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Comment Re:Getting undercut by those... (Score 3, Insightful) 294

We are getting undercut by those wanting to live the same life as us. What these people don't understand is that they are lowering said life style.

Who's going to stand up and say so, when everyone is so focused on climbing higher in the world themselves to escape the "not as good as it used to be" level they're at now?

A person who wants a lifestyle of "more", for example everyone ever to exist, doesn't really know what that lifestyle of "more" is actually like, so they have no frame of reference to know if they are damaging it. They just know that it's "more" and therefore must be better than what they have now.

In their eyes it doesn't matter how much of that cliff crumbles on the way up, because they are still higher up in the world when they get to its summit. Who cares if it's a foot shorter and everyone standing on it is now a foot lower and angry with you, as long as you can see over the heads of your former peers, right? But wait, there's always another plateau just a little higher up.

That pesky greed thing is innate to human beings. Left to its own devices, it overrides any regard for the wellbeing of others.

Comment Re:Another failure (Score 2) 392

AMD went full-on for DisplayPort as well. The EyeFinity system uses mini DisplayPorts to give you that many ports on a 2-slot card.

My HP monitor has it and lacks an HDMI input.

Many laptops have a "DP++" connector that is a dual-function DisplayPort + HDMI depending on what you plug into it.

Not a failure in the least...

Comment Contactless may be the future, unfortunately (Score 4, Insightful) 82

The biggest problem with these contactless payments, bigger even than trust, is that it separates you mentally from your money. It makes it easy for people to fail to develop and maintain responsible financial habits. It softens the blow of spending money. If that blow doesn't hurt, then you can imagine what happens to the thought of security. The closer you are to the cash, the more you pay attention to its security! Someone takes $20 out of your wallet, you get upset. Someone skims your card, you don't even notice, and if you ever find out, you hope the card company will just reverse the charge. What incentive do you have to care anymore?

When you pay cash, you see the actual money leave your hands. A check is still symbolic in that you're giving them something permanently. When you pay with a debit card, you start to really lose the connection to your money. You put it back in your wallet when you're done. We have had contactless payments for a while and when you use it, you don't think, just buy. I used to have a Paypass enabled debit card and all I had to do was wave my wallet towards the payment terminal to pay. Or if it was in my coat pocket, just wave my coat at the terminal.

The overwhelming message from retailers is: Don't think about your money, just spend it! We'll make it easy! Consumers like easy.

Of course any mobile device manufacturer is all too happy to get involved with that. If banks made cell phones, they would be playing in this space too.

Comment Re:Will the training really matter? No. (Score 1) 388

I'm preaching to the 4-digit choir here, I know. Let me issue the disclaimer that I am not a teacher but a bunch of my friends are, and my job does depend on staying up to date.

You're right, the gap cannot be mitigated. It's how kids' lives and brains work. We were the same way at one point, too. You'll never have as much time to learn new stuff, nor the same neuroplasticity, as you did when you were a bored junior high schooler with all those summers and weekends and snow days and such. It was nice to be so free from responsibility that I could drop a whole week's evenings into writing a DOS game in BASIC or C or assembler, or whatever else, learning while I did it.

Staying ahead of the kids requires a LOT of effort and an independent adult with all of the relevant things to take care of might not be able to stay ahead of the most dedicated ones. You may have the wisdom and specialization of years of experience (I'd like to see those kids build a robust enterprise network, or spec out an IVR soup-to-nuts) but being up to speed on all of the new stuff? Forget it. Grading assignments and planning lessons around an existing curriculum takes a lot of time and you just want a break when you're finally done at 10pm. You have time for some of the new stuff but not all of it.

I do think there should be in-service days, decent salaries, ongoing education benefits, etc for computer teachers. Attract some real talent.

After all: The new hires we work with today were those kids in a computer class just a couple years ago, so maybe schools can make better coworkers for the rest of us.

Comment Re:Hospitals are a stupid target (Score 2) 130

Coming soon to headlines near you:

The number of STDs this celebrity has will shock you! Now with the names of the partners they got it from!

You'll never guess who has herpes! Online dating, now with health background checks (including identifiable previous partners) on each potential match.

Parents, find out if your grown children have had a pregnancy test with this one tool.

Media leaks from the hack suggest that my opponent has mental health issues, so clearly you should vote for me instead.

Sorry, we can't hire you. HR investigation pulled up your medical records and told us to invent a reason not to hire you, because they think with your conditions you will be taking a lot of medical leave.

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