521–530 of 717 posts
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What's wrong with junk food?
Health insurance companies could buy the info, charge you more. Same reason why, if you insist on installing an app from your auto insurance company, you should not let it access location data.
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This is so much cheaper per dollar than people think. Certainly cheaper than credit card fees once you're over a certain volume, unless you are in a very high-crime area. Even then, thieves will often steal off the shelves instead of out of the cash register because that's a much smaller crime. Small businesses get the short end of the stick on cash management, again, because they may not be.
Eh, my experience is that dealing with cash is much more expensive than people think (to be fair, most people think it's "free" since there are no direct fees). At some places I've worked in the past, it's been like almost the only responsibility of a manager working full time. Making sure everything is in order, watch over workers, training them on all procedures, going to the bank to buy change, counting tills all…
Think about the last time you bought some for $1.27 and paid with a $20 and they took it without blinking.
I live in a developing country where there are still a ton of small mom & pop shops that aren't willing to eat the cost of that externality. So it isn't uncommon to go to one of them and they'll go "sorry, I can't make change for that bill size". Then you suddenly have the hassle of needing to drive to another store or getting change somewhere else or whatever.
In practice you adapt: the ATM only spits out big bills so you make a purchase somewhere to start breaking them up. Go buy a soda at an international chain instead of the local corner store. That kind of thing.
But it is still a cost we all pay, since "making change" isn't free.
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It's also used in other contexts, e.g. cash vs. stock compensation (and I wouldn't necessarily call everybody offered that choice "rich" these days).
I would. People in the tech bubble don't understand their privilege. If everybody you interact with daily makes less than you then you are rich. Or how does you total compensation compare to that of the Walmart worker, the guy behind the McD counter, you hair dresser, the lady cleaning your office toilets or the waiter at your lunch restaurant or staffer at the bouldering gym? You think they get stocks?
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> Without bitcoin, you collect the ransom in gold with a dead drop. Where the perpetrator needs to: 1. Be in the general area. 2. Only ask for enough currency that's easy to physically move (an actual real limitation in many countries) 3. Be sure the bills aren't marked (practically impossible). Because of this: 3(1). Be sure to not deposit the currency, ever. 3(2). Be sure not to use the currency with anyone who kno…
"Without bitcoin, you collect the ransom in gold with a dead drop." maybe you missed the bit about gold.
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If you look at the recent history of scandals that have had zero to negative reputational impact on politicians and public figures in Western democracies - we’re talking Access Hollywood , tax fraud, undeclared gifts, gross nepotism, punching journalists, flouting public health laws, sexual impropriety, lying about your career and life story, mishandling of classified information, and just plain incompetence - what o…
A resourced adversary relentlessly publicizing them?
Life isn't a song, nobody in politics these days actually faces the consequences just because they were a rapist/adulterer/wearing blackface/drag/doing felony fraud/etc.
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> What's the basis for this advice? "The GoBeRmEnT Is GoNa TrAcK YoU" Listen, you got a cell phone, and chances are that's going to give away far, far more than data that your credit card company holds on to. They're just going to have a line -- "Food Lion, [Date] $88.23" -- not detailed list of your purchases. Meanwhile if you use a membership card at any sort of grocery store, they absolutely will associate it with…
That's why you should always check to see if some kind soul has pre-registered [local area code]-867-5309
Then, having found me, I asked what number was in there, and he proceeded to read, with exactly zero recognition, 867-5309, and I just laughed on the outside, and cried a little on the inside.
I've been using cash more due to the proliferation of sluggish, badly engineered, or dark-pattern point of sale systems. There are two eateries across the street from each other near me. At both, you go to the counter and order, and they later bring food out. The first has a good system, from Stripe. Big, clear, uncluttered screen facing the customer, with the amount the biggest thing on the screen. When the system i…
My concerns about a cashless society are the power it hands to a few oligopolistic credit card processors. Look at what happened to Pornhub. Regardless of whether you think Pornhub was in the wrong, it is striking that a business was cut off from global financial system by a small number of credit card companies. This was done without due process and under no countries laws. That should scare us at least a little.
This all started way, way before Pornhub. First it was federal and state moral laws (mostly porn, but also race and gender related stuff) with state/local and USPS cops handling enforcement, back when there was no internet and the way you got information out was via newsletters, zines, and such. USPS cops used to literally spend their days steaming open envelopes and rifling through people's packages that seemed like…
Indeed. Recently I grudgingly went to a ticketmaster concert. Shit you not, it was like boarding an international flight. It’s not possible to buy a top performer ticket anonymously any longer, and you are required to present ID and have a smartphone. Who the hell asked for this? I didn’t. It will be my last tm concert, that’s for sure.
I pay cash at the door anyway, often for years which was almost the same price as advance with fees online.
Nope this month it suprised me, door man said card only now.
So they let me in free, knowing I'm there to support the band and bartenders with good tips anyway.