Posts by Timmy B 990 publicly visible posts • joined 30 Mar 2011
Not sure where they get routing data from but the last time an ambulance came here they were delayed 15 minutes because they re-routed round traffic. But after 2 and a half hours waiting the extra didn't matter that much. But they clearly do try to preempt traffic issues.
"you aren't a you a google employee"..... Are you Mario... or Dracula? :-)
Just as the majority of people have a lot of their shopping tracked through loyalty cards and the like we'll all end up with information like this shared all over the place. Now, I don't really mind, to a point. That point being there is no reason at all to send information that can identify me as a person. I don't care if they know that someone with x device had it fail on y version of software on z device. But they should keep that information to themselves. I also don't care if they pass to their marketing team very abstract data such as "only 10% of x device users have also purchased such and such add-on" so email those that allow it some ads for the addons.
This all seems reasonable. But where is crosses that line is having information that identifies me when they don't need it and not giving me the option to opt out of the kind of example I've listed above.
It does make me consider creating my own options - blocking some of them at device level as my own enforced consent manager.
Sadly it has lost them. On my surface I am sticking to the old Edge for as long as possible. Look at the Edge insider forums. Everyone keeps on about the UI and integrations - they've pretty much been ignored.
Also worth noting you can't have both classic Edge and new Edge installed at the same time....
I have been using it for a while in Beta. My overwhelming thought is "Why?". It looks virtually the same as Chrome. With extensions it will work virtually identically. It looks just as out of place in Windows as Chrome does. At least the old Edge did some things - that even if you didn't like them - made sense in the Windows landscape (UI was the same - pen support - One Note integration).
Why I wouldn't use something like Brave, Vivaldi or another Chromium based browser is a mystery.
If they, at least, added pen / touch support and the really good favourites and history panels, and made it look like old edge then I could see the merit in calling it Edge. As for now I suggest Chrinternet Explorer as in use it's closer to that old beast.
"The amount of monitoring a diabetic needs to do depends on the individual. Some only need it to monitor longish term trends rather than adjusting what one eats at the next meal. "
If you're IDD in the UK then you must test within 2 hours of driving and every 2 hours of driving.
I think the issue is in "over-relied". As with most monitoring you do need to have a measure or hypo and hyper awareness. It's not as accurate as there is a lag in the measurements but for at least 75% of tests it's perfect. You can't, for example, use it as a driving test due to the lag.
The nightmare of it is that the conditions can be changed by your GP practice. Ours have limited the age range and various other parameters so it makes it virtually impossible. They also recently changed the prescription meters, strips and needles to the cheapest they could legally purchase.
"I see no reason why the police or other authorities should have any access to camera footage without either the consent of the householder or a search warrant, same as would be needed in order to obtain CCTV footage that was stored locally. As it is, the police or local councils can monitor doorbell cameras to give parking fines or prosecute people for other minor infractions, TV licencing can listen in to see if there are sounds of broadcast TV etc."
Citation Needed.... (for the UK, please, as you mentioned TV licencing).
"I couldn't think of a single occasion where my life had been negatively impacted by not being home when someone rang my door bell."
Just because it doesn't impact you it doesn't mean it doesn't impact anyone.
As I said, elsewhere I can get half a dozen (not unusual - 9 is the record) health care types visit in one day for an elderly relative. If I'm not there for these people and my relative cannot get to the door then the Ring is a godsend. It even saves the callers time as I have stopped several accidental sendings of multiple people to do the same job (I once had three different people turn up in one day to take blood for the same test).
Even when I am working from home I still answer using the ring as my office is upstairs and it's far quicker.
"Does a smart doorbell fix more problems than it creates?"
Yes. Yes it does. But not for everyone. I have one of these but I live in a house with an elderly infirm relative and we can have up to half a dozen people visit each day to sort out various care and medical needs. Being able to "answer" the door when I am not in the house is brilliant. I also have several cameras and other things all working so I can monitor the house too.
I have a friend that operates a hair salon from a cabin in their garden and ring is great for her too as it allows her to see, and let in, clients.
I am aware of the potential issues and I don't reuse passwords (or even email addresses some of the time), use 2fa and read the documentation before I implemented these things. They run on a separate wi-fi network too.
Joe Bloggs won't know how to make these things secure and I think the apps used to set them up should be much better and enforce sensible security precautions.
"I doubt the commenter would be supportive of a German couple with two American children being detained and quizzed about their connection to the white supremacist or neo-Nazi movements."
I can imagine that during the 30's and 40's this kind of check was quite common.
"Who's daft enough to go with Talk Talk?"
Sadly anyone who doesn't know better. Your average person with little to no experience with a variety of ISPs who watches the adverts on TV and is most swayed by prices.
Still - they're not Virgin. Who did the best ever thing... I had to help a family member discover why their net had stopped working. It turned out that there had been an issue caused by their credit card company. So Virgin shit off their internet and access to their email. And told them - VIA EMAIL - why they had done it....
Not on a Pi, but... I just started using HDMI on my laptop after a work monitor upgrade. My wireless mouse started to behave oddly - juddering and stuttering. I swapped the mouse dongle to the other side of my laptop and it all works fine. The original side has the USB right next to the HDMI. It does seem that something is interfering with 2.4 and HDMI generally and having the ports all close together (as they are on a Pi) will make it obvious.
"I judge you for buying devices that have Internet connectivity or updates, or even a smartphone for what should be a basic connection (even if over Bluetooth from your phone) and an audio-only stream."
So you used a ras-pi as the core of your amplifier and then complained about kit that doesn't have a simple connection...
I see......
"Even Boris Johnson has to be right occasionally."
Do you actually watch the news? Or listen to him? He's such a bumbling stuttering fool that I'm amazed anyone understands a word. Let alone know if he's right or wrong about anything.
Oh.... perhaps that's the master plan!
"The several hour car journey home with the dead seal in the boot and all the car windows open was hell. As was driving in the car for weeks afterwards."
Been there! - I have a freezer full of animal parts separate from the food one. Various hides and feet in different stages of preservation.
I spend some of my time in the woods partaking of various outdoor pursuits. One of these involves turning animal skins into leather, buckskin, etc. This is as stinky as you can imagine. Before I could drive I often had to return from the woods by train. After one particular hard working week there was on offer on upgrading the train ticket to first class.
The looks you will get after a week of producing and smoking hides then taking them home in first class on a train are brilliant.
"Yes there well, for there are simply too many places where it's impossible or impractical to expect a car to be charged from the house overnight. The house may not have enough total current available, there is no guarantee of parking, AND there likely isn't enough time, money, or space to make any kind of retrofit."
In places like this (blocks of flats) you're most likely to be in a city where there is already a great infrastructure for charging. Including lots of street side chargers. Look at Norway where this is very very common and EV uptake is huge.
"Where electric vehicles will (and it is a "will", not might about it) score big is when you add them to autonomous tech. Which will lead to a "huh" moment as the public twig (and looking at the financial implications will be the killer punch) that it's insane to keep a private car on a drive doing fuck all for 20+ hours a day, when you can Uber-up a taxi in less time than it takes to put a coat on. (Now the Uber interest in self driving cars makes sense)."
"The future will be a network of driverless cars - all electric, charging as and when (so no need for much more work on batteries). Silently and emissionlessly cruising the streets (this will be a city-first shift)"
Yeah - brilliant if you live in a city. But not all of us are encumbered with that curse and have the pleasure of living in the countryside. Are you suggesting that thousands of cars will pointlessly wonder country lanes in case I need one? The daftest stuff I've read for ages!
"The amount of blind ignorance in these comments is incredible."
Totally agree. Sadly for a tech site I think that fear of change is the reason. I have actually been told by people that they will never swap to electric regardless of environmental or performance improvements because they just don't sound the same!
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