'Unlawful coercion': Trump can't withhold funds or demand payment from UC, federal judge rules (Mikhail Zinshteyn/CalMatters)
https://calmatters.org/education/higher-education/2025/11/uc/
http://www.memeorandum.com/251115/p3#a251115p3

from my link log —
Software architecture is overrated, clear and simple design is underrated.
https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/software-architecture-is-overrated/
saved 2019-09-19

Software Architecture is Overrated, Clear and Simple Design is Underrated
I had my fair share in designing and building large systems. I've taken part in rewriting Uber's distributed payment systems [https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/distributed-architecture-concepts-i-have-learned-while-building-payments-systems/] , designing and shipping Skype on Xbox One and open-sourcing RIBs [https://github.com/uber/RIBs], Uber's mobile architecture framework. All of these systems had thorough

It'll be interesting to see how long this takes to cover the whole UK train network - basically allowing anyone with a contactless payment to travel without buying tickets in advance.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/simpler

Simpler train travel to London airports as tap-in, tap-out expanded across south-east England
Buying tickets will be more convenient, more accessible and more flexible, ensuring passengers can get the best fares.

JPMorgan Chase secures deals with fintech middlemen, like Plaid, covering 95% of third-party data pulls, and will receive payment for access to customer data (Hugh Son/CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/14/jpmorgan-chase-fintech-fees.html

JPMorgan Chase wins fight with fintech firms over fees to access customer data
The JPMorgan Chase deals mark a shift in the power dynamic between banks, middlemen and the fintech apps that are increasingly threatening incumbents.

The Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency said it has asked Interpol for cooperation in a manhunt for the Chinese suspect currently residing in China.
https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/southkorea/law-crime/20251208…

Police confirm identity of Chinese mastermind behind KT payment breach
Police investigating the KT Corp. payment breach and micropayment scam said Monday they have identified the mastermind behind the crime, known as a...

The hashtag #fedihelp just dropped me in yet another rabbit hole. How about setting up a ActivityPub crowd sourcing system?
Idea: it could be a webpage with payment option, and an initial ActivityPub post per campaign. There you describe, why you need money, and how much. Maybe some automatic posts, when some thresholds are reached. And you can write about the progress in responses to th…

Analyzing 4 million payment #card details found on the dark web
https://nordvpn.com/research-lab/payment-card-details-theft/

Settlement payment always comes at times when you’ve totally forgot the thing ever existed.

Email purporting to come from Netflix saying that they've been unable to
"auto-recharge your membership because you have reached your monthly spending limit. We would love to have you back. If you change your mind, simply restart your membership and update your payment details ...blah blah"
Very clever of them since I've never had, nor ever will have, a netflix account.
Email comes from a Polish domain, apparently.

Source: Ant Group's Ant International grew revenue by 20% to 25% in 2025 to an estimated $3.7B, or ~10% of Ant's total 2025 revenue, as it competes with Visa (Jing Yang/The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/ant-…

Ant Builds a Mobile Payment Network as an Alternative to Visa, Mastercard
Five years after the Chinese government quashed Ant Group’s plans for what would have been the world’s largest initial public offering, the Chinese fintech giant has built a fast-growing international business. That offshoot runs a global payment network for digital wallets that could one day be ...

Palantir co-founder #Peter #Thiel has donated 👉$3m to a California lobbying group advocating AGAINST a proposed wealth tax that would target billionaires in the state.
The seven-figure contribution comes as several ultra-wealthy tech moguls have left or threatened to leave California over the tax.
Thiel, worth so…

Microsoft seizes RedVDS infrastructure, disrupts fast-growing cybercrime marketplace
https://cyberscoop.com/microsoft-seizes-disrupts-redvds-cybercrime-marketplace/

Microsoft seizes RedVDS infrastructure, disrupts fast-growing cybercrime marketplace
The service became a prolific tool for cybercriminals in the past year, as it facilitated thousands of attacks involving credential theft, account takeovers, mass phishing and payment diversion fraud.

With that mortgage stupidity I decided to see what would happen if I bought today and instead of 15 years I go to 50 years.
House price - 325,000
Downpayment - 162,500 (Yes we put that much down)
Interest 4.00 - what I renewed at this year, it was 1.97 in 2020
15 year mortage -
payment 1,209.99
total interest 216,358
50 year mortgage -
payment 627.99
total interest 376,064
At my age when I bought I would be 110 years old before t…

Sex work bad, child porn…good?
https://icy.wyvern.rip/notes/aheg34oje1zfy3x9

:privTri: Volpeon :areon3NSmol: (@volpeon)
Weird how payment processors haven't cut Twitter off yet. It's almost as if there are multiple standards

Europe police bust global fraud ring that used German payment firms to launder millions https://therecord.media/europe-police-bust-global-fraud-ring-payment-firms

Canada’s FinTech industry enters new era as Bank of Canada taps first payment service providers
https://betakit.com/canadas-fintech-industry-enters-new-era-as-bank-of-canada-taps-first-payment-service-providers/…

https://stripe.com - gibt's damit schlechte Erfahrungen?

Shares of Indian payment startup Pine Labs debuted at ~$2.73, up 9.5% from the ~$2.49 IPO price, after a $440M IPO earlier this week that was 2x oversubscribed (Soumyajit Saha/Nikkei Asia)
https://asia.nikkei.com/business/marke…

Indian fintech Pine Labs rises in trading debut after $440m offering
Payments company had earlier slashed IPO over valuation concerns

Just heard from someone who works at Wowburger that the company takes any gratuity you leave on the payment machines.
So, if this is true, it’s illegal in Ireland. Not to mention, a dick move regardless.
Anyone in Ireland know the Wowburger folks and/or where I can lodge a complaint about this?
#wowburger

> M-PESA created a payment rail with near-zero transaction costs. Which means you can economically collect tiny payments. $0.21 per day payments.
> You’re replacing $3-5/week kerosene spending with a $0.21/day solar subscription (so with $1.5 per week half the price of kerosene) that’s cheaper AND gives you better light, phone charging, radio, and no respiratory disease.
climatedrift.substack.com/p/why-solarpunk-is-already-happening

London-based Sokin, which develops tech for B2B cross-border payments, raised a $50M Series B led by Prysm Capital at a $300M valuation (John Reynolds/Tech.eu)
https://tech.eu/2025/12/01/cross-border-payment-fintech-sokin-lands-50m-funding-round/…

Cross-border payment fintech Sokin lands $50M funding round
Cross-border payment fintech Sokin has received $50m in a funding round, valuing the UK fintech at $300m.UK-headquartered Sokin says it will use the funding to speed up overseas expansion and on product development.The Series B funding round was led by US investment firm Prysm Capital, with Watershed Ventures participating. Existing investors, including investment funds managed by Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital and Aurum Partners, also participated.Founded in 2019 and headquartered in London…

It's finally Friday, so before you stop working for the week, check out today's Metacurity for the most crucial cybersecurity developments you should know, including
--Trump cuts off US access to organizations seeking to strengthen cybersecurity,
--Prisoner swap sends alleged ransomware payment negotiator back to Russia,
--CISA retires ten emergency directives at once,
--Cambodian cybercrime kingpin extradited to China,
--Fugitive wanted for Desjardins br…

Trump ends US participation in organizations devoted to stronger cybersecurity
Prisoner swap sends alleged ransomware payment negotiator back to Russia, CISA retires ten emergency directives at once, Cambodian cybercrime kingpin extradited to China, Fugitive wanted for Desjardins breach arrested in Spain, Trans activists hacked Free Speech Union, much more

We Deleted #Tokio From Our Payment System and Cut Cloud Costs by $127,000
https://medium.com/@the_atomic_architect/we-deleted-tok…

Judge orders Trump administration to release full SNAP benefits by Friday (Mariana Alfaro/Washington Post)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/11/06/snap-judge-full-payment-ruling/
http://www.memeorandum.com/251106/p127#a251106p127

Since I rely on and use @… pretty much everyday as my preferred email provider, I donated €10, and will turn it to a monthly donation.
Support the projects, organizations, or initiatives you depend on the most. For me, that’s https://…

I got five emails from Google warning me that my credit card has expired. Good! I quit using any paid services from Google earlier this year but must have missed deleting my payment info, or maybe I was holding off? Well, luckily it should not be an issue now.

Germany drops sanctions case against Alisher Usmanov after charitable payment, lawyers say: https://benborges.xyz/2025/12/31/germany-drops-sanctions-case-against.html

Seems like both my iPad-with-pencil input apps have been bought by other companies so that’s probably Not Good (TM) Does anyone have recommendations for either handwriting input or sketchnoting ipad apps that are one-time payment and don’t require internet connection at all times? Bonus points for supporting NextCloud for sync!

Another Korean cyber incident appears to be emerging involving the major e-commerce platform Gmarket, but the company claims that the unauthorized payments were not due to hacking but were made using account information stolen from outside sources

Gmarket suffers unauthorized payment incident affecting 60 users amid hacking woes
Financial authorities have begun an emergency on-site inspection of the major e-commerce platform Gmarket after reports of unauthorized mobile paym...

Nvidia denies that it asked Chinese customers to pay upfront for H200 chips, saying it "would never require customers to pay for products they do not receive" (Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/world/china/nvidia-says-no-upfront-p…

An important update from the Director of Procurement at one of my customers:
"From Monday 1 December, all your invoices submitted for payment to the Invoice team must include a valid PO number. Invoices without a PO number will be rejected and returned to you. Please ensure that work is not started without a PO number; the PO number will be sent to you via our ERP system, Tech One."
Great, so they have introduced a manual step into my automated process.

Well, another security vulnerability filed. Time to put a down payment on that Maybach.

Paperless-NGX has become the true successor to #DEVONthink 3 for me, which now focuses on AI and changed its payment model. The automatic document classification is impressively accurate. Container hosting makes self-hosting straightforward. If you want modern, intelligent document management that works cross-platform with full control,

Trump administration readies up to $12 billion for initial farm aid payment (Politico)
https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2025/10/30/congress/trump-administration-readies-up-to-12-billion-for-initial-farm-aid-payment-00630700
http://www.memeorandum.com/251030/p122#a251030p122

I don't use cash all that often, but when I find myself in a business that "can't accept" it for payment, you'd better believe it's a business I will never return to.

Had Fun

Bought a car/micro-camper

Bought a van to do up as a micro-camper, and did a temporary rush job of that conversion myself while waiting in the list for the pro to do it.
Then the pro gave himself a health criss the week it was booked so I took apart my temp job and only got another temp kit-job in it's place.
Went out in it like four times during that and then broke my wrist and couldn't really use it or improve it.
Then had to take it apart even more to try
and figure out where the ad-blue hole was.
I will do a proper permanent job of the
floor and walls and ceiling and adjustments to the kit-job to make it the nicest it's been so far during the spring next year.
My assumption that the prior conversion
into a van and for wheelchair-access meant the microcamper conversion was half-done already turned out to be false.
If I buy a new one, it'll be one that has never been wheelchair adapted.
But it's going okay. Only scraped it once so far.
Fewer than aimed for or booked, but I broke my wrist and had to cancel the second half of the summer.
Went to a conference about money and computers and fringe decentralized social media and it wasn't as boring as you might expect and felt pretty much like a festival.
Exactly the target number! It's lovely.
Took 3 times longer than I'd hoped and
50% more money than I'd planned for really.
Still improvements to make but they will
be incremental and gradual over the coming year or two now.
It's been interest-only for 20 years so a big old lump sum payment that I never really expected to be able to make. Expected to have to sell and move at the end of the mortgage term.
But surprisingly the stocks ISA got high enough to pay it off after all, so I did that.
Cash-flow ruined by that and the bedroom but should start to feel a bit richer next year.

ActBlue, a payment platform for online donations, is increasing its investments in left-leaning media and content creators through grant-like sponsorships (Max Tani/Semafor)
https://www.semafor.com/article/12/21/2025/actblue-quietly-sponsors-p…

Exclusive: ActBlue quietly sponsors progressive content creators
The Democratic fundraising platform has offered its support to a major podcaster as he seeks to build a podcast network.

I bought something the other day which offers a rebate via Venmo. I provided the merchant my email, and sure enough today I got an email from Venmo saying they've sent me a payment.
Except... clicking the link directed me to create a new Venmo account, and would fail if I was signed in with my existing account.
So I tried to contact Venmo support. Of course the chat is just LLM garbage these days, and it made up in invalid URL for me to "verify" the email address on…

#Bandcamp transitioning from #paypal towards #stripe
https://

Polish loan platform hacked; mobile payment system and other businesses disrupted https://therecord.media/poland-hacks-loan-platform-mobile-payments-system-travel-agency

I like my individualized mail addresses. I just received a phishing mail to update my data with a Swiss payment system (TWINT) - but it was sent to an address I created for a doctor's appointment system (Onedoc).
The message also contains my postal address from the time I created that account.
#databreach

New #BandcampFriday purchase, Void Ecstasy by Nostalghia was available for free, but I paid $5 to support the artist and add it to my collection.
https://bandcamp.com/pmarg

also where the fuck did the actual shelves for my bookcase go. things falling apart but it's the main place where I've put stickers so I can't just scrap it I gotta endlessly repair it
I shouldn't have made that payment on my credit card if the power company is gonna take $750 from me on the 28th cuz I don't have that much aaaaaaaa
I should go put the numbers on my door so I can end the Hold Mail thing and hopefully get settlement check soon. but also I shoul…

Two better ideas not mentioned in the article:
1) Move standing charge to payment by unit.
2) Delink electricity price from gas.
1) helps those who use least energy (poorer people).
2) helps people shift to electricity from gas - decarbonising.
Rachel Reeves’s 5% VAT cut on electricity bills will backfire, experts say | Budget 2025 | The Guardian

To ensure you get a postmark that reflects the day you mail something, you’ll have to go to a post office counter and ask for a manual postmark.
This may affect the eligibility of your mail-in ballot, or tax payment
https://www.

USPS changes may delay postmark dates. What it means for your tax returns, ballots, bills and more
Due to operational changes at the Postal Service, the agency says there will be more delays between when you mail something and when it gets postmarked.

Something happened today at the grocery store that hasn't happened to me since before the pandemic: I ran out of SNAP funds on my EBT card. This is entirely unrelated to the possibility that SNAP payments might not go out next month due to the shutdown, btw; this particular payment failure is entirely from my balance getting run down by the cuts Trump already did earlier:

Maybe giving the US full control of our electronic payment methods wasn't the best idea...

💢 Unreliable public charging stations deter many potential electric vehicle buyers
https://techxplore.com/news/2025-09-unreliable-stations-deter-potential-electric.html

Unreliable public charging stations deter many potential electric vehicle buyers
Public electric vehicle charging stations in America have a bad reputation. They're notorious for breaking down, charging at a snail's pace, refusing customer payment and leaving drivers stranded without juice.

Sources: to hedge against Beijing approval risk, Nvidia is requiring Chinese customers to pay upfront for H200 chips, with no cancellations, refunds, or changes (Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/world/china/nvidia-requires-ful…

At midnight on 1 January, the flexible credit card-sized pass used by millions of New Yorkers to get through subway turnstiles is being terminated from sale just as a new mayor, Zohran Mamdani, takes office.
The transit system will fully transition to #Omny, a contactless payment system that allows riders to tap their credit card, phone or other smart device to pay fares, much as they do for other purch…

Panel talking about dark markets on nostr.
Nostr can be quite anonymous and encrypted and connected to payment via bitcoin. Can it therefore do Silk Road? Allow anonymous markets?
Nobody wants to publicly advocate for selling illegal drugs, but yeah, sure, people could do that. There's even protocol types for market places.
Relay owners might get into legal issues if they are forwarding illegal market listings. But this is true in general, there are also illegal images and even illegal text.
Nostr relays and Devs might find themselves in legal trouble anyway, due to the general legal crackdowns on internet requiring age proof and id on websites obstensively to protect kids. These are freedoms we all need to fight for. Perhaps brains will drain to more free jurisdictions? Devs move to where open development is legal? Not the panel at least. They want to say at home.
#nostr #nostrshire #darkMarkets

Looks like there is only one customer left paying @… in bitcoin now.
Between their most recent payment and the one before the exchange rate fluctuated 21%.
If they quit I think I will retire the method.

Consider supporting your favorite organization, free-software project, or digital-rights activist. I donate $10 every month to my email provider: https://autisitci.org, avalable at @……

Trump's multi-million request puts DOJ integrity to the test, legal scholars say (Avery Lotz/Axios)
https://www.axios.com/2025/10/22/trump-justice-department-payment-ethical-concerns
http://www.memeorandum.com/251022/p91#a251022p91

If That’s a donation, it goes to the treasury and only congress can decide how to spend it.
No such (lawful) thing as private payment of government obligation.
Pentagon Accepts $130 Million Donation to Help Pay Troops During Shutdown
https://www.

Pentagon Accepts $130 Million Donation to Help Pay Troops During Shutdown

After #BART opened up direct credit card payments at fare gates, after decades of clumsy #fare payment mgmt features, new generation of mass #transit fare #ClipperCard

Clipper Cards Are Getting a Major Upgrade, With Big Perks for Riders
Next generation Clipper, or Clipper 2.0, rolls out Dec. 10 with improved features like discounted transfers and instant fund availability. Here’s how to get set up.

Letter: Nexperia suspends supplies of wafers to its Chinese assembly plant, citing a failure to "comply with the agreed contractual payment terms" (Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/nexperia-suspends…

PayPal reports Q3 revenue up 7% YoY to $8.4B, total payment volume up 8% to $458.1B, above $450.3B est., and raises its FY 2025 EPS forecast; PYPL jumps 10% (Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-10-28/paypal-…

Apple unveils iOS changes in Japan to comply with local law, including alternative app stores and payment options, a new fee structure, and new default controls (Juli Clover/MacRumors)
https://www.macrumors.com/2025/12/17/japan-app-store-feature-updates/

Japan App Store Gets Alternative Marketplaces, Third-Party Payments and More
Apple today introduced several changes to the App Store in Japan to meet the requirements of the Mobile Software Competition Act (MSCA) that goes...

So farewell then Microsoft Office.
I haven't used you really since the 90s.
From this distance: it seems like you just kept getting worse and more exploitative since then and trapped millions of people in abusive relationships with tech.
It made me laugh when you went monthly-payment subscription-only, and then laugh even more when suckers actually ponied up for that.
It's fun when people say they don't know how to use Libreoffice, even though Libre is more like the original MS Office (before it was shit) than Office 365 was.
I wish you fare well on your transition to your new identity as #microSlop #office #CoPiliot #ai #enshitification #poem