The Nineteenth Byte

Veskah

23:04

My new card's chip is kinda getting beat to hell. Not sure if it's going to make it the full interval

Anonymous

@Veskah I had the same problem. Thankfully, someone tried to make fraudulent purchases with my card number before the chip wore out completely, so I got a new card for free.

Adám

> Thankfully, someone tried to make fraudulent purchases with my card

Veskah

Small miracles

flawr

I don't get why credit cards exist today.

Shouldn't it be just as easy to directly charge your account? Why do we need another company in between?

Adám

Why do money transfers and cheque cashings take days? Why do I have to pay whether I borrow money from the bank or they borrow money from me? Why do debit accounts have a fee per transaction? Why can I only see 3 months of account history online?

Anonymous

23:13

@flawr Not everyone has their account number and routing number memorized, and banks definitely don't want people carrying around a card with that information directly on it, because those two numbers are all you need to make an ACH draft. So instead, intermediaries exist that can increase the difficulty of fraudulent use while not inconveniencing legitimate users very much.

Anonymous

@Adám 1. Because the systems those transactions use are archaic. 2. Because the banks are greedy. 3. See #2. 4. Because that's an arbitrary limit imposed by your bank that is pointless, because your bank is a jerk.

Adám

@Mego My bank prints all info on the card.

Anonymous

@Adám Your bank issues cards with the account number and routing number directly on the card?

flawr

@Mego I mean I have a card from my bank that I can use just like a credit card and pay stuff where ever I go. (Some places do not accept this card, but I think just as many do not accept credit cards.)

Adám

@Mego It's in the UK, so it's account number and sort code, but that's all you need to set up a recurring payment by e.g. the IP.

Anonymous

23:17

In the US, we have debit cards that are issued by banks, that go through payment processors just like credit cards. The two are mostly interchangeable - the only difference is that debit cards have PINs, and pull money from an actual checking account rather than a line of credit.

flawr

credit cards do not use PINs in the US?

Adám

@Mego How do you use a credit card if not with PIN?

Anonymous

@Adám I forgot that you live in the UK. I have no idea how the UK's banking system works - only the US, because I've worked in banks in the US

Anonymous

@Adám Chip and sign

Adám

@Mego Wow, that's a bit slow. No contactless then, I gather?

flawr

23:18

@Mego what does that mean? :D

Adám

@flawr You put the card into a machine, it prints a slip for you to sign and hand the cashier.

Anonymous

@Adám Contactless has been steadily gaining popularity in the US over the last decade or so, but it's not ubiquitous yet

flawr

@Adám oh god.

Anonymous

@Adám Actually you usually digitally sign with a stylus on the machine's touchscreen, but same concept

Adám

@Mego Here, all card have it. In London, you can't use cash on buses at all, but you can use your contactless bank card.

Imagine signing every time you stepped onto a bus‽

Anonymous

23:19

In the US, it's considerably easier to dispute fradulent credit transactions than debit transactions, and the resolution is typically much faster, so the lower security on credit card transactions is accepted.

flawr

I don't really get why this contactless way was developed either: Why go all this way to make people hold their cards against an antenna when they could just insert it into a slit? Isn't really any faster?

Anonymous

@Adám Whether or not you need to sign for a credit card transaction depends on the use and the merchant. There are typically higher fees for processing card transactions without signatures from the cc processors, but some businesses (like fast food) accept those higher fees because it means they can get more people served faster.

Adám

@flawr Looks sci-fi though.

flawr

@Adám an iris scanner would look more sci-fi :)

Anonymous

@flawr With contactless, you tap the card and you're done. It's very fast. If you insert the card, it has to stay in the machine for several seconds for the chip-and-PIN (or chip-and-sign) transaction to go through.

flawr

23:22

good old cash seems so much simpler

Adám

I practice, almost nobody uses contactless without touching the card reader. It is even called to "touch in" and "touch out".

@flawr I barely ever use or carry cash. The occasional taxi, but usually one is around which does take cards.

flawr

@Mego you could also drop the pin requirement easily, don't you?

Skidsdev

@Adám it's not even called contactless in canada, it's called touch or tap, depending on who you ask

flawr

(and here contactless is only without pin up to $40 I think)

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Anonymous

23:24

@flawr Not with debit cards, unless it's for very small amounts. Law requires PINs on all debit transactions over a non-trivial amount.

Adám

@Skidsdev Where in Canada are you?

flawr

I think I'll continue using cash :D

Skidsdev

@Adám London Ontario

Adám

@Skidsdev I used to live in Montreal.

Downgoat

O___o I think I am coming upon the unfortunate truth that VSL generics will look like C++:

> %4 = call %"TCValueWrapper<Int32>"* @iFggTCValueWrapperNinitAxTCT.generic.TCInt32(%"TCValueWrapper<Int32>"* %3, i32 1)

Anonymous

23:30

@Downgoat That's horrifying

flawr

@Adám Here most people frequently carry > $300 cash, and I think it is still more popular than all other payment methods (in physical stores).

Adám

I've lived 2.5 years in UK and I still don't know the coins :-)

flawr

I've heard that there are quite cool coins there:)

Pavel

@Downgoat Can you explain what's going on in this line?

Downgoat

@Pavel This is the generated LLVM but it's calling the generic constructor @iFggTCValueWrapperNinitAxTCT.generic.TCInt32 with the allocated memory %"TCValueWrapper<Int32>"* %3

flawr

23:33

Adám

@flawr Some consist of a yellow ring fused to a white core (or is it the other way around)? Some are not circular.

flawr

Right, some are not circular but afaik still have a constant width.

Adám

@flawr Oh, I guess I remember wrong about dual colour. See? I don't know them.

flawr

I don't know if these are just some special ones.

But maybe there are also different designs around.

(Are these even all denominatiosn?)

Adám

That looks about right. I didn't realise that they make up a larger picture if one of each type is placed right.

1+2+5+10+20+50=100 ⍨

flawr

23:36

apparently there are 9 denominations

Adám

@flawr I see 7.

flawr

there must be two more:)

maybe 2 and 5 £ coins?

Adám

Oh, there's £2 also, and a bunch of odd coins that are rare.

Wikipedia says 3p, 4p, 6p, 25p, £5, £20, £100, £500, £1,000 coins exist.

flawr

3p coins? neat:)

they should go through the prime numbers:)

Pavel

In America you can use 0.5 cent coins

They don't make them anymore but they're still (technically) valid

Adám

23:42

They used to have 2 1⁄2p coins…

Veskah

Well they needed two to make the penny

Adám

@Veskah No, that's a 2.5p coin

Huh they (currently) have £1E6 and £1E8 bills.

Veskah

Oh, reading is hard

Adám

TIL that I'm not allowed to pay 30p using 2p coins.

Pavel

@Adám Is that million and hundred million

Adám

23:47

@Pavel Yeah, rather large bills. And that's British Pounds too.

Pavel

My mind isn't working well enough to process scientific notation right now

Downgoat

@ASCII-only issue: T<U<V>> in VSL fails despite existing code to support >> D:

lirtosiast

@Adám Clearly they need a 23p coin shaped like the shield with all the other coins cut out of it.

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