If they're not responding to either violent crimes or nonviolent crimes, what are they doing all day?
According to a police administrator I once knew, filling out all the endless paperwork that makes the studies possible so people can complain about what little time cops spend fighting crime.
Simlar (sad) story in Spain, very recent. Airtags and Find My are known by police by now. When my friends bag was stolen, he located it on the police station via Find My. It was located in a residential multi-story house nearby, which was known by the police. The place is known to house several members of organized petty crime. Police told him they cannot do anything as they can't enter the house without a warrant and won't get one just based on his testimony.
Do you read Chinese, Hindi, and Vietnamese to read about thefts in those countries?
Latin-based-language countries also have more relations to the english world (mostly through Britain historically conquering most of them), and so as an English speaker you're more likely to see news about those countries.
I'm not sure if you're trying to imply something else, but if you are, please don't. The relationships between languages, what countries are reported in the western news, what countries americans (i.e. the HN audience visit), and so on is complicated, multi-faceted, and cannot be easily boiled down to language as a root cause of anything.
Because they happen to be at the mediteranian cost (for reasons related to how the roman empire conquered and reigned) and are popular tourist destinations today.
I don't think you'd find any link between countries with latin based languages and theft. Differences in crime rates are going to be much more likely to be based on economic inequality, social policy, enforcement, and how crime is reported
The connection to the language spoken in the countries that you are making is completely spurious. The real reason is the the current elected politicians have a great deal of tolerance for the African thieving and fencing gangs, and exert their influence so that the gangs enjoy protection from the consequences of the justice system over the native population. A reduction in crime could happen from one day to the next if the people are willing to abolish the two-tier system, reintroduce a measurement of accountability and enforce the law.
This is a good example of how easy it is to fool people if they don’t have their own understanding of how things work.
Highlighting this has been a priority in my parenting. My child is having a great time trying to scare friends about the dangers of the chemical dihydrogen monoxide, which is found in a surprisingly large number of manufactured foods.
Nobody said it was. But it's not bad because of chemicals, because all bread is created with chemicals.
As for natural versus artificial - that's also bullshit. There's many natural ingredients that are poison, and many artificial ones that are good for you.
I mean, if I eat home made fried chicken everyday, you can bet your ass I'm not gonna live very long.
But that's total nonsense. Everything in our physical world (including water, air, food, and human bodies) is made of chemicals. They can be naturally occurring or artificially manufactured.
Is it really pedantic? Everything is ultimately a chemical compound. H2O is a chemical. Where do you draw the line between "chemicals" and "not chemicals"? Is it more about what you can find in nature? You can find acetone in nature.
yeah, this is kind of a definitional example of pedantry. you probably understand what people are trying to say when they talk about "chemicals" but instead of engaging with the actual conversation, you spin off a metanarrative to pick apart the word choice as if that's directly relevant to the point they're trying to discuss.
not trying to pick on you specifically, because sure everything's a chemical, and i don't really care to fight about that, but you asked :)
> you probably understand what people are trying to say when they talk about "chemicals"
My understanding is that when someone complains about "chemicals" in their food, it's because they've seen something they don't understand on the ingredient list and are scared of it.
"Chemical" is just a really, really vague and poor word choice. I honestly don't understand what people are trying to say when they use it. Food and chemistry are inextricably intertwined. You can't even talk about food without talking about all of the various components food is made up of. Not a single food item out there isn't made up of chemicals. Some found in nature, some created in a lab or factory process. Some healthy, some not. Some with long names, some with short names. Some have effects on food taste, longevity, appearance. Some are inert. It's really a meaningless word to use in the context of one's food.
>I honestly don't understand what people are trying to say when they use it
Like, banana-flavoured milk product vs banana yogurt - seed oil and potato starch compound with artificial flavorings vs REAL milk yoghurt with REAL banana.
It tastes different, it has different nutritional value and overall "chemical" product feels scammy because it tries to mimic proper one.
This is all about words, like, why do we use "Artificial" in Artificial Intelligence?
What is real banana? How much processing is allowed for it to be still real? Considering the selective breeding of banana, is banana even still real?
Chemical is just a bad word choice. Artificial, or ultra processed get closer to the issue. They still are vague with a lot of grey area. If you cook at home, you're also highly processing your food. The fruit in winter is likely also artificial, in some sense: Grown against the will of god/nature with pesticides, in a tent, in a climate that doesn't naturally feature them, devoid of flavour because they were artificially bred for yield, color and size, etc.
>What is real banana? How much processing is allowed for it to be still real? Considering the selective breeding of banana, is banana even still real?
This is arbitrary subjective qualifier, goes somewhere between "isoamyl acetate" flavoring chemical and organic wild forest bananas. I would subjectively say that any grown bananas is REAL while isoamyl acetate made by rectification of amyl acetate is not REAL banana.
I think it's actually a great example of very very important non-pedantry. The entire crux of their argument/issue is dependent on their definition of "chemicals". I would even go so far as to say it's just the nature fallacy in disguise.
With the nature fallacy, the definition (or more like the lack of) of what is natural is the entire crux of it. In both cases (natural and "non-chemical") it's the very non-defined-ness that reveals the problem with it: You cannot create a sensible definition.
For nature, what's the definition that puts "rape" and "artificial insulin" on the morally correct side?
For chemical, what's the definition that puts "fortification with iodine, flouride, or whatevers in flour" and "arsenic" on the right side?
Just stating the obvious that not buying one of these thing that we never seemed to need until they told us we needed it
I never thought I needed one until my wife lost her car keys, and the Fiat dealer charged $1,200 for a replacement.
And it's not even the electronics that makes them so expensive. Modern car keys aren't like the 1970's where it's just a piece of metal with the edges shaved off. Those little key cutting kiosks at Home Depot can't cope with today's complex engraving.
Hahah, I just traded in 2023 (unrelated brand) for 2012 model since it was less of a computer. Computer systems in the newer car kept having faults that caused sporadic electrical issues workshops couldn’t fix. I just want my car to be a car and nothing else.
... and get a Check Engine light+fault code for the built-in emergency SOS feature, thereby making it unable to pass vehicle inspection until you fix the antennae
so either 1) disconnect it most of the time and reconnect it for inspections, or 2) buy a dummy load RF terminator matching the resistance of your antenna
OnePlus and other Chinese brands were modders-friendly until they suddenly weren't, I wouldn't rely on your car not getting more hostile at a certain point
There was a video by MKBHD where he said that every new phone manufacturer starts off being the hero and doing something different and consumer/user friendly before with growth and competition they evolve into just another mass market phone manufacturer. Realistically this is because they wouldn't be able to survive without being able to make and sell mass market phones. This has already happened to OnePlus back half a decade ago when they merged with Oppo, and it's arguably happened with ASUS as well when they cancelled the small form factor phone a couple years ago.
A phone without SIM can still be used to call emergency services (911/999/0118999 8819991197253). The situation we're discussing though is an attack by an extremely-APT. You really think not having the SIM card is going to do anything? If the cell phone hardware is powered up, it's available. All the APT has to do is have put their code into the baseband at some point, maybe at the Volvo factory when the car was programmed, and get the cooperation of a cell-phone tower, or use a Stingray to report where the car is when in range.
What makes you think I'm not a lawyer? The point is that we're not in court, we're in a pseudonymous open forum on the Internet, where everyone has a stinky opinion, where actual attorneys are posting disclaimers that they are explicitly not giving legal advice.
That pattern shows up when publishing has near-zero cost and review has no gate. The fix is procedural: define what counts as original contribution and require a quick verification pass before posting. Without an input filter and a stop rule, you get infinite rephrases that drown out the scarce primary work.
I’m under the impression that this style of writing is what people wish they got when they asked AI to summarize a lengthy web page. It’s criticism and commentary. I can’t see how you missed out on the passages that add to and even correct or argue against statements made in the Hackernoon article.
In a way I can’t tell how one can believe that “re-hashing [an article], interspersed with [the blogger’s] own comments” isn’t a common blogging practice. If not then the internet made a mistake by allowing the likes of John Gruber to earn a living this way.
And trust that I enjoy a good knee-jerk “slop” charge myself. To me this doesn’t qualify a bit.
This comment has, I think, made me more sad than anything I've ever read on HN before. David is one of the most thoughtful, critical, and valuable voices on the topic of digital archival, and has been for quite some time. The idea of someone dismissing his review of a much more slop-adjacent article as such is incredibly depressing.
> There seem to be a lot of people in this thread who have never actually been through this and are just apeing what other people say online.
I've been through it personally and with friends.
My experience was basically yours. I am a relatively highly paid professional with a large amount of assets with my bank. I get pretty good service, even at my giant national retail bank. I call, make a demand, they tend to just do it without too many questions.
My more low income friends have also gone through it, and I've assisted with them since they were panic'ing. Their experience is absolutely nothing like mine. Every single one spent days to weeks being sandbagged by sometimes the same bank I dealt with on my issue.
Your experience will very greatly depending on how "valuable" of a customer your bank feels you are to them.
> U.S. banks largely give debit cards the same protections as credit cards for at least the last 15 years.
On paper, sure. In practice, no. Funds frozen during an "investigation" matter a whole lot more when it's your money vs. a made up credit limit number that wasn't real to begin with.
I have a friend that got a call/notification that her card was being used suspiciously. It may not have been from the bank. I'm not sure what exactly happened, but then very shortly after, someone else got her newly issued debit card and then used it at an atm in her area. The bank didn't believe that she wasn't involved. And despite filing a police report and giving them all the information that she could, she was out 2.5 grand, which was a big deal for her. BofA if anyone is wondering.
They got her new card and activated it, so they set the pin. I wish I had details because it seemed very sophisticated. So she couldn't have been the only one hit by the scam.
Yikes... That's an interesting angle. Not sure how you would intercept both, I would assume/hope they would be sent separately preferably using different methods
The key with debit cards is the incentive misalignment. With credit, it’s the bank that loses out, not you. With debit, it’s you. Until the consequences are equaled by legislation, there’s no world where they get equal treatment by the bank
it's transaction fraud insurance. like any insurance, you pay a small amount regularly, and in return get protection in case of large sporadic loss.
points are just premiums: some insurance consumers are a greater risk, and so pay more.
any convenience features are built on top of the insurance product: _because_ all players are covered, _therefore_ i can make online purchases. _since_ (i have a justified expectation that) i am not liable for fraudulent use of my account number, _therefore_ i can read it to a customer service rep over the phone.
we can of course debate whether 2% is a good price for this coverage! but there must be some price paid here -- if the insurance broker doesn't collect it, the scammers will. this, after all, is the real tragedy.
My friend, as a rule of thumb, every additional player im a transaction takes a cut.
So assuming the rest is all the same, you just paid exactly what you would've paid with a debit card. Because the merchant had to raise prices to accommodate the fee. And that's with the credit card company not taking a cut and we all know that's not true.
The merchant chose to not offer a lower debit card / cash price because the merchant bets that people will pay a higher price if they use credit cards, so the merchant incentivizes credit card usage by asking for the same price for credit card and non credit card payment.
There are merchants that do not do this, such as Target, which charges 5% to use a credit card. Insurers/tutors/daycares/schools/healthcare providers/contractors/gas stations/restaurants/governments/utilities are also known to frequently charge more for credit card payments.
Any seller can choose to offer a lower price for debit card / ACH / Zelle payments if they want to.
Even ignoring the cut taken by the credit card issuer, why do I have to go through some random card to get a 2% discount, when prices could just be 2% lower across the board by default?
To add on to that: if someone fraudulently uses your credit card, it's the issuer's money that's now missing and they need to get it back. If someone fraudulently uses your debit card, it's your money that's now missing that you need to get back. Hopefully things don't start overdrawing your account in the meantime.
Yes we'll open a dispute. Yes we'll give you a credit immediately. But then we just take the sellers word for it that they're trying to make it right and charge you anyway.
This is my one singular experience with a dispute but that's with a big bank getting almost all of my transactions over the course of years....
A very big percentage of credit card expenses in the US come from cards with rewards programs, so you get money/gift cards/travel discounts in exchange for using the credit card instead of the debit card. A lot of this is funded from much higher interchange fees: It's ultimately the merchant you buy from funding most of the rewards. Since those very high fees are nowadays illegal in the EU, European credit cards cannot have this kind of generosity, and incentives are very different.
How does this work when using a US credit card in the EU? I assume the merchant still pays the lower interchange fee, so are the banks just betting that customers won’t do a large proportion of spending abroad?
They might, and it's good they do, but they're not legally required to in quite the same way that they are with credit cards. If someone pulls $10k out of your BofA account, they're completely within their rights to do basically nothing about it.
I had a friend who had their checking wiped out by debit card fraud. Their bank issued them a provisional credit of $150. So nice. Too bad rent was due in two days and was considerably more than $150.
Slowly over the next three months the charges were slowly reversed. In the end the bank didn't reverse all of them, but my friend did get most of her money back.
According to a police administrator I once knew, filling out all the endless paperwork that makes the studies possible so people can complain about what little time cops spend fighting crime.
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