Smart card

[Will Senn]

On 4/3/17 9:27 PM, Robert J. Hansen wrote:
>> What do you mean by "will be better served by avoiding them"? What's the
>> reservation?
> Imagine we're in a restaurant and you ask me, "Should I order the
> pizza?"  Well, beats heck out of me.  I don't know you from Adam, I
> don't know your personal tastes, I don't even know if you're hungry.  So
> I shrug and say, "Sure, if you like pizza."  You may think that's a
> useless answer, but the question was no champ, either.
I'm sure I should be offended, but I have a sneaky suspicion my question
sucked :).
> Should you get a smartcard?  Sure, if you need one.  But I don't know
> how you expect me, or anyone else here, to be able to give a more
> precise answer than that.  Only you can make those decisions about your
> local security policy.
I didn't ask if I should get one. I asked if there were resources to
help a newb make decisions regarding them. While I sense a certain
disdain in your response, I'll make some clarifying comments in the hope
that its worth the effort...

By way of analogy (only goes so far, I know, but certainly far enough),
let's take the realm of personal security, with which I am intimately
and extensively familiar. If someone comes up to me and asks me if I
could help point them to some resources about choosing a martial art, I
might answer as follows:

Should you study a martial art? Sure if you need to.

Probably not though. I would likely just ask the necessary, perhaps even
tedious guiding questions to help the novice understand why the question
lacks elegance and then try to make some reasonable suggestion for
further study. Something along the lines of: That's a pretty broad
question, grasshopper, are you wanting to study for health, safety, fun
or what? There's quite a bit of information out there on martial arts, a
pretty good place to start is
http://www.wikihow.com/Choose-a-Martial-Art, it's not a highly technical
reference, but it's pretty broad in its coverage and it's written for
the lay person. Oh, you've done Karate for a few years and Aiki, as
well. Huh, ok, in that case you need to self reflect a bit and perhaps
read some of the history associated with a variety of eastern and
western arts to inform your decision process...

I know, I'm a softy at heart and I'm by no means an RTFM, you should ask
better questions you moron, type. Although, I certainly have no problem
with those that are, other than finding them droll.

A simple, I don't really know of a good, current overview of Smart Cards
for non-expert users would have sufficed, that is if you lack knowledge
of such. Otherwise, I could sure use a steer to a good overview...
> Smartcards haven't fallen out of vogue, but they're also not useful to
> everyone.  Examine your needs, see if a smartcard can help satisfy those
> needs, and then make your decision.  If you decide to go that route
> there are plenty of people here who can help.
>
This is really good advice for practically any purchase/system
acquisition I'll ever make. I'll keep it in mind.


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