Posts by John Brown (no body) 25427 publicly visible posts • joined 21 May 2010
"Am I in lala land? You pay for an extended warranty, that is standard in 99% the rest of the world for free, and then PAY to also have the repairs done?"
AIUI from the article, Applecare[+] covers you for out of warranty repairs and you pay a small proportion of the repair cost, eg accidental damage such as a broken screen. Warranty repairs are still "free".
(Disclosure: I've never owned any Apple products)
The problem with dashcams in a commercial airliners cockpit is they need to be properly fitted so as not to become projectiles in the event of an accident. Also, fixed cameras, unless hi res and high frame rate, will not likely capture much useful information. At those speeds, the human eye will track an object giving the brain a little more time to register it and (mis-)identify it while all you see on the video playback is a blurred streak. Just look at all the "best" UFO footage!
"Do you agree that we may store all video, images, voice, and historical, time-stamped data of yourself, all other occupants, all visitors, and every individual who comes within the coverage area of Ring?"
It's legal to give consent on behalf of 3rd parties, both known and unknown? Wow!
"Referendum, general election and MEP election. "
I voted remain originally. In the GE I voted for a purported leaver. Apart from that, he was standing based on the sort of things I thought best represented me. I'm sure many people voted in both the GE and the EU MEP elections based on overall representation for the next 5 or so years rather than on one single policy.
Anyone claiming the GE was a another referendum is just building strawmen otherwise the tories would have won easily and not lost their majority. Or maybe all the leavers really did vote for leave candidates and that's why no one party won a majority. Because it's a cross party matter
"Now, they'll be 'employees' of the client for 6 months, with less rights & benefits than any FTE cow-orkers."
That's the bit I don't get. If they are taken on as new hire employees, why don't they get the same conditions as any other new hire employee? eg holiday pay, sick pay, NI payments etc. ie the legal minimum requirements for any employee. If this is some new legal loophole, then why can't "ex-contractors" negotiate an employment contract more favourable to themselves? After all, these are the people with in-demand skills and so should have some power over the employer, just as they had as contractors, ie they negotiate the rates for the job.
(No, I've never contracted or had dealings with contractors so have no idea how it currently works)
"Going vegan (or vegetarian) is still a net win for the planet, since growing a kg of soybean takes much less arable land than a kg of beef, since you have to feed your beef with feedstock until it's big enough to send to the butcher. There's a good chunk of US land that only grow feedstock"
Is "feedstock" grown purely to feed cattle? In many parts of the world, the cattle eat what is available and where "feedstock" is needed that feedstock is often a waste by-product of other arable crops. eg across a lot of Eurpoe, where land is more scarce than the USA, Rape is grown to produce vegetable oil for cooking and the waste is used as cattle feed.
BTW this idea is around 70 years old. Frederick Pohl & CM Kornbluth. "The Space Merchants" product "Chicken Little."
I remember a short short story from many years ago. It's a court case between two food manufacturing companies, both of whom make the food the whole world eats in big vats. The complainant has brought the case because the defendants product, Ambrosia, is so delicious it's out selling everything else. The defence brings some rather distasteful words into the complaint, such as meat, something no one in their right mind would eat, yet many food products are manufactured to taste like that disgusting stuff the savages of the ancient past used to eat. The final line of the story was to introduce a new word need to describe this super food. Cannibal.
"Not an expert on this type of thing, but can that sim be brought back online with the original details or will someone have to physically put another one in?"
Me no expert either, but isn't there a move to software only "sims" and 5G + IoT is the opportunity to do it fully?
"Maybe though it's all made up. Why would Dabsy install such a system?"
You really should read the grey box at the bottom. It changes on every article.
"Alistair Dabbs is a freelance technology tart, juggling tech journalism, training and digital publishing. He does not really have a smart home security system. He has been put off from investing in such a thing by all the horror stories he has read about them. Admittedly, he wrote those stories. @alidabbs"
(my emphasis)
"I'm not convinced that electronic keys are any more secure vs the hassle. "
From what I've heard, some of the more expensive cars have been stolen using repeaters. One thief stands by the car in the driveway/on the street with one radio repeater and the other goes and stands by the front door/back door/kitchen window and hey presto, the car thinks the key is nearby and unlocks for the thieves who push the start button and drive away.
"Checking the evacuation protocol for around 5 admins it would appear appear that the Halon lockdown would have killed all of them since it gave less than 3 seconds to evacuate the room before engaging the door lock and releasing the flame suppressant."
Where they wearing red shirts?
"a lot of money to build and maintain a facility that can stand up to an arctic environment, it would still be cheap versus trying to do that in space."
Best to do it in the Antarctic. Then it can double up as somewhere to evacuate to when the icecaps melt. (for the elites, of course.)
"How difficult or expensive would it be to put in a 3.5 mm headphone slot. "
Probably because "splash proof".
"I saw no mention in the article of a SD card either."
I'm guessing e-sim means no physical SIM and without looking into it, a non-replaceable battery so no internal access for an SD card and no external SD card slot, all because "splash proof"
"it's for people who either live in countries with strict gun control, or who are prevented from buying a gun legally and lack the underground connections to obtain one illegally."
I wonder what the stats are for criminal murder by gun in the UK is per head of population where gun control is strict?
I wonder what the accidental death by gun rate is the USA per head of population?
Those numbers could point towards whether gun control works or not, at least in a broad sense.
"I had come here to say about the same except blame it not on parties but on remain politicians since the issue splits through parties."
Well done, you are almost there. Parliament is reflecting the will of the people. There is a majority for leave but, like the people, not all leavers want the same type of leave. Last week the BBC did an article on it and compared the results of a number of polls, all of which showed pretty much the same thing. Based on current conditions, it's split roughly 3 ways for No Deal, Deal, and remain.
"With their DUP bribe giving them the extra votes from across the water, if Conservatives had whole heatedly backed T May deal(s) back in the day then it would have been sorted."
No, they wouldn't. Leave or remain was and is cross-party. The choices are not and never were aligned with party lines. The only way to pass any deal is via free votes for all MPs with a leave deal good enough to get the support. Previous votes on the deal have been overshadowed by the strong likelihood of a GE either before or immediately after Brexit. How many opposition MPs would want to be seen voting with the Tories with a GE around the corner? Getting a deal through after the impending GE will depend on the outcome. If one party gets enough of a majority that they can hold on for the next five years, opposition MP might feel more comfortable voting in favour of the winners.
"Also I thought the US rights were only applicable to persons in the US? If you haven't gone through passport control are you not still in 'international waters' or something?"
As I understand it, the USA is one of the few (only?) countries to not have a concept of "in transit" for international travellers "passing through". Once you cross their border, you are under their control in terms of law. Worse, they have a possibly unique definition of "border" such that if you are within 100 miles of a border crossing point, the law is different to the (very few) remaining parts of the country that are not classed as the "border" with fewer, if any, rights.
Apparently he was following a KPMG mandated process to copy the data to a USB stick to forward on to KPMG. That data should have been encrypted in a way that once copied, he would no longer have access to it or decrypt it since only the authorised recipient should have the decryption key. If Morrisons chose not to do it in this way, and KPMG didn't mandate that as part of the procedure, then it's entirely possible that both were in breach of their duty to keep the data secure.
"Baby boomers are now famous for being blasé about messing up the world for future generations, sucking up all the money because of macro-economic trends, rather than any efforts they put in and ruining the environment. "
Maybe it depends on which country you were born into. Boomers in the UK were born into the aftermath of rationing and brought up by parents who lived through the "make do and mend" era of WW2. We were taught to look after stuff so it would last longer, repair it when it broke and not to waste anything.
"In a closed space, any of the above are an offense."
As a child, I hated being dragged in Binns department store, (later House of Fraser) because to get into the shop meant walking through the Perfume sections. 100's of different perfumes all competing at once to prove they are the best and ending up just making me gag. Or, for modern times and younger readers, just walking past a branch of Lush! Or even just those certain people who must stink horribly under the gallons of perfume or deodorant they drench themselves with every day.
"I thought there would have been a written procedure for installing this pin in the correct way with pictures. At a minimum it should have been installed and checked off as complete by one person and then checked by another and signed off again."
Maybe the sub-contracted the instruction manual to IKEA.
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