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Oh memories of stacking those, and going to my friend's place to copy the latest games :) Remember how we were drilling holes to doubled the disk's storage capacity (from 720 to 1440) https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=47247

Before the floppy disks we were using cassettes... with our TO7 (circa 1983). It was slow by our current measure, but as kids we had time, I guess. The TO7 had even a lightpen to point at the CRC screen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomson_TO7

My parents attic has still some of my old floppy disks, and even maybe some cassettes.

No need for maggots, I cannot get unpasteurized cheese of less than 60 days old here in US. So, you cannot have a real raclette here in US because authentic Reblochon cheese is illegal to import to the US because it is not aged long enough. Sure, you can an older Reblochon cheese, but it does not taste the same.

The most basic ingredients in food are not the same in US. For instance, sugar, flour even butter are different in US from Europe. So yes, you would have to import those ingredients (flour, butter, etc.). If you want to get close to the "authentic/original" food you try to replicate here.

I believe that us, Americans are pretty good at bending international food to our limited ingredients, our own favorite chemicals, sweeteners (corn syrup in everything), our flour and butter (good luck to make pastries like in Europe, with our poor flour and butter).

So I get it when Italians get offended by our poor rendering of carbonara... and feel that what we get here is off.

Around 2015, I was working for a company that processed coupons for large retail stores. We had lots of performance issues, mostly due to our centralized database at the time.

I was dreaming at the time to ship a mobile phone at every large store (e.g. Target) to process the data in-situ. It could hold its own database (partitioned for the tenant), it would have its own UPS (battery), and have enough CPU power to serve the POS requests of one store, even the largest ones.

A mobile phone would be our on-prem server.

The OS that would be put on those old phones, would be a bare minimal, stripped down OS. No need for managing screen, audio, radio/GSM/EDGE/3-4-5G.

Not sure about the IO interface, could reuse the USB, but maybe there is some internal (and standard enough) bus to reuse too...

Thinking more on those 10% cap, it would allow scalpers to sell the original ticket to themselves, over and over, to eventually reach the price of the market.

Unless Ticketmaster takes a significant proportional bite at every resell, nothing prevents scalpers to triple the price of the original ticket, but reselling in a loop.

I think that is the right way to give the enough price control to the artists. So, if The Cure wants to keep the ticket price low, they can.

Maybe that is what we need in US too.

Matt Haney is trying to do something with AB 1720 (Resale Price Cap), and Ticketmaster is supporting it. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml...

I am not sure why a bill would set some magic and arbitrary percentage other than 0%. This has likely be negotiated with the industry.

Agree... and not defending Ticketmaster, but regarding scalpers in general, I am not sure why one would blame only the ticketing system.

If the artists are willing to say sell tickets for $50.00 and the demand is such that some resell to $400.00 the same seat. Is it the fault of the ticketing system ? Who is the victim ? - The artist who could have make more money (but then they could have price it better) - The fans who are basically competing to see that show ?

Scalpers are optimizing the market.

Maybe the solution to mitigate scalpers would be for ticket holders to only be able to resell their tickets through the same platform. Then the artist could decide if the fans can resell to the platform at face value, or for a profit. Then the artist could decide if the ticket can be sold by the platform with a markup or not.

Basically given the power and control to the artist.

There are lots of often overlooked costs to own a home. I have been 15 years in my place, and now I get some advantages e.g. my loan is fixed so the monthly cost is roughly the same as 15 years ago... in a place like San Francisco, it is nice.

The property tax goes up slightly every year, but not faster than inflation.

There are recurring things to maintain (repaint every ~10 years), the roof has been patched about 10 years ago, might need a new coat eventually.

THANK YOU!

This is a treasure trove. And glad you made the whole museum downloadable, so this treasure does not get lost.

I agree... in early 2000, at Colombo (Sri Lanka) airport, they were calling my name, over and over, but never picked it up. I started to pay attention when some dispatched army guys (it was after the 2001 Tamil Tigers attack at the airport) were screening everyone at the airport asking for my name... ops sorry.

Commercial satellites can get 30cm resolution images (military satellites can likely get even more high resolution).

The earth is vast, but once you pinpoint a carrier, a simple software loop should be able to track it for ever (those carrier do not move fast).

I cannot imagine this being remotely difficult for a state to have a constant pin on every large carriers sailing on earth. There even might be some civilian apps for that too.

But again, Strava and other connected + geolocation apps have been an issue for military personnel in general.

Tracking an aircraft carrier should not be difficult for any state (satellite images). The fact that civilians can do it too now is interesting.

It would be another matter if that was tracking a nuclear submarine...

You mean the thing that launched in 2023 and that is still not widely deployed ?

My BoA still prints checks and mail them to the US Bank across the street when I have to pay my HOA. So yes, why not FedNow... BoA and USBank ?

In US also... but here in US, my bank (Bank of America) would print a check, put it in an envelop, send it to the other bank (e.g. US Bank). So, it is not instantaneous, but it is still free.

The drawback is when the US Bank office down the street that hosts the account closed for water damage, it stopped receiving the checks, and it took forever to bounce, so I had no idea that I was not paying my HOA... And this happened in San Francisco, California where the Bank of America and the US Bank are on the same street, a block away...

I cannot wait for FedNow or anything trying to fix this mess.

Well the cap is only on the interchange fee, there are several other fees to add to it... example: https://www.adyen.com/pricing

Processing a Mastercard card is "$0.13 + "Interchange+" + 0.60%" where the "Interchange+" would be 0.30% for EU. So more like €0.10 + 0.90% so for €10.00 product, it would be €1 of fee (1.00%). Much less than here in US, but still not negligible for small businesses that run on thin margins (and 20% VAT).

the "2% cash reward" and "miles" etc. is common here in US because our cards charge the merchants already a lot. So sure we all overpay everything in US because of the credit cards, but we get a small piece back.

Now, would it be nice to not overpay at the first place. Technically we could re-implement the whole thing (instant payout, fraud detection, etc.) like Brazil or India did. It would bring more than $100B back to the US consumers every year, that could be spent elsewhere.

Same holding on the 13 mini, love the form factor.

Did some modest development on Lambda Prolog back in 1999. I still have a vivid memory of feeling my brain expanding :) like rewiring how I approach programming and opening up new territory in my brain.

It might sound weird and crazy, but it quite literally blew my mind at the time !

That is what self-driving car should eventually use, whenever they (or the authorities) deem their model good enough. Burn it on a dedicated chip. It would be cheaper (energy) to run, and faster to make decisions.

And to some extent, I also drive with my ears, not only with 2 eyes. I often can ear a car driving on the blind spot. Not saying that I do need to ear in order to drive, but the extra sensor is welcome when it can helps.

There is an argument for sure, about how many sensors is enough / too much. And maybe 8 cameras around the car is enough to surpass human driving ability.

I guess it depends on how far/secure we want the self-driving to be. If only we had a comprehensive driving test that all (humans and robots) could take and be ranked... each country lawmakers could set the bar based on the test.

Sure, but that piece of plastic/metal can be stolen or misplaced. Anyone can use my credit card then.

I agree and I get it. But at the same time, it is only used for payment and discounts at grocery store. Payment with a card is even less secure here in US. So, I do not think that Amazon Go was particularly unsecured since it was just for credit card payment.

If someone manages to replicate my pulsing blood vessels from my hand and trick the scanner, that would be fine. I would dispute the purchase, and the store would not even pull the camera footage, and just refund.

Amazon Go was not used to hold access to bank accounts or crypto wallets. I think it was a good technology and balance between convenience and security, for the purpose (grocery loyalty and payment).

A twin or even sometimes a relative (son and mother) can open an iphone and its banking apps using the facial recognition. That is more concerning to me than Amazon Go palm scanning for groceries.

I do not think they store any biometric data, they just compute a key out of the image. So, those keys are useless. Very difficult to create a fake living hand with all the living blood vessels with just a key.

I guess the "biometric identification linked to a payment instrument" issue is mostly trust.

Do I trust the entity that identify me using biometrics ?

Do I trust it with my biometric data ?

If I link a payment method, do I trust it with access to my payment details ?

With Amazon Go at WF, I was fine to let Amazon know and store my hand biometrics, and I was fine enough with Amazon know what I purchase at WF, as long as I had something back (loyalty program).

Scaling this though would negatively impact the trust. Maybe I do not want Amazon to know "everything" I purchase everywhere (even though Visa/MC/Amex already know it...)

I agree. And being Amazon might have created some reluctance for other retailers to adopt the technology.

I wish Amazon could sell the tech to someone more neutral and have it deployed more broadly.

But like OP mentioned, you need to reach for your phone, open it, open the app, show the QR code to scan it.

As opposed to just wave your hand, to get your discounts, pay and get your points.

Well, that is not just a payment solution. It can be linked to other things, and primarily to your Prime account, but it could be linked to other loyalty programs too.

So when you wave your hand, you get your Prime discounts, you pay and you get your points. Just by waving your hand. No need to reach for a phone, an app, a card, scan a QR code, etc.

The tech had some advantages. I used it every time at WF. I liked it.

But you all realize that the OP did not even have to reach for his phone. He just waved his hand to get his Prime discounts, pay and get his rewards.

I get that it is fairly easy to use the app on the phone (although my WF has terrible reception, which is frustrating enough when I come to pick up packages), but waving your hand would still be faster.