Archaic cheques amuse Nordic readers

Letters News that the cheque will be extinct by 2025 has caused much mirth among our Scandinavian and Alpine cousins. In fact, we think they are laughing and pointing at us as though we were an exhibit in a museum. Still, other people have thought of valid reasons to keep the cheque going.

Read on for more:

It is with great amusement that the Rest of the World reads articles such as "Cheques extinct by 2025". Excluding some banking industry back-waters such as the UK and the US, cheques are faint memories from childhood in most other 'civilized countries'.

The last time I remember seeing anyone use cheques was in the mid-eighties when our family was living in the UK. Already then, the use of those funny paper slips seemed quaint and hilarious. To a ten year old kid from Scandinavia, that is.

Allow me to wish you all a lot of patience and understanding as you look forward to 2025,

-mikko

'research'? or did someone just come back from a junket in the swiss alps - a country where they haven't used cheques for years, and who's e-banking security makes the UK banks look about as secure as M$ OS....

Desmond

That's going to make winning the lottery a bit less exciting - what are they going to do now - wave a photocopy of a SWIFT transfer in front of the cameras, instead of a gigantic cardboard cheque?

- Paul

A man has been convicted in the US of murdering two police officers and a civilian police worker. He had argued that he was not guilty by reason of mental defect arising from hours spent playing GTA and years of abuse as a child:

Maybe I can find some hope for humanity after all - at least there's one jury in this country that's still thinking straight.

I have the feeling the civil suit won't come to the same conclusion that the trial did, but I'm glad that there are still some people who believe that people are responsible for their own actions, instead of pawning them off on whatever's available.

It seems to be more and more of a problem that anytime someone does something stupid and gets caught, the first three things blamed are video games, music, and being abused as a child. It seems to be a growning trend in this country. I know child abuse is nothing to joke about, but it seems to me that there are awful lot of cases where criminals try and blame their behavior on being abused as a kid.

Kudos to the jury who convicted the sonofabitch, instead of falling for the "this video game has warped my fragile little mind! </cartman>" routine.

Aeryk

Research suggests that the key to upping the number of women studying tech related courses is to make maths a must have subject for as long as possible. A variety of opinions on the subject were forthcoming:

Absolutely agreed!

Bugger the IT angle, the best thing we can do for our youth is ensure they leave school with the skills to discern genuine scientific information from homeopathy, psychic powers and The Barefoot Doctor.

I mean, what hope do we have now when even BBC News, the smartest site most people know, apparently can't tell the difference between "30% of a show's audience" and "21% of everyone"?

Now if only someone can persuade the government to put Critical Thinking on the national curriculum...

-James

In a world where people no longer descriminate based on gender i never cease to be amazed by all the creative ways people come up with to reopen the issue.

Children and their parents make a decussion not to take higher level math classes. If highschoolers are forced to take more math classes it will only end up with more corwded calssrooms and a higher failure rate. Some people simply dont want to/arnt cut out to take Algebra 2. Those of us who work in IT would not have been able to learn near as much is our abgebra 2 class was funn of pupils who did not want to be there.

Having a nanny goverment that forces highschoolers to take classes they dont want/need to take will only cause trouble. Dont get me wrong, i would love more women arround. However, being so consious of gender as to attempt to engineer gender diversity is just as bad as discrimination.

Mark

Initially, I was a bit offended by your article. After getting all the way through it, I was still offended. Women historically have spent much time in maths and science. And use our skills in background utility. Because we are not wanted in the forefront, as demonstrated time and time again to myself and other female geeks. Fine. Whatever.

What frustrates me about your article is that there is an assumption that because "women" (female adolescents, besides menstruating are not, "women") may seem adverse to hard science, they are in fact, not. They are, however, adverse to the assumption that just because their brain inhabits a female persona they are some how, hrrrrm, damaged, and therefore cannot grasp the, hrmm, complexities of hard science.

Bullocks.

And so was your article.

Regards,

VA Blanchard

Dell's decision to sell systems based on Nvidia's SLi technology has not met with the approval of all our readers. Once again, the 'build your own' option has attracted at least one fan:

Building an equivalent system on your own but with an Athlon 64 X2 3800+ dual core processor, necessary motherboard, 2GB RAM, 200GB HD, twin 16X DVD Burners, 19" LCD Monitor, Radeon X800 XT video card, Audigy sound card, top of the line case, cooling and quiet 400W power supply, you could beat this price by around $400.

Obviously the $400 would be needed when crossfire becomes available, and waiting till this happens (so you can buy the appropriate motherboard) would be a good bet.

Still using an Intel chipset / processor with nVidia's SLI system would cost no more.

Remember, the warranty that would come with the individual parts is just as good as Dell's standard warranty (which would refer you back to manufacturers for the more expensive parts, like the video cards) - better warrantees with on site maintenance etc always add to the cost of the default system, as does a proper amount of RAM for a gaming PC and a proper monitor.

There is no way anyone with a brain would waste that much money on such an underpowered PC. Better to spend a few dollars more and go Alienware (if you don't have the skills or patience to build your own).

No self-respecting gamer would even consider such a crap system. It probably doesn't even come with a decent mouse.

Andy

The old copy protection debate gets a shot in the arm thanks to an announcement from Blu-ray's backers that they have selected the Advanced Access Content System (AACS) to protect movies and music:

"If a coder comes up with the Blu-ray equivalent of DeCSS..."

What do you mean "if"?

The whole principle of encryption is that there's a secret piece of information that the attacker doesn't know. Without this then you're not encrypting anything, just obscuring it.

When a DVD is being viewed on a PC then there can be *no secrets* - all memory is visible to the attacker. This is why all DRM destined for use on PCs is a complete and utter waste of time.

All it does is inconvenience the legal users, not the bad guys.

Wanna watch your DVD at aunt Flo's while you're babysitting? Nope. Wanna listen to your CD in your car? Nope.

Please explain to me how this is a winning strategy....

Colin

The tiniest objection arrived to our coverage of the hot IT topic of the day (road signs going missing from the Austrian village of F**king). Apparently we made some wisecrack about Milton Keynes...

"...certainly something the residents of Milton Keynes can sympathise with."

Ah, a very cheap shot indeed. As usual! Obviously someone who's never bothered to actually go there. Also as usual.

Now if you'd said "Scunthorpe" that would have been a lot funnier...

Graham

But Graham, why would we want to go to Milton Keynes when everyone says it is so boring?

And finally, songstress Britney Spears is reported to be planning to air the birth of her child on TV. Hubby whattssisname wants it to be shown live, but Brit has put her foot down. She says she doesn't want to be distracted by concerns about how well the process is being lit. Excellent news, we're sure you'll agree. Not exactly tech related, but we had to, really:

What the hell? What has this story got to do with ANYTHING?! The cervixcam? Fu*k sake... get this pile of sh*te off thereg.

Anonymous

Ah, anonymous abuse. Perfect garnish for this round up. We'll be back later in the week with more of your views on the state of the universe. ®