I'm 62 years old and can't remember ever having to report fraud on my cards. although we've had to report it for my wife a few times. The most notable being a local restaurant. That was a nightmare because it was a debit card. NEVER let a debit card leave your sight. The other was at a gas station when she filled out a rewards form, the attendant must have gathered her card data while she was distracted with the form. These had nothing to do with online shopping but with thieves in possession of our cards. We have since switched to using only credit cards at places we don't go to very often, someone trying to steal $$$ from a credit card doesn't have the same impact as seeing those $$$ disappear from your checking account until you get them back.

I use credit cards online that provide the use of virtual numbers and lock them immediately after use. I do make exceptions for bill pay, but so far I haven't had any issues. Making use of store charge cards is also useful as they aren't as attractive as general credit cards.

Our American Express is used anytime we go someplace a little shady, like when traveling. Amex has one of the best fraud detection platforms in the world, and disputes are often won by the consumer with very little effort. Although I've had fraud take place on that card, I've never had to report it as Amex has contacted me and denied the charges. Using Amex at questionable sites is also an excellent way to avoid fraud.

If someone is repeatedly seeing fraud attempts on their cards, I would suggest they review where they are using their cards and either stop using them there, or use a virtual card. I know Capital One provides this service. Bank of America used to and my only card with them still has it, but I don't know if it's still an active program for them as I don't use the card very often.

1. A college degree is not necessary for the vast majority of jobs out there. Some jobs do require it, lawyers and doctors come to mind. Although it's possible to become either of those without going to college, it's just far more difficult.
2. Many people who go to college for one degree end up in a different field, demonstrating that 18 years old may not be a good time to make such a decision. I think 24 is a better age myself.
3. Many companies offer tuition reimbursement and will help pay for college. It may take longer, but the cost to the student can be significantly less
4. The excuse 'the college experience' is 100% BS. Been there, done that, all it did demonstrate to me how many stupid people go to college and probably shouldn't.
5. It's possible to take courses as one wants to take them instead of how colleges bully people into taking them, further reducing costs
6. Smart people don't need college to learn and for them it can be the slowest way to learn something

The first thing on a college application should be an essay asking the applicant how much they expect it to cost and how are they going to pay for it. If they can't provide a reasonable answer, they shouldn't be accepted, in my opinion. Colleges should accept the responsibility that a new student has at least thought about it and has a reasonable plan. And if they can't come up with a reasonable plan, they are probably too stupid to go to college.

... the digital beanie baby craze ...

Would you like to offer up the statistics that show how many other people have gotten Covid and didn't even know it?? Or were a little sick for a few days?? You know, the vast majority of the population? Maybe find the statistic the government doesn't want anyone to know about while they scare us with stories of full hospitals? Which is so common that hospitals already have a code and procedure for it BECAUSE IT HAPPENS ALL THE FUCKING TIME! It happened to me ten years ago when I had to have emergency surgery and I laid on a gurney in the hallway for 10 hours.

I reject your anecdotal evidence and inject reality.

Children are NOT required to be vaccinated. They are only required *IF* they attend public schools. Just like you don't need a drivers license or insurance to own or drive a car. *UNLESS* you drive it on public roads.

Each person has the right to decide if the risks presented by the vaccine outweigh the risks of the disease. Just as they have the right to decide whether or not to drive on public roads or send their children to public schools. The fascist state of California does not have the right to force people to have medical procedures they do not wish to. Especially when it has been shown that those medical procedures offer minimal additional protections. People can still get Covid and spread it after the vaccine. The excuse is 'oh .. but it's not as bad'. All while the numerous examples of people having severe reactions to the shot are ignored in order to press forward their biased agendas.

People who are NOT sick do not have an obligation to take preventative actions to prevent future events. California and the US can feel free to pass laws that force any infected with Covid to quarantine, but that is the limit of what they should be allowed to do.

Too many in California are busy bodies and demand to be able to tell others what to do. They've shown their proclivity to do that over and over again as they over-regulate everything under the illusion of providing for the common good. Their governor is an egomaniac who is too lazy to work and come up with real solutions and wants to take the easy way out in order to appease his subjects. I mean citizens.

The reality is good old fashioned fear is driving all of this. Studies have shown that most masks barely offer any protection and that sneeze barriers interfere with air flow and may make things worse. History has proven beyond a doubt that lock-downs are ineffective as those that mandated extreme lock-downs eventually see the same rates of infection as those that did not. Does no one looks at history to see what happens when an isolated population is exposed to a disease?? There are numerous examples of such situations that wiped out entire populations. Everyone is going to be exposed to Covid eventually, that's how this has always worked. The only thing lock-downs do is to delay the inevitable.

The cowardly population that is unable to take care of themselves and suckle at the teat of the government allow their fear to drive their decisions to force their opinions upon others. Simply because they are too fucking lazy to just stay away from people.

Like I have done for almost two years. How many months is that past the 2 month restrictions we were originally promised??

That's right ... it's you. You keep using Facebook. You keep posting angry retorts. You keep feeding the frenzy.

You are the rude person who believes in cancel culture and classifying anything that you don't agree with as misinformation. Yep .. morons thought Donald Trump said it was OK to inject bleach because they didn't bother to read what was actually said. Idiots think that because Hillary Clinton is coughing she has some deadly disease. Complete fools want to impeach Clinton/Trump/Obama/Biden without thinking that their vice president isn't any better. And there are those who will disagree with the above statements and will promptly stand on their hind legs and classify all of it as misinformation so it should censored.

Thankfully, despite the liberal attitudes of the people who run Facebook, the First Amendment isn't just about free speech. It's about the right to offend and say things other people don't agree with. This is why, when Facebook shut down things that didn't fit their progressive bias, people just went elsewhere. Log onto any of the other social platforms and you will see it all there. There is nothing in any legal document that says I can't say things that are wrong. If I stand on a street corner and shout out that one plus one equals three, there is not anything anyone can do. Other than shake their heads and ignore me.

Libel is always a recourse if something meets the standards of lying. But 'misinformation' has been around a long time, just look at religion. Anti-vaxers have been working that line of reason for decades. Moral standards are always in flux. One person's music is another person's trash.

The real problem with this country are the attitudes of people who feel they have a right to not be offended by what someone else says, so they use cancel culture to shut it down. These are the intolerant asshats that are ruining this country.

Take gay marriage. According to some,.if you are for it, you are enlightened. If you are against it, you are homophobic. Simple thoughts for simple people to justify their vigilantism and not have to actually think for themselves. Let's just ruin the career of everyone who disagrees with us. If someone donates to the 'wrong' charity, they must be banished. If someone says something that doesn't follow the opinions of a group of people, shut them down.

Here's an idea that I follow ... if I disagree with someone, I still treat them civilly. I may not watch their movies or go to their restaurant, but because this country, unlike most countries in the world, guarantees someone's right to have that opinion, they deserve to be treated with dignity. I think most people need to be taught the simple childhood rhyme 'sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never harm me'.

John Cleese has an excellent video about being offended where he points out a simple truth. To paraphrase, do you know what happens when you are offended? NOTHING! It's a choice to be offended by what someone says.

It's not Facebook and misinformation that is doing it. Somewhere along the way people forgot that it's OK to disagree with someone. It's not necessary to be offended just because someone has a different opinion. Especially if that person is a complete stranger that someone will never meet.

If a movement started where people were treated with dignity no matter how much of an idiot someone may think they are, we all just might get along just fine.

Like we used to before rudeness became a national obsession and so many starting fighting for any reason to get likes and followers by being outrageous and rude.

For years, we've been told "don't eat highly processed foods, they aren't good for you" and "it's best to eat natural, local grown foods where you know the source".

Now, all of the sudden, the same people are telling us we can disregard that in this one instance and eat a product that is mass produced, highly processed, and chock full of fat and sodium. Cargill and Monsanto evil, Impossible foods good. Thanks to the evils of marketing and PR.

I'll continue to buy real pork and cook it in a real smoker. My contribution to reducing climate impacts is to eat less and eat what has sustained humanity for hundreds of years. That includes meat and dairy.

Not abandon common sense for the fad of the day.

If someone likes it, go ahead and eat it. Just stop lying about how much better it is or how good it tastes. I've tried an impossible burger. The first bite was ok. By the third one my mouth knew it was fake and stopped telling me it was a burger. I'll be fair and at least say it's better than other alternatives for vegetarians.

People who are smart, motivated, and able to make decisions can take advantage of those who are not.

The way it's been for hundreds (thousands??) of years.

Personally, I'm so tired of the whining of those that are unable to make it on their own demanding that their company treat them better. Go find another job. And, if you can't, that's on you . Not them.

I learned many years ago that I will never be rich. I'm smart enough, but not motivated. So I have to settle for the pay given to me and the work assigned to me by someone else. Luckily, I have a work ethic and no matter what job I'm asked to do, I do it as well as I can instead of whining about how it's beneath me or 'too hard'.

People should look inward to see what they offer to better understand what their labor is worth. From my experience, people are rarely paid a wage that doesn't match what their contribution is worth. People don't get pad based on the effort it takes, they get paid based on the value of that effort and what other people are willing to get paid. If thirty people can dig ditches and only one is needed, that job will go to the person who is willing to do it at a lower cost than anyone else. As it SHOULD be. Just because one person has figured out how to get by with less doesn't mean someone else is entitled to get paid more because they aren't smart enough to figure it out.

Paying a 'living wage' is irrelevant and nonsensical because there is nothing to base it on. A paycheck goes a lot further living at home with one's parents than getting an apartment in an expensive city. It's a lot more expensive to live with kids than putting off the decision to have them and learning how birth control works. It's cheaper to live in small town in a rural area than a big city. And don't tell me people don't have the means to move, leave all of your crap behind. I've done that twice and it's quite liberating to start over with a suitcase full of clothes and a few personal items.

Blaming others because one can't figure things out is either being lazy or indicates a lower level of mental capacity. Which is probably why they are in the situation they are in and getting paid what they are getting paid.

They dismiss smart people that don't match the profile. They look for 'qualifications' and ignore the how smart people can learn anything quickly, become proficient rapidly, and will become better at the job in a year than some of the people that have been there for much longer.

I'd rather hire a smart person that didn't know anything about a subject than someone who is certified. Certification just means they can pass a test, it doesn't measure (in most cases) how good someone really is.

While the practice of getting certified is a good learning tool, basing hiring decisions upon it is just being lazy.

Finding smart people isn't as straight forward as checking off boxes. Looking for people that have a wide variety of skills and easily jump back and forth between them. People willing to throw away work when they realize it's a dead end. People who can infer internal mechanisms from inputs and outputs.

My biggest hiring mistake was hiring someone because they graduated from MIT and looked good on paper. Awful programmer, couldn't learn anything new without a lot of effort and because of it wanted to stick with what they were good at instead of using a better tool set. Found out after I hired them that they really weren't all that smart, just good at taking tests I guess.

I can't boycott Apple because I have never and never will use their products. This is yet another example of why. They think 'mother knows best' and wish to control every aspect of buyers using their product.

The reason I decided to never use Apple products started when I discovered you couldn't build your own Apple based PC and that their license forbids usage of their OS on on-Apple products. That's just 100% BS. To paraphrase Henry Ford, we can have any color we want as long as they deem it good for us.

Now .. I'm not calling on people to reject Apple. If someone is OK with their BS and want to spend money for pretty baubles when beige ones are cheaper, go for it. It's their money.

But I'll never purchase Apple products until they start believing that my phone is MY phone once I buy it. I may already put up with having to have a dedicated Bixby button, but at least I don't have to use it.

And it can't be misused by any government.

Sorry to disillusion everyone, but the only 'race' is 'human'. The program can, at best' describe someones ethnic background. Which might help define genetic issues that someone should be aware of. Why the author of this limited piece is concerned about people learning the 'race' of someone is beyond me, maybe it's just more faux outrage.

Regardless, the US census states 'An individual’s response to the race question is based upon self-identification.' https://www.census.gov/topics/population/race/about.html. They provide ethnic guidelines, but In other words, if I say I'm black, then I'm black. And there isn't any damn thing anyone can do about it except whine about it on social media, the favorite soapbox of the racists who put people into boxes based on skin tone.

The definitions of 'black', 'people of color', or any other racial description are used to put people into boxes. There are definitions of ethnic backgrounds, but very few people can meet the requirement to be 100% from any single ethnic origin. Most of us are mutts, even the person said to be the first 'black president' has a mother that claimed to be white. By that definition, the first half-black/half-white president was President Obama, and the first 'black' president hasn't been elected yet.

Fight racism by defining yourself as 'human' and be inclusive instead of dividing yourself from others for no reason. Describe others without using race, and only include skin tone if it's needed.

The sooner we stop dividing ourselves into different races the sooner we can end racism. Teach our children that skin tone and outward appearance doesn't matter so the next generation is comfortable selecting role models based on actions rather than appearance. The concept that 'a black girl needs a black woman as a role model' perpetrates the lie that race is important. If that black girl has been raised well, it won't matter who her role models are.

Teaching our children to look up to someone just because they look like them perpetuates racism.

Enabling them to see beyond that ends it.

I have no sympathy for anyone that knowingly decides to build anywhere in a flood plain, or even close to a flood plain. It's easy enough now to go on the Internet and check such things out.

People whine about sea rise of a couple inches, yet hurricanes and other ocean storms can bring surges of many feet. The area I live saw 'minor' hurricanes two years in a row, and the exact same homes flooded each time. Except for a few owners smart enough to rebuild taking storm surge into account. There are homes that have survived category 5 hurricanes because the owners were smart enough to build to handle them instead of building to code.

It's time the US flood program to stop bailing people out when significant flooding occurs and instead buy them out, then create covenants that will not allow any permanent, livable structures to be built on the land.

Maybe it's because people are clicking on them, even if they hate them. I rarely see anything like that in my feed, it's mostly blacksmithing, cooking, geek stuff, wood working, sailing, and Star Trek. And lately I've been seeing videos about road design. Because I find it interesting to learn stuff instead of living vicariously through online personalities that I don't know, don't really care about, and want to share things that should be kept private in my opinion. I really am not interested in some celebrity who is going through a rough time because of some mental anguish that is probably self-inflicted and is looking for attention instead of talking privately to family and friends to address it.

It seems like it's working for me. My feed has stuff in it I'm interested in and I can't recall every seeing anything related to a conspiracy theory. Except in the 'news' section which I've never really quite figure out how they pick stuff for that, it's all over the place.

I did make the mistake a week or so ago by clicking on a Tucker Carlson video that was in the news section not realizing what a nutjob he is, a classification I place all pundits in regardless of which side of center they are on. Including Oprah Winfrey (yes .. she does have two names). But I stopped clicking on other Tucker Carlson videos, and they appear to have mostly gone away.

YouTube doesn't know why someone clicked on a video, whether it's because the person likes the subject, were curious, or just fooled by a click-bait headline.

But I'm sure smart people won't be fooled more than once and eventually those videos will stop being seen.

I used to go through the trending video section and learned a long time ago not to click on insipid music videos, political opinions, or men that give makeup advice. Even if I want to see how much of a fool people can make of themselves. Because I don't want to have them recommended for the next 4 weeks.

If someone doesn't like what's in their feed, maybe they need to be a bit more selective on what they click on.

This concept that people are 'tracking' you is directly related to one's own impression of one's self-importance, in my opinion. I don't give a flip if companies are making huge databases that know where I've been and what I've bought if it means I don't have to watch another anti-vaping ad.

But my ego is also small enough to know that no one outside my family and friends really gives a whit about me. I know that to most people I'm just boring. If someone at Amazon is personally going through what I've bought, they'll see someone who likes ice cream, has to wear incontinence pads (due to prostate cancer, but they won't know that), prefers Android and windows, likes home automation, has dogs, and stopped buying cat food a few months ago. If they are going through my grocery list they'll notice I don't buy a lot of processed foods, I drink coffee and tea, like whole milk, and usually buy better quality of meats. Hardly all that interesting in my opinion. Or embarrassing. Please, provide me more ads for those things rather than idiotic music groups, insipid movies, or anything from Old Navy or Apple. (really Apple .. stop showing me your insipid 'pretty boy' ads. I'll never buy your products. Ever.)

Regardless of whether targeted ads are used or not, people are going to see ads. It's only those people that mistakenly think they are interesting that get upset about being tracked. Sure, I think it's creepy when Amazon starts to show me ads about something I happened to look at because I was curious, but it's been that way for as long as I've used Amazon, probably at least 15 years.

It's not 'private' when you are using a 'public' network. Stop using YouTube, purchasing things with credit cards, or using Google Assistant if it bothers you that much.

Let the rest of us appreciate a company at least trying to show an ad that's relevant to things I might be interested in. If I have to see an ad, it might as well be for something I might want to buy.

There is no proof of the effect of the vaccination program. Rates were falling before the vaccine was introduced. And since only about 1/3 of the population has been vaccinated, the virus isn't on the daily news, and I hardly ever see masks anymore, I doubt the claim of the vaccine being the single cause.

But since there was never any real science on the effectiveness of masks (even the CDC said that if you are around someone with Covid for more than 15 minutes a day, a regular mask won't be effective), that never stopped anyone from claiming they worked also.