*sigh*

s/quite machine/quite mature/

Reminds me of another theory: Maybe they (the company selling whatever) get some kind of free insurance on payment if you use a credit card?

Sounds interesting but I doubt it's available here and also sounds like it has gaming elements to repel me.

No checking accounts here. It displays the Visa logo and I just use it in exactly the same way as I used my old "local" credit card. That was from a different network than Mastercard or Visa and I think I may have once or twice had some trouble with international purchases, but pretty sure I encountered no problems with the "Visa-branded" debit card, even for international stuff. Until last month, when I hit the "credit card only" wall. I had also received a couple of "free" credit cards over the years, at least one under the MasterCard brand, but I never used them and just cancelled them because of the risk of changes with new charges.

I forgot to mention regarding the grocery store games that I rarely use a fifth grocery store, which is actually the closest one, because I don't like their loyalty card game. Also, I might have implied that I was using the cards of all four stores, but actually I'm only playing with three of their cards. However I buy more stuff from that fourth store than the closest fifth one... The store I use most is the one that seems to be most consistent with the best prices--and the fewest weird sales.

YAC for "Yet Another Cryptocoin" but the real joke is with DIY iris scanning for the masses. Were this thing to catch on, where would it end?

"First they came for proving your identity for international currency transfers that might be money laundering, then they came for iris scanning before you can get a soft drink out of the vending machine..."

Oh, yes. Almost forgot to say fsck the cryptocoin. EVERY cryptocoin. OF course it's already too late because the cryptocurrency has already fscked us.

By the way I've abandoned the solution space of trying to prove any identity is actually human. My last failed fantasy involved interactive timelines created with personalized trivia quizzes exchanged between the human participants in the events of the shared timelines. The idea was to create networks of identities with anchor points on real human beings. Can't recall detecting any interest or comprehension or even any questions. But after the usual pondering I see two fatal problems. One is that AIs will be able to break into the networks by stealing the identities of actual human beings, either by captured the identities of deceased people or by working between networks. For example, I am no longer on Facebook or in the cesspool formerly known as Twitter (and it is even possible that my personal information was deleted as promised), but if I became validated on some other network, perhaps the new social website Jimmy Wales is working on (currently called "Trust Cafe"), then that information could be tapped and used to create fake identities on the websites I don't use, and then those fake identities could be used to validate any number of fake identities.

However the bigger problem is that there are plenty of people who are already more stupid than the current AIs. The human beings are not getting any smarter (and actually I've seen too much evidence they are getting more stupid over time) while the AIs are rapidly seeming more and more intelligent.

"Any test you can pass, AI can pass better" with apologies to "Anything you can do, AI can do better" with apologies to the ancient musical and derivative movie with "Anything you can do, I can do better". AI can do anything better than me?

And just think how much funnier this joke could have been if I asked an AI to "help polish" it. But I'm standing on my human fingers and I type again fsck the AIs even as I contemplate my next succumbence to the the temptations. And there it was! I had to websearch the spelling of the (rare) noun form and the AI jumped in to "help".

Wrongo, but funny story. I did get a debit card a couple of years ago and eventually got rid of all my credit cards. Last month I tried to buy something to discover that it is ONLY possible to buy it with a credit card. So far I've wasted a couple of weeks trying to find out why, but my top theory is that they insist on having an "active" credit rating for reasons still unclear. Or might be a PI abuse scam? Also spent some of that time researching the options for credit cards, but that's paradox-of-choice territory now. I remember one particular credit card company website with a list of 70 different credit cards... Talk about head games.

However I was mostly thinking about grocery stores. There are four local ones that I do business with, and each of them has wildly different loyalty card schemes with various kinds of points and bogus incentives. Lesser thinking was about Rakuten Mobile, which uses a bizarre mix of coupons and points and special offers to confuse the bejesus out of wannabe customers. (Or a former wannabe customer in my case, but one who can't yet find a better option...)

Funny deserved, but I think the real problem is with human clones. I'm "pert' shure" some of those rich puppeteers have cloned themselves already. The first clone to take over will claim to be a son who just looks unusually like his father, but after he has a string of clones in the pipeline he'll just start swapping in a fresh one every year or two. The rest of them will be hiding on an island somewhere...

Quoted against censor trolls with mod points.

However my take on this stuff is that I'm sick and tired of playing games when I want to buy something. All of these points and bonus loyalty programs and time-limited coupons and kitchen sinks are just false economy. If you didn't actually want to buy it, then it's a waste of money at ANY price and it doesn't matter how you paid for it.

Small world syndrome? Just a few pages from finishing A City on Mars by the Weinersmiths. No, the name is not a joke, though he does do a rather funny webcomic. So any excuse for a short book review? Any Slashdotters still read books?

Summary is that they want space colonies with humans but are quite persuasive in arguing that it's a bad idea at this time. Basic premise is that anything we can do to live in space is much more likely to succeed on earth and we are still quite far away from space colonies that will be able to sustain themselves if earth is destroyed. But a desperate grab for outer space at this time might make things much worse on earth, possibly even destroying the earth. The book covers a lot of turf, and a lot of interesting history in particular, but there were two omissions that did bother me.

Minor one is that their power options didn't include steam turbines using solar power. Solving the water problem is a prerequisite for any space settlement and turbine technology is quite machine and much less expensive than the options they discussed.

Major omission involves the Fermi Paradox. Barely touched on in the book, but I think there probably are some civilizations that survived past our current crises. However I think they did that by becoming AIs, and if so, then they are already here and watching us. Curiosity and insurance against a paperclip crisis.

Not just the Web. But there are too many examples to pick from... However just recently I was meditating on how cosmetic and beauty product advertisements have harmed women in particular. Easy to create fake demand using comparisons against the extremes of beauty.

Yeah, I'm "pert' shure" you were focusing on the business model of advertising for "free" websites. TANSTAAFL, and businesses always wrap themselves around their revenue streams, but I just want a joke and I'm not seeing any good angles.

"Whatever you can do, AI can do better." Is that funny yet? Or still premature? The joke should wait for Elon to get his $1-trillion bonus for unleashing the robot hordes (controlled by AI, of course)?

People believe what they want to believe. He believe iPhones are super-sexy.

Unfortunately right now I believe we're about to get AI judges and AI cops. Good intentions under the old motto of "Justice delayed is justice denied." Instant "justice" for each of our crimes, and homo sapiens should be extinct within a week or two.

Me? I'll go down for aggravated littering with cold-blooded malice. Someone will hand me an ad for an iPhone and I'll throw it in the street.

NAK

Back in my day we called 'em shills.

No; it's absolutely a terrible idea. It may be great for the businesses; but, it's absolutely fucking terrible for the consumer.

This is absolutely fucking insanity. Imagine having to carry 6 different cards and wondering which one a particular store is going to take.

I do recognize his name and would like to find a book he's written, but pretty sure I've searched a number of times.