't for a second think that en-masse wiretapping is a new thing enabled by the Interwebz.

With the whole picture, they'd probably wish they were never born, or that they could get off the planet quick-like.

I have this premonition that things are so bad our brains can't even comprehend it.

Everyone has been spying on everyone for at least a couple of centuries.

The difference is that now, thanks to Snowden, Wikileaks and others, the Average Joe Muggle knows it. And nothing makes more noise than Joe Muggle with only 1/4th of the Big Picture in their brain! A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, yes?

Nothing's changed, other than public awareness of espionage.

Big ship turns slow -- the inertia of government / judiciary is fearsome.

Maybe they spent the time gathering intel and evidence, dotting Is and crossing Ts. Building a case. Due process and all that.

Either way.. win!

No, the Mom and Pop likely uses a 3rd-party payment processor.

What, you thought *everyone* taking credit / debit payments have their own in-house?

Mom and Pop don't have their own POS. They use payment processing houses. It's the Big Dogs that have their own POS systems.

So you'd rather have it so there are no Federal consequences for being a sloppy, lazy, bug-infested easy target?

Sometimes regulation protect all of us, not just corporations. This could be one of those.

OK, I have a non-regulated approach to fighting breaches: If your company is stupid enough to get breached, the banks and card issuers must block you from doing credit and debit card business again -- ever. Good luck with cash-only.

Is that too cold-hearted for you? You'd rather have that instead of rules and consequences for data breaches?

The last sentence of TFS has a link to an article mentioning bankers are pressuring retailers to pay for the banks' costs in a post-breach cleanup.

Money talks. In this case the bankers hold all the cards and the retailers will have no choice but to armor their payment systems. That, or spend hand-over-fist in cleanup and damaged reputation.

Which road will they take? The cheaper one -- which I suspect is to armor their POS systems.

There was a roach bug in that film. Complete with electronics backpack and ridiculous but hilarious dish antenna.

Instead of confusing directions from relatives, you occasionaly get improbable confusing directions from your satnav.

"Ahead, drive straight ahead" twice in 30 seconds.
*looks at map*
The blue line showing intended course shows a left turn. "Dammit, left turn in 500 feet? WTF?" followed by quick mirror glance and hard left if possible. Which isn't often at all. x.x

Tom Tom, get yer shit together!

After using satnav for 5 years I can see how we (US) can miss the intended target and make a holy place a holey one instead by accident.

I still won't go back to paper.

Easy. I only have two sources: A DVD player and a Bluray player. Each uses toslink optical to the receiver, and component video to the receiver. Then from the receiver to the projector there's one long component cable.

The receiver I have understands Dolby Digital, DTS, Dolby ProLogic and DTS Neo 6. Enough for my needs.

The curtain is about to close on my current receiver.. I will soon need HDMI because the MPAA cowed the manufacturers into taking hi-rez component video out of the picture. Any new sources I buy / build will likley lack component out. Thank you MPAA for forcing an unwanted upgrade. The Panasonic XR-55 I use is a freakish thing possesed of a most sweet sound. The encouraging thing is that anything made in the last 10 or so years will sound just as good.. it's not like the dark ages of the 70's 80's and 90;s.. back then you wanted good sound, you used tubes. After the invention of the digital "amp," great sound is within everyone's reach.

You just need the speakers to let all that good sound out... and that's where the horns come in.

Problem with this is, most people I know won't make the commitment that it takes to make a nice home cinema. Not a fancy one -- just a technically accomplished one.

What does it take?

0. Absolute light control. No windows, no shutters, no blinds, no light.
1. Black ceiling and front wall
2. Dark-ish side and back walls -- the room should have as little light reflection as possible.
3. A fixed screen of half the height of viewing distance, placed high up coupled with chairs with a good deal of gangsta lean. (so if you sit 8-9 ft away from the screen, the screen should be 4 ft tall, which works to about 7 ft wide. This is what I have.)
4. 3 IDENTICAL channels up front -- not two big "mains" and a ridiculously tiny "center." You need three of the same speaker up front
5. Surrounds identical to the front (or at least from the same family)
6. Properly calibrate all that mess.
7. Shelving to store physical media and display figures, models, whatever.
8. Lighting with a remote dimmer to light all those toys and things -- narrow spots, for the most part. That means low-voltage MR16 heads, and that means more $ and more commitment.
Still think the avg. homeowner can do all that?

I did, It took me 3 months of after-work labor just to paint and wire and carpet. All my audio gear is 10+ years old, some of it sourced from Craigslist. None of it is what people would cal hi-end. But it all works, and I can throw a better picture than a badly-ran theater. I'm particularly proud of my audio, which uses horn speakers, letting me get outrageous fidelity and almost unlimited headroom. Bring on the ka-boom. .

But none of my friends will do it, none of my coworkers will. All they want is a stupid TV with speakers haphazardly strewn about. To them that's good enough. And I bet you 90% of people think the same way.

It takes commitment and a certain degree of crazy to make a proper home cinema.

Muvico.

Cinemark.

Regal (some)

And now I will call one out by name, because it is especially deserving of shame: Frank' Theaters, you have to go. You're a grindhouse. All your theaters are grindhouses. Shrivel and die already. Mountains of dust on the aperture plate. Head-to-tail scratches on the print. I saw an employee go from one room to another with an entire print draped like a bandolier, without clamps. Good thing digital has rendered the incompetent projectionist obsolete (and sadly put many a good projectionist out of biz.)

Don't have any decent ones around you? Get in your car, catch a bus, whatever -- and go to a decent moviehouse.

I drive 20 miles to go to Muvico. And I do it without complaint.

If wound daily, my daily wear watch (handwind only, no auto) takes 8 turns to wind. Less than 20 seconds.

My other watch is automatic, it winds itself. If I have to wind it due to not wearing it, like, during the weekend, then I hand-wind it about 10 turns.. again less than 20 seconds.

I never understood humanity's aversion to winding a watch. it's a no-brainer, something that is second-nature and takes very little time. Even if one has a battery of 5 watches, winding all of them in the morning takes less than two minutes.