 Well, let's see. Okay, I'm gonna go up here. Okay, just gonna go outside, lay down, and talk to you guys about stuff. So, a little while back I was reading an article that supposedly most credit card companies are no longer going to be requiring signatures on transactions, which I think is awesome. I always hate like a lot of places like as long as it's under 50, you don't have to sign. When I hit that like $50 and one cent mark, I'm always like ah, because I got a sign now. I don't know why it's just so so nice when you don't have to sign for something like that. And I really never got the whole I get back in the day, you're signing and agreeing that you were going to, you know, pay that as far as security, it's like, do people really even you could scribble anything on that pad? It doesn't matter. I once was having a conversation with my father in law, and he's like, well, they should check your signature on the back of your car. And actually that conversation started because back in the 90s, I worked at circuit city customer service. And we had a little, you know, you would sign on a piece of paper, but it be on a little scanner thing. So your signature would be put into the machine. And I had one guy once who refused to sign on the machine. He said, because then we have a copy of his signature in the computer. But at the same time, he's signing a receipt that we're going to keep that could be scanned into the computer. So as this one of those things, it's like people, you know, yeah, you're concerned someone's going to have your signature. But anybody who signs something, their signature can be scanned in. It doesn't matter whether you're signing an electronic little scanner or not. You know, this is back nowadays, you sign on a screen. Back then you didn't do that. You signed on a piece of paper in circuit city was one of the few places where you're signing. It was if you didn't see it, you probably don't know what I'm talking about. But you would sign a piece of paper, but it be slid into a machine so that while you're signing it physically, it's digitally copying it as well. But yeah, the whole, I'm not going to sign in the machine, I'll sign the paper, but not the machine. We're keeping that copy you're signing. We doesn't it doesn't make sense. But that guy was concerned, you know, and then he also went off onto a whole rant about, you know, conspiracy theories and stuff like that. But one of the things that I saw very commonly back in the day is, you know, some people would sign their credit cards, which it says, you must sign this credit card for it to be valid. And they were kind of strict about that at circuit city, I was supposed to check everybody's signature. And if they didn't sign the back of the card, I had to make them sign it right then, which some people hated. Some people who write CID, which was good enough, they wrote something there and I would ask for their ID. And usually people who wrote that were very happy when you actually asked for their ID, because they wrote it on there because they want to check. But then there were the people who refused to sign the back of their card. And again, it didn't make sense to me, because these people's logic was that, well, if I sign the back of my card, if they steal my card, they have my signature and therefore can sign stuff by copying my signature, which again, just doesn't make sense, because if you don't sign the card, then they just need to sign the card with their own signature, you know, write your name however they want, and then it's going to match. So it doesn't, it didn't make sense to people who did not sign their cards. The CID thing, I think was the best idea, although technically, you know, it's not signature and it's not valid signature, but you know, it makes sense because now you're asking for identification. But yeah, it was just all these things people do. But overall, now you swipe your card or stick the chip in. And if it's over a certain amount, you sign. But nobody ever looks at that. My father-in-law was like, Yeah, well, they should be checking. I'm like, When was the last time you actually handed somebody your credit card? You never do that anymore. You stick it in a machine, you swipe it in the machine, chip read it in the machine. It approves it, you sign the screen or you don't, and you move on. A signature, I don't see how that's security. In fact, for years, I would just draw a line, a little scan, just because I didn't feel like signing. You know, it's like, how is that security? Anybody can draw whatever they want. You can draw a happy face. And the machine's going to accept it. So yeah, I agree. The whole signature thing just never made sense to me. The only thing is like, if you always signed the same, and someone signed, you know, stole your credit card and signed, and it didn't match signature, that could be your argument, you know, against the credit card. But I'm pretty sure that when it comes to credit card theft, you are only liable, I believe, for the first $50 legally. And then the credit card company and the store have to work out the other half of that, or whatever the remainder is. And of course, that's also one of the reasons, one of the main reasons why credit cards are better than debit cards, because there's security in that someone gets your debit card and empties out your account, you're pretty much out of luck. But a credit card you're, you're only responsible for so much when your card's stolen. And also a lot of people don't realize this, but a lot of cards give insurance and stuff if you bought something, you know, and you have the manufacturers warranty, a lot of credit cards will extend your warranty, like for a year or something like that. And that's something that a lot of people forget about. And and it's something, and also it gives you security that if a company, you know, I've had once twice where someone sells me a product online, and they send it to me, and it's not at all what was advertised. And then you contact them like, yeah, this isn't what you sold. You said you were going to sell me. And I want to send it back and get a refund. And like, okay, yeah, just mail it back to us. And I'm like, yeah, I'm not paying the shipping and handling and send it back to you. You're the ones that made them say, you know, if I had changed my mind and was like, Oh, you know, I changed my own, I want this. But if you send me something defective, or it's not what you describe, that's not my fault. The seller should be paying for me to ship it back. And most of the time you say that and they're like, Yeah, okay. But occasionally, you know, once or twice, a few times I've had, or they're like, Nope, you've got to pay to send it back. And at that point, I usually say, Well, in that case, if you're not going to pay for me to ship back, I'll just call my credit card company and cancel the payment and keep the product too. You know, and just saying that 99% of the time they go, Okay, okay, okay. Because at least if you send it back to them, if they're the middleman, they could always send it back to the manufacturer or resell it. Where if you just cancel the payment and you keep it, you know, unless they have, you know, and credit card companies pretty good at, you know, if you say this is not what they said it was going to be, they're going to back you. But most time you you are I'll give you an example. I ordered a tablet. One of my very first tablets was from H H Greg, which is a electronic store, which the one here in town went out of business. I don't know if they all went out of business. But recently, the one in town went out of business. But right when they first opened, I was looking at a tablet, it was like $200 for a very cheap Arcos tablet, Arcos Arcos. And I wanted it because you could install Linux on it like a full like Debian on it. And it ended up being a piece of crap. And this is six years ago almost. Yeah, no, just over six years ago. I ordered it online. Well, I went to their store, I looked at it, I spec'd it out, it seemed to be good. I went home, you know, researched a little bit. And then I ordered online and something like that, I wanted to order from a company like that that's in town. So if I had any problems with it, I can go to the store and return it. Again, this is probably really before I started using Amazon for bigger purchases like that. Because they're pretty good about returns if there's any problems. So I order it from there. So I already checked out in the store, I go home, I ordered online. I think they were at a stock in the store and that's why I went home and ordered online. But I had it delivered and I got it. And it was not the model that I thought it was going to be. They did a little, I think it was one of those like, okay, this is the normal model, but then like that come that, you know, H.H. Gregg had their own slightly different model that was the same name, like it may have had an A or B at the end of the model number. And as soon as I got it, I opened up like this is not the one that I was looking at. So I took it back to the store and they tried to charge me, you know, 15 bucks for the delivery or something. They weren't going to refund me that $15. And I just, you know, I asked for the manager, the manager said no, no can do. And I just look at him and I said, hey, listen to me, we have two options here. Either you refund the full thing because I mean, I just got this a half an hour ago. It's not used. It's unpackaged. But I turned it on once, you know, I said, you can refund me the full amount or I will go home. I will keep this and I'll cancel the payment. He looked at me all mad and goes, okay, just one time. And that's one of the things I like about credit card companies because if you have any problems, one time I had to call a Discover card because there was a payment, a charge like 20 bucks on my credit card one month that I didn't recognize. And that doesn't mean that it wasn't something legit. I just called them. I said, hey, I don't recognize this company name. Do you guys happen to know if maybe, you know, sometimes companies have, you know, a home company name, like you bought something from this store, but they've got a there under another company and might show up as that company. So I said, hey, do you guys have this company listed something else because I do not recognize it. I'm not saying that it's it's not legit. I'm just saying I don't recognize it. And it was something like gift card jungle or something like that. And and they said, oh, you know, we'll refund that money right away and we'll investigate it. And I was like, oh, well, I wasn't asking to refund it, but okay, you know, and like a month later they contact me again and they're like, yeah, we weren't able to figure out anything other than this is that company. And if you don't remember ordering anything from that company, you know, well, they they actually also ship me out brand new cards just for a $20 purchase, which, you know, isn't their benefit because if my card was stolen, they're going to be liable for it, right? So they want to get new cards, which is great. They refunded me my $20 and sent me my card right away. The next day, you know, they overnight both me and my wife was a little annoying because, you know, I have a lot of auto pay stuff. So I had to go through and change the numbers for each of those auto pay things every month, which is knowing every time, like with the Home Depot hacks and Target hacks, there was already two in a row. So it's like, I think in a year and a half, there were three times where I got issued new cards by Discover card and had to go and update all those auto pay things. But it's great that they're they're on the ball like that. And and they're there to protect you and themselves, you know, it's and these big companies like Target and stuff, you know, if there's a charge on your card and you didn't do it or there's some sort of problem, the credit card companies are going to back you because why not, you know, and they're going to go to Target and be like, Hey, yeah, we're we're not paying this, you're going to have to eat it. And if you have a problem with it, what are you going to do? Not take Discover card anymore, which a lot of places don't take Discover card. But anyway, going back to the whole signature thing, I think it's great that we don't do signatures. You know, I think pin is definitely more secure. As long as people aren't looking over your shoulder as you're typing it. But in reality, when it comes to to credit card security, the security isn't really for you. Again, you're only responsible legally for the first 50 bucks. I think in a lot of cases you don't even have to pay that, you know, if you can prove that it was fraudulent. So it's like the credit card companies are going to jump on stuff so that they don't end up having to pay stuff and it's going to be less of a headache for them. So security, credit card security is more for credit card companies than it is for you. You're very secure by using a credit card. If you ask me, I'm not getting into, you know, if someone might comment on like privacy and stuff, you know, you should pay cash with everything. You know, yeah, but once you pay, cash is more private. If you do it properly, you know, because credit card transactions, you're being tracked on everything. But when are you not being tracked? But you also lose security, you pay something cash, and it doesn't work out. And that company's like, well, screw you, well, you're screwed, you know. So definitely I use my credit cards for everything. Plus you get points back, you know, I get 5% back on gas all the time with my Sam's Club card. And sometimes with my Discover card, because they do, you know, three month cycle and stay with my Chase Freedom card. And that adds up when it comes to things, you know, not everything you get the points back on the cash back on is worth it. But when it comes to gas 5% back, the amount of gas that we use, you get a nice chunk back, you know, at least a couple hundred bucks a year, which is something, you know, a couple hundred bucks, I can go on vacation with my family. So, you know, that was something I was reading, you know, recently, and I think it's going to be great not have to sign for stuff, because again, I don't see security in signing for something. And it's not really my security anyway, it's their company. And I still don't get, you know, something about the whole chip and pin thing, which I first of all, I don't get the chip and pin because when you use it as a credit card, you still don't type in a pin. So I don't, I don't, I don't get that. I don't know enough about how it works. And I'm wondering how the encryption on that works, because I understand supposedly the United States was behind Europe, Europe had been doing this for years, and had supposedly worked out all the kings. That's why when I go to store, I stick in the chip and pin. Either it's gotten better, or I've just gotten used to waiting because it used to be, I used to, you know, you would swipe, you know, they ring up your first object, you go to, to grocery store, they ring up your first item, you used to swipe, put the credit card back in your pocket. At first, it was so annoying to have to stick the credit card in and you had to leave it in until the transaction was complete. And that was so annoying. And I still is annoying. And it's like, why does it have to be in there? I'm just assuming that's using some sort of checksum with the total at the end of the, the, it's just annoying that has to believe you would think you'd be able to stick it in and read the chip, you take it out and put it back in your pocket. But you have to leave it in until they complete the, the, the transaction. And that's just annoying. And I don't get why. And like I said, my best guess, and, you know, I, again, I don't know much on the subject of the chip and pin. And I really don't care much about it. Because again, that's, that's, yeah. And also the whole, it's not really secure as a Sammy, what's his name? You know, the guy who took down my space by accident. And he made the little electronic card swiper thing. If you don't know what I'm talking about, look it up. He made a little device, you know, little microcontroller with wires coiled around it to make a magnetic pulse. And that's all is, if you don't know this, if you look at your magnetic strip on your credit card, and it is, it's the same exact thing as a cassette tape. It's the same trip. In fact, the heads in the readers for the card swipers are the same as a cassette tape. You can take the head out of an old cassette, cassette deck player, wire it into your audio card. And as long as you have the software to decode it, you can swipe it and it just does tones, kind of like, it's a different, different protocol, but kind of like an old dial-up modem. You know, and that's how it reads it. And it's done by magnetic pulses. So he made a little chip that he can program and he, you just hold it next to, you know, a card reader and it pulses and it doesn't know that you're not swiping something, it just reads it, which pre-need probably costs, when I looked, I looked into making one, but it was going to cost about 20 bucks, which to me for something like that is pretty expensive. It was good for the 20 bucks because I think 15 of it is just getting the copper wire you coil around there, which if you have some lying around, you know, you're all set, you know, the rest of the parts are probably under $5. But anyway, the point of bringing that up was he realized, you know, a lot of these machines around town, they're now chip and pin. If you try to swipe a chip and pin card, or a card with a chip in it, it tells you to insert the card. He found that in the information that's sent when you swipe somewhere in there, there's a placeholder with a one or a zero. And if it's, let's say zero, you have a chip. If it's one, you don't or the other way around. And all you have to do in when you're swiping has changed that number to that. So that's all he did. So in reality, the whole chip and pin as a security thing isn't really secure because you can just override it. And there's, it's going to be a long time before that goes away, because there's a lot of cards readers out there like you go to gas stations and other gas stations. I've never seen a gas station does the chip and pin. They all still swipe. So it's going to be a long time. So even if the chip and pin encryption and all that is more secure than just swiping your card, which still you can do online purchases. And all you need is the CCV code on the back, you know, a little three or four digit depending on I think American Express is a four digit code. But if you just get a picture of the front and back of someone's card, that's all you need to make transactions and you can even program your own cards when it comes to swiping. Again, it might be a little bit harder to program the chip, but if all readers are still accepting the swipe, again, all you need is a picture of the front and back of someone's card, which means I mean another topic. I once went over, you know, using a hid device that is a card reader. Basically, you swipe a card and it types the information from that. When I had some viewers get angry at me, like I was teaching this evil hacker thing and really there was nothing to it. It's like literally you can buy this device for $15 online, plug it into any computer or even a phone. If you get an OTG cable, you plug it in there and swipe it and it would type about the information. I wasn't teaching you anything. You can order this on Amazon. I was teaching how to basically use the cut command to cut out different information of that. But even if you didn't, all you had to do was open up Notepad or any text center and swipe it and you got the information from the card. So I had viewers being mad at me for showing this, which is just basic. Now there's Wikipedia pages. It's there's there's patents and information on this from the 70s. It's not new technology. Anybody could do it. It's not that hard. That being said, I also had viewers at least one viewer who kept asking me how do I get the CCV number? Because I want to swipe this and I need this and I kept telling him that's not on the magnetic strip. You can't get it from that. The whole point of that CCV number on the back of the card is that it's not on the magnetic strip that you physically have to look at the card. That's why that number is there. You can't pull it from and he just wasn't getting it. It's not on the magnetic strip, buddy. That's what I'm trying to tell you. So yeah, credit cards are interesting thing. Definitely again, more secure than a debit card. And as far as cash, you have some more privacy, but you don't have the security of using that's one of those tradeoff and balances. Balances and tradeoffs, whatever. So yeah, credit cards are interesting things. Talking about credit cards. So, you know, back and it wasn't that long ago where you still had to well, no, I wouldn't say oh, it was so late 90s. I was working at GNC. That's GNC, not GMC, General Motors, whatever. I worked for GNC, General Nutrition Center. And, you know, nowadays you swipe your credit card, it automatically charges it and like I get a text on my phone. So yeah, let's talk about that for a minute. So, you know, a lot of these credit card companies want you to install their app just like everybody else, which is completely pointless. They, you know, they're just trying to get access to your phone. All these apps and your phone can already do 99% of the things you need to do. There are very few things that you need to actually install apps for. Very, very few. And, the things that those apps can do that your phone can already do, you need to be careful because if you don't trust these completely, they can access things on your phone that you may not want them to and that's why you need the apps. But your phone can already do 99% of the things you already need to do. And you need to look at some of these apps and they say, oh, install our apps so you can do this. It's like, why? Oh, on install our apps so you can do banking. Well, I can log into your website and do all my banking and transactions without the app. Why do I need to install the app? And the thing is they want to get into your phone. That's the only reason they want to have access to stuff on your phone because that's the only logical reason anyway. If that's not the reasoning, then they just are very poor programmers or understanding anyway. What was I Oh, so credit cards and like their apps and stuff. I don't have that, but they have things like, oh, you can get notifications. You can pause transactions. You know, if you just realized you lost your card deposit. Now granted, I could go on to like again, discover card and I can pause my account. Yeah, I have to log in. It might take me if I've never done it before. I don't know where that button is. It might take me five minutes to find it on their website or even, you know, where an app, it's open it, click the button. It's frozen. So it might take me a couple of minutes if I've never done it before. But I much rather have that then then have an app on my phone all the time. But another thing that these credit card apps do is they can notify you whenever your credit cards used, which in reality, I already have set up without that through text messages. For example, my discover card allowed me allows me to set up I get a text notification anytime. They wouldn't, I haven't checked in a while since I set it up, but they wouldn't anything, any charges over $10 dollars. I only get texts and literally I get the text. I hear my phone ding before the receipts handed to me. I get it like that, which is amazing. So I know right away if I'm sitting at home and I get a text that says my credit card was used and I know my wife's not at the store. I look at it, you know, and in some cases it's like I have the same thing set up with my Amazon Prime card. But sometimes you do Amazon Prime, you do an Amazon purchase and it takes like 15, half an hour before you get it. But I know right away, you know, if someone's using my card as long as like I said with the discover cards over $10 than other cards like my Sam's Club card. They didn't have they would only let you get notifications if it was a large purchase like over $100 or over $300. I think it was. It was a ridiculous amount. I'm like, well, I know every time this card is used. So why I ended up doing is they also had a feature on their website where you can get a text if it drops below a certain amount. So let's say my credit card $2,000. My credit card limit. Let's say it's 2,000. I don't know what my limit is on that card. $2,000. I just set any time it drops below $2,000. Send me a text, which means every single time that card is used, I get a text. Now it's not as convening as the discover card one or my my Amazon Prime card because those ones say the card was used. This is how much was charged and was used at this store. I'm pretty sure the Sam's Club one which I primarily just use for gas because I get 5% back on gas and other than that I don't really get much back on it. But every time it's used I get a text saying the card you know had dropped so I know what the way it's used but it doesn't I don't think it tells me where it was used or how much it was used for of course I can always hop online and look if I need to. So yeah again no need for apps. Now going back to a usage of credit cards back in the 90s you if you worked at a store you would you would swipe the credit card it would literally you know through a phone line so I'm working at GNC swipe it dials up and at that point all the credit card did at that point was check is this a valid credit card and do they have you know money in their account you know and they would hang up and then at the end of the day you know if you worked in the 90s you probably knew us you would close out the computer and at that point sometime during the night it would do all the credit card transactions which is interesting so again you go to the store you swipe your credit card at most stores at least smaller stores like GNC or other retailers you know that weren't huge maybe the bigger ones probably started doing real-time transactions sooner but I would swipe it through the machine it would dial up do do do do you know modem noises and it would get approved but it didn't actually do the credit card transactions later in the day it just that's how it worked I'm not even a hundred percent sure why because if it's dialing up you think you'd be still do the transaction right then but I'm thinking it probably had to do with how stores are charged because stores might be charged different if they for a number of transaction transactions and if they do a number all these transactions at once maybe they get charged less something like that anyway so that's interesting but then if your phone lines are down or for some reason the reader wouldn't work you had to pull out the old machine where you put it down and you get a piece of paper with carbon copy and you you know some of you might be so young you don't know what I'm talking about but that's why your credit cards the numbers and your name and something are all bulged up it's because you and before I mean I'm talking about when we were able to use phone lines originally credit cards you just have these pieces of paper and you would just hope you know I guess I don't know I guess way back in the day unless it was an in-store credit card like if you had a credit card at Macy's and Macy's you know they would just do it but I think I think a lot stores you'd had to actually call up and confirm but anyway you would use the little carbon copies and I had to use that a couple of times at GNC when the phone lines were down or the little reader wasn't working and then later on they had to be you got a copy I got a copy one way on the register one went here it was it was crazy so I was watching or reading something some of you may know Sean Powers he's the assistant or associate editor of the Linux journal I'm friends with them on Facebook one a couple of years ago or so you're talking about how you got a new credit card and how the aren't bulged up they aren't beveled anymore and he's like no one uses the old carbon copy reader and it's really nice that it isn't bulged up he's like why aren't more credit cards like this and I can say that my Sam's Club card and my Amazon Prime card are like that they don't have any bevels on the letters and especially the Amazon Prime card is a nice looking card but it bothers me because I have this wallet here so I have this wallet here and I have cards shoved in there and to get the card out I can slide my thumb up and if the the letters numbers are bulged up it's really easy for me to pull card out the smooth cards it's really hard for me to pull them out because there's so many jammed in there so I actually like the old bevel and I think it looks nice well Sam's Club card looks kind of cheap Sam's Club card looks like they just printed my number on there where the Amazon Prime card it's like etched in there but it's still flat you know but just because of the design on my wallet and how many cards I have pressed in there it's really nice to have the the bumped cards because it's easier to pull those cards out once you get I get one or two out it's easier to pull the other ones out but if my Amazon Prime card gets put in the front of that it's really hard for me to get my cards out just because the card is completely smooth anyway so I'm just bringing up you know it just funny personal preference just because of the design but yeah there's really no reason that I know of I don't I don't think anywhere in the world still uses the carbon copy things to swipe cards nowadays it's like I guess I know I don't know if any I guess even small stores small retailers like G&C probably have a commit committed internet connection if their internet connection goes down I guess they just can't do transactions I remember happening at like a target and stuff and other grocery stores 15 years ago you know up internet's down we can't do any transactions and we're trying to get it back up I can't remember last time I went to a store and their internet connections down other than here in Florida after Hurricane Irma came through was that you know nine months ago six months ago whenever that was yet you know a lot of stores couldn't open back up because they couldn't do transactions and there were a few restaurants that opened up but they were doing cash only so if you want to go to the restaurant and sometimes you did if they had air conditioning but some of them some of them still didn't have power and they I guess they were just cooking because they had gas stoves and maybe generators to keep their food cold I don't know but there were a few places in town they were open and but they were doing cash only because there was no internet anywhere so yeah I guess I guess we just have reliable internet now so there's really no concern about if our internet's down we can't do transactions anymore or maybe maybe if like you're at some place like Target at least bigger stores Target Walmart whatever I guess if their internet's down I guess they maybe they can still do transactions and it just does on the local network and then submits them all once they get internet back but how do they verify those accounts are they just taking a chance I don't know I guess if you work if you work for you know or if you work for if you're something like Walmart I guess maybe you just have a really good dedicated line to your store you would think yeah so anyway we've talked about credit cards you know what I want to show you I'm I'm going to I'm going to take a little break myself but I'm going to show you my new laser engraver and I'm going to set the camera so that you can watch something be engraved so it's this this cheap sub it was like $96 for this laser engraver that literally will only engrave things like one and a half inch by one and a half inch so I got these little wooden coins that I've been engraving images on I have it set up so I'm going to actually go out to take you guys to my garage and I'm going to it's very very slow so just I'm going to engrave a image of tux the penguin onto a little wood coin and it's pretty neat it will give me a little break and you guys can watch tux be engraved and depending on how dark I have it engraved like there's a different values and the longer you burn for the darker it is and usually the nicer it looks I have it the value set to 40 as the burn time and so I think it will probably take 20 minutes or so to burn you know an inch by inch basically image of tux on this wood laser engraver so let's go out here to the garage do do do let's dark out here