Posts by skeptical i 1026 posts • joined 30 Aug 2007
re: "Even the US doesn't [retaliate] if people buy Airbus rather than Boeing"
Maybe I'm misremembering, but wasn't there some kerfluffle a while back about U.K. (and/or E.U.) being threatened with some sort of trade hitback if U.K. forbade import of U.S. "frankenfood" (genetically modified), or bleached chickens, or something? I remember being incensed that Amurka would bully another country into lowering its standards on what its citizens eat (instead of raising our own) so that lowest-common-denominator "food" processors could pump their swill beyond 'Murka's borders, but there are likely key details I'm forgetting.
Another thought: If U.K. is offering citizenship (or at least the path thereto) to Hong Kongers (which I loudly applaud), is this going to further taint what remains of U.K./China relations?
A friend was starting a room painting project, had the swatch book from the paint seller. "Bermuda Bay", "Blushing Violet", "Arctic Glow", and so on. I felt a twinge of sympathy for the poor sod tasked with coming up with names that "sell" (this color looks like day-old dog vomit, um, how about "Dappled Wheat"?); now I guess they get jobs at Google for a bit more than minimum wage, sympathy revoked.
I get the impression that he thinks Amurka's mayors are happier than pigs in slop to keep businesses and schools closed, not sure who he's talking to. In my corner of the planet (in a Covid hotspot, btw), our mayors would love nothing more than for schools and businesses to re-open (keep the sales tax dollars flowing, get kids out of the house so parents/ carers can go back to work, put out the welcome mat for tourists) but they do NOT want to open the business door, see a renewed Covid spike, and then have to close again, and thus they are being VERY cautious about what can re-open, and how/when/if. Kicking foreign students back to their home countries is not just cruel, but also deprives the municipalities of the teensy bit more sales tax that is trickling into the general fund, since these students still have to eat, pay rent, and buy stuff. Not saying this is a ginormous wodge of spend, but I'm guessing every penny counts to already-strapped city budgets. (Of course, there is the "brain drain" issue already mentioned.) On the other side, from what I hear from teachers (which, granted, is not very much), they are not at all happy to be doing online/ distance learning (or "learning") since they know the kids are not keeping pace with where they would be in a real classroom (and that these lags will have to be made up somehow in the future) but they also don't want to risk more Covid spikes (some teachers/staff are elderly and/or have immune issues and now I hear that kids /do/ get Covid but it manifests differently than in adults and thus goes un-diagnosed). It would be nice if Big D.T. would defer to those closest to the situation, and who will be voted out of office (mayors, councils, school boards, etcetera) if their constituents don't agree with their plans.
Fokker Dr.1? Sopwith Camel? A-10? Curious to see what the Air Force brass considers a "fair fight" against a drone, albeit a smarted-up one. Also remember that as the F-35 was being manufactured and put through its initial testing phases, a fly-off between it and the A-10 (the jet F-35 was hoped to replace) was promised. Despite all the huffing and puffing about how great the F-35 would be, when the fly-off actually happened, it was not announced, not hardly covered by the local media, and was reported to have been skewed to the F-35's strengths (-- https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2018/07/13/a10-vs-f35-close-air-support-fly-off-shrouded-in-secrecy/ --). Maybe we'll get better notice and coverage of the drone -v- dog fight?
Back when google introduced the "plus" social media thingie, the search page instructed to put required words/phrases in double quotes instead of the more intuitive plus sign (e.g., +dog +ball -cat would have to change to "dog" "ball" -cat), else one would be directed to the "plus" group pages for entities 'dog' and 'ball'. Now with the "plus" product in the bin, can one once again use the plus sign when doing searches? Inquiring minds want to know.
re: pay to receive incoming calls
Back in the early- to mid-1990s, at least in my corner of the universe (Murka), when cellphones were still juuuuust becoming more affordable for the great unwashed, most plans required the caller to pay for each call but there were variants that required the recipient to pay. This, I hear, was used by sales people (real estate, for example) who wanted no obstacles between them and potential customers (I suppose 800-/toll free numbers would be the land-line equivalent). Not an option I'd ever choose (spam calls are bad enough but paying for the "privilege"? no thanks) but some people did. That said, I'm surprised that carriers still offer this plan at all, unless the only options are caller pays per-call or recipient pays per-call, and there is no unlimited (or "unlimited") usage plan.
re: almost identical to 2018
I noticed this too and my first thought, being on the Merkin side of the pond, was that the pattern was somehow election-related -- lots of domain registrations early in the year as the field of candidates goes out campaigning, then as primaries take their toll registration dips until we have presumed nominees and the concordant spike of "voteforXYZ" variants. Dunno if this is true for UK (or even for Murka).
re: "Banjo makes machine-learning-based software that ... raises alerts if spots anything interesting, such as an in-progress crime"
Or a black man jogging through a white neighborhood? Heaven help him if he's wearing a hoodie too.
That matter aside (serious as it is), do we really need Another Ring to Surveille Them All under the fig leaf of "fighting crime"?
My current experience with a Windows 10 laptop (oy vey) leads me to believe that Microsoft's MO seems to be: cross a bunch of idea/concept streams at various stages of viability/usefulness and hope something coheres. Perhaps someone more clever than I can work 'Microsoft' into 'Sta-Puft Marshmallow Man' ('Sta-Cruft Bloatwallow Man'? sorry) better than I can.
Nice to know at least one state has laws on its books to protect (some) employee rights. However, what about "right to work" (i.e., "right to get fired for any reason, or no reason at all") states? It is shameful that many municipalities have fallen all over themselves to attract Amazon't "jobs" when the company clearly has no desire to treat workers with any modicum of respect or decency, and more shameful that these municipalities seem to think that throwing their residents into a meat grinder is the best they can do for their citizens who need jobs. Perhaps if Amazon't customers were billed for the full cost (including decent employee wages, benefits, and being treated like a valued part of the company success instead of like a disposable robot) of having their tat delivered to their doors, there would be more awareness (and, one hopes, concern if not outrage) but as long as customers demand cheap cheap cheap now now now, the true cost has to be paid somewhere, and stockholders prefer that employees pick up the tab.
If I were cynical, I'd guess that they will send patrols out, armed with the device, to detect "Covid carriers" and haul them to "hospital" for "treatment", where "Covid carriers" = "people who are causing ... problems", "hospital" = "undisclosed location", and "treatment" = "extreme unpleasantness". They said on teevee to the whole country that the things work, mostly sort of, and who among the populace will raise a hand to question people with firearms and a humour deficiency? First they came for my LGBTQ neighbors, then they came for ....
re: "Perhaps they need to spend less time on actively preventing things working"
Yes. This. I am appalled at the number of official and government websites that will not do a single thing without javascript, the latest greatest browser whiz-bangery, and so on. One would think that everyone on any device, browser, operating system should be able to access basic health/safety information. Sure, some pages may require special stuff (e.g., applying for unemployment (and/or whatever) will require the doo-dads to ensure secure encrypted connections) but that should be the exception to information accessibility and not the rule.
re: "associate" = employee, I think they mean "associate" in the Johnny Mobster sense ("These gentlemen? They are my 'associates', and they'd like a word with you") and protecting unseen hands. If anyone wants to mis-infer that Amazon gives more than a handful of Advil's worth of concern for the wellbeing of their employees, better for the company.
Curious how well Everclear, Bacardi 151, and other high-octane spirits are selling. "Also works as a hand sanitizer!"* might not be to everyone's taste but why waste a good crisis?
* I heard that someone tried to promote a brand of vodka for home-made hand sanitizer, but alas that brand (tasty, I hear) was only 40% and not effective for that use.
If I were cynical, I would wonder if this were a plot to goose some sectors of the economy (the panic-industrial complex?), and/or put another brick in the surveillance state wall (quarantines! tracking people who may be sick! think of the child-, er, grandmas!).
Also, I really really hope someone is making provisions for the scut-workers who are being asked to stay home from work if they feel ill, yet are not given paid sick days. Unfortunately, most landlords and utility companies still want to be paid, now, whether tenant/customer is sick or not.
I heard an interview in Iowa just before the Iowa Circ-, er, Caucus took place, and one of the participants, a small farmer, said something to the effect of he did not like Trump but did not want socialism. As I understand it, there are a lot of government programs available to help farmers* so I was a bit confused about how this gent defined "socialism" and why he wanted no part of it. Perhaps it, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder?
* Not that I have a problem with this, mind; the folks who feed us are higher up the list of those deserving of government largesse (along with doctors who serve rural and other underserved communities abd teachers). Certainly higher up than telcos and their self-serving boards and officers.
... between Welsh and English dialects: in English the inflection goes down at the end of a sentence, but the Welsh are excitable and so the inflection goes up. Handy tidbit for this left-pond'ian. Peace unto him, his family, and his loved ones.
Agree with your points, Malcolm, thank you. Apologies for not having been paying close attention to the trade/ tariff war, but do we have any ideas how the game table has changed, say, from before either Trump's or China's first "move" and now? My /guess/ is that while there have been notable changes here and there it "balances out" overall, but again, my attention has been elsewhere.
re: "$738bn you poor fools, from YOUR [taxpayers'] money!"
I'm sure someone of the Space Force supporters will claim that the huge amounts of money being shovelled at Raytheon, McDonnell-Douglas, and other "usual suspects" defense contractors will create an additional job or two somewhere, either through direct hiring (add more receptionists and public relations flacks) or indirect spend (those new hires to take lunch somewhere, right? Maybe the diner next door will add more waitstaff to keep up with the crush, right?). Pay no attention to the stock holders, brokers, and traders behind the curtain.
Set it on fire. ------>
re: "Pedestrians are stupider than sheep, and certainly by and large don't respect designated crossings." Hmmm, while many pedestrians (and drivers) may be dumb as dirt, most pedestrians in my observation and experience are acting like pedestrians on streets designed for cars. Streets that only have signals or "proper crosswalks" every quarter mile (forcing wheelchair users, pram pushers, and other pedestrians to go out of their way to cross at a signal then double back to their destinations), have shite or no sidewalks or proper lighting, encourage car speed by design (multiple wide lanes, median separation), have "free right" turns that don't require vehicles to even slow down to make right turns at intersections, and so on. It is not clear, given the utter lack of appropriate, safe, and convenient pedestrian facilities in many areas, what pedestrians should do other than do the best they can in a hostile environment. It would be helpful if more drivers were aware that they are only one class of road users -- i.e., not the only road users -- and showed a modicum of care.
I would really like to believe that someone had intended to make ARSENAL the full acronym ("amraam remote support equipment, nodes, and logistics" or something) but went out for a coffee break partway through only to return to find the document had been taken as-is up the food chain by a superior officer. That said, it would not surprise me that 'arse' would go right over their heads, as they tend to be oblivious and clueless on other matters (e.g., dumping PFAS into local water supplies, flying deafeningly loud aircraft over residential areas, and so on).
If I have a "real" job, or if I'm a student, or if for whatever reason I have four hours free in the afternoon and a decent vehicle, why not earn some extra cash on the side. I hear that many drivers are in this situation and while the pay-per-hour is not particularly great, they value the flexibility (around other commitments) and this benefit makes the low pay worth it for them. So the current set-up is good for them, and I hear (from the librul meedja) that some are concerned that if they are categorized as employees then the ride hail companies might start dictating their hours instead of allowing them to "clock in" and out as convenient.
But for those "forced" to drive because there are simply no other (licit) jobs around (or there are only shite human-robot burner jobs that cause more mental trauma and anxiety than the "security" of "regular" hours merits), what of them? Do they not deserve at least some minimal protections if they can commit to some minimum amount of work (hours a day, hours a week)?
Perhaps the mixed-use pavement is not the most direct route between Point A and Point B? There is a main road in our burg that is not particularly bicycle-friendly, but is one of the most direct routes between midtown and the east side and is what cyclists use for commuting and time-sensitive journeys.
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