Category: General

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I remember countless mystery movies, TV shows, comics and stories where a kidnapper or other extortionist of some sort sent a ransom note using letters or words cut from multiple newspapers and magazines to defeat handwriting analysis and prevent matching the quirks of individual typewriters. The jumble of different fonts made for a distinctive look.

I have no idea how common the tactic ever was in reality, but it’s got to be obsolete twice over. Laser printers pretty much wipe out the quirks of both handwriting and typewriter key alignment. And of course now you can send an anonymous email over a proxy, with no handwriting, fonts, or other signifiers other than those for the proxy itself.

Chalk up another trope made obsolete by technology.

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The 5YO had an interesting idea tonight: “Devices should have slots that you can put real-world money into.” I explained that it wouldn’t be practical because someone would have to go around collecting it, and meanwhile your phone or tablet would get weighed down by all those quarters or bills. Then I brought up Square and similar card readers that you can hook up to your phone. I’m sure he’s seen us use them, even if he didn’t make the connection at the time he was thinking about the coin slot idea.

Thinking about it, though, why not use something like Square to power online purchases as well as point of sale transactions? Instead of setting up an account and entering a password to buy something, swipe your card. Or swipe a debit card to authorize adding value to it. Katie suggested taking it even further: directly add value to a cash card!

Mobile payments are mainly looking for ways to eliminate the physical card. Card readers are mostly being used to allow sellers to accept physical cards on the new infrastructure, but the technology could easily be adapted to give online buyers another payment – or banking -option.

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epi-pen

A great visual explanation of how to administer an epi-pen to someone experiencing severe anaphylaxis as a result of a food allergy, bee sting, etc. Plus commentary from Tumblr.

I’ll add: Absolutely don’t be squeamish if someone needs you to do this for them. Once I accidentally bounced the epi-pen off my leg when I jabbed myself with it during a severe reaction. You need to jab and hold it. Basically none of the medicine actually went in. Fortunately I carry a two-pack and was able to use the second injector, and I’m still around to tell the story.

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I haven’t been to Comikaze Expo since their first year. It’s always been close to Long Beach Comic-Con, and I’d choose Long Beach every time. This year, though, LBCC was in mid-September, and Comikaze was Halloween weekend. And since we missed out on San Diego, it seemed like a good plan for a family comic-con.

Alas, the best laid schemes…

The kiddo and I have both been dealing with a cold all week, and last night’s attempt at trick-or-treating made it clear that going into LA and spending the day at a huge convention wasn’t going to work out too well. With or without cosplay.

But we tossed up a few Halloween decorations, and I managed to spookify one of my shots from our marsh hike a few weeks back, and J. had a chance to wear the Mixed Emotions costume (all the emotions from Inside Out) we’ve been piecing together all month.

Halloween Costume: Mixed Emotions (Inside Out)

Incidentally…yeah, that’s a Christmas display behind him. On Halloween.

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I found myself looking back at a 10-year-old rant about touch screens, or rather touch screens used where they weren’t the best solution: PIN entry pads for point-of-sale terminals.

We were at the grocery store earlier today, and Katie was grumbling about the stylus-only touch screens they had for entering a PIN. Unlike actual keypads, you can’t hide the number you’re entering, because you have to move that stylus around instead of 10-keying it in.

On one hand, a touch screen with a stylus is great for visual feedback and for collecting signatures, because the store can keep things on file digitally instead of or in addition to a paper copy. And once you’ve got that, it’s reasonable to drop the keypad, since you can simulate it in the touch screen. But unless it can react as quickly as actual buttons, and react to fingers instead of a stylus, it can’t completely replace the way a keypad is actually used.

What I find interesting about this is that the industry actually fixed the problem by rolling back: Even though touch-screen devices are all over the place now, I can’t remember the last time I used a touch-based POS terminal that didn’t have a physical keypad — often slightly shielded from view — for PIN entry. The occasional phone or iPad with a Square reader, but that’s it.

On the other hand, the Fry’s line notification system I griped about in the same article is still as lousy as ever.