I've had the opposite experience with my Fidelity card. I've accidentally swiped it a few times with no consequences, just had to insert the chip afterward.
Their fraud detection has been spot on. I must've gotten skimmed and incurred a fraudulent charge. The card was immediately cancelled, I was notified, and three days later I had a new card in the mail.
"This bill would require that any advanced mobile communications device, as defined, that is sold in California on or after January 1, 2015, include a technological solution, which may consist of software, hardware, or both software and hardware, that can render inoperable the essential features of the device, as defined, when the device is not in the possession of the rightful owner. The bill would require that the technological solution be able to withstand a hard reset, as defined. The bill would prohibit the sale of an advanced mobile communications device in California without the technological solution being enabled, but would authorize the rightful owner to affirmatively elect to disable the technological solution after sale."
Last year I charged $64/hour to do embedded software development. I made around $75k, but i only worked about half the time (75k/64 = 1172 hours). I lived in Chicago and my client was 3 hours away in Fort Wayne, IN.
Good money, low overhead working in the attic (pun intended!), and worked on site about half the time (stayed with a friend who lived there).
That dried up earlier this year and I was getting tired of Chicago, so I applied to a bunch of full-time jobs in California and took a 110k/year embedded software job in San Diego. I miss contracting and working on my own hours, but this larger salary, awesome benefits, and stable income are nice too. Though I just started working on a hardware start-up on the side. I'm hoping this will get big.
