Just Some Stuff

  Dozens of banks in the US are updating their ATMs, or installing new ones, in order to allow customers to withdraw cash without using bank cards. 

US Banks To Test ATMs Which Accept Your Smartphone Instead Of Cards.
 
A new cardless system will be rolled out at around 2,000 cash machines across the US, operated by at least 28 banks, including giants like Wells Fargo, Bank of America and Chase.

Under the new system, people can order cash on an app on their phone, and then scan a code at the ATM to receive their money, all without inserting a card or entering a PIN.

The developers of the system insist that smartphone technology makes for faster and more secure transactions. More banks are expected to adopt the technology soon.

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 Talia Jane was employed by Yelp in San Francisco but after posting in an open letter to Yelp's CEO, Jeremy Stoppelman, that her after tax income of $8.15 was insufficient to provide basic necessities like heating, food, etc., she discovered that she had been fired.

 How did she discover? 

Her work email stopped working. Even her boss did not know what had happened. Stoppelman denies having a hand in her firing, making the claim "(There are) two sides to every HR story so Twitter army please put down the pitchforks," replying to the criticism. 

He didn't personally turn off her email, perhaps he did not even make the decision to fire her, but as the person who ultimately sets the culture and policies of the company, his claim to not be directly responsible is unconvincing.

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 Bloggers And such Beware.

TPP Change Means Drastically Higher Penalties For Copyright "Infringement"

A sneaky and underhanded change to the TPP, spotted by the EFF and summarized here by Jeremy Malcolm, means much stiffer penalties for copyright "infringement:"

Under the TPP's original terms, a country could limit the exposure of the owner of such a website to prison time, or to the seizure and possible destruction of their server, on the grounds that by definition their infringement didn't cause any lost sales to the copyright owner.

 (Note that they would be liable for civil damages to the copyright owner in any case.)

Although a country still has the option to limit criminal penalties to "commercial scale" infringements (which is so broadly defined that it could catch even a non-profit subtitles website), the new language compels TPP signatories to make these penalties available even where those infringements cause absolutely no impact on the copyright holder's ability to profit from the work. This is a massive extension of the provision's already expansive scope.

Perhaps most concerning, however, is the fact that this means those stiff penalties apply even when there is no harm or threat of harm to the copyright owner caused by the infringement.

Think about it. 

What sense is there in sending someone to jail for an infringement that causes no harm to the copyright holder, whether they complain about it or not? 

And why should it matter that the copyright holder complains about something that didn't affect them anyway? 

Surely, if the copyright holder suffers no harm, then a country ought to be able to suspend the whole gamut of criminal procedures and penalties, not only the availability of ex officio action.

This is no error -- or if it is, then the parties were only in error in agreeing to a proposal that was complete nonsense to begin with.

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 Sneaky Pete Micro$ Has Struck Behind Your Back Bro

Microsoft has told The INQUIRER that it is aware of a bug which has been causing users' default programs to switch to the bundled Microsoft options.

 After deleting the update, a user discovered the next day that Windows had reinstalled it and reset the default settings again.

 InfoWorld gives some real world scenarios: "If you have Chrome as the default browser on your Windows 10 computer, you'd better check to make sure Microsoft didn't hijack it last week and set Edge as your new default. 

The same goes for any PDF viewer:

 A forced cumulative update also reset PDF viewing to Edge on many PCs.

 Do you use IrfanView, ACDSee, Photoshop Express, or Photoshop Elements? 

The default photo app may have been reset to -- you guessed it -- the Windows Photos app. 

Music?

 Video? 

Microsoft may have swooped down and changed you over to Microsoft Party apps, all in the course of last week's forced cumulative update KB3135173."

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