We have both systems - bank cards which you scan, and/or tap. BTW, the new terminals can also announce the payment made via card.

Which can be a privacy thing if you don't like people know how much you just blew in the comic book store.

It's an efficiency and convenience thing.

When this UPI system was launched, vendors had to continuously check their mobile to see if the payment had actually been received.

Now they just listen for the acknowledgement while multitasking.

Can't remember it before Trump 2.0

It would racist if the rules said "Chinese engineers," but it says "Chinese companies."

Nothing stops those companies from relocating to say Singapore.

I saw Star Wars the day it came out. I have the originals on VHS, DVD, Blu-ray. (Han did fire first, BTW)

While I remember dialogue from the original trilogy, and I vaguely know the plot lines of the prequels, I have absolutely no idea what happens in the last three episodes of the series. It's a blank.

I don't understand why someone who "performs" on the internet would need to travel unless it was to "perform" in person with someone under the influence or a RealFan(tm).

I attempted to answer some questions in which I happened to have some domain knowledge, but didn't have the time or the inclination to meet their requirements.

In many ways, they were like Wikipedia.

She and her gaggle of over-promoted airheads also wreaked havoc in Lucent.

I don't remember which one was which but one had a BA in Medieval History and the other had a BA in Political Science: Carly Fiorina and Pat Russo.

It was a nightmare to maintain. As far as I can remember, patches sometimes clashed. So if patch X was required for application A, it might break application B.

The build team configuration managed the patches.

Was thrilled to move to Solaris on Sparc

Otherwise I'd be trying to buy up that library.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, we used an EDA tool whose much touted release 9 was long delayed and when it arrived was buggier than an insectarium on steroids.

Some years later I met the team lead of that release. It was because management had mandated a complete rewrite into C++. I also learned that the CFO loved that release because revenue from maintenance contracts went up. For years.

I will watch Microsoft's future progress with considerable interest.

There's a well funded company called RRP Electronics which is working on package and test. They also have a famous cricketer as a strategic investor, whatever that means.

This RRP Semiconductor was a trading company which renamed itself and changed its business model.

As far as I can tell, the latter's revenue is nothing to write home about. And it's a Public Limited company which makes this even more weird, as those are expected to pass much more stringent criteria.

Shades of the Harshad Mehta era.

I am fat. How delightfully perspicacious of you, anoncow.

You should run an astrology or telekinesis channel or something.

Around 2002? I probably had that same scanner. Never bought HP again. Had to buy third party software to run it: Vuescan by Hamrick.

Ran it for several more years until SCSI went out of style.

In the early 70s my grandfather would turn his nose up at Japanese appliances. His gold standard were German products. Just the way my generation turned our noses up at Chinese goods, preferring Japanese and later Korean.

And so it goes.