...when the water utility companies are private, profit-making entities, enabled by ideologically- and financially-motivated politicians.
Investment in infrastructure - fixing leaks and properly managing reservoirs - does not enhance shareholder value or executive bonuses, and so doesn't happen.
It's not even possible to shame these companies into acting in the national interest, as their ultimate ownership is off-shore, so they don't care.
Even the governmental regulator operates in favour of the companies instead of the customers.
The situation is similar to the other utilities in the UK - gas, electricity and rail.
Unfortunately, without meaningful political change, there's no solution.
The laptop I'm using right now is running Windows 7, but is unsupported by Windows 10 as NVidia don't provide a driver for the GeForce Go 7400 GPU it contains.
In addition, HP, the "makers" of this machine, have chosen to hide the links to all the drivers they host, so I'm boned if I need to reinstall... unless I can remember all the SP numbers for the audio drivers, etc and pull them direct from their site.
Over the years, it's had an SSD to replace the old HDD, a new WiFi card to get 5GHz and "n" (and a patched BIOS to circumvent the stupid "whitelist"), and the RAM is maxed out
Do I now want to spend a chunk of money on a new laptop when this one works, and does everything I need it to do, just because MS and/or HP have decided it's time I did, to support their bottom line?
No, especially as everything "affordable" nowadays appears to have cheap-and-nasty calculator keys, not a *real* keyboard.
The only "services" they sell are hosted versions of a couple of their software packages.
Do they really need to spend huge amounts on designing, validating, producing and integrating custom silicon, combined with huge amounts on development and QA of a new branch, just to make the hosted version of Spark run a bit more efficiently?
Can they mean "speaks Spanish like a Spaniard rather than a Mexican/Puerto Rican/American/etc," or "speaks English with a Spanish, rather than Mexican/etc accent."
Or perhaps it means they are unable to distinguish between the accents of the Spanish, Greeks, Italians, French, Germans, Poles, Finns, Swedes or British, let alone the regions thereof? (other European countries are available)
Whatever they mean, it adds nothing to the actual story and serves only to demonstrate the laziness and ignorance of this "journalist," and the ineptitude of the editorial oversight processes of this "publication."
Sorry, but this sort of thing really pisses me off - if copy like this came across my desk (OK, so it wouldn't actually, but you know what I mean), words would be had... probably starting with "bollocks."
My ex works for a coroner, and they've used that exact method to formally identify what they call a "decomp" - a body that has been dead for several weeks, and decomposed so much that it's effectively melted into its surroundings.
You have the MAC address, so you can identify the manufacturer. You call them, ask them for the IMEI, and the supply chain details.
From the supply chain details, you can track it to a retailer. You then ask the retailer for the details of whomever bought it.
From the IMEI, you ask the cellular telcos for details of the SIM associated with it in the period in question, and all the other data they hold - call history, SMS, whatever.
You ask the SIM vendor for any details on the subscriber - even if it's a PAYG and they paid cash, the location of the transaction will be available.
From the other telco data, you can track down the suspect's associates, always presuming they might be entirely uninvolved beyond being an acquaintance
Unless this suspect bought the phone from a second-hand store (or stole it), never put a SIM in it, and used public WiFi for their scheme, you stand a moderate chance of getting close.
Hoping that random people will (a) see you request, (b) understand what it means, (c) own a router with open access, (d) know how to look at their logs, (e) be bothered to do so, and (f) have logs that go back at least nine months, seems to be a long shot.
I get the impression that some policeman has equated a MAC address to a car's registration number, so decided to ask if anyone has seen it...
Well, my thinking - such as it was, being three pints in - was that a typical bicycle tyre width is approximately 1 inch wide, and the width of this particular trike is 48 inches, making the trike approximately 1.5 orders of magnitude wider than the bike. A reasonable result based on a slightly flawed premise.
However, your contention that "a bicycle takes a least two feet of width" is clearly flawed. Have you ever watched bicycles moving through stationary or slow-moving traffic? They go through gaps much less than two feet wide - and this is an advantage erroneously being conferred on a four-foot wide tricycle.
Likewise parking - dumping a four-foot wide vehicle (almost as wide as a smart car) on a busy city pavement (or "sidewalk" as we're talking about Seattle) crowded with pedestrians is not going to be successful, nor is it if left in the bicycle lane... unless the lane is considerably wider than any I've seen here in the UK, and has a specific exemption for tricycles in the "no parking in a bicycle lane" rules.
The fact is, you cannot equate the convenience and mobility of a bicycle to that of a tricycle in a crowded urban environment. Even the promotional video by the manufacturer only shows it being used in very quiet suburban and commercial spaces.
Well, they're TRIcycles not BIcycles, so perhaps not. It also depends on whether the lanes are wide enough - some of the lanes here in the UK would not be.
Then there's the matter of where they'll park while unloading and delivering - doubt that'll be allowed in the bicycle lane - and then how quickly the thing will be stolen once unattended.
Bike messengers have long known cycling is the fastest way to get around traffic-choked cities.
A bicycle can be much faster over short/medium distances in a congested city, because of their ability to trivially by-pass stationary traffic.
However, a tricycle does not have this ability, being orders of magnitude wider than a bicycle. Now add the encumbrance of a trailer - especially one of sufficient capacity to make the exercise even remotely worthwhile - and you have no chance of moving through or around stationary traffic... unless you plan on riding on the pavements ("sidewalks" as the Americans call them).
If she doesn't understand that how on earth would she have been hired as a Samsung rep? I feel fairly confident a massive corporate entity isn't that incompetent when hiring reps.
She wasn't "hired as a Samsung rep." She's not a Samsung employee.
"Brand Ambassador" is akin to a sponsorship deal - take this bucket of money to exclusively use, been seen using and promote our [product] during your daily life.
Outside the "Slashdot bubble," most people don't know what a phone OS is. At best, they might recognise there's a difference between Apple and non-Apple, but are generally unaware what those differences are...
This Samsung rep was clearly just a twit who preferred Apple's OS over Android so much she was willing to risk her job over it.
Actually, it's highly unlikely that she even knows what an OS is, let alone that there are different ones.
More likely is she took Samsung's money and phone, then realised that FaceTime or whatever other Apple-specific thing wasn't there, so switched and hoped no-one would notice because, like, they're all just phones, right?
Oh, and is was effectively a sponsorship deal, not a job per se.
Slashdot Mirror
...when the water utility companies are private, profit-making entities, enabled by ideologically- and financially-motivated politicians.
Investment in infrastructure - fixing leaks and properly managing reservoirs - does not enhance shareholder value or executive bonuses, and so doesn't happen.
It's not even possible to shame these companies into acting in the national interest, as their ultimate ownership is off-shore, so they don't care.
Even the governmental regulator operates in favour of the companies instead of the customers.
The situation is similar to the other utilities in the UK - gas, electricity and rail.
Unfortunately, without meaningful political change, there's no solution.
The laptop I'm using right now is running Windows 7, but is unsupported by Windows 10 as NVidia don't provide a driver for the GeForce Go 7400 GPU it contains.
In addition, HP, the "makers" of this machine, have chosen to hide the links to all the drivers they host, so I'm boned if I need to reinstall... unless I can remember all the SP numbers for the audio drivers, etc and pull them direct from their site.
Over the years, it's had an SSD to replace the old HDD, a new WiFi card to get 5GHz and "n" (and a patched BIOS to circumvent the stupid "whitelist"), and the RAM is maxed out
Do I now want to spend a chunk of money on a new laptop when this one works, and does everything I need it to do, just because MS and/or HP have decided it's time I did, to support their bottom line?
No, especially as everything "affordable" nowadays appears to have cheap-and-nasty calculator keys, not a *real* keyboard.
Get off my lawn.
There are adults who don't want to - or can't - think that hard when watching a movie.
There was a story published back in the 70s in a similar vein. I memory serves it was "Ship of Strangers" by Bob Shaw.
The only "services" they sell are hosted versions of a couple of their software packages.
Do they really need to spend huge amounts on designing, validating, producing and integrating custom silicon, combined with huge amounts on development and QA of a new branch, just to make the hosted version of Spark run a bit more efficiently?
Why on earth would Adobe - exclusively a software company - need to design their own silicon?
Is this a prelude to a repeat of the bad old dongle-days?
Methinks someone is confusing politics and geography...
Really? A "European" accent?
Can they mean "speaks Spanish like a Spaniard rather than a Mexican/Puerto Rican/American/etc," or "speaks English with a Spanish, rather than Mexican/etc accent."
Or perhaps it means they are unable to distinguish between the accents of the Spanish, Greeks, Italians, French, Germans, Poles, Finns, Swedes or British, let alone the regions thereof? (other European countries are available)
Whatever they mean, it adds nothing to the actual story and serves only to demonstrate the laziness and ignorance of this "journalist," and the ineptitude of the editorial oversight processes of this "publication."
Sorry, but this sort of thing really pisses me off - if copy like this came across my desk (OK, so it wouldn't actually, but you know what I mean), words would be had... probably starting with "bollocks."
Bloody hell, you're right... except that he's already got his Golden Ticket thanks to gullible Americans and scheming Russians.
Now, if only Wonka would come along, lock him in a glass box and fire him through the roof...
...that he reminds me of Verruca Salt - "I want it NOW!"
My ex works for a coroner, and they've used that exact method to formally identify what they call a "decomp" - a body that has been dead for several weeks, and decomposed so much that it's effectively melted into its surroundings.
When Harrier VTOL fighter debuted in the 1990s
The Harrier was first flown in 1967, and was introduced to operational service in 1969.
it was remarkable.
In the 1990s it would have been remarkable. In the 1960s it was amazing.
Router logs? Really?
You have the MAC address, so you can identify the manufacturer. You call them, ask them for the IMEI, and the supply chain details.
From the supply chain details, you can track it to a retailer. You then ask the retailer for the details of whomever bought it.
From the IMEI, you ask the cellular telcos for details of the SIM associated with it in the period in question, and all the other data they hold - call history, SMS, whatever.
You ask the SIM vendor for any details on the subscriber - even if it's a PAYG and they paid cash, the location of the transaction will be available.
From the other telco data, you can track down the suspect's associates, always presuming they might be entirely uninvolved beyond being an acquaintance
Unless this suspect bought the phone from a second-hand store (or stole it), never put a SIM in it, and used public WiFi for their scheme, you stand a moderate chance of getting close.
Hoping that random people will (a) see you request, (b) understand what it means, (c) own a router with open access, (d) know how to look at their logs, (e) be bothered to do so, and (f) have logs that go back at least nine months, seems to be a long shot.
I get the impression that some policeman has equated a MAC address to a car's registration number, so decided to ask if anyone has seen it...
Well, my thinking - such as it was, being three pints in - was that a typical bicycle tyre width is approximately 1 inch wide, and the width of this particular trike is 48 inches, making the trike approximately 1.5 orders of magnitude wider than the bike. A reasonable result based on a slightly flawed premise.
However, your contention that "a bicycle takes a least two feet of width" is clearly flawed. Have you ever watched bicycles moving through stationary or slow-moving traffic? They go through gaps much less than two feet wide - and this is an advantage erroneously being conferred on a four-foot wide tricycle.
Likewise parking - dumping a four-foot wide vehicle (almost as wide as a smart car) on a busy city pavement (or "sidewalk" as we're talking about Seattle) crowded with pedestrians is not going to be successful, nor is it if left in the bicycle lane... unless the lane is considerably wider than any I've seen here in the UK, and has a specific exemption for tricycles in the "no parking in a bicycle lane" rules.
The fact is, you cannot equate the convenience and mobility of a bicycle to that of a tricycle in a crowded urban environment. Even the promotional video by the manufacturer only shows it being used in very quiet suburban and commercial spaces.
Fact is, you're wrong.
According to the website, this tricycle is four feet wide - I don't think riding on the pavement (or, indeed, sidewalk) is going to be an option.
Well, they're TRIcycles not BIcycles, so perhaps not. It also depends on whether the lanes are wide enough - some of the lanes here in the UK would not be.
Then there's the matter of where they'll park while unloading and delivering - doubt that'll be allowed in the bicycle lane - and then how quickly the thing will be stolen once unattended.
Bike messengers have long known cycling is the fastest way to get around traffic-choked cities.
A bicycle can be much faster over short/medium distances in a congested city, because of their ability to trivially by-pass stationary traffic.
However, a tricycle does not have this ability, being orders of magnitude wider than a bicycle. Now add the encumbrance of a trailer - especially one of sufficient capacity to make the exercise even remotely worthwhile - and you have no chance of moving through or around stationary traffic... unless you plan on riding on the pavements ("sidewalks" as the Americans call them).
... as long as your ISP doesn't impose any kind of severe usage caps.
Is that your best idea for a constructive solution?
Nope - my best idea for any IoT devices that require connection to a vendor server is to hit them repeatedly with a hammer.
The same approach should be used on the vendor.
OK, so perhaps not "constructive" in the literal sense, but still...
...so that any IoT device makers that use it are required to provide updates to their devices for the same period?
...that they didn't complain about ticket prices.
In theory, a hacker could steal them while they are briefly vulnerable.
In practice, some three-letter agency or foreign power will steal them.
FTFY
If she doesn't understand that how on earth would she have been hired as a Samsung rep? I feel fairly confident a massive corporate entity isn't that incompetent when hiring reps.
She wasn't "hired as a Samsung rep." She's not a Samsung employee.
"Brand Ambassador" is akin to a sponsorship deal - take this bucket of money to exclusively use, been seen using and promote our [product] during your daily life.
Outside the "Slashdot bubble," most people don't know what a phone OS is. At best, they might recognise there's a difference between Apple and non-Apple, but are generally unaware what those differences are...
This Samsung rep was clearly just a twit who preferred Apple's OS over Android so much she was willing to risk her job over it.
Actually, it's highly unlikely that she even knows what an OS is, let alone that there are different ones.
More likely is she took Samsung's money and phone, then realised that FaceTime or whatever other Apple-specific thing wasn't there, so switched and hoped no-one would notice because, like, they're all just phones, right?
Oh, and is was effectively a sponsorship deal, not a job per se.
They voluntarily signed a contract - and received significant payment - to only use Brand X. They were caught using Brand Y.
That's a very simple case of "breach of contract."
You, sir, are an idiot.