Keep in mind that this is a major metropolitan area in a state that has a history of earthquakes. You can expect state level response (and federal as well) within the same day. Their main priority will be water, and elements exposure.
Sf fire department has also a pdf with what you should have in an at home emergency kit. It's some simple things you can get in one trip to a camping store and Walgreens. https://sf-fire.org/media/794/download?inline
I also recommend SF people consider joining NERT: neighborhood emergency response team. Disaster after disaster should teach us the opposite of what you argue in terms of response: in fact it's more likely that the scale of people affected will quickly overwhelm resources, and the existence of choke points will severely limit movement of people and resources, especially if infrastructure is damaged and people are flooding out of the city. That can be mitigated by having locals trained to help facilitate emergency response efforts. It's less "pulling people out from under bookshelves" and more "help managing the bureaucracy of the fire department," forms on forms on forms! Though the training does involve pulling someone out from under a bookshelf. It's a week long and quite fun!
I don't like newer codecs like AV1. I find them blurrier. Perhaps the bitrate is too low, but they do seem blurrier compared to h264. Even VP09 has often seemed better.
they usually run newer codecs at a much lower bitrate, and do group testing to make sure the quality is "acceptable".
in double blind testing, at the same bitrate, you'll pick the "new" codec every time. but yes, they're trying to save money on bandwidth. it's annoying
Whether the title is president, EVP, or SVP, I find it almost shocking that people here are surprised that McDonalds has a very senior person in charge of the Coca-Cola relationship. Yes, title inflation happens at a lot of companies, but I'm willing to cut a lot of slack when you get to $1B revenue or leading responsibility for a major product area.
Yes, I flipped it. Duh. Obviously the two companies are important partners. I imagine there is a pretty senior person on the McDonalds side who has primary responsibility for the partnership.
Also it says his org deals with 100 markets globally. McDonalds isn't the same company in every country, it's basically dealing with 100 different clients with vastly disparate needs, regulations, supply chains etc.
Also possibly some of their sub-clients. McDonald's uses franchise model. So ensuring things are correct for those too. There is something like 38 thousand restaurants. With varying supply chains, probably in some countries multiple.
Yea, after the syrup is remixed it's estimated that McD's sells hundreds of millions of gallons of Coke products a year. It's def something you have a dedicated executive team to make sure everything is working smoothly.
I read that the syrup is stored in these special tanks, and when it's mixed with the carbonated water, it comes out as the best tasting, freshest Coca-Cola you can get. It's always tasted amazing at McDonald's. Almost like bottled Coke.
Supposedly McDonald’s is the only business that gets the syrup distributed in metal kegs. Everyone else gets the plastic bags, which could lead to some taste difference.
I am pretty sure I could blind taste test canned vs bottled soda.
AFAIK they are completely phased out in the soda industry (including McDs). They are very popular in the home beer brewing community because they are easy to clean and the right size for your typical homebrew batch (20 litres). They've become difficult to obtain in recent years because they are not being used in industry any more so there's no secondary market.
Some players are making them new, but they are quite expensive. I used to have a couple of regular beer kegs on "long term loan" from Heineken because I was not able to source cornys for cheap.
Definitely depends on the store in my experience (Aus), I think some may not maintain their machines as frequently/well, or maybe even deliberately watered down. Glass bottle Coke is the best coke imo.
I assume no sarcasm either whether or not you completely approve of the business. There must be a very significant team associated with a global business at that scale.
To go on a tangent: lots of people even like to think back nostalgically to the time when bankers were at the golf course by 3pm. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3-6-3_Rule
(I don't agree, but it's a popular enough sentiment.)
yes, "beaming" in the us was also used for quite a while. as in IR beam
japanese phones were buggy, feature packed monstrosities. a bunch of companies fighting to check as many boxes as they could. it's not a surprise that they got wiped out by an attempt to make a holistic internet communicator.
but for a while, there was nothing like them and their ability to get information on the internet
I was slightly confused by that response but after trying (and failing) to discover any solid reporting by googling myself I at least understand reticence to condone anything on that site.
radio bandwidth: higher frequencies travel a shorter distance and provide more bandwidth. so you get frequency contention and also you need your sats to be physically closer
latency: the further a sat is, the higher the latency. not an issue for text messages. a huge issue for phone calls and general internet tasks. the further you "push" your sat "back", the worst the user experience is
there's other issues too, like geostationary vs geosynchronous and coverage and exposure.
star/plus/cirrus etc - pure debit-only networks - aren't accepted on a plane
debit cards that are on one of the credit card rails (visa, mastercard, etc) are very common. those work because they're just a normal visa transaction
> those work because they're just a normal visa transaction
I wouldn’t be so sure about that. In some payment situations you’re asked whether you’d like to have the transaction go through as debit or as credit—so those two must be different somewhere. And probably in more than just a bit in a packet, as, for example, paying with debit Visas or MasterCards (normal ones, not Electron resp. Maestro) in the Netherlands (where locals almost universally have credit cards) is something of a crapshoot.
They use largely the same rails/network (for example Mastercard). The only meaningful difference is on how and when funds are reconciled.
Some payment providers ask up front to simplify the flows as it's not totally trivial to determine what sort of card it is, and also because different fees apply - historically some merchants added specific fees to basket etc. (less so nowadays but the UI convention sticks)
> Some payment providers ask up front to simplify the flows as it's not totally trivial to determine what sort of card it is
And because the same card can be both. At least here in Brazil, most bank cards have multiple uses (credit, debit, ATM) in the same card. AFAIK, they're separate applications within the same chip, and the terminal has to select which one to use before starting.
Interesting! Did not know that offhand but just looked it up in the technical docs and this is part of the standard. Interesting to hear how other countries have adopted different approaches.
From memory, online and offline transactions are usually split out by BIN number (first six digits)
The BIN will tell you which bank was the issuer and which class of card you have, like standard or premium, though most readers probably don't take that into account beyond the card scheme and card type associated with the range that the individual BIN is in. Many banks will have multiple BINs for the same card type if they are large.
Credit / online debit / offline debit usually get different ranges. The reader gets a list of the ranges when it updates and they don't change super often. Offline readers can be configured to reject cards with a number in an online only range.
It's usually based on the chip settings. Rules aren't as simple as "always online" or "never offline"; an issuer can e.g. convey that they'd prefer online transactions for certain types of payments, while offline is ok for others, via relatively complex configurations of the code of the chip application.
Before that, there was the service code on the magnetic stripe, which also can convey things like "online only" or "domestic use only".
The BIN is only involved in risk management on the terminal's side: Many of these in-flight terminal accept deferred online transactions, which means that, even though they're completely offline, they take the risk of accepting an online-only card. (For truly offline capable cards, the risk is often with the issuing bank.)
That type of risk management can benefit from knowing what type of card it is, and prepaid cards are often seen as riskier (because customers might intentionally drain them before a flight). Of course, debit and credit cards can also be empty/marked as stolen, but these are marginally harder to get and replace.
Yep you are completely correct; people don't realise how complex the chip is - it has what you'd legitimately recognise as an operating system! It can also be reprogrammed over the wire, if your chip and pin is taking a bit toooo long that might be what's happening.
Your correct on the risk spread. I wasn't confident last night (I'm not totally versed on the terminals) but looked it up. As I understand if you choose to accept offline only payments then you accept the risk of the transaction failing. If it's the issuers choice they own the risk.
> The only meaningful difference is on how and when funds are reconciled.
Nope, even this is identical. These days the difference between a debit/credit card is pretty much aesthetic, from a transaction processing perspective there generally isn’t any actual differences. Differences that people see today are most artificial for the purpose of justifying extra fees, or higher interchange based an entirely arbitrary factor that has zero correlation to any risks that appear in the transaction processing and clearing mechanisms.
Basically the only reason anyone really bothers keeping the difference between credit/debit cards around, is as a technical excuse for discrimination and abusive fees. Notably in the EU nobody cares if a debit or credit card is used, because the EU outlawed all the crazy fees and other bullshit, so now there’s no commercial reason to differentiate between the two 99% of the time.
There are a few differences for sure. All entirely technical in how the money moves or clears. The most obvious point here is debit card moves your money from your account, credit moves the issuers money from their account.
But to your wider point; from a transaction fee point of view you are dead right. Of course a credit card has other attractions; for example it's credit :D but also things like section 75 protection.
> There are a few differences for sure. All entirely technical in how the money moves or clears. The most obvious point here is debit card moves your money from your account, credit moves the issuers money from their account.
From the perspective of the card network and the merchant, there is no difference here. The card network has a contract with the issuer, so all transactions, in all scenarios, are always first paid by the issuer. It’s then the issuers problem to figure out where they get the money from.
It’s entirely possible to perform transactions on debit card that will place the account attached to it in a negative balance, and for the person owning that account to vanish. The card issuer is still on the hook for the money, neither the card network, nor the merchant, care if the issuer recovers the funds or not, they always get paid.
But there is a lot more complexity than, I think, you are glossing over. For example, you also likely have at least one technical services partner in the flows, probably two.
Additionally, money often doesn't move in real time, especially when credit cards are involved. The process is, intentionally, split.
Your point on that is fair, but remember, many credit providers are also not banks, and the money is in a bank account owned by a third party. So, as a trivial example, I can't just assume money coming to me from Bank A is related to transactions from Bank A's cards.
A lot of people don't realise that the main way all of this works is through very large batch files with lists of transactions in moving back and forth between various parties behind the scenes.
(We are on semantic points, though, but I just wanted to clarify the complexity behind the scenes that most people don't see or understand)
> those work because they're just a normal visa transaction
> I wouldn’t be so sure about that.
I would be very sure about that.
> In some payment situations you’re asked whether you’d like to have the transaction go through as debit or as credit—so those two must be different somewhere
Guidance varies. California list here https://earthquake.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2025/02...
You should have water, food, medical supplies, and cash.
btw you might find this interesting https://www.amusingplanet.com/2021/01/san-franciscos-hidden-...
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