My brother (with PhD from top university) was an EPO patent examiner, and I don't think he could have afforded his travel arrangements (a fair way apart from his family) on minimum wage!

Rgds

Damon

Thank you: interesting.

Rgds

Damon

You'd be very likely to cause some, eg on motorways.

Rgds

Damon

To be clear; I'm entirely prepared to believe that the first 1000 hours of anyone's driving are their worst.

But I suggest that the first 1000 hours of an 18 year old's driving are likely much worse (from a safety/accident point of view) than the the first 1000 hours of a 40 year old's driving, on average.

For example, I know which I'd be more likely to trust with other complex and risky activities that don't require particular muscle strength or speed, but where responsibility and general life experience help, eg including running a business or a government office!

Rgds

Damon

Hi

I think that's complete nonsense (straw man arguments) and a counsel of despair, and/or maybe an excuse never to do bother anything right yourself until everyone around you is perfect. And I don't imagine that you are completely selfish like that in all your other actions.

And, guess what, altruism and good behaviour in general doesn't have to be absolutely simultaneous to work.

Rgds

Damon

[citation required]

Well, except that I expect most 40 year olds to be a little better at judging/taking risks, and somewhat less driven by roller-coaster hormones and emotions.

Thus those 1000 hours should be safer for all concerned.

However, I'm quite happy to be shown to be wrong if you've got the numbers to prove it.

(I also am driving less in part by making sure that I'm in a position to use public transport and control my hours, but I'm in the UK and have never owner a car, though I've driven here and in the US and elsewhere in the EU.)

Rgds

Damon

Quite the reverse: shows just how much individuals can make a difference by, for example, avoiding flying (or at least travelling long distances) for no sufficiently good reason.

I haven't flown in years and and don't feel I'm missing much. We take family holidays fairly close to home by train though be may now ... ahem ... push the boat out and take a decent ferry ride this year to give the kids a taste of another country. We're still managing to be close to carbon-negative at home for primary (6t less CO2 per year than a few years ago) and I'm not going to waste those savings on a mindless travel binge.

Rgds

Damon

I can only tell you that some pretty smart people are running that show and I did my computing MSc with the CEO, and he certainly knows his stuff.

It's not a guarantee of course, IMHO it improves the odds.

Rgds

Damon

The product/site is Entropay:

https://www.entropay.com/

(so-named given my obsession with constructing a good entropy pool to draw the random new card IDs from, amongst other things!)

Rgds

Damon

There are various virtual cards available on-line (I was CTO of one issuer) where you can create a new card with a new number with exactly the limit required for each transaction, eg if you don't trust the retailer fully.

Rgds

Damon

Back to your mom's basement, please, and keep the noise down.

It must be lovely to be without error like you, other than hiding behind AC to cast insults of course.

I *do* know what I'm doing, generally, and have the track record to show it, but the threat landscape has changed quite a lot recently. And because I don't assume myself to be perfect I was alive to the issue when it showed up, and responded quickly, which seems like the rational and responsible thing to do for us normal non-perfect people.

Rgds

Damon

Really depends what you mean by 'private'.

I've been running my own (mine/company) Internet-facing DNS almost since there was live IP in the UK and I got caught out by this.

And I still see people regularly *trying* to use my DNS for amplification, ie probing, or at least laundering their attacks, but give up, after I made the appropriate fixes.

And I'm not alone. (See recent item on The Register for example.)

Rgds

Damon

[citation required]

Clue: not true

I had a poor experience with some very off-hand senior doctor(s) prescribing me huge quantities of carbamazepine such that I could hardly function at all with the dosage, and refusing to discuss dosage or reasons with me. Eventually after talking to a doctor friend or two about actual uses and side-effects on my next visit I told the prescribing doctor that if they weren't going to tell me what they were doing or why and leave me like a zombie as if I didn't matter at all that I was going to stop taking the stuff, to which they did not protest and I have been fine without for 30 years. The entire atmosphere in that particular surgery is what I'd describe as abusive, with patients' lives apparently unimportant to nursing and other medical staff, eg always minimum 2h waiting times just for a start.

Note: I did take lots of qualified advice before defying my prescription, and I'm glad that I did.

Rgds

Damon