* Posts by Kiwi

4368 publicly visible posts • joined 26 Sep 2011

DigitalOcean drowned my startup! 'We lost everything, our servers, and one year of database backups' says biz boss

Kiwi
Pint

Re: DigitalOcean hosts hackers

[citation needed] For both your first and last sentences.

Kiwi
Coat

Re: Sad

For non-businesses a simple monthly coping the data over to a CD will work.

What's a "CD"?

Oh, you mean those funny little disks that could be written and re-rewritten, but the likelyhood of reading the data was perversely inversely proportional to your need?

Doesn't "CD" stand for "Corrupted Data"?

Kiwi

Re: "We now have to explain to our <snipped too long E418>

Then finding it needs NT4...

You're in luck.

I was helping a mate clean out his garage on the weekend and found a virgin NT4 install CD. And some old boxen it'd probably run on.

I know exactly where it is.

Well, that is if the recyclers haven't yet processed it and shipped it all off to wherever they send it to. Better be in quick if you want it so first thing in the morning I can try to stop them :)

Kiwi

Re: Single backup, eh?

So the company kept single copy of its backups at the same provider?

I agree that DO should have handled the mess quicker, but well, if a company is treating its data that way, it's only a matter of time when they lose them again. And next time it might be not possible to blame DO for everything.

"Our company is a leading provide of total data protection solutions. If you sign up with us, we guarantee 24x365 availability of all of your data. Your data will be kept in a secure facility and in the event of an emergency you can rest assured we will be able to get you back up and running in a very short time frame.

You do, of course, need to have a secondary computer facility ready to go should you suffer a catastrophic failure. But rest assured out vans will be on site as soon as the way is cleared. "

Concept taken from a very old BOFH possible before Mr T was even working for El Reg where the company was taking a serious look at DR setups, where backups were housed in a backup firm's storage warehouse - note that the difference basically is back then you sent backup tapes to them to house whereas today you upload your data to them. Otherwise, the process has been the same for decades - how many even well-experienced firms actually have a truly decent backup plan in place should their main datacentre fail?

Kiwi
Big Brother

Re: Zero sympathy

data should be migrated to offsite backups. I use google APIs to backup to Google drive automagically

Be wary of any privacy laws you are under if you handle customer data on those backups :)

I'm a small businessman but when a web server got corrupted a month ago, I was able to rebuild and restore from scripts and offsite storage in under three hours.

I originally used "copy.com" to keep a couple of machines synced, but later went to my own Owncloud instance. I kept 2 machines running, a server in the office as well as a machine tucked away in a closet in a private home (with an ISP that quite happily gets out of the way of their customers doings). When the shop's phone lines went down during a flood, it was a matter of tweaking the DNS records to change the server. Same when the proper server's HDD suffered a sudden "grave spike in activity" as in some twat who was playing with cabling slipped and yanked the server cable, pulling it off its shelf onto the floor (the HDD didn't appreciate the sudden relocation).

I am quite happy for people to be using cloud stuff, but I do recommend you look to use your own first :) Given the number of services Google have suddenly killed of late, and given their "your data is OURS FOREVER" and "we can make derivative works form your data, or sell your data if we so wish" clauses in their T&C docs, well... (You, being a small businessman with so much to lose, did actually read those things before signing up, right???) That's why linkedin, Google and a few others never even got so much as a copy of our logo or other graphics provided to them by us (and surprisingly Farcebork did - at least they didn't claim perpertual ownership of your data!)

Kiwi
Pint

Re: Sad

Data egress is a cost of doing business (safely).

Lots of things are 'costs of doing business'. Most businesses don't get all this stuff right, legally or morally (some will do one much better than the other of course).

For a smaller business every penny can count, and sometimes things have to be cut. Hell, just look at the efforts Google, Apple etc take to avoid paying their fair share of taxes, or to provide decent working conditions for their staff. Look at all the "intern" crap that goes on in the "land of the free" where they've made an artform of not paying people a decent wage (though the rest of us can hardly argue!)

Big corporations with large highly-experienced legal and technical teams don't get it right so why should the rest of us be held to a higher standard? Other than for those of us who value integrity and customer service of course.

Does your own business get everything perfectly right?

These guys have done well, even if they had trust/performance issues with their provider.

Kiwi

Re: Zero sympathy

In my opinion these are the sorts of incidents which should give startups a wakeup and reality check, not a podium to preach from. You get what you pay for.

Yeah I know. How DARE they not use unlimited funds when starting out. How DARE they take a provider's word for the promised level of service. How DARE they not re-invent the wheel and build everything else from scratch!

</sarc>

If you're experienced in starting a business from scratch, especially if you started it from a shoestring (I have no idea what their budget was), you'll know how easy it is NOT to get everything right - even things you know you should do often get deferred until you have the readies to deal with them.

Kiwi
Pint

Re: So let me get this right...

No backup plan, no DR, no control of the servers that you need to run your business, no copy of your software you can quickly deploy somewhere else, no transnational persistence, and no easy way of explaining to your customers what an omnishambles this all is

Pretty normal business practice. How many companies own the building they're in? How many own spare buildings? What, no backup?

How many lease the servers that are in said buildings, rather than actually owning them? Leasing gives better tax breaks than owning after all.

Same for vehicle fleets - how many large transport companies don't own a single vehicle?

Besides, for a long time there have been businesses that offer 'total data solutions' from hosting to databases to backups. For the vast majority of firms this works well, potentially saving the company considerable amounts of money, time and effort. It's relatively rare that such things fail especially in such a spectacular manner - otherwise it wouldn't be newsworthy.

But yes, have your own backups (though ex-filtrating the DB data is another cost (either $ or data transfer allowance) - best find a way to update only changed records) and have a plan should things fail.

There are benefits to using large-scale providers. I used to do my own hosting. Keeping the website and emails servers synced wasn't too bad, mostly perfectly automatic but could take a bit of time if something broke. Failover wasn't automatic but only involved a simple tweak of DNS entries. But decent levels of backups was a different matter - storage is expensive for a small business especially with the levels of data we handled (full backups of customers drives, held for a month from the date the job was completed). At least cloud providers can get disks for probably less than 1/10th of what we paid. Hell, they could probably get a 32TB disk for the price we got a couple of 2nd hand 250G drives! And they (hopefully) have decent proven ways to manage your data and variations thereof, much easier and more reliably than you do.

How many firms could survive a fire in their basement rendering the building unusable for a number of weeks? At least if all your data is cloudy, you're safe from that!

Kiwi

Re: "We now have to explain to our clients, etc"

That begs the question of why such a small startup has such big customers so early on, but that's not really relevant

I can answer that...

We (my last company) had the right tools at the right time at the right price, and were able to convince the customers that we were able to do the job. It did help to have an historic tie-in with a long-standing and rather large manufacturing firm, but that only got us to the meeting. It was what I could show them we could do that got us the gig.

I'll just clear down the database before break. What's the worst that could happen? It's a trial

Kiwi

Re: There needs to be something visible

So you're conditioned to look at colours rather than developing a situational awareness?

The colours are part of the "situation awareness"

- How will molly-guard save you if you don't know what workload the machine is actually running?

When you type in eg "sudo shutdown -r now" while working under SSH, MG (which I only just learnt about and already have installed on a couple of servers) asks you to type in the hostname of the machine. If you're on the wrong machine then you'll type in the wrong hostname.

This happens is when people who actually do technical work on multiple servers at a time (or on a local machine and remote machine, or maybe ssh into one box and then from there into other boxes eg ssh into a gateway at a remote office then ssh into various servers etc in that office) forget which window they're typing into, which can happen when you're actually working on multiple things at once.

Some day you may be experienced enough to understand this.

(Yes, I've taken down machines I didn't mean to by either being in the wrong window of several, or by having backed out of/been dropped out of a 2nd or 3rd level machine and not seeing I'm not where I expected to be).

Kiwi
Paris Hilton

Re: There needs to be something visible

I seem to remember using a distro years ago that had a red desktop background with bombs on it when logged in as root...

I remember that as well! Had completely forgotten it. Mandrake or an early SuSE? Or the for-pay one that had the not-too-bad (for the times) "click and run" package manager, first time you clicked something it would install it if it wasn't already there?

I do remember the red background with the bombs. Kinda reminded me of Win311s' minesweeper..

Paris coz... I'll bet she has trouble remembering stuff too.

Uncle Sam wants to read your tweets, check out your Instagram, log your email addresses before you enter the Land of the Free on a visa

Kiwi
Coat

Re: Wondering

Just remember to have this shadow profile follow the great leader.

Of course that means you can't visit once the great leader is deposed and the new great leader takes over.

That's OK. I'll just use another profile.. I already have one... waiting in the shadows...

One man went to mow a meadow, hoping Trump would spot giant grass snake under flightpath

Kiwi

Re: childish

I haven't seen shite indicating what you just said.

You mean you've never watched any of his campaign speeches, or read any of his tweets?

Kiwi

Re: childish

"...juvenile insults are our POTUS,"

Got it in one...

So if you list something you perceive as "unjust" or "unfair" (God knows you little snowflakes can't bear unfairness) that there isn't a law saying you can't do it, really just doesn't count as a "crime".

Capitalising "God" suggests you believe in Him. Tell me, what does God have to say about "fair" or for that matter the manner in which immigrants are treated? Or is all that stuff about "not oppressing" and "do not show favouritism" not valid since it's Trump and its followers doing it? If you do follow God, then lets see if you can answer this - what is the Biblical backing for Trump's actions? How does his behaviour - especially his treatment of immigrants (illegal, potential or otherwise) fit with "Love your neighbour". Or does he think screwing/molesting everything he can get his filthy little hands on is obeying "love your neighbour"?

Perhaps it's because he's racist? Hmm, 1.3 million black people have jobs who didn't during Obama...

That doesn't mean he's NOT racist - just look at the garbage he spouted about Mexicans and those from countries further south.

Your country, once respected, is now one of the most hated in the world. Allegiences are being broken, a very bad recession seems about to start (whereas under Obama you had a growing economy - all those people who now have jobs got them because of the legacy of past governments, not because

of this twit).

But not of that is why I dislike him. Mine is simply based on the fact that he is a vile evil person, very selfish and exceptionally harmful to others. This psychopath you have as POTUS is not there for your benefit - if you benefit that's purely by luck. He is there for his benefit and his alone, and will not care the least who he harms along the way. His compulsive lying, his preaching violence towards those who disagree with him, his abuse of women (and, if the cases that have strangely been silenced are to be believed, little girls), his grandstanding and expecting everyone to like him - all show him to be a psychopath (thanks to the AC at https://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/containing/3792921 for pointing me to "The Psychopath Test").

You will come to regret having him anywhere near any position of power.

Kiwi
Mushroom

Re: Use another Jeremy...

He should've been met by Jeremy Clarkson instead. Now that would be worth watching.

Better still if Clarkson had been told Chump was responsible for lunch...

Kiwi
Coat

Re: Fake nudes

A teenager doing the lawn without being asked?

Obvious fake.

Not necessarily.

He clearly found a way to be a dick about it.

'Stick it to the man', so to speak.

Dunno if his parents were cut-up about his dickish behaviour when he mowed the lawn.

At least he can't be charged with a crime for sending dicpics on his phone this way.

And like all teenage boys, his concept of size is probably 'somewhat lacking'.

Google relents slightly in ad-blocker crackdown – for paid-up enterprise Chrome users, everyone else not so much

Kiwi

Re: I'm suffering from deja vu!

Try Waterfox or Palemoon.

Introducing 'freedom gas' – a bit like the 2003 deep-fried potato variety, only even worse for you

Kiwi
Pint

"...and yet we haven't seen the "runaway global warming", we haven't seen the massive sea level rises, we haven't seen squat."

Nice straw man you burnt there!

None of the mainstream predictions eg UN official IPCC ones, say that runaway global warming, massive sea level rises etc are happening now. What they say is that these things will happen within the next 30-50 years if we don't change drastically reduce CO2 in the atmosphere.

One of us may not know the definition of "straw man" :)

Tell me, what were the time frames of Al Gore's predictions in "Inconvenient Truth"? Was that not 'mainstream' - after all it was played in all the movie theatres and constantly played at schools for some time.

Didn't he claim that "within a decade" the sea levels would rise by some 6 metres? Well, I live in a coastal city and have ready access to several other areas along hundreds of miles of coastline. Coastline I've been familiar with for the >40 years I've lived on this planet. I can verify that sea levels haven't risen by as much as 6 millimetres in that time, let alone the amounts Gore was claiming.

And there was the famous "hockey stick" graph that predicted global warming on a rapidly increasing scale back sometime around 1999 IIRC. That was showing what, a 10+ deg rise by 2015 or thereabouts? Or was it 15deg by 2005? That seemed to get pretty much "mainstream" acceptance as well.

Like 'cold fusion' and 'peak oil', this stuff is perpetually '20-50 years away'. I'm picking on what we were being told 20 years ago. Really bad stuff should've happened by now. It hasn't. That makes it hard to believe the "it's going to be even worse!" warnings for 20 years from now.

What we ARE seeing is reduction in (Ant)arctic ice, retreating glaciers, higher frequency and intensity of extreme weather events.

The reading I've done suggests otherwise in most of those things. As to ice, well there is "They found a previously unmapped geological boundary was making the sea floor much deeper on one side, affecting the way the ocean water circulates under the ice shelf." from the article at https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2019/05/new-zealand-monitoring-possible-3-5m-antarctic-sea-level-rise.html - but note that I view New Hub as only marginally more trustworthy than most of NZ's news media.

Note that the GNS claim isn't "man made global warming causing the melt" but 'changes to the sea floor (caused by geological events) are changing the current flows around Antarctica, and that is causing changes to the ice sheets'.

https://www.futurity.org/antarcticas-ice-sheet-earth-rising-1793072/ could also be an interesting read.

But the number and intensity of hurricanes for the past century is well known and relatively much easier to record and quantify. And the last 30 years has seen a significant increase.

The stuff I've seen from searches (using phrases like "hurricane intensity last 20 years" suggests otherwise. I admit it's hard to find unbiased information from either side though :( I'd love to locate just simple raw numbers, not fudged, "corrected", bad numbers tucked away while good numbers highlighted and so forth.

There is also an alarming trend amongst the press - an example being NZ's 'Stuff' (the name says it all!) who now refuse to allow any question of climate change or other things to be published in their "newspaper". So an article showing a sudden increase in antartic sea ice, or an increase in polar bear numbers would NOT be published by them.

Incidentally I agree with you that nuclear power stations are much better for the environment than wind turbines, but either of them is significantly better than burning coal.

Glad to hear it. Yes, I'd much rather we got away from coal. I wonder how effective wind could be used for "pumped-storage" power stations - wind pumping the water from the lower lake to the top when it's available, and the water being used for power when not.

Since you say you are concerned about pollution (but not necessarily about CO2 emmissions), well, have you been to China where sometimes visibility is a couple of km or less because of smog generated by burning coal? Or ever lived close to a coal-fired power station where anything you clean gets grimy within days, and an abnormally large proportion of kids has asthma?

I've seen videos of China and other like places. I don't really want to even think about that any more! No wonder so many of them want out!

NZ doesn't have 'pockets of abnormal asthma'. Asthma was quite normal here at one point. Sadly our damp, mouldy housing alone contributed badly to that, without worrying about coal etc emissions. When I was a lad we still had lots of coal fires in houses and I do recall how in some neighbourhoods it could make washing the linen on a cold but clear day problematic. I do support burning of wood in decent fireplaces, if the ash is also handled well afterwards (ie into compost and back into plants). Of course, the source of the wood is also important! :). I'm of course also for doing a good job on insulating homes. A couple of friends live next door to each other, both houses with the same design built at the same time by the same people. One uses a considerable amount of heating and never seems to get warm, the other always seems warm yet seldom uses the heat pump - often just the heat from the stove is plenty at this time of year (outside air temps between 6 and 15C now). In winter the latter will have the heat pump on most of the time, but it doesn't have to do much work. The simple difference is one place still has the original insulation, the other had new stuff fitted in 2012 or 13 including underfloor insulation.

Maybe people who are for, against, or neutral to the idea of reducing CO2 emmissions can all come together to support nuclear power, then? (we can tell the bouncer to stop Greenpeace at the door )

Hell yes!

I don't doubt the climate shifts for various reasons. I doubt mankind can make much of a difference (although my religious beliefs suggest means but probably best we end that discussion here :) ), but that doesn't give us license to live in a highly polluting way. There's no point worrying about climate change when we're tossing plastics and other gunk into the oceans. There's no point worrying about sea level rises in a couple of hundred years when toxins spewed out the back of our cars will put you into an early grave. And really no point worrying about how cold or warm it is when we process the nutrition out of our food in our mad desire for larger portions and less effort at any cost. Want easy? Rice (or chick peas), tin of diced/crushed tomatoes, some spices, some meat (if desired) and/or other veg, onions and capsicum and other stuff, some water/fluid if needed - all in a pan (you may brown your meat first if desired). Simmer, stirring occasionally - great meal that is better in aroma and taste than anything you'll get from your supermarket, better for you, and quite easy!

I used to hate vegetables, and used to get sick eating them as well. Then I started growing stuff for someone else and sampled some of my own fare (they wouldn't trust my gardening till I showed them I was willing to eat it!) and, well, it really was a life-changing thing. I no longer get sick from eating them. I don't use any thing other than natural compost (kitchen scraps, weeds, grass clippings (push mower not petrol mower), and seek natural ways to control pests (traps, 'companion planting' and netting). So yes, air and soil quality are extremely important to me as is the local ecology - we've lost the natural enemies of slugs and thus I have a problem keeping slugs in check. I'm planning to find the best (preferably native) species and to try and re-introduce them locally.

I'm not worried about global warming or climate change. It will, from forces well outside my control. But I am going to do everything I can to keep my environment healthy. Perhaps that's how we need to best target things - forget about the "decades away" and the "big problems" and just teach people to love their local ground and to love their air, and to do what they can to keep those two things healthy. We do that, everybody wins. Every body has a better quality of life. It doesn't take much effort - if a fat lazy slob like me can do it and enjoy it then anyone can!

Kiwi
Pint

Re: Let me try to address Mr. Bob and co.

If not, do you have any preferred models where reanalysis has shown a good fit with reality?

That's the bugger with the "all the science says this is happening" argument. Back in the 80's and 90's all sorts of predictions were being made, with them getting more and more dire as time wore on.

Now we've passed the points on which all sorts of disasters should've happened at even lower CO2 levels than today - predictions made before the advent of the SUV and other 'wonderful' vehicles - and yet we haven't seen the "runaway global warming", we haven't seen the massive sea level rises, we haven't seen squat.

"The science is settled!" - yet it hasn't produced any of the sort of accurate results one would expect from "settled" science!

Anyway, thanks for the post. Now where's the popcorn? I'm sure the responses will be rather entertaining :)

Kiwi
WTF?

Re: Sleep is a Good Thing(TM)

I'm not going to spend more time with you than posting links. You aren'r worth the effort, you little man.

Wow.. Firstly, I've already quite proudly posted here in reference to my diminutive height so your attempt at insults falls rather flat. Not that I would consider your level of arguing to be worthy of offence.

Second... The greatest argument you can come up with is to quote the Guardian? You actually attempt to insult someone (and fail badly!) and quote the Guardian, and expect your argument to carry any weight?

Wow.. Just... wow...

Kiwi
FAIL

Re: Let me try to address Mr. Bob and co.

Oh, so much in your post to jump up and down on...you're not worth the fucking effort. Educate yourself or !@#$ off.

I used to be very much pro-wind and extremely anti-Nuke. I mean I am a Kiwi for a start, and quite left-wing in most of my political views.

Someone once challenged me to 'do the math'.

I did. Now I am anti-wind and pro-nuke.

I did educate myself. Perhaps, rather than resorting to abusing someone or dismissing an argument because they quote something from a collection of books you dislike...

You claim that there's a lot to "jump up and down on" in my post, yet you don't even begin to answer one of them, aside from showing you know little to nothing about how much goes into making wind-turbines.

How much carbon is released during the manufacture of the turbine? To be fair, you can exclude stuff that wouldn't go into other types of generators. What about the roads to the site? The land clearing? Getting the transmission cables to the site? The transformers and switch gear?

How long is the life span of a wind turbine? What are the costs in decommissioning and replacing a wind turbine?

What is the damage caused when a turbine fails - which they are known to do in a quite spectacular fashion (although most fail in rather mundane ways, thankfully).

How much CO2 is released by the backup generators ready to produce power when the wind stops? Yes, they do exist sorry - you need to look into that some more if you have doubts (grid storage batteries could help alleviate this problem, but at what cost?)

And for a real education, spend some time close to a wind farm. Notice the noise, the vibration that soaks through the ground, the flashing of light and shadow. Think about what that sort of stuff does to people - who can rationalise it - and wonder at what it could well be doing to the wildlife. They're known to be very deadly to local bats, which are considered important for the local ecology. And see if you can find any bird life as well - I'd be very interested in that one myself (I suspect little to no birdlife will remain but I would be very happy to be proven wrong!)

Before you tell others to get educated, get a few clues yourself.

Kiwi

But don't worry guys, so long as us plebs keep paying for bags and avoid using a straw when we manage to scrape together enough pennies to eat at a restaurant, the planet will live!

A former friend recently treated me to a 'proper barista-made coffee'. A rather disgusting fluid that left me longing for the nearest instant I could find, no matter how cheap, hence the "former" friend.

However, I wasn't too interested in the vile fluid that dares to try to carry the name "coffee". What I was interested in was the comestible paper cup, the not bad straws in a container on the table - also made of compostable substance though still feeling a little card-y, but the thing that got my attention was the plastic lid. A fully compostable plastic.

I've also been coming across these in courier bags and other things - "eco bags" that are (I hope) fully compostable. If this stuff is not too bad, they why are we not seeing so much more of it? All those wonderful and very useful supermarket bags for a start - instead of getting rid of them (in favour of stuff that's reputedly far worse for the planet!) we could've had compostable plastics made from plant material.

We can be doing so much better to look after our planet!

(PS, the bags don't seem to take very long at all to break down - the most recent to go into my compost heap was a little over a month ago and when I gave it some stirring yesterday there was no sign of the remains of the bag)

Kiwi

Re: Correction of article information

But as we all know, molecules of American Freedom are actually found in lead. They must be, because the US armed forces export lead at high speed and in large quantities to all manner of foreign countries that they think are in need of freedom.

Reminds me, Mars has Oil and needs some FREEDOM!

Kiwi

Re: Bob...

if you are gong to argue against the entire population of the World's Climate Scientists

Er, no. A rather large number of 'climate scientists' are NOT on the side of 'AGW'.

Spend a few minutes looking around.

Kiwi
Trollface

Re: Also...

It was only fast food - it wasn't like they renamed their royal family

Have you seen the size of the average Yank???? "Fast food" is their 'royal family' - and even their god!

Kiwi

Re: Also...

Perhaps we ought to remember that the Third Reich declared war on the United States.

But the US didn't seem to be interested in doing much about it until fighting the Germans became rather popular.

Like usual, the rest of us were doing it for a while before they came along. They the come in and try to act as if they'd been the first to do it.

Kiwi
Trollface

Re: My main regret ...

He won't meet with her for a few simple reasons.

1. She is a girl

She's female, and a child. There are abundant rumours that this may in fact be more than enough to get CMIC 'interested', he may even wish to sit down with her and 'discuss some hard things' that 'just came up'.

Kiwi
Trollface

Re: My main regret ...

If the wall is high enough and sealed well enough, we could make it into a swimming pool.

This is Yankeeville you're talking about. Would you want to swim in that water?

I think it'd be more suited to a toxic waste tank. Or a sewer.

Kiwi

Re: Sleep is a Good Thing(TM)

No scientist has ever talked about meltdown.

True, Al Gore is no scientist. But someone put him up to the "hockeystick graph". I'll bet that person at least claimed to be a scientist.

Or are you saying that Gore was actually deliberately trying to make the AGW stuff look stupid? Is he actually in the pay of "Big Oil" et al, who paid him to give us anti-AGW types someone to point and laugh atwho would make such a mess of things that we could legitimately doubt and question the AGW [cough]'science'[cough]?

Taking out burning fossil fuels and slash and burn the biggest source of water vapour is agriculture all over the world, taking the water from river lakes and underground to spread it on the fields accelerates evaporation.

You miss these teency tiny little places called SEAS AND OCEANS, which are in many places heated by underwater volcanoes and rifts. It is responsible for far more atmospheric water vapour than mankind could ever manage (at least unless we dropped every nuke we have into the oceans - but then even that would probably only be a fraction of the water vapour emitted from geological or solar effects).

Waves breaking on the shore, or indeed breaking within the ocean itself, do quite a bit for increasing evaporation.

Kiwi
Thumb Down

Re: Sleep is a Good Thing(TM)

Add 2C increase, and global temps are high enough to create great changes in weather and sea levels. Doesn't sound like much, but ask people that live along the coast what that will mean - add say, 10ft to sea levels, no, make that 5 ft, and places like Bangladesh lose huge amounts of land. Cities like Miami, New York City, Shanghai, etc, lose big chunks too.

Yes. I was so saddened when my coastal city of Lower Hutt disappeared under the sea back before 2005 and.. No wait, the predicted sea level rise didn't happen back then, sea levels now are the same as 100 years ago, why should I believe the alarmists about the future when every single sea level threat has failed to materialise?

EVERY SINGLE ONE has failed to occur. So why should I believe your claims that the rapture will happen 24 Maysea level will rise by 5ft in a few years?

See https://www.google.co.nz/maps/@-41.1052745,174.904395,3a,75y,39.58h,87.86t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sGOTcWQ3rDWWnWChvzF2b3g!2e0!7i13312!8i6656. I've been driving that road on a regular basis for the last 30 years. That's the Tasman Ocean to the left there (well, an inlet from it - I doubt the ocean has much of a difference in level from the inlet a few hundred yards away). The roads been there more than 50 years. Every windy day during high tide we get waves splashing onto the road, sometimes washing debris onto the road. Guess how close the water gets to that spot at high tide? I'll give you a hint.. To quote wassisnames song, "Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was".

Wanna talk about what it's like to live in coastal areas? Try talking to someone who does, rather than spouting off this alarmist nonsense. Try visiting reality instead of spouting the terrorists's lies. Some of us here do live around low-lying coastal areas and do actually look out our windows at what is going on.

(That said, I'd much rather see Nuclear power than anything else, especially anything that burns "fossil fuels" - I prefer Hydro over Nuke as at least Hydro is renewable - and I much much much prefer people learn to use less 'leccy than build more power plants - although if NZ was to go for nuclear in a big way we would never have to fire up out coal/gas plants again and could start to phase out our hydro schemes)

Kiwi

Re: Now where do humans put all their capital cities?

The poor don't have that option. Those who die won't be those responsible. Not unless there's some sort of revolution that brings those self-serving idiots down. Hard.

You do realise that the sea level rises are measured in micrometers per millennia, rights? It's not exactly going to be coming up so fast that people don't have time to run from it.

Although I currently live far enough above the sea levels that even a large tsunami is not a concern, I would happily live on the coast again. It's not a change to the climate that I need to worry about, it's pollution, earthquakes and landslides that are the key concerns.

Kiwi
FAIL

Re: Big misconception: "CO2 is plant food"

(1) photosynthesis converts CO2 into bound carbon and oxygen, using energy from the sun. This process does not release energy, so please don't consider CO2 as 'food'. We use the bound carbon and oxygen as food when we eat plant matter - we parasitic ally consume the energy the plant stored.

(2) the growth rate of plants is rarely limited by the availability of CO2 - having more available won't make plants grow much faster or better. Look at the ingredients of your common fertilizer if you want to learn more.

Well. 1) Plants use the carbon as a building-block for making the structures that g9ve them their mass - NOT for energy (although carbon is useful in some chemical reactions that are critical to life (at least as we know it).

2) Yes, it's obvious CO2 isn't related to plant growth. If it was, greenhouse growers would be pumping tons of CO2 into their greenhouses to increase plant yield, but since they never do that obviously.. Oh, shit, wait a minute...

Kiwi
Boffin

Re: Sleep is a Good Thing(TM)

The ozone "hole" is repairing it's self, primarily due to us stopping releasing CFC's into the atmosphere

Many moons ago a friend of mine gave me a demonstration. Bucket of CFC. Tipped into another bucket. Second bucket picked up and tipped into the first.

The point - this gas that was supposedly causing the ozone hole was too large.

I also remember stuff from a few years before that where there was talk that the US wanted to "punch holes" in the ozone layer to help with some astronomical observations (or was it high-altitude atmosphere? Quite certain it was the astronomical stuff though). The sudden 'hole in the ozone layer' thus never bothered me because I just linked the two events - "we want a hole" and "we now have a hole". I was quite surprised that it became linked to CFC.

Not that using CFC was exactly a good thing, not at all bothered with their passing (so long as the stuff used in their stead is less harmful - not exactly a certainty when we're talking greenies).

Kiwi
Facepalm

Re: Sleep is a Good Thing(TM)

Well, not actually making money "From" it, but making money by denying it and carrying on as before. It's their documented strategy, and it has varied from total denial at first, to well, it's not as bad as they say it is, with lots of obfuscation thrown in and diversionary tactics and what-a-bout-ery.

's funny. I hear lots about how the oil companies are doing all this stuff.. But seeing actual evidence of it is another matter.

Just like the massive sea level rises. Where's the evidence? "Oh trust me, it's there if you look. If you can't see it then you're just a DENIER! If you can't see how the see level has risen you should go kill yourself coz you're just an evil denier! I don't care that you can measure the sea level on your coastal cities and compare that with >100 years ago, the cities are now under water and if you claim you're living there you just a liar and a DENIAR!!!!!!1!!!!111!!!!11!!1!!1!!1!!1111111!1!!1!!

Also of interest is you said nothing to refute my point that Gore el al have made a lot of money from this and live a lifestyle that strongly suggests they don't believe what they're spouting..

"...diversionary tactics and what-a-bout-ery..."

Yes.. Your entire post even.

Perhaps you could answer the challenge? Should it not be a concern that Gore's "carbon footprint" is probably more than all of us in this thread combined? Wouldn't you expect to find him in a "tiny house" living self-sufficiently, generating all his own power needs, driving a small electric car (or using pedal power/public transport etc) if things are really as dire as he claims?

Quoting the Bible again - it says you'll see a prophet "out in their field", IOW they live what they believe. You see it with so many others as well, they change their lifestyle to match what they think is coming - if they think the property market will boom they buy houses, if they think it will shrink they'll sell. If someone thinks San Andreas is about to go and wipe out several cities, they'll move out of those cities. If they think the US is about to be nuked they leave (or head for the hills). If they think a certain food is toxic they stop eating it, if they believe vaccines are the devil's jizz they prevent their kids from getting vaccinated.

Gore claims to believe we're damaging the planet with CO2 and the sea levels will rise and various other things. Yet where/how does he live? His actions should be speaking far far louder than his words!

Yes, I do believe we are tossing too much pollution into the atmosphere - so I do what I can about it and try to get others to do the same, starting with growing your own food where you can, living efficiently in your energy use (eg insulating your house if you live in places like where I do) and so on. Pollute less, use less power, buy less and make your own land productive, much less reliance on imports please! And that's what I live. My lifestyle reflects my beliefs about what is coming (I also have a large amount of rainwater stored as I expect I'll need it when summer starts in a few months)

Gore doesn't appear to live what he claims to believe, and if he doesn't live it then it's a fair bet he doesn't believe it.

Kiwi
Holmes

Re: Let me try to address Mr. Bob and co.

Especially scary is that the influence of CO2 on our atmospheric temperature, predicted more than half a century ago based on a thermodynamic understanding how much energy enters and leaves the atmosphere, seems to lead to quite predictive models.

"Half a century ago" - you're calling this 'accurate'? When they were telling us we were about to enter an ice age and most (if not all) mankind would be wiped out?

Yes, very accurate that. Why, just today I had to clear a 3,000 mile deep snow drift just so I could let the cat out.

Let me finish by a question: is there any particular issue that would convince you about climate change?

The climate is in perpetual change. Whether or not we have an influence on it, and how much, is up for debate - my ancestors figured that out long ago when they cleared the trees in Australia and accidentally created a desert where once there was some pretty nice land.

What would convince me about the "imminent catastrophe" would be one of the many "predictions" being half right. So far they're worse than the "moon guy" and his earthquake predictions. Massive sea level rises? Not happened, sea levels are stagnant (of course that's because of 'Isostatic rebound', or so I am told...). Antartica ice-free? Nope. Seems the ice there is expanding ("Oh but that's due to climate change. We were wrong on the ice melting due to global warming, it's actually getting more ice due to global warming and more ice there proves how right we were!!!!"). Maybe some of the other predictions? Oh dear.. Not one.

In the Bible we're told that "If what a prophet says fails to happen, you can ignore the rest of what they say". Well, lets see if we have a reason to listen to the climate fear mongers? Not a single prediction even close to reality. The TVNZ weather man has a better chance of predicting the weather on a random date (with him neither knowing the date nor even the planet the prediction is for!) than these guys - and I don't think he's ever done a reasonably accurate forecast once.

What to do about things is another question. Perhaps we should go with wind power - where you tear up a lot of otherwise pristine ground, build massive concrete foundations that release huge amounts of CO2 (not that CO2 is a bad thing, in fact it's really good for the health of the planet especially while we're in such a CO2 drought!). There's the trucks to move the things to site, the creating of the roads (not always an issue but in some places they do a LOT of damage to the existing landscape). There's the backup generators (have to be ready to instantly provide power the moment a wind turbine stops). And the maintenance. And when the turbines fail and spread burning debris all over the countryside (not common I know, but a lot of pollution when it happens!). Wind turbines are unlikely to recover the 'cost' of building them. Then there's the reputed loss of bird life around them, and the stress the noises and flashing light/shadow cause to other animal life around the area. If you doubt it, spend a day near a wind turbine...

Much of the other stuff proposed to help 'tackle climate change' has been quite bad as well. Do you remember all the fuss about 'bio fuel'? Did you ever give thought to the massive deforestation that was going to be needed for that? But 'bio fuel' was going to save the world!

Worrying about climate change is one thing. Fucking up the planet doing stupid things to fight it is another - and thus far that is the road that has been chosen, destroy the planet in the name of saving it. Those who come up with these ideas should lead by example, spend the last moments of their lives in the same state they want for the rest of us.

If you claim to be scientist then do some damned science, or at least look at the math.

And yes, actually I do my best to reduce use, reduce waste, and live efficiently without polluting. The ground is very important to me - that's where I grow my veggies, and anything bad that gets onto my plot makes my food taste bad. I don't care about the source, pollution is pollution and I don't want it on my plants. The climate isn't an issue with me, not even remotely. What is an issue is the quality of the air, and how it affects what I want from life. Better air means better life - for myself and more importantly for those I love.

Kiwi
Facepalm

Re: Sleep is a Good Thing(TM)

Anyone who thinks basic chemistry and physics prepares them for climate science is a fucking ignorant, self-important idiot. Or a shill for certain organizations who profit from ignoring the obvious.

You mean like Al Gore and all his rich buddies? Those who make $billions demanding the rest of us shell out $taxes so they can fly around the world to their next conference ('flying's bad, mmkay? Don't do it. We only do it so we can quickly get to this tropical resorthotbed of uneducated people who quickly need to be told how bad flying is, before we fly to the next resort islandimportant conference. Don't fly, it's bad, mmkay?')

Who is making money from this? Who is living as if what they say isn't actually reality?

That should tell you something. That should tell you a lot. Unless you're "ignoring the obvious".

Kiwi

Re: Sleep is a Good Thing(TM)

Plainly we cannot add CO2 to the atmosphere for ever, so at what point does it become a problem?

I'll be happy with double what we have now. Most life seems to be quite capable of surviving quite a lot more CO2 in the atmosphere than we have now - in fact most life is designed for it to be higher.

And in case you've missed my earlier comments, I'm someone 'from the land' growing up in rural NZ. I grow as much of my own food as I can. I also collect my own water (large rainwater collection) to a) give me security of supply in times of shortage or earthquake (with a large enough quake it could be months before my suburb gets city-supplied water), b) lessen the pollutants going into the ocean (both by reducing run-off and reducing the treated (and thus chemical-laden) waste water) and c) reduce the load on the local stormwater system, which for the last 50-60 years have been prone to flooding (city expanded beyond the capacity of the drainage). I absolutely hate pollution, both where it contaminates the land and also puts bad stuff into the air.

But I don't consider CO2 to be pollution. I know it is food, and of fundamental importance.

I promote living in a way that lessens pollution - ie don't buy an electric car and dump your old car until 1) the grid that charges the EV is using renewables (or at least nukes) and 2) your old car is running badly enough that the EV will actually reduce pollution overall - if you dump a good car just to buy an EV then you're adding to the pollution by a substantial amount, much more than the EV will reduce in it's lifetime. Reduce energy wastage where you can - even if your city supplies power from 100% renewable energy, expanding energy use means new power stations, new transmission lines etc - all which adds to the pollution of the world rather than reducing it. Using less electricity helps offset the extra load of the new neighbours.

Reduce your waste and push for better food packaging and better local recycling. We should be able to do 100% recycling and landfills should be going bankrupt, but we have this screwed up idea about what is and isn't good handling of our waste. Dumping it in a hole in the ground, or filling up a previously pristine green valley is NOT a good way to handle waste.

And live well. Don't make yourself poor and go without just because of what the climate fear mongers say. Look at their leader, Al Gore - does he live in a green manner? No? So why should the rest of us?

Please back up your answer with peer-reviewed science.

You first thanks :)

The health of my land is very important

Kiwi
Holmes

Re: @veti @ Geoffery Sleep is a Good Thing(TM)

Yes, and did you not recognize that many tried to predict the average temperature with models that were just as flawed? Hence the point that both have the same track record.

Not just the temperatures. Also note the sea level rises, where Gore et al were saying we'd get massive rises in "just a few years", "unless we take drastic action NOW!!!1!!!1!1!!!11!!1!!!!1111!!!!1!!1!!!"

Lower Hutt is still above water, as is Wellington (or maybe my calendar is wrong and it's not 2015 yet?) Petone Wharf, built in 1907 is still the same height above MSL as it was in 1907 - same for many other wharves around NZ older than 100 years.

Some places are sinking - that happens with erosion and also has been known to happen with all a sorts of island nations over the centuries. Other places are rising as geological forces cause some areas to move up and others to move down.

Remind me.. Mr Gore - so fearful of catastrophic sea level rises within a few short years.. What sort of land area does he own these days? If he lives in or owns land in any coastal areas that would suggest he doesn't believe what he was saying. I wonder if he lives in a small house which is environmentally friendly, or does he live in a place with a MASSIVE "carbon footprint" that would show he does not believe the lies that made him rich?. Nah, surely he lives in a tiny self-sufficient 0-carbon house with lots of trees around it that he's planted himself on what was once clear land, not a massive block of formerly forest land he's had cleared for a massive house that has a higher carbon footprint than the all the commentards combined?

CO2 is what plants live on. Plants are what meat lives on, and meat is what we live on. Remove CO2 from the atmosphere (or reduce it to the levels the climate fear mongers want)

Last week we had kids doing protest marches around the world. They stopped traffic, meaning massive amounts of extra carbon released into the atmosphere. It'll take years, if not decades, for the carbon levels to average out back to what they would've been if it wasn't for these marches. In one day those protesting for climate change did more damage than they'll be able to "undo" in their lifetime. But don't let that stop the scum promoting this garbage. The climate change fearmongers - the leaders of it anyway - are not interested in 'saving the planet', they're only interested in their wallets at the expense of everyone else. Just look at how Gore and the others live now if you have any doubts about their true motives.

</rant>

Kiwi
Unhappy

Re: @ Geoffery Sleep is a Good Thing(TM)

They mostly tend to be fringe types who concentrate on whichever bits they can wrest to ensure that they keep control over their followers and ignore all that peace, tolerance and living quiet lives bits.

It's the followers of this who most concern me (for want of a more appropriate word than "concern" - it's not something that keeps me up at night).

I've seen one or two of these prediction videos on YT. Week later we're still here. Week after that almost exactly the same video is released with a few bits of text changed, and yet none of the followers seem to notice. Almost like the change of who we're at war with in 1984. How can they miss that these people have been "wrong"[1] 30 times in the last year?

[1] I say "wrong" in quotes because the people making the predictions aren't doing it for the sake of making predictions. They're doing it for the sake of the nice bit of revenue they can get from "christians" who haven't bothered to understand the Bible, or who insist on reading versions translated hundreds of years ago before significant changes to the English language, meaning the definition of many words has changed significantly. Those who make the predictions know what they're going, they're making money from the stupidity of people who won't spend a few minutes a day reading their Bible.

IEEE tells contributors with links to Chinese corp: Don't let the door hit you on Huawei out

Kiwi
Pint

Re: @ hammarbtyp

I read Jon Ronson's rather excellent book "The Psychopath Test" a while back.

Damn you!

When I read your post I immediately wondered if a good friend of mine would have that book. Sure enough he did (he actually mentioned the case of Broadmoor/Tony to me a few months back).

Now I'm reading it.

I somehow doubt I will sleep tonight.

Thanks for the sleepless night.. And thanks very much for the tip to a good read that'll fill it! :)

(I agree with the Scientologist guy BTW - psychs are themselves rather dangerous types who make everything up as they go along - psychologists being the worst among them)

Kiwi
Coat

Re: Presitator for life

And had JFK not been assassinated, would his legacy be anywhere near as big as it is?

I saw a documentary on that.

Turns out that no, had JFK not been assassinated he would've been arrested within days and spent the rest of his life in prison.

Fortunately the crew of a wayward mining ship with some sort of time-travel thingy were able to assist him and have him assassinate himself.

I say, Eaton boys are flogging spare capacity on data centre UPS systems to keep lights on in Ireland

Kiwi
Trollface

Re: the house of hufflepuff

You could harness the output of Trump.

I was actually thinking earlier today that he could single-handedly solve all of the worlds energy problems!

First, there is the thermal differential caused by his super-chilled heart and the vast amounts of hot air he produces.

There is the noxious gases that emanate from him - surely something that vile must have a fair amount of volatile material in it!

Speaking of volatile, there is his temper - that too should have considerable amounts of usable energy behind it.

And we really must do something about the piles of bovine excrement that pours like a wide river from his mouth.

Not only could he solve the world energy problems, he'd also solve world hunger! (though personally I'd rather starve...)

Oh, the massive sky dong? Contrails from 'standard' F-35 training, US Air Force insists

Kiwi

Re: Where's the US Army?

USN: Check.

"Two Navy aviators who used their EA-18G Growler to draw a giant sky penis over Washington State have been disciplined, according to Navy officials."

Thanks. Best laugh I've had in ages! You just couldn't write this stuff...

Using a "Growler" to draw a dick... Beaut! :)

Tesla's autonomous lane changing software is worse at driving than humans, and more

Kiwi
Pint

Re: Autopilot is itself Incomplete

the idiotainment screen in it didn't dim with the instrument lights, either automatically when it got dark or using the manual instrument-light dimmer control.

Ouch! I feel your pain. I do struggle with light at night, and try to reduce as much in the cab as I can. It'd seem logical to reduce the screen brightness when someone wants to turn the instrument lights down - by doing that they're indicating they want less light!

Thanks for sharing. I'm getting scared I may have to change my policy of running a car until it doesn't make economic sense to do so, and finding whatever old cars I can just to keep from this.

or invest in some glue and black padding.

Kiwi
Pint

Re: Unconstrained College Students Dataset:

This is illegal in California, if not world wide, for violating copyright laws.

Pretty sure it's not worldwide. AFAIK in NZ you can use pictures taken in public areas without any permissions, otherwise the news media would be in deep trouble PDQ.

But something I'm interested in looking up more - thanks for the tip.

(Would also be of interest in the speed camera situation, as the mobile cameras that plague[1] this land are run by private citizens and thus for commercial gain)

[1] No, they're not a deterrant for bad driving that causes accidents. Speed itself seldom causes accidents (though it can make them worse) - not driving to the conditions, failing to indicate, failing to give way, driving on the wrong part of the road - those are the things that cause accidents. Driving at 105 on a road built for 120 but limited to 80 isn't going to cause a crash. Driving into a stationary object at walking speed is.

Germany mulls giving end-to-end chat app encryption das boot: Law requiring decrypted plain-text is in the works

Kiwi
Unhappy

Re: why not?

They don't even allow Google Street view in Germany

A shame. I visited with GE and initially couldn't seem to get it in some smaller locale (can't recall the name). Then I decided to try Munich, and sure enough lots of 360 panoramas as well as streetview at least on some main road.

I was full of hopes that there was a country that kept that lot out, but sadly no such luck :(

'Evolution of the PC ecosystem'? Microsoft's 'modern' OS reminds us of the Windows RT days

Kiwi
WTF?

Seamless updates "invisibly done in the background; the update experience is deterministic, reliable, and instant with no interruptions".

Agree with the many comments up above.

However, to be "invisible' there would be no required reboots, no measurable impact on system performance or network bandwidth (bye-bye all that peer-peer update sharing slowing down even fibre connections!), no breaking hardware and the one MS will find really hard to swallow - NO MORE DELETING OR ADDING PROGRAMS AGAINST THE USERS WISHES!

MS update is quite reliable however - much like a serious illness is.

Secure by default since "the state is separated from the operating system; compute is separated from applications; this protects the user from malicious attacks throughout the device lifecycle".

The only "Default" with MS 'security' is de faultiness of their security.

Always connected. "All of a user's devices are aware and connected to each other."

HELL NO!

I actually prefer to be working across 2 or 3 different platforms (Android, Linux and whatever my dumbphone runs on). Something actually finds a hole in my network and hoses the computers? Well at least I have the tablets working. Something takes out the internet? At least I can still communicate with people.

If I want to share stuff I'll either 1) use SSH or Samba to grab it over the net, plug in a USB cable, or download it from a server (eg owncloud/nextcloud). Or BT. I do sync calender, contacts and emails although I seldom do email from the tablet. Aside from that, I have nothing I wish to sync. I know others do, but that sort of stuff doesn't need the sort of interconnection that MS is drooling over. Blue Proximity can be nice (at least as far as locking things if I get up and leave), but I very rarely have people around where that's an issue.

Having the level of interconnect that MS is lusting after puts you much more at risk of data loss.

AI-powered with "cloud-connected experiences that use the compute power of the cloud to enhance users' experiences on their devices. These experiences are powered by AI, so a modern OS is aware of what a user is doing tomorrow and helps them get it done."

Yes. TEendARS.

Multi-input. "People can use pen, voice, touch, even gaze – whatever input method a user wants to use works just as well as the keyboard and mouse."

Wow. Welcome to the 90s.

Multi-form factor. "A modern OS has the right sensor support and posture awareness to enable the breadth of innovative form factors and applications that our partner ecosystem will deliver."

And that.. Somehow just looks scary. I'm sure no one will find a way to abuse that. If my posture suggests 'self-abuse' then I don't want any one else to be noticing it tyvm.

That said... MS is welcome to watch me do that through any cameras. They may need to purchase a truckload of carpet cleaners and vomit-removers though, and increase the compensation fund for staff mental abuse....

That's a hell of Huawei to run a business, Chinese giant scolds FedEx after internal files routed via America

Kiwi
Angel

In other words, according to FedEx, yes, some packages went "the wrong way"

There, FTFY.

Remember, the FIRST Rule about doing something dodgy: DON'T GET CAUGHT!

Ackshually.. Sometimes getting 'caught' is the best defence. You can claim you were innocent of any intentional wrongdoing 'because if I was truly up to no good I'd've legged it!' or 'Sorry, I thought the building was abandoned and I was lost while tramping and looking for somewhere to wait out the storm' etc (as rather poor examples but I'll let others think of better ways to make this claim :) )

Kiwi

Re: Future precautions

How is a package shielded from GPS not shielded from cell towers?

Well.. Where I am sitting in my lounge room my Wifi is the strongest signal. Next is the cell tower - nearly full bars on my phone. Way down the list is the GPS which is marginal on my tablet (where I significantly improved the antennae) and non-existant on other people's phones or tablets. I do live half-way up a range and only get GPS coverage for less than 1/4 the sky.

Often when I am in the city the buildings cause issues for some GPS units but plenty of cell towers around. GPS also seems to have trouble penetrating metal enclosures (such as trucks/shipping containers and vans) whereas cell signals and WiFi usually do a better job (not that I've tried a mobe inside a closed shipping container).

Of course, if these became popular then all it'd take is "Our vans have been upgraded to have "safety cages" that keep our staff safe by making sure nothing can accidentally fall or move. Ignore the fact that they look suspiciously like Faraday cages!".

Kiwi

Re: I will not attribute your post to malice, never.

And has also been mentioned, if this was a soopa sekrit interception, why would FedEx display the real and actual routing on the tracking data visible to the customer?

Now you got me wondering about some of mine that've been stuck in a depot for a couple of days! :)

That said, a mate has a brother who is a courier driver. From him I've learned that sometimes residential packages or less valuable commerical packages (ie "this company only sends stuff every now and then so NOT a priority customer") can be left behind if they're pressed for time that day or expecting a large pickup from a more favoured customer.

Also mis-handling of packages meaning they get put on the wrong truck/van is fairly common, whether through mis-labelling, mis-handling (forklift operator picking up wrong pallet or van driver parking in the wrong bay), mis-reading (someone scans "Havelock" and puts it in the pile for "Havelock North" which is on a different island) or sheer incompetence (a manager works on the floor for a bit). Yet, when handling those numbers of items mistakes will sometimes happen - even if it's 1 in 1,000,000 that'll still be quite a few packages going astray each day.