Posts by DubyaG

This statement:

"... that smoke detectors, sprinklers and fire hydrants were faulty, and fire alarms did not go off."

Is inconsistent with:

"... as Foxlink is insured for plant, equipment, and inventory the blaze won't impact its bottom line."

Either their insurance company is run by fools, or something fishy is going on. Most commercial/industrial insurers, e.g. Factory Mutual use the evil eye against companies that do not comply with their loss prevention "recommendations".

Got an Echo

A few years ago, my wife received an Amazon Echo as a Christmas gift at an office party.

I told her we would get rid of it and returned it to Amazon for credit.

She agreed with me that we should have as few spy gadgets as possible in the house. Basically, our cell phones are it along with our home compute stuff.

Performative Politics

"The bill has zero chance of passing which is perhaps why the first-term senator has failed to get any cosponsors for it."

That's because this is intended for Josh boy's base and stirs up the crazies. He does not care if it goes anywhere.

Easy-Peasy

Uninstalled it as soon as I saw the headline.

How about Bribery?

It seems that this would have been better handled as using one's privileged position for monetary.

Bribery refers to the offering, giving, soliciting, or receiving of any item of value as a means of influencing the actions of an individual holding a public or legal duty.

So, cash offered, actions taken on the part of a person holding a legal duty, information transmitted, cash received.

Looks like they picked the wrong law to enforce.

Reference: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/bribery#:~:text=Bribery%20refers%20to%20the%20offering,a%20public%20or%20legal%20duty.&text=Solicitation%20of%20a%20bribe%20also,receipt%20of%20a%20valuable%20gift.

Reminds me of a story

"Any inhabitants of the planets in the HD 98800 system would see four stars in the sky and the shadows of the stars would appear at different times. The amount of sunlight would also vary across different latitudes."

"Nightfall" by Isaac Asimov anyone? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightfall_(Asimov_novelette_and_novel)

Jeremy Clarkson would love this.

Reboot Avatar? Yuck!

I saw that first movie was first impressed by the eye candy and then realized the dialog was 100% cliche.

Did they find another cliche dictionary to use for the second one?

Atmosphere

I love the jokes, but this piqued my interest: "metallic atmospheres (titanium, for example), "

Who can speak to that? I can only think of exceedingly hot places as we're talking vaporized metal here.

Here's a use case

Some of this functionality would have been nice in my wife's case after she left her wallet in a rental car she returned to the airport (just last night). She discovered it while going to her gate. If her phone had barked at her 33 feet away from the car, she would have been tipped off. The other features (especially the honkin' battery pack) are fairly useless.

The video does point out a flaw in the design though. If tied to your phone and it really works, you should never lose your wallet (or phone) and allow someone to pilfer it. You will know you are about 30 feet away when it goes walkabout.

Design

"If companies ask for consent, they should ask in a way that's not designed to induce the answer they want"

Yeah, right and companies always do what they should.

Last place I worked...

One of the analysts working with a Prod DB ran an update query without the WHERE clause. Much hand wringing and gnashing of teeth followed, possibly by some braid pulling.

I have Vonage

I have Vonage and implemented NoMoRobo and life is wonderful, I just never answer my phone on the first ring (of course, I can't move that fast anyway). Once I was called by my own number, that was a hoot.

Hollywood

“The 'Hollywood' portrayal of IT is that a few keystrokes can solve anything. This has led to an unrealistic expectation on technology and timescales.”

Yeah, they watch Scorpion and see the hacker type furiously on the keyboard in front of a screen displaying something like the Matrix screensaver. The hacker gets in 30 seconds and saves the world.

Not the only abuse of science in that show, but it always makes me cringe. Walter O'Reilly sold himself out for that show.