Are you being obtuse? English is the most commonly spoken language in the world and US culture is extremely popular worldwide.

They didn’t assume most people are US-based. They assumed the DMV would be the most widely recognised and understood example to use.

Uh, I was replying to someone who said it’s essential to separate lids from their bottles. It’s not psychopaths who are doing this — it’s people who think it’s the right thing to do.

Separation requirements vary. In the UK, plastic bottle caps are generally tethered to the bottle now to prevent people from separating them.

Are you going to jailbreak roadside assistance?

It’s true that a lot of data isn’t sold, but a large chunk of the figure you quote also seems to include business data — stuff that contains zero personal information but is still hugely valuable to companies and investors (look at how much this report costs, for example, or consider that a Bloomberg terminal costs around $25k/yr).

And remember, those investment buyers make up a big chunk of the consumer data market too and are only interested in aggregated insights to inform trading strategies. They don’t care about personal info or targeted ads.

There are lots of things that can go wrong with film.

It’s difficult to monetise data if you source it illegally (except in China maybe). Nobody reads the ToS anyway so it’s not like you need a backdoor.

I once saw a man in Delhi with a literal cloud of flies permanently stationed above his head. I thought that was just a cartoon trope but I realised then that it was an actual thing.

Never been to India, huh?

I know some dead frogs that could use a witch.

How is it being used against you?

Are they alleging that Mastercard sells data with personally identifiable information? Because if not, what’s the big deal? The people that buy this data want to know about trends.

Your data isn’t just being sold to advertisers. There are all kinds of companies that are willing to pay big bucks to get near real-time insights into consumer behaviour, prices, manufacturing and anything else that can be tracked somehow.

Edit: And there’s a near 0% chance that you’re not part of a dataset that’s being sold to someone, somewhere…

Tech just isn’t his expertise.

Mehta has been described as an avid fan of hip hop music. In a 2015 copyright case regarding the similarity of two songs, Mehta noted in a footnote that he was "not a ‘lay person’ when it comes to hip-hop music and lyrics,” and noted he has “listened to hip hop for decades”. American rappers Jay-Z, Eminem, Kanye West and Canadian rapper Drake are among his favorite artists.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amit_Mehta

It wasn’t just Fukushima. There was a massive flood in Thailand at the same time that shut down a load of suppliers. It was a really bad bit of luck but they did learn from that.

Steam engines are more complicated than people seem to think. There’s more to it than just boiling some water and voila! They’re pretty much useless without a governor. How many people know how to make this crucial component?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centrifugal_governor

How much do you think it would cost for them to accept cheques instead?

Sure, but it’s still just some dudes playing join-the-dots in the sky. None of it means anything.

Isn’t that how all constellations came about?