Posts by Snake 1929 publicly visible posts • joined 18 Oct 2012
The figures also do not represent how many bookings are canceled after being made successfully, which on AirBnB hosts have been doing more and more frequently.
This can seriously skewe the statistics of actual stay completion; just because you book the property with AirBnB does not mean that you are 100% guaranteed your stay. Some hosts may be allowing the booking without bias, only to apply their personal biases later once they learn more about the guest.
It's true: with all their (tech) power and resources, AWS UI's are simply an absolute mess. AWS shows to me, IMHO, what programmers will create when they have little concern for end user experience; all the power and ability is there, if you can understand the disaster that passes for "concept in design" and can then comprehend exactly what they are trying to communicate to you within said structural disaster.
It is a design failure and rather than admit that, and create a web UI that makes sense, they either come up with excuses or apply simple overlay patches in hopes of mitigating the UIX failures.
I agree 110%. Nostalgia is wonderful to visit, times and the devices that occupied space all seemed a lot easier back then. That always tickles our brains, "simpler times", with devices we can seemingly all get a mental grasp on.
But after you waste time fiddling with devices of limited capabilities in today's world...you need to get back to today's world, and actually get things done.
And those nostalgia devices will almost always let you down here.
The past is always a nice place to visit from today, what would be their future. It's charming and easy, because we've only ever gone more complex in life, never easier. But to try to live there is dooming yourself to a life of both eternal stagnation and frustration, as you attempt to impose the complexities of today on creations that weren't designed for it. I have two friends stuck in that past, one who listens to his multiple Victrolas and 78's, but then laments how come his dreams of finding the perfect companion have never come to fruition (as he searches based on those dreams, rather than the realities of life around him).
Nostalgia can be a poison as you idealize a past...that never really was.
I'd personally say you don't need to mention human rights and genocide to justify restricting technological exports to China. Their history to industrial espionage, and even just stealing regular-day IP by making cheap no-name knockoffs of just about anything they are subcontracted out to manufacture, shows that they have no regard for anything beyond their own interests and making money.
China will happily steal any development or design they can get their hands on, usually cheapen it up with mediocre to poor-quality components and materials, flood the market, and put the very company who developed the product in the first place out of business.
I see *no* reason that international business espionage needs to be supported in any way; IMHO unless and until China cleans up its act in this regard and at least honors global rules of behaviour, sanctions are completely justified.
"I worked with was of the mindset that it was all about what you could get away with and not getting caught."
And that, sadly, has become the social mindset of modern society.
We, our social "we", have raised several generations of narcissistic sociopaths by empowering the trait through decades of teaching "individual freedom" and "free-market capitalism". When you couple these beliefs with a "me" generational belief that you should be important under any and all circumstances, you often grow a mentality where anything you do is OK, as long as it benefits you through the mechanism of making money.
Money is King, because capitalism and, since You are all-important, any and all "roadblocks" that may stand in your way really shouldn't be there [laws and regulations are there only as an inconvenience to your "freedom" to grow and prosper, via whatever method you decide to take).
I realized how toxic society has become as I watch channels such as JustPearlyThings on YouTube. A lovely young lady has young women and men as guests on the show and they discuss the modern dating scene, relationships, femininity, etc. And one male, discussing how [these] women were unrealistic in their relationship goals (expecting millionaire boyfriends, because) was, during the discussion, (actually) wearing a T-shirt that stated:
"Make Money, not friends"
What does that say about our society when you're standing there criticizing one group for focusing on money and self...while you wear a shirt proclaiming the EXACT SAME THING?? No self-awareness would come to mind, plus some other, more choice descriptions.
" The western world is bending over backwards to do anything and everything to make these kids 'feel accepted',"
In Europe and the UK, certainly!
But here in the U.S., not a chance. From the Bathroom bills to Florida's "Don't Say Gay" law, to current attempts to prosecute parents of teens who seek gender affirmation treatments, the right-wing of the U.S. is fully embedded in making these teens feel less accepted, and this attempt at stigmatization is a hot discussion topic here. I'm sorry if you either aren't paying attention (highly understandable if you aren't located in the U.S.), or are indeed a U.S. citizen but in denial.
Gays are currently wondering if its even safe to go out with friends, what with the Club Q and Pulse attacks. For example, just today
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/12/03/drag-queen-clubq-shooting/
and you're claiming that society is "bending over backwards" for them?! Some of society certainly *are* bending over backwards to try to make them feel included...because the other part of the same society (in the U.S.) is 'bending over backwards' to eliminate and hide them from society.
Children are also killing themselves for the simple reason of not being accepted in our society - one of the largest groups of teenage suicide are LGBTQ who feel ostracized by their peers, society, and even their own parents. Sometimes the government makes that situation worse, declaring them persona non grata in their own homes and lives.
This is not a simple topic, certainly. But telling your society that 'We'll fix things!' by restricting the internet, whilst at the same time telling other segments of the population that they aren't even worthy of being *in* the society, is nothing but pure hypocrite.
"For instance, it would be illegal to give child a phone, tablet, computer that does not have parental controls installed, specifically with allowlists that only a number of websites could be accessed."
Exactly. Hasidic Jews have no problem restricting their children from accessing any forms of popular culture that the parents do not like - children are not allowed on the internet, watching TV or movies, unless the parents have directly approved and allowed the access.
So it *is* possible to parent in today's society. Shocker, I know.
We, as a society, CAN'T allow verification on major platforms because we *all* know where it can lead to: tracking of your actions and, if / when the winds of politics change in the 'wrong' direction, harassment and eventual chastisement of those participating in "unwelcome" traits.
To believe otherwise is simple naïveté.
You can't be "free" and "overseen" at the same time. In the history of the human condition, they are both exclusive. Add in any level of oversight into how free peoples spend their time, you inevitably will get attempts to restrict, direct, castigate and eventually punish those who do not toe the line of 'acceptability'. Ideally it does not have to be that way, but humans will constantly push for control of their surroundings, up to and including the living creatures, sentient or otherwise, within their dominion. History has never proven otherwise.
Who gets to say when ADULTS can continue to be adults and have the ability to choose options that haven't been made child-proof???
The entire world does NOT have to be made child-proof for the benefit of someone [else's] children. As an adult I damn well expect that I [continue] to have all the rights and benefits of actually being an adult and that means participating in, and having access to, adult-level concepts and materials. Yes, that includes PrOn. As long as it does not harm anyone else (which, for example, underage pron does), what I choose to do needs to stay my own business and not made a topic of regulation.
I am tired of the Disneyfication of the entire world, thinking of "the children!".
"The very best headphones from the sound purity point of view (as proved by broadcasters including the BBC)"
Oh, then you've never heard a pair of Sennheiser Orpheus or a set of Stax Lambda Pro / 404's, properly driven by a high-end amp, either with full-tilt high-end sources, have you??
Yes, I compromise from my Stax setup when I'm not sitting still at home, but Beyer DT100's the 'best'? Errr....
Anyway, I am going to (reasonably) assume that these $949 Dyson headphones have the sound quality of $99 headphones with a fan motor attached to them to eat up the balance of your hard-earned, yet stupidly-spent, money.
Yes, but that "conversion" into living space was both temporary and not officially sanctioned / created by the corporation.
Turning zoned office commercial space into residential space officially sanctioned by the owner / leasee, won't go over well with the Zoning Board. Nor the Fire Department (I'm sure the office space does not meet residential fire isolation codes, not at all), etc.
It is NOT "cryptocurrency", at least not based on the current way it is treated and traded.
You do NOT trade and invest in "currency" and expect said "currency" to increase in value...just because.
Crypto is currently an ASSET. It will NEVER *be* a "currency" unless and until the jokers investing and trading it as an asset actually start treating it as a real currency - stable, of known value, with little inherent profit from simply acquiring it and trading it, in an of itself.
The vast, vast majority of transactions in crypto "currency" is currently trading it for its own value. Sorry, currency arbitrage is not only a specialized area but classically makes little money per transaction, existing solely on volume. The clowns who think they buy at $16K and sell at $40K, because crypto, are only dooming this to being the pyramid scheme that we have all see it to be.
But JPEG already supports bandwidth-limited loading, the Progessive save pattern. 3 or 4 passes to decompress, allowing early low-res loading, progressing to high resolution through time.
So why are we so worried about recreating the wheel? Just allow & use progressive JPEG and be done with it.
Are you sure they will be better? The Molex page for the Mini-Fit line
https://www.molex.com/molex/products/family/minifit_power_connector_solutions
states "up to 13.0A".
Note that I am *not* a trained electrical engineer, so I'm BOUND to be flamed for this. But if you look at the specifications on the Mini-Fit system
https://www.molex.com/pdm_docs/ps/PS-45750-001-001.pdf
(page 9)
each wire-to-board circuit rating whilst using 16g wire is only 8.5A max. Therefore to get 600W @ 12V via 8.5A @ max circuits requires 6 circuits, and that's at maximum, read optimized and ideal, rating. So a 12-conductor Mini-Fit will be taken up exclusively with the 12V positive and ground circuits, never mind sensing and any other signals desired across the connector.
IMHO the entire plan is flawed. Using these micro-style pin connectors to handle 600W @ 12V is a long-term design mistake; a larger connector should have been specified regardless of the board space used. IMHO they were thinking of optimum packaging utilization to keep the board designers happy but left not a lot of room for overload due to a variety of factors, or even long-term increase in connector resistance due to surface oxidation.
"It's still full of ads, monetization, telemetry, updates you don't control, and the UI is still a confused mess of half-PC and half-phone that does not suit either of them particularly well."
I still have never seen all those ads that so many state Win10 is full of o_O I don't get any ads at all on Win10 Pro, but Windows ShutUp is certainly a friend here in regards to this topic.
if the apps were removed due to unacceptable business practices, then exactly how and why were they approved in the first place, considering both Google and Apple's claims of 'protecting users' by [supposedly] vetting these apps??
Especially Apple in this instance. Google can be rather slack but Apple claims a rigid enforcement of user protections and privacy as one of the benefits of using iOS.
So, Google and Apple, exactly how did you mess up and why aren't you claiming a mea culpa??
"Go back to the originator of the document and tell them to save it in the industry standard open ODF format, rather than the MS
No problem. I'll just go right back to Indeed.com and tell them that
https://forums.theregister.com/forum/all/2022/08/19/libreoffice_7_4/#c_4517657
I'm sure they'll go right ahead and care about my comment.
Not.
Sadly, as I've discussed before (as a LO user myself), is the issue that even the most up-to-date version of LO can not open the most recent version of MS Office documents (contrary to The Document Foundation's claims).
So yes, LO if you can but, if your office insists on MS interoperability, then even the most recent version of LO won't cut it.
Glad I'm not the only one who did the quick maths, and thought so...
This screams of pork-barrel economics, that some lobbyist / politician got this contracts awarded to someone in their district, rather just-because. Anyone with a brain will see the future pork-barreling of this project, the budget bloat and the never-ending reconsideration of the amount of this contract as the inevitable goals gets reassessed as unrealistic based upon the money.
Although Android is free, Musk is at it with Google as well. While Android is not hard-locked to Google, it depends upon Google for a lot of its advancements and development.
Anyway, so Muskrat develops the MuskPhone. Updates the background apps without asking and locks the doors "advanced" features, like the backlight, unless you pay the added monthly subscription fees. Only fits MuskPhone chargers, available exclusively at MuskPhone retailers located in 20 cities "nationwide".
When iFixit disassembles the device to check design a Cease and Desist order appears across the screen, automatically.
I agree, but that is why I strictly prevent automatic updates on my [Android] phones.
For example, Google intentionally hobbled Total Commander and in the latest versions removed the permission to install APK from storage. I am fully capable of deciding Yes or No on that permission myself, Thank You Very Much, and I don't need nanny Google to up and force a complete removal just because *they* don't like it.
Allowed an update (my mistake, Total Commander is one of the very few apps I really trust[ed]); rolled back to an older version pronto once I discovered this (My Backup Pro archives to the rescue).
---------------------------------------------
Hang *both* Google and Apple out to dry.
It seems that the UK government is very happy looking at the monies provided by the finance industry and saying, "That's enough, thank you". It seems after their debacles of helping to plan industrial investments with the auto industry, they've simply given up and walked away.
My guess, and this is likely incorrect: latent, lingering Thatcherism. They are so entrenched in their politics that they no longer know how to be pragmatic.
Yep.
Every single time a company does this, based upon the simple anticipation of a slowdown ever mind an actual one, it only brings to mind the scene from The Fifth Element
www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0mO6UY6uTg
After all we wouldn't want our Overlords to suffer even the slightest inconvenience of having a pound less in their pockets, when they can make sure their slaves do the suffering instead.
I agree, a comment apparently given by an urban resident.
My driveway is 450 feet long. My Ring camera captures quite a decent portion of it even if the motion detection is only activated much closer than that.
Still, back to the topic at hand: you bet there's a reasonable chance that our currently right- leaning SCOTUS will favor the police rather than upholding personal rights.
I agree, we need more info.
IFAIK standard Android Play Store installations always ask for permission prior to installation. The only way I personally have experienced otherwise is the auto-install systems linked to the carrier's preinstalled carrier-specific maintenance app. Sprint / TMO have their carrier apps with installation permissions given...which is why I both remove the permission and disable the app outright. Because I'm no fool.
But most smartphone users are indeed oblivious to the factoid and have no idea that their phones are capable of this, thanks to their carrier. Is this the process that MA used? Inquiring minds want to know.
Wait: why is it so horrible that authors who sold their creations, and then the manufacturers involved with the distribution of that creation, not be able to feed themselves?
If cost is a factor in developing nations, can't some of the local academics create equivalent texts that they then freely share, either with online or free-to-license local reprinting?
As a micropublisher I'm completely aware of how much this stuff actually costs, from creation, printing, binding, and surprisingly, shipping (paper is HEAVY!). It adds up really, really quickly. Sadly. Especially if you use decent quality stock, not newsprint grade. Those lovely perfect-bound, heavy cardboard-filled covered, nice print stock texts aren't cheap to produce and then ship, even in tremendous quantities.
And have you recently checked international shipping rates from the United States? Ouch, is an excellent word. Prices have pretty much DOUBLED in the past year for any 'significant' package size, weight or value. I just had to use postal, with its inherent risks versus FedEx, for an international shipment because my cost had doubled for the FedEx package and I certainly couldn't pass that level of cost on to the buyer.
The uni should have squashed that immediately, from the conflict of interest to the forced purchase indoctrination. The entire class should have marched to the director's office and demanded an immediate investigation as to why, and who, this was allowed by.
"they come to work to earn cash to spend time with their friends and family. A concept that's often lost on the worlds richest..."
They have ALWAYS missed this, from the dawn of the Industrial Age. That's because the world's richest greatly benefit from the heavy workloads imposed [on others]...while the workers who actually do the heavy loads only subsist.
This has been the pattern of labor for the past 150+ years. Some people may not like to admit that, saying that even speaking of such is "socialist", but to believe otherwise is both hard denialism and ignorance. Books have been written, documentaries created, biographies of the workers penned...even photos taken. Of workers suffering while the bosses prosper from the suffering.
So bosses will never connect with base-level workers. It hurts their pocketbooks, and World Domination egos, to do so.
Yet everyone needs to eat. FOSS made of the backs of free, yet voluntary, labor, can't last forever.
Nothing wrong with doing this as far as I'm concerned, yet in any other industry someone would, invariably, start yelling "socialism!".
Look, FOSS is great for people who choose to participate. However it should be noted that the solutions that FOSS brings to the table are only the solutions that coders are looking for themselves - FOSS only creates code that the voluntary coders are willing to tackle in order to solve their own problems.
You'll get willing coders for projects such as office suites, because after all almost everyone needs it themselves...yet you'll almost never find FOSS code for urology MRI analysis, because the coders don't require such things in everyday living.
This is the trap of FOSS, you'll get the popular stuff but be left out in the cold for anything beyond that.
This is where corporate support can come in.
So to turn a completely cold shoulder to corporate sponsorship is to ultimately limit FOSS to staying in the realm of only creating and supporting popular projects. FOSS will probably never grow beyond that which the majority of users and programmers need or want, because there will never be enough incentive to create outside the box.
Let's look at this problem / proposal from a different perspective.
Google et al, Silicon Valley, is in no position to lower wages if they intend to continue to hire skilled workers. Silicon Valley pretty much has fed the over-inflated real estate markets of the West coast for a long time, thanks to a history of good wage benefits, and you will never be able to lower wages on the same people you expect to live close enough to your offices and afford to rents or mortgages.
So now they are in a catch-22. You paid workers well in the past and, now that the entire area has a history of subsisting on that level of income, you can't simply cut it off and expect things to go as planned. Workers will leave once they can no longer afford the lifestyle that they expect / became accustomed to, due to the local cost of living fed by historic pay levels, and there will be a massive brain drain as workers abandon the Valley and the businesses that it supports.
You will only be able to lower wages on new-hire remote workers, workers that come in from the start understanding this new pay scale yet having the ability to live in lower-cost locales while still accessing the office infrastructures.
If you expect your workers to live locally, you need to pay local pay scales no matter how high they might seem to outsiders.
And, with that statement, comes to solution: Telsa should put touch sensors on the steering wheel, thereby requiring the driver maintain their hands on the wheel whenever "Autopilot" is active. Remove your hands, Autopilot automatically disengages.
That simple.
But they probably won't do it, until and unless backed into their last, ultimate corner. Because people want to believe the "Autopilot" magic and Telsa is happy to feed these [stupid people's] delusions, because it sells more cars. The legalese of the fine print of what it actually does, "driver assistance", is lost inside the Owner's Manual, the ToS, and the brochure fine print. But as long as it exists, somewhere, Telsa can hide behind said legalese, sell the lie, and make money.
I always find it...amusing...when anti-government believers discuss nullifying government operations...while directly benefiting from the constant operation of said government.
You expect police protections? Maintained roads and transportation infrastructure? Running, safe water? Properly disposed-of sewage? FOOD??
All this is created by, or assisted by, the government. Remember that the U.S. Government gives billions of dollars in aid every year to farmers. Yes, to Big Oil, Big Pharma, Big Agri and other industries that our very daily, modern existence depends upon. Border inspections, shipment handling and import safety. Food and safety inspections.
Hundreds of other 'small' things that you depend upon, every single day. You've just learned to take them for granted because they seem to occur "automatically" by your inability to notice their daily activities.
Darn straight. Musk's 'ultimatum' is essentially:
"Work harder, for free with no additional pay, so as to enable & justify *my* costs and the necessity *for me* to recoup my costs to the point that I eventually grow richer thanks to this acquisition.
You? You'll sacrifice for my benefit or leave."
Therefore, the answer from anyone with a pulse should be:
"Thank you, I'll leave now with your severance. Good luck, you'll be needing it."
They, the actual people involved in crypto, themselves turned it into a con when they started "investing" and trading in it as the equivalent of an asset, rather than strictly using it a token of known value to be used to enable trades (that is, as an actual currency).
You [almost] never invest in a currency in hopes that said currency increases its value. Why? Because on a fundamental level, it never will. Buying £1 today and storing it gets you...£1 tomorrow. Actually, in buying power thanks to real-world inflation, your £1 will be worth less in time.
But crypto traders think that the world doesn't work that way. They "invest" in 1 Bitcoin and expect it to be worth...more, later. Just because. Currency doesn't inflate in value over time, it needs to maintain overall stability in order to be USED as an actual currency - see: Weirmar Republic and Venezula. A non-stable "currency" is anything BUT usable currency.
So, therefore, in order for crypto enthusiasts to see the gains that their fairy-tale dreams made up...they built a scam around it. That is actually WOULD be worth more, if only you joined into the pyramid scheme of the thing. If we keep up demand, people will continue to pay increasing sums in order to play.
It's all made up. The idea of crypto "currency" died with the idea of crypto "investment" - you can't have both in the Real World.
"If the strength of crypto is its freedom from government intervention...
And, one day, people will realize that government intervention - i.e., LAWS - are created after an event in hopes of preventing a recurrence.
Humans can NOT see the future and therefore we do not pass laws in hope of regulating something that doesn't even exist yet. We do not have laws on the books regulating flying cars because...we do not yet have flying cars. We do not have regulations regarding your exodus to the Mars colony.
We did NOT have regulations regarding crypto because it didn't exist until recently.
And what does that mean? It means stop believing that "no regulation" means "better life", because every single time you give an opportunity to manipulate a system to someone's advantage...someone for *sure* will be there to take that advantage for themselves. The libertarians and the ultra-right, strange bedfellows in this belief, both think that removing oversight allows more "freedom" - yes, more freedom to steal.
Somehow, in their minds, nobody steals if you don't regulate them; nobody ever seems to act badly in their future-perfect deregulated world. It is Paradise Unleashed, once you remove all societal mores of behaviour! Yes! Everyone will hold hands and sing the praises of deregulation!
Just keep a strong watch on your wallet, lest that newly-unregulated pickpocket decides his day in the sun has finally arrived.
The cult of the covid vaxx
I take it you are therefore anti-vax?
Fascinating! You seem extremely healthy for a person who apparently survived diphtheria, smallpox, polio, rubella and tetanus, just to name a few.
Huh? Oh, wait?? You DIDN'T need to survive ANY of those illnesses because you, and others around you, were VACCINATED against them??!
Imagine that. Still alive, thanks to your vaccinations, and everyone else is, too.
Shocking.
That is it precisely, our Memorial Day is your Remembrance Day. Parades around the country to honor our veterans and heroes, living and past, and celebrations with food and drink.
The only thing with do on 9/11 is solemn memorials of remembrance; every year so far there has been one down at Ground Zero, Washington D.C., and Pennsylvania to remember the dead. Some localities also hold local remembrance events, especially if they lost someone to the attacks.
The prices of printers has certainly gone up lately. But, before Covid and invasion and sanctions and inflation, anything below heavy-duty business-level printers could be gotten as cheap as dirt. When we moved offices 4 years ago we needed to reduce our office footprint so my boss suggested going from 4 printers to 2, throwing out the oldest and replacing them. I was, of course, worried about costs but he was right, printers were so well priced, why bother with dealing with an old printer? Been at that new point ever since, happily. The new printers are smaller, easier to use, smartphone printing compatible on the network without having to share through a desktop, and supplies are easy to come by.
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