Which is it most important to reopen asap? Pubs or Schools

[Oldjohnw]

A sobering read:

‘You can’t pay cash here’: how our newly cashless society harms the most vulnerable

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2020/ ... _clipboard

[philg]

A sobering read:

‘You can’t pay cash here’: how our newly cashless society harms the most vulnerable

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2020/ ... _clipboard

Surely someone in the shop would have offered to take her cash and pay with their card - I certainly would have done??????

[Oldjohnw]

A sobering read:

‘You can’t pay cash here’: how our newly cashless society harms the most vulnerable

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2020/ ... _clipboard

Surely someone in the shop would have offered to take her cash and pay with their card - I certainly would have done??????

Exactly. As would I except I don't shop! I fear life is simply - and wrongly - stacked against some people.

[reohn2]

A sobering read:

‘You can’t pay cash here’: how our newly cashless society harms the most vulnerable

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2020/ ... _clipboard

Surely someone in the shop would have offered to take her cash and pay with their card - I certainly would have done??????

Exactly. As would I except I don't shop! I fear life is simply - and wrongly - stacked against some people.

You're right people just shouldn't be suffering in such ways.

[Oldjohnw]

It is well known that 1.5-2m don't have bank accounts. Perhaps knowing that it would be hard for them to buy food was all part of Mr Cummings' eugenics ambitions.

That is probably excessively cynical. Or perhaps not.

[merseymouth]

Hello there, Some nice people are now being driven into an "Underclass" situation!
No point in my repeating my objections to the mindless rush towards a society that benefits only certain groups, some of us are powerless against the mincing machine that is the banking industry! Sadly our members of parliament enjoy the gravy train that we have to pay for, the expenses scandal showed us that, protected from the horrors that some folk suffer.
As for not accepting cash for "Covid19 Protection"? Bunkum! The paper money in this country is more likely to be contaminated with Colombian Marching Powder, Nasal Snow, known properly as Cocaine!
My wife also uses Chip & Signature cards. Well, in all of the Covid crisis period she has used her cards without a problem, Tescos, Sainsbury's, M&S, Asda, even B&M, all welcome her custom and payment!
When she shops at Aldi they have no issue over taking cash for her purchases, so what makes pubs so especially vulnerable when cash is used?
I'd go further, why will it be necessary to use a mobile phone Application (hate the A** term), then let them access your banking details to pay for a round of drinks? This then apparently will enable them to scatter your details to the four winds! You know how secure data is in many hands
Sleep walking into a right mess, not me! MM

[[XAP]Bob]

Erm - you do know that payment by phone leaks less data than by other cards in general.

Of course that assumes that you trust your phone manufacturer, and phone OS maker.

[merseymouth]

Hi XAPBob, Are you saying I should trust those companies? Too many data leaks in recent times to offer much confidence in my eyes.
To offer a comparison would you be confident of dismantling your cycle with just a multi-tool?
I use a camera for photographs, a simple phone to send texts (hearing to bad for phone calls), watch to tell the time, pen & paper for notes and oh yes, maps to keep me from getting lost.
So my advise to those who try to make me comply with techno fads is simple -GET LOST! MM

[[XAP]Bob]

Whereas I have what is probably a better camera (though I do keep a dslr for “real” work) which I very rarely leave behind, and infinite notebook and pen, as well as maps of the whole world, a location device... all in my pocket.
Oh, and my phone allows me to tweak my hearing aid profile, and streams calls directly to me ears (with the option of cutting out the rest of the world for improved intelligibility).

I happen to use Apple hardware, partly due to a “killer app” a number of years ago, but also because they aren’t in the business of monetising personal data for advertisements. It also means I only need to trust one company...

You don’t have to get a smartphone, we’ve functioned perfectly well for generations without them, but you will miss out on the convenience that the Information Age offers if you shun them completely.
You don’t have to have a smartphone to pay contactlessly, and since you have already said that you have cards, there is really no risk to having a contactless enabled card. Certainly up no greater than carrying cash...

Your refusal to do so co trusts with the news story up thread, a person who didn’t have the financial means in her account to use the relevant technology - you are merely being stubborn.

Stubbornness is not a protected characteristic under the law, and a pub is certainly not buying your essential groceries.

[merseymouth]

Surely being an stubborn modernist is not always the best way to live? Ujst think about all of the dead end items that we were told was going to be the ultimate answer. 8 Track car stereo, Phillips Video Discs, Betamax, 126 film, 110 film, Kodak Disc camera, 35mm Half-Frame, everything that Clive Sinclair churned out, many many more whizzes that escape me just now.
Pencil still works, fountain pen still a viable writing method, camera obscura, still function fine with minimal cost implications.
Why should this square peg have to comply with your round hole desires? MM

[99.9%certain]

[quote="merseymouth"]
Why should this square peg have to comply with your round hole desires? MM[/quote]
There is nothing that says you should.
However things are moving in a certain direction and if a person decides not to go in that direction then at some point they will be left behind.
Contactless/Apps etc is just the beginning.Those that dig their heels in and refuse to move with technology can't scream discrimination just because they're too stubborn to get on board.

[merseymouth]

Wow, So I'm reading things wrong about the wonders of technology not achieving the "World Leading System" that HMG said we would have?
All I gripe about is change for changes sake alone! Not everything is worth the spit. MM

[[XAP]Bob]

Surely being an stubborn modernist is not always the best way to live? Ujst think about all of the dead end items that we were told was going to be the ultimate answer. 8 Track car stereo, Phillips Video Discs, Betamax, 126 film, 110 film, Kodak Disc camera, 35mm Half-Frame, everything that Clive Sinclair churned out, many many more whizzes that escape me just now.
Pencil still works, fountain pen still a viable writing method, camera obscura, still function fine with minimal cost implications.
Why should this square peg have to comply with your round hole desires? MM

To look at those and suggest that the current mobile phone is in any way comparable is to completely miss what the current phone is about.

All I gripe about is change for changes sake alone! Not everything is worth the spit. MM

That's not all you're griping about tho'

There are still format "wars" although most companies have now realised that format wars don't actually benefit anyone.
Your pencil works, your fountain pen works - neither will get a message to my brother (who lives in Australia) within three months (assuming of course that your distrust of progress from the industrial revolution means that you insist on a sailing ship carrying that letter).

The camera obscura is also significantly less versatile, and probably less capable in the vast majority of situations, than the camera on a modern phone.
That camera which is part of a device which can also replace your wax cylinders, vinyls, tapes, betamax, vhs, dvd, bluray, landline, notebook, address book, bookshelves, library, newspaper, torch, compass, maps, stack of 10p pieces for a payphone....

They really are marvels of "sufficiency", you could do any one of those tasks better with a dedicated device (though I would argue that a lot of them would require a more expensive dedicated device), but this small lump in my pocket is capable of doing all of them well enough that I don't *need* anything else. The only exception I can think of is that I retain a DSLR for times when I want to do photography (as opposed to snapshots), since the physical size of the glass involved presents a physical quality limit.

Though to be honest the magic* that phones do with their cameras now make even that a bit of a lost cause.


I also hold that Mr Sinclair turned out some brilliant products, the ZX series was incredibly popular and taught a large number of people a lot about computers. It was the raspberry pi of it's time.




* Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic - Arthur C Clarke

[merseymouth]

ZX81? Absolute rubbish. ZX Spectrum, possibly tolerable! Watch? Yuk. C5 ha blooming ha. Sinclair bike, even worse.
As for Camera Obscura? Not sure if you quite know what I'm talking about!
Keep life simple suits me, though I do get forced into buying newer toys, as the TV people shrank the captioning on screen I had to get a larger model
So ruddy difficult to get the thing functioning, can't say I'm in control of it? Common theme these days. MM

[Oldjohnw]

I thought I was grumpy!