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Comment But the ID shouldn't have to be secret (Score 3, Insightful) 59

Granted it's not good if the IDs are easy to guess, nor if the list of IDs+names gets out, but as long as you're not using the ID to authenticate people, only to identify them, it shouldn't be a terrible problem. Think ID=username, not password. What they say about the credentials seems a bit more worrying, but we'd need a lot more info here . . .

Comment Re:Weber's Honorverse (Score 1) 470

he has much too much of a fascination with the French Revolution

I can't say you're wrong, but at least he does it on purpose. The series was supposed to recreate the life of Horatio Nelson (think "Hornblower in space"), and most of the physics "could be"s are chosen so that the battles and diplomacy resemble life at sea in the early 19th century. Of course, the heroine was supposed to die like Nelson did, but I think the story and fans won that battle. It probably explains why she's less present in the later books!

Comment Re:So offer a cost effective replacement (Score 1) 185

15 years ago I had an MBNA credit card. On their website you could generate a one-time credit card number that was only good for the stated amount. That was a big improvement. I guess not enough people bothered to use it though.

I have this system today, and my "real" card number, while valid, is systematically declined for Internet transactions. It's common enough that Amazon (at least the French Amazon) has an FAQ on the problems it can cause (bigger orders can be split up, and Amazon debits each packet separately). Some sites refuse the virtual card, but I can real-time the on/off switch on my bank's website to use my "real" card number just for the necessary number of seconds. Not ideal, but better than most.

Comment Re:Too simple (Score 1) 588

I am talking in this case about the sliced meat you eat on bread. In the local shop, only the super-expensive, high-garlic "Italian" meat is sugar-free. The rest contains both sugar AND at least one kind of syrup. The ingredient list is on the back side, so if you see, for example, roasted chicken meat, you would not think that it would contain anything else than roasted chicken.

"Roasted chicken"? That's not food, that's industry-processed human-feed, exactly the problem debated here. Your super-expensive meat isn't meat either, since it's "high-garlic". If you want chicken, you buy chicken. Just chicken. You can buy whole chickens, or just breasts, or whatever, but not processed. If you want it roasted, you roast it, if you want salt, you add salt. Of course, that takes time, a kitchen, and some minimal cooking competence. Cooking should be a school subject, and no processed foods allowed.

"Organic" is supposed to protect you against that chicken having eaten processed foods (made out of the carcasses of other chickens, for example) and having been exposed to excessive levels of antibiotics and hormones and pesticides. Now segue into a discussion of "excessive" vs. "non-zero" . . .

Comment Don't forget the Internet (Score 4, Informative) 111

Before launching their mobile telephony offering and forcing the previous oligopoly to slash their prices, Free did the same with ADSL Internet (and ISTR with dialup before that). I pay something like USD 45/month for:

- uncapped broadband with static IP and valid rDNS (living in an area well covered by DSL that is about 17 Mbps down, but if/when their fiber gets here I'll pay the same price for 1 Gbps!)

- plus unlimited telephone to fixed and mobiles in France, to fixed in some 100 other countries and to mobile in some countries, relatively low rates otherwise

- a SIM card with unlimited SMS, 50Gb 3G/4G data/month, 2 hours phone (the unlimited version would set me back some USD 22/month more) and extremely competitive rates for anything not included

- Some 600 television channels (some of which you have to pay extra for, sure), with timeshifting, pay-per-view video on demand, and free replay (usually the last week of popular series, depending on the channel)

- an ADSL box "Freebox", extremely well thought out (hello Rani) with a really excellent user interface (web browser, games, what have you), a 4-port gigabit switch, a Blu-Ray reader, a 250 GB disk that can be used as a NAS and for recording television programs

- lots of techie goodies (IPv6 if I want it, messages left on my answering machine can be forwarded to an e-mail address, I can force certain MACs to an IP so that I have the same IP whether connected by WiFi or Ethernet, and, and, and, isn't there a length limit on comments here?)

I'm looking at moving to the US (like SF or NY, https://www.linkedin.com/pub/l... ), so I read the Comcast horror stories with interest. In comparison, I have called Free tech support once in six years, after a storm killed my Freebox. It was replaced (without charge I believe), and nobody even hinted that I might like to buy anything more. If they manage to buy a US provider, no question, I'll be their client.

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