USAA just did this a few weeks ago. My knee-jerk response was to be upset, but then I read the arguments regarding creditors retaining the right to determine what is purchased with said credit, as well as the implications for whether cryptocurrency would be considered a cash advance.
Cryptocurrency definitely needs to be a cash advance, otherwise you can abuse % cash back and other benefits with it (reddit.com/r/churning). I don't think it's been possible to do it for a while though.
But TBH they probably do it because cash advance has a higher APR.
Off-topic, but I find churning at least as ethical as banks promoting the accumulation of debt with paltry benefits/kickback to consumers for earning Visa/MC money with transaction fees.
Abuse is the credit system and its marketing writ large.
Cash advance higher APR is to mitigate the extra risk of people using debt to pay for debt and the increased risk of default. The bank isn't losing money on the cashback feature of a credit card. They are splitting the interchange with the customer. The vendor/merchant is the one paying 2.4% of the transaction.
I'm pretty sure all the credit cards I've had had cash advance at a higher APR and it started accruing immediately, instead of in 30 days. It really only makes sense to use it in an emergency and if you don't have your bank card to use instead.
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Same problems for me, experienced this a lot on my home wifi, using a dual band, modem / wifi router combo. Problems ONLY occurred on my MacBook Pro, no other devices.
Purchasing a dedicated modem and using an Apple AirPort
Extreme was the only thing that resolved the issue, which annoyed me and made me feel like Apple is further locking me into their ecosystem of devices.
MBPs don't support certain channels which is maddeningly frustrating. Trying to find from my notes which channels those are, but when I finally changed from auto to hard-setting to channel 100, all my issues with MBPs on my network went away.
There isn't radar within 100 miles of me so I'm not too concerned. Regardless, this AP firmware won't let you hard set to channels the FCC requires DFS on.
I think that the details of him brilliantly coding while at the Ballmer peak is kind of irrelevant. It can be a huge liability to have people intoxicated in the work place, and I think it's important for your manager to have an initially undocumented, private chat with him about it.
In alcoholism, an important concept is 'enabling', where you are making it easier for the person with alcoholism to continue with their habit. You are enabling your co-worker to continue drinking by giving him rides home, having interns walk him to the correct apartment, and allowing him to commit code while he is clearly under the influence.
Your manager should be setting the boundaries in the workplace regarding alcohol, but the best thing you can do as a co-worker is to be there as a friend and to listen. Take a break from the screen and step outdoors and have a conversation, because it sounds like this person is really struggling with a difficult chapter in his life right now.
This is what managers and HR is for. If you're uncomfortable bringing up the issue, explain to HR and have them present it as "we want to help you" and not that "you're in trouble". Depends how good your managers and HR are. It's probably best for everyone that he can move forward with his alcoholism, even for himself.
While this is probably the "right course of action" (whatever that means), I'd imagine this will surely, eventually lead to him leaving the company one way or another and you can say goodbye to the miraculous hash table implementations.
I'm not throwing my hat on either option, but I am highlighting that this option has consequences you need to be prepared for. (Ok, they both have consequences)
I've never met a programmer that isn't replaceable.
What I have found, are lots of organizations that suffer because they allow a tyrant to exploit the imposter syndrome of those around them.
What you have here is a shitty manager who is holding his company back and putting it at serious risk by not remedying a serious problem. It's exploitative, demoralizing, and entirely unnecessary.
Get this guy some help before he dies. And fire your miscreant of a manager.
Wut? What does this have to do with vehicle manufacturers programming their ECUs to defeat emissions tests? There isn't a single diesel truck that 'rolls coal' from the factory.
Also, diesel trucks that emit black smoke do fail emissions test - in counties that actually have emissions tests.
Apparently a lot of people who make these sorts of modifications can pass emission tests. They hook up a settings swapper to the ECU, and when they need it to be clean, they put it into factory default mode. It is essentially the same sort of cheating as VW.
On a scale that isn't even remotely as large as what VW has done. The scale matters, a lot.
You're talking about something affecting maybe tens of thousands of trucks, versus 11+ million vehicles including Porsche. It doesn't make sense to make the comparison.
The scale of an impact of one really bad car when it comes to certain emissions shouldn't be understated; it is important to remember that VW was simply seeking pollution they could get away with. Emissions tests are done on individual cars rather than a bulk standard by make/model for that exact reason.
VW is the second largest auto-maker in the world...few comparisons are going to hold up if that's how you think.
The EPA's goal is to regulate the overall quality of the atmosphere. To the extent that they regulate individual machines, it's just because of their contribution to the total.
When something is done by a few idiot hobbyists, it's just not worth trying to enforce. The effort would be better used elsewhere.
Individual cars are tested for emissions not so much to catch illegal modifications (although I'm sure they're happy to do so when they can) but to detect failures due to age or broken equipment.
"Rolling coal" is obnoxious and ought to stop, but it shouldn't be surprising nor upsetting that there isn't much enforcement effort against it.
If the EPA had to tackle the problem standalone, then, sure, the scale wouldn't make it sensible. It could end up influencing whatever regulation goes into cars to prevent this sort of dishonesty in the future. Perhaps cars will need to start logging to a black box of sorts to track engine related settings, or emissions will need active monitoring and logging.
It is also worth noting that the hobbyist solution has the potential of becoming widespread. If VW merely does a software fix, more than a few owners with suddenly sluggish cars might look into the devices. There is nothing specific about 'rolling coal' by trucks...most uses of the devices are purely for performance tuning.
