sidm83 (u/sidm83) - Readit News

sidm83 commented on Backblaze backups about to go poof for EU/Indian customers old.reddit.com/r/backblaz... · Posted by u/sidm83

frankjr · 2 years ago

>>I don’t understand. Stripe supports 3D Secure, so what is the issue here?

> Maybe this will help: Backblaze started using Stripe a long time ago (gosh, maybe 10 years ago?) and used a very specific set of original Stripe APIs. When some banking laws in some countries (specifically India at the time) changed a couple years ago, Backblaze looked into enabling 3D secure and SEPA and found out Backblaze was using the "1.0" version of the APIs that DID NOT support 3D secure and SEPA, and that to use 3D secure and some other features like SEPA then Backblaze had to "port" all of the Backblaze billing code to use the new "2.0" version of the APIs. So that project was kicked off, a programmer on the Backblaze billing team began working on that. But it probably should be finished by now. Or close.

https://old.reddit.com/r/backblaze/comments/17rq10o/backblaz...

That seems plausible given how archaic their administration system looks like.

sidm83 · 2 years ago

Yeah already saw that. What I found most disappointing was the response of customer support, which rather than trying to understand customers' problems and responding assiduously, flatly give out a non solution (use cards that work) and provide zero alternatives or an extension till they resolve this issue.

sidm83 commented on Backblaze backups about to go poof for EU/Indian customers old.reddit.com/r/backblaz... · Posted by u/sidm83

sidm83 · 2 years ago

After reading multiple raving reviews here and elsewhere, I decided to use Backblaze for remote backups.

This Feb, my payment (auto debit via CC) failed, and upon logging in could not figure out any other way to pay.

I soon received an interesting email from them ( https://i.imgur.com/p19SaFX.png ) which said they do not support Reserve Bank of India (RBI) 's e-mandate policy and advised me to use a card which does not include e-mandate. European customers have a similar issue due to 3D Secure.

I as an Indian citizen only have RBI authorized credit cards, which have been on e-mandate since late 2021. I have faced a similar issue with card auto debit on other websites as well due to this policy, however they all support alternate payment methods.

Backblaze does not, and has provided no alternative since this cropped up 2 months ago. Customer support has no solution as well. I just received an email that failing further payment, my account will go poof next month.

How a company running a critical service such as backups can screw up so badly regarding a fundamental business requirement such as billing is beyond me. They will simply cease operating for almost all European / Indian customers in a little over a month's time.

Even if they manage to dig themselves this, not sure one can trust them enough to continue being a "going concern".

sidm83 commented on Nestflix nestflix.fun/... · Posted by u/emacsen

noduerme · 2 years ago

And once the reviews are written by AI and the views are generated by bots, we can get those pesky humans out of the loop completely! Eventually we won't even need to have movies, just an agreement between two AIs that one will make a theoretical movie and the other will theoretically review it and watch it a million times. Heck, no human will have any money to go to the movies or buy any merch anyway.

The only humans left in Hollywood will be copyright lawyers!

sidm83 · 2 years ago

This reminds me of this quote from one of my all time favorite books, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency :

<quote> The Electric Monk was a labor-saving device, like a dishwasher or a video recorder. Dishwashers washed tedious dishes for you, thus saving you the bother of washing them yourself, video recorders watched tedious television for you, thus saving you the bother of looking at it yourself; Electric Monks believed things for you, thus saving you what was becoming an increasingly onerous task, that of believing all the things the world expected you to believe. </quote>

sidm83 commented on A Love Letter to Driving Alone afar.com/magazine/a-love-... · Posted by u/fzliu

systemtest · 2 years ago

The reason I love road-trips in foreign countries is being able to stop wherever I want, whenever I want. Talk to locals, visit small shops, visit a historical site, a museum. If I see a nice waterfall on my map I can just route my GPS to get there.

With a train you have to plan ahead for this. Get out at the right station, figure out how the bus system works and how to get to your destination. And hoping that I can even get there, as an example many countries don't have functioning local public transit on a Sunday. Or because the closest bus stop to where you want to go is a couple kilometers out. It feels very restraining to me.

sidm83 · 2 years ago

Completely agree, did it in a few countries and truly enjoyed the freedom of stopping anywhere I wanted, wherever I encountered beautiful surroundings, and staying as long as I wanted, not to forget enjoying the place on my own rather than among a busload of fellow travelers.

Must say though that the Swiss certainly make this much easier to do with their excellent public transport and the Swiss Pass, which is your single ticket to go almost anywhere in the country including trains, buses, subway, boats and even cable cars! In the few cases its not included, you get a discounted rate. However parts of the country are so lovely that hiking through them is the only way to truly appreciate their beauty!

sidm83 commented on Internet disrupted in Pakistan amid arrest of former PM Imran Khan netblocks.org/reports/int... · Posted by u/beast0001

alephnerd · 3 years ago

Down the grapevine (this is the internet so take with a massive grain of salt - I trust my source but you shouldn't trust me or any other anonymous commentator) I heard from Hill adjacent friends that there was some tussle between the upper level Army generals and upper level PTI members surrounding normalizing relations with India following the 2018-19 crisis. Higher ups in the Army wanted to normalize relations as a legacy making project, but certain political actors felt it would be electoral suicide for them if that happened.

sidm83 · 3 years ago

Not really a secret. This went viral on twitter 1-2 weeks ago leading to several news reports.

sidm83 commented on MRI brain images become 64M times sharper today.duke.edu/2023/04/br... · Posted by u/CharlesW

inasio · 3 years ago

In my opinion [0] a much more interesting track to pursue than super high-T scans that only work on mice (dead mice at that) is low field MRI scanning. MRI is amazing, but incredibly bulky and slow. In Canada you have to live for 6 months with a knee injury before surgery just because of the wait to access an MRI. Companies like Hyperfine (not affiliated) and Deepspin (just learned of them) make low power portable machines (I believe NFL teams were early costumers).

A single MRI image is not super helpful, still more art than science, the real benefit comes from having periodic scans against a baseline. Boutique health clinics offer yearly scans to high net-worth individuals, rolling this out to a larger population could have a huge impact.

[0] educated opinion, I also collaborated on a PNAS MRI paper

sidm83 · 3 years ago

In India, you can book an appointment for MRI scans at private clinics the very same day or at worst within 1-2 days. Costs about USD 100 or lesser.

There is also this startup - https://qure.ai (Not my employer, I know someone who works there) which has already automated the report generation part for several classes of X Ray / CT / Ultrasound scans. This takes away the requirement of having a trained Radiologist to go through the scan and then create a report, which certainly helps in scaling the availability of such scans - you just need the machine and trained staff to operate it, and are not dependent upon having a doctor with a postgrad in radiology to write the reports.

sidm83 commented on Block: Inflated user metrics and “frictionless” fraud facilitation hindenburgresearch.com/bl... · Posted by u/boh

hoofhearted · 3 years ago

Correct.

A scam here in Baltimore that keeps occurring is that the squeege kids will run up on someone unsuspecting and start cleaning their windshield.

They will pressure the driver for a tip, and the driver will say they don’t have cash of course.

They will say that’s cool, you can send me a tip. They ask the driver for their phone so they can look up their cashapp for them, and bam the driver got scammed.

What’s happening is that the squeege kid is looking up his account on your phone, and then sending himself like $2,000.

People have complained that cashapp won’t help, and their bank isn’t letting them dispute the charge.

In my opinion, this is clearly an anti pattern on Cashapps end, and I would imagine at least one engineer would have spotted this vulnerability by now. I would think that Cashapp would build in a simple pin confirmation before a stranger could wire themselves a couple thousand dollars. This has bugged me for the last 2 years lol

sidm83 · 3 years ago

In India, apps like Google Pay (which runs on UPI platform) require you to first unlock the app using your screen lock method and then also require entry of a pin to confirm any kind of money transfer.

sidm83 commented on Seattle considers historic law barring caste discrimination apnews.com/article/seattl... · Posted by u/toomanyrichies

bongoman37 · 3 years ago

Actually caste is far more tangible than something like skin color. It is encoded into birth certificates etc in India and is immutable. You can change religions but your caste carries into the new one.

sidm83 · 3 years ago

This is a false assertion. I have gone through sample birth certificates of multiple states in India, I did not find any of them mentioning caste. Caste certificate is a separate document, issued only upon application, which can then be used as proof for applying for reservation benefits.

Ref https://www.nriway.com/nri-service/nri-birth-certificate https://www.indiafilings.com/learn/caste-certificate-in-indi...

sidm83 commented on Seattle could become the first city to ban caste discrimination knkx.org/social-justice/2... · Posted by u/geox

tw1984 · 3 years ago

Simply by being Han Chinese?

That itself sounds like a discrimination to me.

sidm83 · 3 years ago

Cis white males and upper caste Indians say hi.