Modern Dystopia

If you’re not aware of this already, Woolworths have stopped accepting credit/debit cards (such as Visa and Mastercard debit cards) for credit transactions at their EFTPOS terminals. Instead you will be required to make a Cheque or Savings choice, and hence, with most banks, incur a fee yourself for the privilege. The theory is that they don’t want to cop the fees from credit transactions, but they’re quite happy for you to use a CREDIT card.

I heard about this a little while back, and listened to a Woolworths spokesperson make some very conflicting statements.

1) They claimed that use of Debit cards was becoming an unmanageable cost due to their rising prevalence in transactions and the fact that they get charged a percentage fee by the bank for credit card transactions.

2) They said it would only impact a VERY SMALL number of consumers as less than 1% of their customer base actually use this method.

So which is it? If it’s only 1% then how do the other 99% pay?

I am sure actual credit card usage (as opposed to debit cards using the credit option) is much higher than 1%, but they aren’t stopping you using them. Imagine the furore if they stopped accepting credit cards! or if they did (as they have a right to) charge a small fee for credit transactions.

They’d be publicly shamed on every current affairs show in the country, and every reputable media outlet too! Instead, they’re shafting the little man. The lower income people who are probably trying very hard to AVOID credit cards as the evil trap that they are.

My bank makes a POINT of promoting these debit cards as a way to avoid fees. The fees to use them as EFTPOS are quite high, whereas credit transactions are fee free. Using the credit option allows them to recoup a small amount in fees from the retailer, in the same way every other credit transaction does. Those costs are BUILT IN to the costs at the supermarket. We’re not inventing a new expense for Woolworths.

Now… I’m having a rant, but I’ll mention another thing. I’m not sure if or how this applies, but doesn’t Australian law say that you cant artificially limit payment options in this way? Didn’t Ebay have to do an about face when they tried to limit the options for making payment?

I’m looking forward to leaving a few hundred dollars of groceries on the checkout when they refuse to allow a credit transaction.

Don’t boycott them. Make a public statement, in teh store, so the managers have to explain to their bosses what’s happening at the checkout.

Fill your trolley, and then refuse to pay by any means other than credit! If they wont accept your payment, walk out and go to Coles, or IGA.

It’s my shopping night tomorrow. I’ll be putting them through the wringer.

You can write to Woolworths here: http://woolworths.com.au/wps/wcm/connect/website/woolworths/contact+us/contact-us

It’s important that you make your voice heard on the subject of Mandatory Internet Censorship. However, in this modern age our government is yet to introduce guidelines or facilities for the lodging of electronic petitions, even though a house committee has been looking at it for at least 4 years now.

So if you want your voice to be heard read on, and this is true for all petitions to the federal government! Whether it’s about No Clean Feed, R18+ Gaming or any other subject.

Why signing the official paper petition against internet censorship is the only sure way to make your signature count!

The House of Representatives is the house in Australian Parliament that will be passing the legislation to filter the internet, This House can only be petitioned on paper and each signature must be in the persons own signature, online petitions are not valid, when petitioning parliament you must petition the appropriate house on an issue in which they have the power to act, and only the House of Representatives have the power to act on this bill that imposes mandatory filtering of the internet.

Please take 5 minutes to print out this pre-approved official petition, that is going to be tabled in Parliament in 6 weeks, it’s great if you have already signed a digital one, however it does not take the place of the official paper petition.

Official Paper Petition against internet censorship at any of the below addresses:

http://www.facebook.com/l/ce01a;www.thecrowhouse.com/savethenet.html

http://www.facebook.com/l/ce01a;loveforlife.com.au/node/7113

http://www.facebook.com/l/ce01a;stream.adamdodson.org/items/view/1610

Please share this information around, so we can show parliament how serious we are about opposing censorship.

I’m not surprised really, Twitter is, after all a perfect medium for a meme like this. But the name game isn’t a new one, hell I think I remember first figuring out my Porn Star Name when I was in early high school, a long long time before the internet existed as we know it.

But now…wow! Paranoia is brought to new levels. Warnings abound now on Twitter about how revealing your PornStarName is akin to giving those nasty hackers/crackers/russian mafia you credit card number and PIN. Well, get over it. A couple of things to think about…

1) I’ve never seen Street names used as security questions in over 17yrs online IT work. Occasionally pet names, yes but think about it…

2) If you DO use these things as passwords, security answers, then you’d be pretty damn stupid to start typing them out anywhere, I hate to say people deserve to have ID stolen, but if you’re going to be that daft, then maybe you do.

I think someone mentioned something about mother’s maiden name being aprt of the game, and if someone’s trying to slip that in, then yes, I’d be a bit more concerned. It was never part of the game, and may be an obvious attempt at social engineering, but again, you wouldn’t be that stupid in the first place would you. I mean, does anyone actually USE their mother’s maiden name as a security question answer? It’s probably one of the least secure items you could use to start with, easily discovered by any really interested person.

PornStarNames is a laugh itss been doing the rounds since long before the internet, just because it made it to Twitter, no need to think it’s some great social engineering scam, it’s not.

Have a laugh, at your own expense and others, and if you have, foolishly, used any of this information as a password or security question somewhere, then surely you’ll see those letters appear on the screen before you and know it’s not a good idea to share.

I’m sitting here, reading a few posts, exchanging emails, just wasting a few moments as you do and I’ve been inspired to write a little something on how often we do, or don’t take things at face value.

two seperate cases:

First, there is the story that’s doing the rounds atthe moment about a Redback Spider catching a small snake. i first saw it here and then it came through on the usual email chain letter train. I even reposted the link on my facebook account, figured it was pretty interesting. But I took it on “face value” and didn’t think to question the veracity of the story. However someone else did and I soon got an email from a friend, ‘it’s not a Red Back, it’s a Black Widow, and therefore American” (I’m paraphrasing BTW)

That made me think, “what’s the difference?”

So I went looking, first I followed the original blog story back to it’s source, and unfortunately it didn’t go too far and seeemd to be an unacknowledged repost even then. I read other peoples comments on the stories, and came up with a couple of things that could be checked. The type of Snake, and the type of spider. Someone mentioned the possibility that it was a South African snake, an Aurora House Snake so I checked out both the snake and the spider. The spider, it’s a tough call, could be A Redback, a Black Widow, a Button Spider, or one of many variants on the genus Latrodectus. The snake though, note that distinctive orange strip seen clearly in the picture below…

So a bit of research, and a story, that on ‘face value’ seems legit, is suddenly quite probably not an Australian story at all, and the spider is in all likely hood not a Redback, but another similar spider of that genus.

but what of the other side of the coin, the inability of some to talke something at ‘face value’.

This is my second point. Even in the comments for this spider story I saw people write “It’s a fake, it’s a photoshop”. If yuo surf/stuble about the web as much as I do you’ll notice it seems to be the catch cry of a jaded generation. So used to things being faked, they can’t accept occasionally that marvelous things can and will be caught on camera. That nature is often more beautiful, or more spectacular than one could ever imagine.

Sometimes you do just have to enjoy the image beforeyou, take it as you see and, and not cry ‘photoshop!” just because you’ve never seen soemthing like it before. hell it doesn’t have to be nature that’s weird…. tell me what you think of this. yes, it’s a crap post, but yet the ONLY comment asks… “photshopped?” I mean come on. A dodgy photo taken on a wet day of some idiot’s stupid car, why the f*** would anyone BOTHER! (of course you could say the same about the car in the photo.)

Anyway, to all you who cry “photoshop!” take a moment to enjoy things at face value. open your eyes to the world a bit. and if a photo is a clever photoshop fake, applaud the clever SOB who pulled it off.