iCloud is overrated, it was not encrypted at rest for ages. I much prefer using Time Machine and keeping the passcodes in a PW manager, and maybe a safe deposit box as a backup.
I did this ages ago to build up airline points and take a nice trip to the EU.
Back then, the trick was to get a generic Vanilla Visa or other prepaid credit card. A recent legal ruling meant they had to be run as a debit card for... reasons... I forget them.
But a lot of grocery stores would sell you a money order up to 500 bucks for under a dollar with a debit card (not a credit card).
So you'd call up the issuer and have them issue it a PIN. Then you'd run it as a debit card and buy a 500 dollar money order.
Subtract ~$5 for the GC and ~$1 for the MO and you could manufacter about 500 bucks in spend. And the best part? You could take that money order to your bank, deposit it, get the funds immediately, pay off your balance, then rebuy.
In one afternoon I earned enough points for a first class flight to a fancy European city, and eternal side eye from the grocery store clerks who were convinced I was up to something put couldn't put their finger on what.
>Back then, the trick was to get a generic Vanilla Visa or other prepaid credit card. A recent legal ruling meant they had to be run as a debit card for... reasons... I forget them.
Interchange fees, probably. Otherwise the credit card companies is taking a 2-3% cut.
>So you'd call up the issuer and have them issue it a PIN. Then you'd run it as a debit card and buy a 500 dollar money order.
I don't know how this ever could have worked considering that "cash-like transactions" are counted as cash advances, same as if you were to use your credit card at an ATM.
> considering that "cash-like transactions" are counted as cash advances, same as if you were to use your credit card at an ATM
Afaik, gift cards are more like fixed balance debit cards that happen to be runnable over a specific payment network (e.g. VISA, MC, AMEX) as credit cards
But at least a fair number of them will allow you to set a PIN, which then allows their use as normal debit cards
You're not running it as a credit card, and it's not a credit card -- you can't do a cash advance on a gift card. But they sold ones that were accepted anywhere visa or MC is accepted rather than specific stores.
I've been doing all my personal notes etc that I want a rich text format in .ODT for decades now and don't regret it one bit.
I do regret being overly paranoid in my 20s and not writing down my master passphrase to my personal documents -- I lost a huge chunk of diaries and writings due to that.
Fun fact: ODT uses Blowfish encryptio. Remember when we made Bruce Schnierer a meme like Chuck Norris? He wrote it -- apparently it's faster than AES?
Anyways, if you save with password in a .ODT file, if you pick a strong password you've got a nice little self contained encrypted volume that doesn't require "suspicious" software to open.
ANYWAYS, a bit of a tangent but... looking forward to death of Word.
I'm sure ODT works well for many personal use cases, but can guarantee it will never see adoption in the legal industry. Microsoft Word is the only viable option for lawyers.
>I'm sure ODT works well for many personal use cases, but can guarantee it will never see adoption in the legal industry. Microsoft Word is the only viable option for lawyers.
The legal industry also uses MD5 to certify digital evidence hasn't been tampered with, that too will eventually bite them in the ass.
> I'm sure ODT works well for many personal use cases, but can guarantee it will never see adoption in the legal industry. Microsoft Word is the only viable option for lawyers.
I'm a lawyer, though I'm practicing in a wholly different legal system (Romanic civil law) and another country. Why would you say that?
No issues against .docx and and Word per se, but I hate that stupid ribbon with undying hatred. Thus I use LibreOffice as much as I can, while maintaining a licensed Office 365 setup under dual boot with Windows for cases when I have no other choice.
I don't think it's too surprising that another country's legal profession would have a different culture than that of the US. When OP says that ODT will never see adoption in the legal industry, I think it's fair to say there was an implied "in the US" there.
Ya’ll read too many conspiracy theories. What makes you think other countries were interested in recruiting him, specifically? I want to see the logic behind this assumption.
>Ya’ll read too many conspiracy theories. What makes you think other countries were interested in recruiting him, specifically? I want to see the logic behind this assumption.
You don't understand why a country without nuclear weapons would try to get a scientist to help them make them?
Oh I understand. I’m asking why him, specifically?
Countries that have nuclear ambitions but lack the capability have more than enough scientists of their own that could do it given the permission. It’s pretty available science which is why we put sanctions on it and prevent people from enriching uranium like that.
This book going into extreme detail about the East German surveillance state. People tend to hyperfocus on the Nazis due to a morbid fascination with bodycounts, but the GDR was closer in time in both history and comopositions. They had faxes, computers, and many other technologies that made them similar to us, and I worry we forget the lessons of that regime. I read his book during a middle school in school suspension and it was a formative read.
Another good book is "Eichman in Jerusalem", which details the trial of one of the architects of the Holocaust and his claims he was "just following orders... the book examines the "banality of evil".
Finally, to lighten things up, my most recent new favorite book that's fiction was Convenience Store Woman, about a woman who's been working at a 7/11 for 18 years. I read it during COVID and it's stuck with me as a favorite.
I've read at least two articles authored by historians that thought this book was full of factual errors and misunderstandings. One of them had studied Eichmann's life and correspondance, and found that he was far from the character that Hannah Arendt depicted. IIRC, the other article tried to explain her bias; I remember she hated Jerusalem and despised most people she met in Israel.
It may be good read, but don't expect the book to be fair or truthful.
>I've read at least two articles authored by historians that thought this book was full of factual errors and misunderstandings.
Feel free to provide these citations if you dislike the book
>It may be good read, but don't expect the book to be fair or truthful.
It's creative nonfiction -- a literary telling of a factual event. And no one is required to be "fair" to anyone, especially Nazis. Some things don't have "both sides".
I feel like what's interesting to the technically minded will stay evergreen? (You mentioned Neuromancer for example)
"A Brief History of Time" was one of my favorite books as a pre-teen beginning to wonder how the world works.
On the fiction side I've heard good things about Cory Doctorow's works -- I purchased a copy of "Little Brother" a while back and enjoyed it. Maybe not as high literature as 1984 or Catch 22 but it was engaging and if I had kids I'd gift it to them when they were the right age.
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