Also worth noting that who owns the risk is a regulatory question, not a technical or product one - and, like all regulatory questions, is different for different countries/regions.
Chip and pin and NFC transitions took off much quicker outside the US because merchants generally owned more of the chargeback risk than in the US, and therefore were willing to update their POS equipment accordingly.
Risk (like debt) is another place where a US-centric view will likely lead you to misunderstand the purpose of Visa/MC.
> Chip and pin and NFC transitions took off much quicker outside the US because merchants generally owned more of the chargeback risk than in the US, and therefore were willing to update their POS equipment accordingly.
Not really. The risk of all fraud is initial borne by banks issuing the cards, after all they’re only parties that have an actual financial relationship with the person providing the cash/debt. If something which results in that person cash/debt being stolen, it’s between that person and their bank to figure out who’s liable for the lost money. Chargebacks are just a mechanism for banks to recover some of that lost money, once the liability between the card holder and the bank has been settled.
One of the big reasons why Chip and PIN etc took off outside of the US, is that the US is very accepting of fraud, and charging crazy high interchange rates (up to 10x what they are in Europe) so the cost of fraud is spread over many individuals. Other parts of the world have regulations capping interchange rates, and providing better consumer protection, demanding that banks and payment networks tackle fraud, rather than increase the cost of everything by 1-2% to cover fraud losses.
Just to put another perspective there. In Brazil, chip and pin took off immediately (from non-existent to ubiquitous in about 6 months) after the government decided that the bank and card issuer were responsible for all the fraud risk.
I have no idea what policy made the US hold into signatures for that long. But the seller and the buyer are the least powerful people on that entire chain, so I don't think it reasonable to look at them.
As best as I can tell, there was less than 10 minutes from the last successful request I made and when the downtime was added to their status page - and I'm not particularly crazy with my usage or anything, the gap could have been less than that.
Honestly, that seems okay to me. Certainly better than what AWS usually does.
This was common in Texas, but becomes challenging when one polling place serves voters that might have different elections to vote for - say, at a polling place on the line between two school districts or something like that. You can't just print one sheet of paper, and it to everyone, and call it a day. Toss in a few different jurisdictions that don't directly overlay each other, and the number of combinations become nontrivial.
(the machines used in Texas vary by county, in my county we use Hart InterCivic machines that are touchscreen but produce a paper trail - honestly I think it works well)
Pretty similar here. Another thing I keep thinking is a phrase pilots use when flying airplanes using FMSes and autopilot: "never fly your airplane to a place you haven't already been to in your mind" - that is, don't ever just sit back and let the automation work, stay a step ahead of the automation and drop down to less automation when you aren't certain that it is doing the right thing.
When you send Claude Code something and already have an idea for what an acceptable solution looks like, you're a massive step ahead when it's time to read the diff and decide what you think of it. This does mean that every so often my productivity drops to basically zero as I try to understand what is actually happening before I just put the AI on the job, but so far it seems to be a good rule to keep in mind that allows me to use AI effectively while generating a code base that I still understand.
"Funding gaps have led to shutdowns since 1980, when Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti issued a legal opinion requiring it. This opinion was not consistently adhered to through the 1980s, but since 1990 all funding gaps lasting longer than a few hours have led to a shutdown. As of October 2025, 11 funding gaps have led to federal employees being furloughed."
That an AG just came up with this in the 1980s based on an interpretation of an 1884 law (Antideficiency Act) is fascinating, thanks for sharing this. I always assumed this was an explicit own-goal by Congress like the debt ceiling, but it seems like it’s an unintended side effect.
just FYI you can watch on your Android device now. It took them a long time (seriously, I think more than four years after AppleTV+ launched), but they did finally release an Android app.
Is this true though? Texas has had some well-publicized failures (well, really one major one), but as best as I can tell they are more or less middle of the pack on grid reliability[1].
I mean, you'll need a backup generator anywhere, but the report I found (admittedly with just a bit of googling) makes it seem like Texas is a better potential location than quite a few states (including California).
The really major one is the only one that matters. If you are running a datacenter that needs to always be up and running, you're going to need backup power. A power grid that goes down once a decade for multiple weeks is far worse than one that goes down for 5 minutes once a week.
In Texas, if you support those in power with good enough donations, you can ensure that your site does not loose power when the decision is made on who to disconnect. So you can spend the money on back up power equipment, or in donations. Either way, it's going to cost to play.
FWIW, at least as of today, American Airlines' website attempts to show you round trip prices.
When choosing your outbound leg(s), they show a price inclusive of the cheapest return journey on the day you selected to return using the class of service on your outbound leg. So, there's all sorts of ways for it to be incorrect - maybe you want a different class of service, maybe the cheapest return has a stop but you'd like the direct, etc. - but it's still really useful for figuring out the best options for your flights.
I think you're underestimating how hard it is to shoot yourself in the foot when using the PHP language defaults and the defaults for any modern PHP framework - it's genuinely hard to do.
I still don't think PHP is a good idea for a greenfield project or anything, but they have done a good job of hiding all the footguns.
> I think you're underestimating how hard it is to shoot yourself in the foot when using the PHP language defaults and the defaults for any modern PHP framework - it's genuinely hard to do.
Agreed. I remember happily starting a couple of new PHP projects in the last decade and the frameworks felt like working in any other programming language.
Chip and pin and NFC transitions took off much quicker outside the US because merchants generally owned more of the chargeback risk than in the US, and therefore were willing to update their POS equipment accordingly.
Risk (like debt) is another place where a US-centric view will likely lead you to misunderstand the purpose of Visa/MC.
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