What made you go WTF today?

[Ominous Gamer]

I wonder how much that finance executive at Mattel was making when she transferred $3 million to China in a phishing scam.

[Loki]

Vastly different levels of gullibility. And in the Mattel case, transferring that much money wasn't abnormal. Breaking every window in your store instead of freaking running out as fast as possible is a slightly higher level of stupidity.

[Ominous Gamer]

The windows were broken from the outside, after the building was evacuated.

Voice phishing is much higher skilled social engineering attempt at phishing than the email Mattel fell for.

[Loki]

http://mashable.com/2016/04/09/burge...ows-prank-call And another one.

[LittleFuzzy]

So, 17 inches of rainfall in about 12 hours near Houston. Lots of flooding, of course. I wonder how long it will be before GGT reposts in her weather thread to ask why Texas wasn't prepared to receive a foot and a half of rainfall in half a day without consequence?

[Aimless]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...-festival.html

???

[Flixy]

Was booking a train ticket for someone to visit me next week, coming from germany so I figured I'd use bahn.de. For this, I needed the passenger's name (makes sense), but then it also asked what kind of ID she'd be carrying (apparently, passports are weirdly NOT ok? but a credit card is ), and after I checked an ID card, it proceeded to ask nationality, date of borth, last 4 digits of the ID card serial number, and expiration date. Then, below it asks for the passenger's address (mind you this is an e-ticket), which has to match any address on the ID card used. Also for the whole process I had to be logged in, I forgot exactly what info I had to use for that but probably a lot.

Now you might think they need this information because of regulation, safety, whatever. You'd be wrong, you can purchase the same ticket over the counter without even giving your name. And since I know neither my friend's credit card number OR her identity card number and expiration date, I ended up using the Dutch website for the exact same trip, without logging in, and the entire wealth of information I needed from the passenger were... first and last name. That's it. Not to mention no train conductor ever checked my name on the ticket, let alone my address or identity card number. Wtf, DB.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...-festival.html

???

Aww, they still use mail for tax returns there? I've never even done that Not even for corporate and payroll taxes.

[Timbuk2]

expiration expiry date..

fixed

[Flixy]

The ticket over the counter has anti-fraud features (like watermarks, holographic images and such). The one you can print yourself does not, obviously. Hence their attempt to recreate an anti-fraud technique by using personalization.

And, yes, they do use one-time codes which in theory could be checked against an online database to see if it already has been used. Not reliable though (data connectivity is not always available on a train) and it would take (more time) to process.

And the train conductors over here asked for the ID piece I used every time when I used the e-ticket.

Which is why I understand they ask for a name, but address, identity card number and expiry date? Especially since you can buy the exact same ticket with just a name through the dutch site.

fixed

Thank you

[Khendraja'aro]

The ticket over the counter has anti-fraud features (like watermarks, holographic images and such). The one you can print yourself does not, obviously. Hence their attempt to recreate an anti-fraud technique by using personalization.

And, yes, they do use one-time codes which in theory could be checked against an online database to see if it already has been used. Not reliable though (data connectivity is not always available on a train) and it would take (more time) to process.

And the train conductors over here asked for the ID piece I used every time when I used the e-ticket.

[Aimless]

A minor Swedish politician who made headlines earlier this week when it was revealed that he had "anonymously" posted thousands of deeply disturbing messages on the internet--among other things seemingly confessing to committing war-crimes--believes his account was hijacked by the Swedish Security Service with the help of leftist extremists. Hijacked. Hijacked by the Swedish Security Service. Using ICQ.

ICQ.

[Khendraja'aro]

So, my brother had an idea for which he needed a partial image of a street map in vector graphics.

And OpenStreetMaps can do exactly what he wants - you can export the current viewport of the map as an SVG.

However, OSM's export feature sometimes fails and it's also a commercial venue, so we thought it best to implement the whole thing on our own server. After all, it's OpenSource, so we can easily see how they done it, right?

Yeah.

So, first, the installation instructions for all the stuff involved (Mapnik, PostgreSQL + PostGIS, LeafLet, TileMill, ...) turn out to be a bit Byzantinic. I trucked through that, however, and then set out to import an actual map (of Germany, mind) onto the database. That particular map file was 3 GB in size.

For which I used a VirtualMachine of roughly the same proportions my brother will later on run: 2 cores, 4 GB RAM, 60 GB of space.

I made the mistake of putting that one on a hard disc. Turns out, the import process involves a lot of small random access read/writes, so when I gave up and stopped the thing, five(5) days had passed and it was still not done.

So, next move: Put it on an SSD. Sped up the process at least 50-fold. Only to yield this:

An error occured.
Out of disc space.

Wut?

So, tomorrow I'll give it way more disc space and see how that goes. Geeze.

Of course, there's no indication anywhere in the instructions that the import process may take days if you put it onto a harddisc and that the map size balloons more than 2000%...

[Loki]

https://euobserver.com/foreign/133221

What's wrong with Scandinavian Greens? The Swedish ones get taken over by Islamists. The Finnish ones are sucking up to Putin.

[Loki]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/01/op...dangerous.html

Pretty disturbing piece about midwives in the US.

[Aimless]

Did Ted Cruz's dad help LHO kill JFK?

Did he??

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/01/op...dangerous.html

Pretty disturbing piece about midwives in the US.

Thanks for the link

[Loki]

Does his dad have a middle name? If not, I doubt it.

[Ominous Gamer]

Starting the process of home hunting. Talked to a lender today cause everyone talks about preapproval being so important. At both 3.5 and 5% down, we were approved for a house up to $300,000 because of our credit score and low monthly expenses . We make $60k a year, before taxes.

WTF is wrong with this industry. I was looking at homes a good 50k less and wondering if I could swing it.

[Aimless]

Starting the process of home hunting. Talked to a lender today cause everyone talks about preapproval being so important. At both 3.5 and 5% down, we were approved for a house up to $300,000 because of our credit score and low monthly expenses . We make $60k a year, before taxes.

WTF is wrong with this industry. I was looking at homes a good 50k less and wondering if I could swing it.

Good to be cautious, stick to your plan as far as possible. It's not just that the industry is messed up. The market is what it is and people's circumstances vary greatly. Good luck with the house-hunting are you going to buy one or build?

[Ominous Gamer]

are you going to buy one or build?

buy. building in an established city like this is near impossible and would likely result in an uprooting drive and career change.
If my car and computer buying history is any indication, I don't do good with options. I'd want everything, including the disney store blue tile and concrete counter tops with fiber optics.


I'm perfectly happy where I am now, and so is my landlord. I've lived in some not so great places before and it never bothered me. So I've left house hunting up to the wife, which she is more than happy with. I wouldn't be surprised if Im signing paperwork before actually walking through the place. She already has viewings scheduled for Saturday while I'm working.

[Aimless]

Suspected terrorist allowed to re-board flight despite being caught scheming

Not Arab enough

[Loki]

Some college students are the greatest evidence against rationality. One student had the choice between doing an assignment that takes no more than a few hours vs. repeating the entire course and opted for the latter. Several others decided that they'd only show up for exams, guaranteeing themselves a failing grade for the class. Why?

[littlelolligagged]

Because you're supposed to just give them their passing grade anyway

[Loki]

I tried to disabuse them of that notion on several occasions.

[earthJoker]

It just rained out of the blue sky. Only some white clouds, but they were not even close to me.

[Flixy]

Over here it's clear blue skies and 27 degrees. A week ago it was snowing

[earthJoker]

Same same.

[Hazir]

Haha, Eurovision can be watched on TV in the US.

[Flixy]

That surprises you? With the amount of channels there I'd be more surprised if anything wasn't

Was Douwe any good by the way?

[Hazir]

It's the first time ever, so yes I am surprised.

I missed him as I somehow forgot the first semi was on last tuesday. But he's in the final so he was ok I guess.

[Hazir]

Kind of funny; all mosques and churches in The Netherlands have been notified that if they engage preachers from outside the EU they actually need to apply for a work permit even if such a preacher only speaks at their mosque or church for a single time. The fine for having preach someone without a work permit is €8000. I wonder though how the office in charge of the work permits is establishing if the sermon couldn't be done by someone from the EU