Not really, unless AMEX counts. RIP Bankcard

Behind the scenes there are several routes your card can be charged via. IIRC EFTPOS is one of the cheapest, but doesn’t support card tap, instead you have to insert and use your pin?

EDIT: Yes

https://choice.community/t/do-we-pay-more-for-credit-card-purchases-when-we-tap-instead-of-insert/31743

When a card is waved OR is a credit card it is processed by the credit network and receives the ‘valuable protections’ attributed to credit cards regardless of whether it is a credit or branded (eg Visa or Mastercard) debit card. If it is inserted and identified as an EFTPOS card it is processed through the interbank (cheaper) network; if a debit card it depends on the selection (eg savings, cheque, or credit).

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-07-22/inserting-your-card-could-help-reduce-card-surcharges/104105544

If you use a debit card, it’s likely a “dual network” card, meaning it can be used to make payments via the Mastercard/Visa network (depending on the issuer) as well as the eftpos system.

Using the lower-cost eftpos system can help reduce card surcharges and sometimes avoid them completely.

To do this, you typically swipe or insert your card and pay using the “savings” option.

I guess I know what I’m doing from now on.

I was updating a GP website today to add “COVID vaccines currently free”. Bossman says “it’ll be in state gov’s hands soon so we don’t know”.

Flu shots are not free though, unless you hit some specific criteria.

I don’t think shots were intended to be fired at the Mozilla corporation, who can’t stop talking about their default, opt-out AI, but it paints a stark picture of the difference between a company that preaches privacy and choice, versus a company that actually provides those things.

I think they’re also taking shots on telemetry. Firefox uses telemetry as evidence to support their decisions in ways that sometimes seem contrived or statistically incorrect (similar to only x% of people turned this default feature off, therefore it is good), making me feel as a user that contributing my telemetry to them is actually a bad thing that is encouraging their behaviour. Meanwhile TDF makes great software that follows what the community wants and needs without any telemetry collection.

Short answer: It depends. Doing full flash reads of your USB sticks and SD cards (dd if=/dev/XXX of=/dev/null bs=4k status=progress) may help for a lot of them. But not all. The only solution I can actually recommend (for any storage media) is backup them up and regularly testing/moving the backups.

If the read of the disk is particularly slow then that indicates the flash cells are degraded. If a second read of the disk is much faster then that indicates some action may have been taken by the flash controller IC to fix this.

Long answer:

NAND flash cells slowly leak charge, making their state indistinguishable. A flash controller IC (usually separate to the NAND flash IC or ICs) has the job of noticing and fixing this (by rewriting the data to another or the same cell) before it gets too bad. That doesn’t necessarily mean it does it particularly well.

Some (few?) flash controllers periodically scan for weak cells and rewrite to fix them. Some (most?) flash controllers notice weak cells only when you read them. Some (many?) flash controllers are shit and don’t do any of this.

Flash controllers also have a bunch of other features and jobs, like maintaining a spare pool of cells (over-provisioning) to swap out for bad ones and even forcing the USB stick into read-only mode if they think things have gone particularly bad. Again this varies a lot depending on implem, some do it, some don’t, and for different reasons (out of over-provis cells, corrupt mapping metadata, arbitrary thresholds, etc).

I’ve used Organic (now CoMaps) for a while now. Mostly been great. Interface is so much faster than OSMand (slow rendering) and Google maps (no networking needed).

Driving route planning doesn’t know about traffic, so it’s always optimistic about time.

Some rural towns in my country disappear unless you zoom in more, which is a pain sometimes.

You free tonight? Or Sat morn, Sun arvo? I can try to drag you with with some other friends.

Going to try it with some friends soon (maybe tonight?). We loved PEAK, it was magical.

A particularly diabolical friend in PEAK:

DO NOT TRUST WHAT HE SAYS

I am using this one. Texting or messaging my phone (on anything that makes a notification popup) with the text “fmd password location” gives me GPS coords. More than enough for me, and works even from a borrowed stranger’s phone.

Setup steps require ADB though, because in the phone ecosystem getting “unusual” permissions usually requires business deals with Google/Apple.

requiring a not insignificant fee to write the exam

What does this mean?

As of this month, applicants now face a record application fee of $11,710 — up $2,345 from the previous charge

That’s 5x what it was. Hmm, that’s odd. EDIT: Nope, see brisk’s reply.

In an interview with SBS Nepali, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said he did not accept the way the visa fee increase has been characterised, arguing visa fees needed to be considered alongside other costs involved in moving overseas.

“Just remember with the costs as well, anybody who’s travelling overseas for an extended period of time has already decided that they’ve got the cost of an airfare and, you know, the visa fees are, are well below that,” he said.

WTF?

Has this guy ever booked his own flights? Brownwyn Bishop’s helicopter rides were cheaper than that.

Maybe he’s imagining moving a whole house of furniture and appliances overseas too? Does he imagine that’s how people do this?

As long as it’s not gambling or a scam. (Points are most “technology” companies and their products)

Neil’s suspiciously just gone missing. He’s probably in the Telstra pits right now destroying the vital asbestos.

$67 says the grad will be the initial focus of the internal investigation. They will be made to feel awful and never want to work in that industry again.

$40 says the blame message will focus on bottom of the ladder personnel, not root cause leadership.

Ty. All is good on the Hb front. Doctors sent me through a lot of tests a few years ago, including that one.

Edit: Long story short, if (like me) you can’t handle normal hours, and, the docs can’t find anything wrong with you, then you get put in the ‘chronic fatigue’ category. This sentences you to a lifetime of random people suggesting you try homeopathic remedies :o

The last dating event I tried was after work and it was exhausting for me. I might have connected slightly with a couple of people (maybe?), but I had to get out of there because I was so tired.

I struggle to do normal working hours, I don’t have the stamina. I can’t fathom how people working 38 hour weeks (or unpaid overtime) meet people.

EDIT: Currently off work :P Quit my job, best decision ever. Right now sitting in a chair in the sun, contemplating a nap.

Gattaca

Is it parked in the middle of the road? Love it :3

Perhaps it’s an indicator of local financial stress? I used to find thrown out working or near working printers in my area, not any more.