Americans have no idea how backward their financial systems are. Charles Arthur (author and commentator) via The Overspill No. 1618 Yesterday evening I went through the usual dance at a restaurant in my home town of #louisvilleco . You ask … Continue reading CHASE Backwards Banking
If something seems too good to be true The old idiom is certainly true when it comes to #instagram When @duckduckgo sent out this tweet and my reaction is this isn’t the half of it. If #facebook was only used … Continue reading Instagram Scams
I just wrote this up on my aging tech’ blog. If you need a small system with Windows to perform lightweight tasks, you might consider re-using one of the thousands of used, decommissioned corporate computers available on ebay. If your … Continue reading Need a cheap but useful Windows computer?
US Internet continues to be a problem, especially for small businesses, it’s a total ripoff. First up you have to deal with the sales charlatans, reading from a script, clueless about the technology. Todays first email included this classic: “I wanted to clear something up before processing the order. The quote was is for 50M which is 50 megabit not megabyte as I had stated earlier. “ CenturyLink VAR. Typically though, retail/consumer internet is sold as Mb(megabits), while it’s uncommon for commercial internet to be sold as MB(megabytes), it can be. After all, they sell you on a different class of … Continue reading Do you want bytes with that?
The Presidents tariffs continue to be a source of frustration and confusion. Who pays them, where the money goes and if they are even likely to solve the problem Trump thinks they will. Meanwhile the boycotts on Huawei grow, ultimately threatening to split the technology world in two, everything that works in China and its allies, and technology that works everywhere else. The software bro’s seem to think that won’t happen, or if it does it’s no biggie, since all the software they use is US based. Apart from the arrogance, it’s also completely ignorant. I often show the “Social … Continue reading What to do about China?
The clearing house has released business principles that outline the operation of the real time payments (RTP) Network. A full set of guidelines is here. These are important inasmuch as they set out key points, among them most importantly: TCH runs the RTP network as a utility for the benefit of the industry and RTP fees shall continue to be flat for all participants regardless of size, and shall not include volume discounts or minimum volume requirements. It does though, contains a super-clause, which is typical of the monopolistic “free market” here in America. In an effort to restrain competition, … Continue reading Real Time Payments Network
New Zealand’s Privacy Commissioner John Edwards (@jce_pc), was interviewed this morning on NPR by Rachel Martin. Edwards criticized Facebook after last month’s attacks on two mosques in Christchurch were live-streamed on Facebook. It was a refreshing interview with a politician who doesn’t have all the answers, and knows it’s not his job to come up with them. He is also not beholden to big tech financing, as a New Zealand politician. Equally Edwards was clear where the blame and responsibility lay. The whole interview is well worth listening to, but Edwards rightly pointed out we have a platform that has … Continue reading ‘Facebook can’t be trusted’
No, this isn’t a political post, it’s a blatant attempt to launch myself into the ring tone provider market(not!) As I continue to ramble, sometimes alphabetically, through my 2000+ vinyl album collection, this had been sitting staring at me. Vinyl to digital: I didn’t really remember much about this album, except of course that it contained the track that begat MAX Headroom. It’s actually much better than I remembered, electro/acid/jazz in many places. https://t.co/yBIE9yTWTu — Mark Cathcart (@cathcam) April 3, 2019 It cleaned up nicely, and after editing, the tonality seemed pretty good. I’ve done a few personal ringtones before, … Continue reading Paranoimia
As I continue to digitize my entire 2,000+ album collection, I’m constantly amazed by the quality and durability of Vinyl recordings. It’s true that I have the really poor quality stuff yet to come, as part of a dj lot … Continue reading Vinyl the perfect archive medium?
The latest American Banker Podcast mirrors my recent post about Tech taking over the banks. Aaron Klein, a Brookings Institute fellow, makes a compelling argument for why the American banking system needs to be updated, unlike my general frustration, knowing that better is perfectly possible. Among other reasons, Klein points out that people who are unfortunate enough to have their bank account balance at or near zero, deserve better. They need to know how long a check will take to process, how long before the deposit is final, and when they can plan payments for bills based on availability of funds. … Continue reading ‘Why does a check take as long to clear today as it did in 1982?’