Posts by John Brown (no body) 25434 publicly visible posts • joined 21 May 2010
"Like Microsoft Entrails."
I couldn't quite work out why "Entra" didn't sound right and seemed to have negative connotations. It just felt "wrong". But seeing you spell it out as "Entrails" just nailed it. Maybe my subconscious was adding the "ils" and screaming "noooo, keep it away from me" down in the reptilian part of my brain :-)
Yeah, part of my job now involves using InTune so I'm finding my way around it with some corporate documentation and I come across something that looks "wrong". Just above the "wrongness" that my documentation shows as looking different is a "helpful" note from MS telling me I'm seeing the "new look" and to "click here for the old-style look". Thanks MS. Trying to learn a new and complex bit of software while you're changing the interfaces, live, from under me really makes me "love" the "user experience". You bastards!!
"Microsoft product experiences" (whatever the fuck that means!)
A them park ride? At least that's my best guess. My personal experience of Microsoft products is that when they work, they are ok. When they don, it's a fucking nightmare!!! But I don't think I have actual day-to-day "Microsoft product experiences". I do a job, I have tools to do that job. I don't give a fuck who created those tools if and when they work. I'd prefer to choose my own tools, but I have an employer who mandates which tools I use, so I just put up with the shit when it shows it's evil little turd brained "experiences".
"possibly intelligent life is very rare elsewhere in the Universe"
Considering how big we currently know the universe to be, the numbers of galaxies we can see, our knowledge vastly expanded by examples such as the Hubble Deep Sky image, it's simply incredible that Science Fiction has never envisaged more than a few dozen races in any of the concocted universe stories. Even SF like Star Trek with a "federation" spanning a whole quadrant of a single galaxy couldn't seen to imaging more than a few dozen intelligent species. So maybe the SF writers are correct, but even then, maybe being over optimistic :-)
"So, UTF-8 is actually harder than rocket science. Who knew? Personally, I don't believe Perseverance will be able to succeed until it learns to speak like a native. It's time to send an upgrade to handle UTF-8."
I'm not sure Navajo is native to Mars. I could be wrong. There are many legends of Star People and Star Gates etc in Native American folk lore.
"I have never seen one where I live. I did see an electric vehicle once, but it wasn't a Muskmobile."
I'm not sure when it started, if it's optional, or if anyone can have them, but number plates on EVs and hybrids tend to gave a green "flash" on them these days. It's not always obvious if a car is an EV or hybrid just by glancing at it unless you have a deep interest in cars, their make/model etc. There's a quite a few out there now that are pretty much exactly the same body as their ICE equivalents. You may have seen more than you think. Even Teslas don't especially stand out, there's nothing exceptional about their look.
"Just wait until the lithium batteries in one of these powerwalls catch fire and burn somebody's house down. The insurance and mortgage companies will soon put a stop to that idea."
There's a lot of these already installed in various parts of the world. I can't say I've seen any reports of them going up in flames. I have no doubt there will be some reports, but not enough to make it a big story yet or I'd probably have noticed by now, Got any links to actual events that might convince me they are a measurable and significant risk?
Not related to solar or power, but I have had occasion over recent years to deal with salesmen over some (to me at least) quite expensive purchases. The ones who start off all excited and talk about various finance deals all seem to cool remarkable quickly if not completely lose interest when I tell them I'm not interested in finance and will be paying either in full or across any interest free period. With consistently low interest rates (and having lived through some REAL high interest rate periods, I don't see the current situation as anything other than "low interest" even now,) it's often more economic to invest in long term home improvements up front than to borrow at variable rates.
The salesmen who stay enthusiastic after telling them about my payment are far more likely to generate a sale from me. I'd rather the salesman was more tied to the company selling the product for his wages/commission/bonus than to some faceless "finance company" with no interest in the goods or services I'm buying.
Agreed. As far as I can tell, his only USP is automated buying and selling of power to/from the grid to maximise profit, and it does seem like relatively small amounts at certain times of the years when the customer will see any of that profit in their bank balances. On the other hand, Tesla get to sell their over-priced systems and cream off a chunk of that trading profit for themselves for no further outlay.
Bulb, as with the other smaller retailers primarily failed because they weren't big enough to buy long term supplier contracts at low market prices and/or bet their business on being able to buy at lower spot prices by using technology to monitor prices and buy low. Once the market began to rise, their business model failed because there were no lower prices to take advantage of and the bigger "more expensive" suppliers were now the low cost suppliers, at least as long as their supplier contracts lasted. The disrupters were severely disrupted, primarily at cost to their their customers. In effect, they were "high speed micro traders", shaving small profits wherever they can find them and once those small profits dried up they were toast.
There is much right, and yet so much wrong with the "facts" presented in your musing. This results in what we now call "fake news". Some truth mixed with half-truths and outright "wrongs", all bundled up to sound reasonable to many readers. So much so, that I really can't be arsed to try to separate out and refute the half- and un-truths from the truths.
It always seems to be the case when climate or energy is debated. It brings out the extremist loons from both ends of the spectrum.
"Renewable generation IS the cheapest in the UK right now, but by the time it's gone through a dozen middlemen the prices are among the worst globally.
Direct your anger at the cause of the problem. Thatcher. Blair. Boris. Weak leadership and NIMBYism."
The first part could be solved by the people named in the second part, but keeps getting kicked down the road. The problem is tha so-called "strike price" of energy, originally designed to smooth out the peaks and troughs in prices and attempt to make nuclear viable in it's early stages. The "strike price" forces UP the prices of renewables in a way the suppliers, even if they wanted (and some do) to sell it at lower price points to the grid.
"including when any trial period ends, the deadline to cancel, the frequency of charges, the date of payments, and cancellation information – before collecting any billing information from the customer,",
Surely, in a land where the "contract is king", existing contract law ought to cover this. Or does the USA not have a legal concept of an "unfair contract"? Only providing the above information AFTER providing billing details and effectively starting the contract and payments would be unlawful in most civilised jurisdictions.
The beginning of the article is a little confusing.
"dispose of the 29-week-old fetus."
than goes on to say...
"providing an abortion to her daughter Celeste after 20 weeks of pregnancy,"
Later in the article, I am confused by the US justice system in the report.
"giving her 17-year-old daughter pills for an abortion"
and then states
"Celeste Burgess, now 18, who initially faced three charges as an adult rather than a minor,"
Is this an unusual quirk of the US justice system that you get tried as an adult if the "crime" comes to light after you turn 18 even if the "crime" was committed while under 18, a minor?
I do recall some more extreme case of minors being tried as adults, but that is exceptional, and this case doesn't seem particularly exceptional.
"Peer to peer also implies E2EE (I am assuming encryption since AFAIK every major smartphone messaging app is encrypted)"
That's a hell of an assumption P2P in no way implies E2EE or indeed any encryption.
"Remember the 'progressives' in the US want abortion literally to the point of birth with no need for a reason."
And by "progressives", you mean a tiny minority of extremists, not actual, everyday common or garden progressives. Is that why you posted as AC? Very few agree with legal abortion much after 20 weeks or so except under exceptional conditions.
The corollary to your statement obviously is "Remember, the 'regressives' in the US want no abortion AT ALL, after the point of conception".
If anything, having a PhD only means we know they are good at one subject. How that translates into other subjects is highly variable. I've met Profs who I wouldn't trust to tie their own shoelaces properly, despite being very nice people and well respected in their fields :-)
One of our clients has a large number of NUC-like devices from a well know "name-brand" OEM. On the whole, they are quite nice, screwed to the mount on the back of the screen, but the fans. Oh, the fans! I'd not say there's a large number of failures, but at least half of the hardware failures are the fans.
Even better (or worse, depending on your point of view), as with Commodore, the IP was sold off in different ways to different companies over time and it's not even all owned by the same company. If you hunt around for the stories, there are multiple companies claiming to be "Atari" or "Commodore" and are fighting over IP and trademarks to this day,
The problem with software is many and varied, from still using important parts of the code in later and current projects to some of the code in the old s/w being licenced from 3rd parties who may still be actively using it. Maybe copyright ought to be more like patents and the clock starts ticking from date of first publication.
"The problem is that a lot of games companies went bankrupt, so it's hard to say who owns what. I don't think TV and film are in a better state... I'm pretty sure you can't legally purchase and view more than 13% of films either. Though much of it is on YouTube anyway."
I think the first part is at least part of the answer to the last part. Rights, in some case, have transferred so many times through bankruptcies, mergers, take-evers etc that in many case, the "rights owners" don't actually know what they own.
Here's a relevant BBC News story from last week: Forgotten Jack Hilton book to be republished after bartender's discovery. In this case it passed down via two wills to a person who had no idea she was now the rights holder.
"It's true that you can use your own web server to publish information and share the links."
Carefull!! That's how they suck into their rabbit hole. Post a little truth, followed by some half-truths that almost sound reasonable then the real bat-shit crazy follows and it's too late. You're in and you can't get back out!!
I don't think that was what he meant even if it was fun idea :-) That design was never going to go anywhere near supersonic. It was only ever meant to be a "flying jeep" type thing. On the other hand, I too remember seeing artists impression of a concept aircraft with a circular wing but can't say if that was related to "boomless" supersonic flight,
"NASA should simply not be in the business of developing commercial passenger aircraft."
It's not. This testbed aircraft is and will never be even close to any form of commercial aircraft, except, possibly, as a billionaire cock extension. It's fortesting one single part of the supersonic flight profile. The article even tells us that. They are not, with this aircraft, looking at fuel consumption or even the noise of take-off, never mind the economies of production.
Also, The National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
"The City University of Newcastle upon Tyne."
Funny, but no cigar.
No such place as "City University" in Newcastle. There's Newcastle University and the ex-Polytechnical College now known as University of Northumbria.
"My trusty Henry is good enough for me, so I have no idea if the robosuckers work, but if I were ever to consider buying one it would probably be the best known brand."
My wife bought one recently. My heart sank when she told me. How much money did she just waste? She normally checks with me on any "tech" purchases first. Amazingly, it was pretty damned cheap, actually does the job in some sort of semi random fashion, doesn't have a network connection, doesn't use an "app" and is some Chinese brand I've never heard off, Onson F007 Robot Vacuum Cleaner. Cheap enough to try out and, for the price, I was relatively impressed. More importantly she likes it and after a few false starts, the rooms are now generally kept tidier so there's nothing for it to get stuck in. She normally lets it loose when I'm out at work and she can put her feet up :-)
On the other hand, maybe it failed because they didn't invest enough and tried to get rich quick from minimal investment? In principle, the idea sounds good. There's plenty of half decent city centre bars and restaurants that could turn over half or more of their space for mornings and afternoons for some extra income and I'd expect most of the users are not going to be wanting that space day in and day out 5 days a week. Just somewhere to park their bums for a few hours or even a whole day. But the space rental middle man would need to provide screens/keyboards in some form of easily moved form robust enough to be stacked away twice per day. In these days where city centres are quieter though, the kit might even be able to be left out all day at one end of the premises and only put away when things perk up in the evening. Much of the hospitality industry is complaining of hard times just now, especially city centre locations which are quieter due to WFH.
To be fair, if we are talking adaptive cruise control paired with good and proper lane keeping, it's fair to call that "super cruise control" when you consider that the default meaning of "cruise control" to most people is set the speed and the car maintains that speed unless you take action. Both are a very long way from self driving or full self driving.
(Although I'm a bit concerned about what the difference is between "self driving" and "full self driving". It feels like fast food joints only offering medium, large and extra large. Self driving is self driving. Anything more is the car deciding where to go, not you :-) Less than self driving is partial self driving. There is no such thing a "full self driving".
Yes, trying to explain that a punishment should feel the same no matter how much you earn is totally lost on some people. Often those same high earners who see parking fines as just slightly increased parking charges, for example, and continue park wherever the hell they like because they can afford to do it.
Reversing into a parking space is better on at least two fronts. Reverse gear, especially with a cold engine and richer mix is the worst for fuel economy so reversing out of a parking space costs you more and takes longer as you reverse turn, change gear then pull, away. Secondly, you have much poorer vision and sight lines when reversing out from between two other parked cars and being a car park, there are both people and cars moving around that you might not be able to see until you are at least half way out, especially if there are SUVs or vans on one or both sides of you. Driving out forwards means you can drive out and keep on going, so cheaper, and much less of the car needs to be carefully "nosed" out if your view is obstructed. Just stand in a supermarket car park for 10 minutes and watch people trying to park or pull out. It can be a fun diversion for a short while :-)
I wonder if it's not just how people park but also something in the brain regarding spacial awareness or something? I've had company cars for 20+ years and do high mileage so frequently get random hire cars when mine is in for a service. The first thing I do is adjust the wing mirrors so I can not only see properly behind with them, but also so they show the ground down the sides enough for lining up on the white lines in parking bays. Even the ones that come with rear parking cameras. Possibly because I'm fairly confident in my driving and parking and need to get used to a new car quickly, it's become almost second nature to adapt to a different car and it's size/handling. Maybe I should try to have a go with a Tesla some day and see if that one manages to confound me :-)
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