Posts by John Brown (no body) 25427 publicly visible posts • joined 21 May 2010
And next year, because of the way stock markets work, watch the "tech crash" as all the tech companies making hay for two years of WFH all see sales drops instead of growth because, as per the article, the peak has passed and now it's just "normal" refreshes. It doesn't even matter if sales are better than two years ago, all "the market" will see is a drop from the artificially induced sharp rises of the last two years.
I started out as a field engineer when 14" CRTs where still on many desks, and even back then it's wasn't unusual for PCs to be upgraded and not the screens. Likewise, it's not that long ago I was still seeing 14/"15" LCD screens on desks, albeit often in pairs. One customer I deal with just upgraded from pairs of 17" screens to some humongously wide curved screens. I suspect they will be there through at least the next two or three PC refreshes.
A proper FAQ, well done and based on the real world is useful because people are people and will always be people. Some smarter than the average bear, others dumber than a box of frogs. Or maybe they just lost the manual, or it's a complex product with a large manual so a quick summary, ie a FAQ is useful for many.
But, as mentioned above, FAQs are often created based on what the suppliers think might happen, not what actually happens.
"If I need to call in for help, it is because I'm dealing with an abnormal situation and I know bloody well the chatbot can't deal with anything that isn't bog-standard."
That's exactly the problem I've had with every chatbot. They are a long winded was of presenting a FAQ. Most people with a problem could solve it faster by reading a well formed FAQ document. The chatbot can't handle anything more complex and is effectively redundant other than..."oooh shiny, everyone else has one, we must have one too"
"I always avoid pressing any buttons or make any voice response. In most cases, this is the quickest way to get a near-human operator"
And in other cases, the person who picks up listen to your problem and then tells you they can't pass you to the relevant department and tells you to call again, this time choosing from the phone jail menu options.
"Jesus wept. A management win again with an epic class fail? The world is/has gone mad."
It's a management "win" because query volumes both web and phone go down. That's a KPI win. It also mean they need fewer people to deal with the reduced volume. Another KPI win. Of course, they also get fewer orders, but that's only a single KPI loss against two KPI wins. Bonuses all around, then leave and repeat at another company, being careful not to glance in the rear view mirror, avoiding the sight of the smoking ruins.
That's because they use CCaaS (Call centre as a Service). It works just like on-demand cloud computing. They only pay for the level of service they need at any one time. And they cheap out and only buy not quite enough to service the volume of calls, no matter the volume. If you are No. 1 in the queue, it can still take 10 minutes to get through because they had no operative on the clock. Your call is "unexpected" and the system has to hold an auction amongst the call centre suppliers to find the cheapest available operative, hence the "unexpected call volume" :-)
""this call is very important" statements every 30 seconds for hours."
Worst one I ever came across not only made that statement every 30 seconds, but it restarted the same effing music again after each cycle. That was worse than the announcements!
"Why should I have to? If it's really free speech there should be no review or T&Cs."
It's not "free speech". "free speech" doesn't allow you to use other peoples systems or resources as you see fit for your "free speech". If you want truly "free speech", get your own soap box and say what you want to whatever audience you manage to attract. The fact there are T&Cs you are supposed to read before signing up for the forums should tell you, even without reading them, that you don't get "free speech" here. It's fairly free, but not absolutely free.
After all, if it was "free speech" here, you'd never find the comments in the avalanche of spam!
"What is this "Submitted and awaiting moderation ..." nonsense I get when posting on this forum?"
Didn't you read the T&Cs before signing up? Moderation of new posters has been standard practice here for years. It's to prevent spammers and (some) trolls posting with new accounts every time they get caught and banned.
It's hard to disagree based on what's happened in the US in living memory, but I find it hard to accept bringing up things so far in the past that not only have things changed, but there's no one left alive from when it happened, neither victims nor perpetrators.
After all, no one is screaming for the descendants of Rome to apologise for slavery or pay reparations.
Other than that, I agree with you.
"I don't remember the exact wording of the law but in my state you are absolutely required to report any "illegal" content found on a user's system. (I use "illegal" in quotes since I'm not a lawyer and "sketchy" and "illegal", while clear in most cases is not always so crystal clear). If it is later found by somebody else and reported and it's found out that it was in my shop, I'll be answering some very difficult questions."
Let me get this straight. You are obliged to go snooping through every laptop that comes into your hands because if there's anything illegal that is later found, you might be complicit? Is there no "plausible deniability" defence, ie you have no need to go romping through other peoples data, even if doing a backup? You analyse the integrity of the data without looking at it and check for malware etc.
Our workshop guys are under strict conditions to NEVER go through other peoples data. If, in the course of doing legitimate work, a filename or thumbnail is seen that might indicate illegality, they then report it up the chain. Luckily, on the whole, what comes into our hands is warranty hardware faults, we don't care about the software. The HDD might well still boot up after the repair, but since the customer (not the user) will be reimagine it anyway, at best we might put a vanilla Win10 on it as part of testing.
But if she has diplomatic immunity, why would she consent to a video trial while remaining in the USA? Either she has diplomatic immunity and therefore gets off scot-free, or she doesn't, in which case she ought to stand trial in person. This half-way house video trial strike me as diplomatic theatre.
I must admit, I found that statement curious. Surely a single journey, no matter it's length, is going to be quicker and less exhausting than the same trip with a stop-over to refuel, or a plane change. Especially in light of the many people posting their delight at flying Emirates compared to other, more cramped operators planes.
I speak as someone who hasn't flown for 30 years and has never done a long haul flight, so might well be postulating utter rubbish here.
Considering the current price of shipping containers and freight space on the oceans, is air freight becoming relatively cheaper for the high value, "urgent" products to be shipped aboard a cargo A380? Or any of the other passenger aircraft that could be converted and, in some cases, are either sitting around waiting for passenger numbers to pick up or even being sent to the scrappers?
Or is that still far more expensive?
ISTR it being posted here that passenger flights rely on cargo to help keep the prices down.
Get your cheap radioactive necklaces here folks, they protect against all forms of conspiracy, especially 5G!!! Uses only safe ionising radiation to protect you from the dangerous very low power non-ionising radiation
A: Inflation higher than interest rates
B: Inflation
C: High chance of losing your shirt, small chance of actual profit.
D: You get a warm fuzzy feeling and tramp might get their life sorted out. Depends how much you "invest" in the tramp and whether they want to do something about their situation.
Any company insisting on graduates for that skill level of job is an idiot unless they have a good, guaranteed and rapid career progression. If I was a newly minted graduate I'd be expecting to move up within a year or be moving on to another employer where I can progress. That's probably why the lower level jobs are filled with disappointed, unmotivated people who don't stay long.
It's different where I work. Telephone monkeys and field people are different, and never the twain shall meet. The field guys and gals are mainly older, with years of experience and training (on going, natch!) while the phone support people rarely stay more than a few years. There are some exceptional phone monkeys who've moved up the ladder to 2nd or 3rd line, but they really are the exception rather than the rule.
On the other hand, I've seen it mooted about that these days, recruiters are wary of long serving, loyal staff looking to move on and wonder why they didn't bounce around multiple employers every year or two. I'm 60 and have two different IT careers and maybe 5 employers on my CV. Most recruiters, ignoring my age for the purposes of illustration, would see that as a negative and "lack of experience"
"Universities need serious reform across the board and I suspect the collapse in international student numbers and the growing realisation a life of student debt is actually very poor value for money means they'll be forced into some sort of reluctant action, though probably of a counterproductive sort."
A university full of PhDs should be able to come up with an answer. The problem, of course, is that universities are full of PhDs and they'll all come up with different answers, none of which the others will be swayed from or to.
If nothing else, it certainly decreases the chances of travelling through space at any significant proportion of the speed of light without some very heavy bow shielding. Not only is space not empty, it may be even less empty than we thought :-)
Is it just the media, including El Reg that thinks it's "cute" to quote these tweets or does NASA not have twitter feeds for adults any more? All we seem to get these days are the tweets from the feed aimed at 12 year olds and younger.
"Why should it care about what happens to the data it has on you,"
It cares a great deal about that. That is the product it sells to it's customers. The last thing they want is for their valuable product to be devalued by being copied and sold for less than Meta charges, or <gasp> given away for free.
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