Posts by John Brown (no body)

Re: I'm getting too old for this shit...

I think that was the OPs point though. Do people actual send voicemail messages in such a way that some service or other will then email you an attachment with the voicemail embedded or linked? Also a greybeard here, and it's something I've not seen or done. I either get emails or I get voice messages left on an answerphone[*]. The only real oddity I've come across is my wifes dotty old Aunt who has a habit of sending SMS to the landline so we get a phonecall from BT that then uses a robot voice in attempt to read the text message out over the phone.

[*], Yes, I do live in the 21st century, I mean both traditional answerphone (built into the digital base station of the cordless phones) on the landline and "voicemail" on a mobile phone.

Re: I wonder

I find it strange that an individual store of a large chain is treated as an independent business unit and can independently unionise in this way. I noted a similar situation with the Amazon warehouse. Surely this should have been a national vote including ALL Apple retail store staff. Or is this just yet another way that $Big_Corp in the US operate? Every individual business unit is, at least on paper, a separate and notionally autonomous entity? Divide and conquer, except in this case, by dividing into smaller units, it actually makes it a bit easier to start a grass roots movement, but back on the other side of the coin, easier for $Big_Corp to stamp on it in one way or another (again, as shown by the Amazon warehouse vote)

Re: Coz war?

"So why is the war in Ukraine having an impact on global demand for consumer electronics?"

Well, there's also embargoes in shipping stuff to Russia, so that's another consumer market that is sinking fast. Then the increase in fuel cost and general costs of everything as a result of said fuel costs, which tends to reduce consumer demand on "luxuries" like consumer electronics, all directly related to the invasion of Ukraine.

And, because of how oil is sold, ie by auction, even countries who are, or are nearly, self-sufficient in oil, such as the US, are seeing fuel costs rise because they sell to the highest bidders, even if that means exporting it and going short at home, hence the home price rises. The oil costs the same to produce, but the oil companies are coining it in at the cost of everything else in the world.

Agreed. After all, by all accounts he's GOOD at what he does, but seems to have move around a lot. Is he driven to find new challenges? Seduced my better offers? A real shit to work with? Anyone have any insights?

Re: Grrr!

"In this case the whalers appear to have been taken as the whale seems to have used some not so spiffy securities as collateral for borrowing somewhat harder ones. Oops."

Excellent point. And who's to say this anonymous "whale" hasn't used that tied-to-the-US$ "harder" crypto and done the same but this time borrowed actual hard cash using that as the collateral?

Re: Greed

The accountants. because they refused the budget for a proper and safe portal and instead went with "free" because the only "cost" is the patient data.

You really shouldn't do that. It's not that unusual for a deleted email to suddenly regain some level of importance. At best, if disk space is an issue, auto-delete the deleted items more than <some calendar value> old, eg 6 months or a year.

Maybe not where you are, but plugs and mains power were standardise by government in the UK. The National Grid came into existence in 1926 by Act of Parliament, the old style round pin plugs in 1927 and then the current standardised main plugs in 1947. All were lead by Government with industry co-operation. Industry itself did not initiate national standards other than possibly individual companies with an intention of gaining a monopoly by growing large enough to take over or beat down the competition over a much longer timescale.

Re: Finger-Wagging

The saddest thing about your comment is that you feel you have the need to keep 3 loaded weapons, ready to fire, within easy reach inside your own home "for emergencies". That's a big part of what the other poster was referring to as the "America Problem".

Re: While ya'll

2 additional years on remand because, for obvious reasons, he has been refused bail. Even the US takes "time served" in account if subsequently sentenced to jail. If the US sticks to the guarantees it's given the UK government, then at most he's going to get about 5 years, to be served in Australia, will get the two years on remand taken into account and then, depending the Aussie justice system and any agreements they may make (or have made) with the US, his time in jail may be as much as halved and released "on licence". He could, conceivably, spend as little as one year in an Australian jail. Then again, he will spend time in US jail on remand awaiting his court date and during the trial. If that takes a long time, it's even possible that by the time he reaches Australia, there may be little to no time in jail.

Re: Careful what you ask for

"NHTSA: 'Self-driving' cars were linked to 392 crashes in 10 months

NHTSA data shows Teslas using Autopilot crashed 273 times in less than a year

That same report also includes the caveats that Tesla has far more vehicles with "self-driving" on the roads than any other company and that not all other "self driving" cars actually report individual accidents where the "self driving" or "advanced driver assistance" is at fault.

I'm certainly not here to defend Tesla in way shape or form, but I did read the articles on that report properly and fully. Clearly you have some other motive in posting something which on the face of it supports your position but when read properly, say almost to the opposite.

Re: Customer avoidance

"I had in mind the kind of stuff you can't keep a stock of, like fresh Coriander or Parsley,"

Even Aldi sell those in "grow pots", always fresh when you meed it. Just stick in the windowsill and give it a bit of water now and then.

Re: Absolutely superb episode

There's probably badge tracking going on "for safety reasons in case of fire" so the system always knows exactly who is where. Obviously the BOFH will have hijacked the system such that as he moves around the building, the systems wipe the data of his passing and automatically turn off the CCTV for his current location unless he instructs it otherwise, eg those occasions when he wants a record to use against others or with altered time-stamps proving he was somewhere else when the "accident" happened.

As someone so eloquently put in another comment on a different article, "rights" come with "responsibilities". Something many "rights warriors" conveniently forget while shrilly screaming about the rights that matter to "them" while showing little regard for others rights.

More supply and demand, I suspect. Airlines would prefer a large aircraft, fully booked, flying less frequently wherever possible. It's always cheaper. But persuading enough people to fly on your once per day huge aircraft is harder than filling multiple smaller aircraft flying at various times of the day, matching what the customers want to do.

Re: It's a dalek

A Dalek is a basically a tank with a living organic driver inside. A cyberman is a person largely replaced by mechanical parts but still retains the organic brain sans emotions and "humanity". This is a very primitive Quark (if we are sticking to Dr Who "monsters")

...and did you notice the nod to the Amiga when it started up with the "Insert disk" animation?

This is such a silly an bonkers project, it's almost too amazing and silly for words :-)

Re: Dodging

"I suspect the shareholders are ok with whatever terms the Chinese offered all those years ago."

Terms can change. Especially when it's an authoritarian government in charge of the terms. With the constant spats between the US and China, and the current example of Russia, I'll bet the bosses are keeping a very close eye on developments. (Or maybe have their heads in the sand while counting the profits, hoping things will stay the same)

Re: Federal Aviation Authority ?

Or follow the Chinese example and just build an island where you most want it to be :-)

Re: Backout procedure?

And, unlike James in the article, Step includes testing the change on the test line where he was trained and if that works, testing it out on ONE production line, not all of them at the same time.

Re: First mover advantage?

Yes, Google are anything BUT a first mover in the browser market. They were pretty much last to the party and leveraged their lead in other markets to push Chrome out there and introduce features which there own other internal dev teams knew about in advance so could use in other Google products before the rest of the market could catch up. Just taking the plays from MS in that respect. Even now, if you visit Google.com from a non-chrome browser, you still get frequent pop-ups suggesting a change to Chrome would be a good thing.

Re: Stop wasting you’re time!

"cranked Marshall amp"

Is that cranked to the distortion inducing 11? Through more distortion inducing effects pedals? :-)