Time to put my pedantic hat on. A smart meter can not cause any damage as a meter is a device to measure, not modify or control. A quick Internet search suggests the word comes from the Greek word métron, to measure.
The devices being argued about are not smart meters, they are controllers. If you have a smart energy controller then I guess you may be at risk, but if like me, you have a smart meter then you can write code until the cows come home and still have zero effect on my power.
A simple proxy server should be enough in this case.
This tactic may work where legal alternatives are available, work and are reasonably priced. However given the amount of content that is unavailable or grossly more expensive than in the USA, purely for commercial reasons, I suspect cost/hassle of VPNs and proxies will not stop people using them.
Australia has been on a slippery slope for while so this comes as no surprise, they can expect a lot more of this tampering. I guess they are just trying to keep up with the UK.
Don't drink the local milk (it made me sick more than once), buy imported milk from the supermarkets that have imports, such as Metro. Be aware that frozen goods are not shipped in refrigerated trucks so have often thawed and refrozen, even with places like Metro. As a result ice cream was often found to be inedible. Bread, in the region I was in, is often sweetened and tastes terrible as a result, but normal bread can be found in speciality shops. Don't judge a restaurant by how fancy it looks, note which ones are popular with the locals. If dinning out with suppliers don't show interest in something you won't eat, they mistake you horror as desire and you will find it ordered for you. Likewise you will likely be offered the menu to make choices, it is a sign of respect but you only need to order a couple of things and leave the rest to them, just got for the safe choices you recognise and you can wing it for the rest of the meal.
I lived in China for 2 years and there is a lot to both like and hate.
The good:
- The people are generally nice, easy to get on with.
- It is generally safe, I was never worried about where I went or when, within reason.
- The food is good, once you learn the gotchas.
- The electronics markets are the best in the world.
The bad:
- The Internet is truly horrible. I spent half my spare time curating VPNs to try and stay online. It is genuinely holding back China's tech sector. I was so glad when I returned home where the Internet just worked.
- Bureaucracy is a pain, everything is way more complicated than it needs to be. It took me a full day to change the ownership of my car when I sold it and I mean a full day, not just a few hours. Back home this take less than 5 minutes.
- Driving on China's roads is very stressful because of the lack of rule enforcement. I will never complain about drivers back home again.
- Pollution can make you feel unwell, much like having a cold. This was only a problem in the big cities, in small cities it is low enough to not affect you directly.
It has been a couple of years now since I lived there and from what I hear the Internet and pollution have both got worst since then.
Not really an issue for me as this one of the reasons I use an ad blocker. The part I found mind boggling is "a large number of advertising networks allow advertisers to deliver JavaScript code with their ads". That is just plain wrong. How can any website sell advertising with a clear conscious if they are going to allow effectively unknown people to run code on their visitor's PCs?
With HP adding 'regional protections' to new printers, effectively locking out after market consumables, you should investigate any security firmware upgrades carefully, they may come with unwanted 'features'.
Just a quick update. It made headline news here in New Zealand. The lead story on TV news reports show him arriving at Christchurch hospital in wheelchair and looking ok. Radio news reports he had fluid on the lungs and it sounds like it should be a short hospital stay.
The articles I have seen don't mention the legality of VPNs? That would be the first thing I would do on principle. If normal VPNs get blocked then I would move to tunnelling via SSH to a proxy on a server in a free country. That is what I used to do in China. So if VPNs are blocked are they going to block SSH to? To my mind it is impossible for them to truly block users from private Internet activity unless they are prepare to do it at the expense of legal businesses, like they do in China.
Having managed a development team in China for a couple if years I know first hand how big the disadvantage Chinese developers are at because their access to decent sources of information are block. The way the Internet is broken there seriously impacts productivity there. If Britain really wants to know what everyone is doing then the technical steps they will need to take will impact the productivity of British businesses.
It gets tiring watching law makers passing laws with no real understanding of how technology actually works.
In the case of US and New Zealand trade I believe much of it is tariff free. However we can not export many of our primary products tariff free to the USA as their farmers can not compete evenly with ours. On the other hand I an not aware of any imports from the USA we put tariffs on to to protect NZ industries. Currently the restrictions are all one way in favor of the USA. During the negotiations I assumed that we were going to get better access, but as I understand it we got zero improvement in our ability to export our primary industry products and in return for that we agreed to impact our high tech sector by agreeing to US IP restrictions.
I agree with other posters, remove the USA IP rubbish from TPP and sign it with the other parties, excluding the USA. We can always negotiate with the USA, one on one, for a future deal that is actually fair to both parties.
Yes, a valid point about location/role pay variance, but a minimum must help to some extent. Much simpler here as we really only have two locations rates, Auckland and not in Auckland, because Auckland is more expensive to live in.
I completely agree where people are replacing existing workers, that is clearly a cost not shortage issue, and should not be allowed. I have never heard of such abuses here. When I read that people are expected to train their replacements that comes across as the ultimate case of kicking someone when they are down. Such behaviour in is inconceivable here for several reasons.
Putting the Trump factor to one side for a minute there is a simple option that we use here in New Zealand, minimum pay.
To be eligible to work in NZ as a skilled worker your pay must be typical for a person in the industry, or you work visa will no be renewed. It stops employers importing staff for economic reasons. It is not easy to get a work visa for NZ, so employers only go down that path when there is a genuine shortage of local candidates. While it may be possible to game the system I doubt it happening here because it is such a small market.
I travel to the US quite often for work and I have thought it would be nice to do a couple of years OE there, but can't see me wanting to live there long term. If I was to work in the USA I would expect to be paid the same as a local with the same skills, I'm not cheap labor and I am not looking to displace an existing employee. If Trump wants a simple fix then set the minimum pay for an HB1 worker to say $100K. Given the size of the HB1 market there I suspect you would need to back that up with an audit system so people don't claim they are paying more that the really are via bonded employment or mandatory fees etc. I guess you could back that up with a blacklist blocking the HB1 system for an employer or employment agency caught trying to game the system.
I have been trying to understand how the wall would have any effect on drug transport? Surely a cheap quadcopter can transport modest quantities over any wall with ease, while high volume operations will just dig tunnels. I does seem like a waste time to me.
I am curious about the US view on this. You say it was a terrible deal for the US, but why? I was opposed to TPP as it was a terrible deal for New Zealand as it allowed US corporate interests to override NZ law but we did not get any tangible improvement in access to protected US markets in return for giving up our sovereignty.
Generally you are probably right about the US wanting to keep China out of the negotiations but I'm sure no one expects China to join later. I am a New Zealander who objected to TPP not because of free trade, that would have been good, but because it allowed US corporate interest override New Zealand law. The NZ leadership are ok with that but can you imagine the Chinese political leaders allowing their laws to be challenged? They are a bunch of control freaks, there is no way they are going to sign up to something that would allow a foreign entity challenge their dictates.
I had one of their early colour tablets and it made a good Android tablet once hacked. Their early e-ink devices had potential.
I seem to recall they lost the plot and were switching to a Microsoft solution? I know they did something that made me lose interest and ignore their new offerings, but I forget the details. Maybe someone here remembers?
Sounds like they are getting back on the right track.
When I am doing easy work I like some music but when doing difficult stuff I like silence. So I seem to pick the wrong companies to work for. I spent two years developing interactive shop displays that play music. Left that job to work for a company developing audio systems. In both case a lot of loud music is the norm. I have kind of got used to it over time, it is surprising what you can tune out, although some choices of music can really annoy.
I had one person connect with me. They were generic enough I though I may have worked with them so I added them. They then use my link to a high profile person I know to contact them. That person got back to me to check what I knew about him. Having a closer look at his profile I realised it had no verifiable information. For example there was not a single employer named, just names such as "Radio Module company". He claims to hold a degree at the "University of Reading" but when I contacted that university they refused to confirm if he held a qualification from them for "confidentiality reasons". Truly bizarre. So if you want a fake degree don't buy one online, claim to have one from the University of Reading, for free.
So while I can't prove it, hence no link here, I strongly suspect that it is a fake profile. What was really fascinating was the sheer number of people who have endorsed him but probably don't actually know him. It made me realise the endorsement process was meaningless so I guess Linkedin's changes in this area are well overdue. Now if they could do something about fake profiles that would be good.
I don't think the information in that link is reliable. I can't speak for most countries, but for Australia it's just wrong. No tipping is ever expected here in any circumstances.
Yes, exactly the same in NZ, no tipping is ever expected here in any circumstances. That link is exactly the kind of rubbish we can do without. To quote directly from that page they admit directly "tipping has spread "because Americans forced it on people."". Please stop it, seriously! I had to laugh at the suggestion you would tip a taxi driver in NZ. I have yet to find another country with taxi fares as high as NZ. A ride from Auckland airport to the CBD is about 20minutes but will set you back an easy NZD $100 and they are suggesting you give them more! No wonder Uber is doing well here.
That may well be true, as I note the countries you list are the most common ones for me to visit. From memory tipping is not common in the UK. The key thing you mention is when it is added to the bill automatically. I have no problem with that as it is then simply another cost like a tax and I don't have to work out how much it will be and if it applies. It will also appear on the receipt then so no problem with reimbursement either. The only catch then is mentally preparing to pay more that the listed price. Mind you that is a other annoyance in the USA, the retail prices do not include sale tax, which varies a lot by state and types of goods. Here the sales tax is always include in the retail price, what is listed on the shelf is what you pay at the checkout.
As an 'Anonymous Coward' I guess you may be tolling, but anyway here is how it works here. New Zealand's big cities get enough American visitors that staff will understand what you are doing and should have a system to handle it but try tipping in a smaller city or town and the staff will be confused. If it is a cash tip then they will be ok, but they will have no idea how to deal with it on their EFTPOS machine or what to do on the cash register. We have no systems to deal with tips so unless it is cash you are making work for them. If it is cash they then have to either break the law by keeping it all, or work out how much they have give to the IRD (like the IRS) and how they make that payment.
One of the more annoying things about visiting the USA is tipping. Always trying to figure out when you need to tip and how much. Most of my travel to the USA is business so costs are reimbursed but trying to fit tips in to official paper work is a pain as my country has no tipping so no accounting system for it.
I have traveled to quite a lot of countries around the world but the USA is the only place where I have had to deal with tips. It leaves me wondering if there are any other countries that consider tips a core income for employees as it apparently is in the USA?
Tip for USA international travelers. Don't tip in other countries you travel to, unless you have been told it is customary there. It annoys the crap out of the rest of us as setting an expectation that all foreigners tip. Your tipping systems is annoying, we don't want it infecting the rest of the world.
As a side note we have a 'minimum wage' here (New Zealand) and there is a push to have a 'minimum living wage' where the minimum wage is set to a level that you can live off it. The numbers are not far apart so I suspect it will happen soon. Such ideas as minimum wages and the minimum living wage are gather popularity around world, certainly in first world countries. It sounds like something badly need in the USA before you can phase out your tipping system.
I can charge an EV at home or work. There is not an EV I know of that could not handle the daily commute of myself or any of friends, family or co-workers. The rate at which battery range is improving means within about 5 years the range will be more than I can handle in a single days drive. On the other hand there is, as far as I know, not a single hydrogen charging station in New Zealand. If I was rich I could buy a new EV today and I assume my next new car, about 4 years from now, will be within my price range. Hydrogen cars have been demos for 30+ years and I see no technology on the horizon that will change that, whereas some of the battery hype over years has become reality. Look at the battery price and performance curves over the last few decades and you will see the trend is clear.
Tell you what, I will invest my money in EVs and you can invest yours in hydrogen cars. I bet I get to retire before you do...
Trains are in the unique situation that supplying external electricity is relatively easy, you string up a cable above the track. It is the form of EV that has been practical for decades and is widely deployed so why would you create such a complicated alternative? Yes, you could argue the less used or longer remote tracks would be expensive to electrify but do wonder if a hydrogen hybrid stacks up economically for those cases anyway.
Full disclosure: I thought hydrogen vehicles where dumb when I first read about how they where going to change the world "real soon now", in the 1980s, and nothing in the years since has change my view. If I subscribed to conspiracy theories then I would believe hydrogen vehicles were backed by oil industry to slow the development of EVs. It has annoyed me how long it has taken EVs to reach market but now they are here I think it is time stop giving press coverage to impractical hydrogen demo vehicles and focus on the real issue, the transition from ICEs to EVs.
Slashdot Mirror
Time to put my pedantic hat on. A smart meter can not cause any damage as a meter is a device to measure, not modify or control. A quick Internet search suggests the word comes from the Greek word métron, to measure.
The devices being argued about are not smart meters, they are controllers. If you have a smart energy controller then I guess you may be at risk, but if like me, you have a smart meter then you can write code until the cows come home and still have zero effect on my power.
A simple proxy server should be enough in this case.
This tactic may work where legal alternatives are available, work and are reasonably priced. However given the amount of content that is unavailable or grossly more expensive than in the USA, purely for commercial reasons, I suspect cost/hassle of VPNs and proxies will not stop people using them.
Australia has been on a slippery slope for while so this comes as no surprise, they can expect a lot more of this tampering. I guess they are just trying to keep up with the UK.
Don't drink the local milk (it made me sick more than once), buy imported milk from the supermarkets that have imports, such as Metro. Be aware that frozen goods are not shipped in refrigerated trucks so have often thawed and refrozen, even with places like Metro. As a result ice cream was often found to be inedible. Bread, in the region I was in, is often sweetened and tastes terrible as a result, but normal bread can be found in speciality shops. Don't judge a restaurant by how fancy it looks, note which ones are popular with the locals. If dinning out with suppliers don't show interest in something you won't eat, they mistake you horror as desire and you will find it ordered for you. Likewise you will likely be offered the menu to make choices, it is a sign of respect but you only need to order a couple of things and leave the rest to them, just got for the safe choices you recognise and you can wing it for the rest of the meal.
I lived in China for 2 years and there is a lot to both like and hate.
The good:
- The people are generally nice, easy to get on with.
- It is generally safe, I was never worried about where I went or when, within reason.
- The food is good, once you learn the gotchas.
- The electronics markets are the best in the world.
The bad:
- The Internet is truly horrible. I spent half my spare time curating VPNs to try and stay online. It is genuinely holding back China's tech sector. I was so glad when I returned home where the Internet just worked.
- Bureaucracy is a pain, everything is way more complicated than it needs to be. It took me a full day to change the ownership of my car when I sold it and I mean a full day, not just a few hours. Back home this take less than 5 minutes.
- Driving on China's roads is very stressful because of the lack of rule enforcement. I will never complain about drivers back home again.
- Pollution can make you feel unwell, much like having a cold. This was only a problem in the big cities, in small cities it is low enough to not affect you directly.
It has been a couple of years now since I lived there and from what I hear the Internet and pollution have both got worst since then.
Not really an issue for me as this one of the reasons I use an ad blocker. The part I found mind boggling is "a large number of advertising networks allow advertisers to deliver JavaScript code with their ads". That is just plain wrong. How can any website sell advertising with a clear conscious if they are going to allow effectively unknown people to run code on their visitor's PCs?
With HP adding 'regional protections' to new printers, effectively locking out after market consumables, you should investigate any security firmware upgrades carefully, they may come with unwanted 'features'.
Just a quick update. It made headline news here in New Zealand. The lead story on TV news reports show him arriving at Christchurch hospital in wheelchair and looking ok. Radio news reports he had fluid on the lungs and it sounds like it should be a short hospital stay.
The articles I have seen don't mention the legality of VPNs? That would be the first thing I would do on principle. If normal VPNs get blocked then I would move to tunnelling via SSH to a proxy on a server in a free country. That is what I used to do in China. So if VPNs are blocked are they going to block SSH to? To my mind it is impossible for them to truly block users from private Internet activity unless they are prepare to do it at the expense of legal businesses, like they do in China.
Having managed a development team in China for a couple if years I know first hand how big the disadvantage Chinese developers are at because their access to decent sources of information are block. The way the Internet is broken there seriously impacts productivity there. If Britain really wants to know what everyone is doing then the technical steps they will need to take will impact the productivity of British businesses.
It gets tiring watching law makers passing laws with no real understanding of how technology actually works.
In the case of US and New Zealand trade I believe much of it is tariff free. However we can not export many of our primary products tariff free to the USA as their farmers can not compete evenly with ours. On the other hand I an not aware of any imports from the USA we put tariffs on to to protect NZ industries. Currently the restrictions are all one way in favor of the USA. During the negotiations I assumed that we were going to get better access, but as I understand it we got zero improvement in our ability to export our primary industry products and in return for that we agreed to impact our high tech sector by agreeing to US IP restrictions.
I agree with other posters, remove the USA IP rubbish from TPP and sign it with the other parties, excluding the USA. We can always negotiate with the USA, one on one, for a future deal that is actually fair to both parties.
Yes, a valid point about location/role pay variance, but a minimum must help to some extent. Much simpler here as we really only have two locations rates, Auckland and not in Auckland, because Auckland is more expensive to live in.
I completely agree where people are replacing existing workers, that is clearly a cost not shortage issue, and should not be allowed. I have never heard of such abuses here. When I read that people are expected to train their replacements that comes across as the ultimate case of kicking someone when they are down. Such behaviour in is inconceivable here for several reasons.
Putting the Trump factor to one side for a minute there is a simple option that we use here in New Zealand, minimum pay.
To be eligible to work in NZ as a skilled worker your pay must be typical for a person in the industry, or you work visa will no be renewed. It stops employers importing staff for economic reasons. It is not easy to get a work visa for NZ, so employers only go down that path when there is a genuine shortage of local candidates. While it may be possible to game the system I doubt it happening here because it is such a small market.
I travel to the US quite often for work and I have thought it would be nice to do a couple of years OE there, but can't see me wanting to live there long term. If I was to work in the USA I would expect to be paid the same as a local with the same skills, I'm not cheap labor and I am not looking to displace an existing employee. If Trump wants a simple fix then set the minimum pay for an HB1 worker to say $100K. Given the size of the HB1 market there I suspect you would need to back that up with an audit system so people don't claim they are paying more that the really are via bonded employment or mandatory fees etc. I guess you could back that up with a blacklist blocking the HB1 system for an employer or employment agency caught trying to game the system.
I have been trying to understand how the wall would have any effect on drug transport? Surely a cheap quadcopter can transport modest quantities over any wall with ease, while high volume operations will just dig tunnels. I does seem like a waste time to me.
I am curious about the US view on this. You say it was a terrible deal for the US, but why? I was opposed to TPP as it was a terrible deal for New Zealand as it allowed US corporate interests to override NZ law but we did not get any tangible improvement in access to protected US markets in return for giving up our sovereignty.
Generally you are probably right about the US wanting to keep China out of the negotiations but I'm sure no one expects China to join later. I am a New Zealander who objected to TPP not because of free trade, that would have been good, but because it allowed US corporate interest override New Zealand law. The NZ leadership are ok with that but can you imagine the Chinese political leaders allowing their laws to be challenged? They are a bunch of control freaks, there is no way they are going to sign up to something that would allow a foreign entity challenge their dictates.
I had one of their early colour tablets and it made a good Android tablet once hacked. Their early e-ink devices had potential.
I seem to recall they lost the plot and were switching to a Microsoft solution? I know they did something that made me lose interest and ignore their new offerings, but I forget the details. Maybe someone here remembers?
Sounds like they are getting back on the right track.
You mean an OLED display like on the Nexus One back in 2009? What's next, wireless charging?
For about $4 try http://www.banggood.com/Origin... but feel free to pay more if you want.
When I am doing easy work I like some music but when doing difficult stuff I like silence. So I seem to pick the wrong companies to work for. I spent two years developing interactive shop displays that play music. Left that job to work for a company developing audio systems. In both case a lot of loud music is the norm. I have kind of got used to it over time, it is surprising what you can tune out, although some choices of music can really annoy.
I had one person connect with me. They were generic enough I though I may have worked with them so I added them. They then use my link to a high profile person I know to contact them. That person got back to me to check what I knew about him. Having a closer look at his profile I realised it had no verifiable information. For example there was not a single employer named, just names such as "Radio Module company". He claims to hold a degree at the "University of Reading" but when I contacted that university they refused to confirm if he held a qualification from them for "confidentiality reasons". Truly bizarre. So if you want a fake degree don't buy one online, claim to have one from the University of Reading, for free.
So while I can't prove it, hence no link here, I strongly suspect that it is a fake profile. What was really fascinating was the sheer number of people who have endorsed him but probably don't actually know him. It made me realise the endorsement process was meaningless so I guess Linkedin's changes in this area are well overdue. Now if they could do something about fake profiles that would be good.
I don't think the information in that link is reliable. I can't speak for most countries, but for Australia it's just wrong. No tipping is ever expected here in any circumstances.
Yes, exactly the same in NZ, no tipping is ever expected here in any circumstances. That link is exactly the kind of rubbish we can do without. To quote directly from that page they admit directly "tipping has spread "because Americans forced it on people."". Please stop it, seriously! I had to laugh at the suggestion you would tip a taxi driver in NZ. I have yet to find another country with taxi fares as high as NZ. A ride from Auckland airport to the CBD is about 20minutes but will set you back an easy NZD $100 and they are suggesting you give them more! No wonder Uber is doing well here.
That may well be true, as I note the countries you list are the most common ones for me to visit. From memory tipping is not common in the UK. The key thing you mention is when it is added to the bill automatically. I have no problem with that as it is then simply another cost like a tax and I don't have to work out how much it will be and if it applies. It will also appear on the receipt then so no problem with reimbursement either. The only catch then is mentally preparing to pay more that the listed price. Mind you that is a other annoyance in the USA, the retail prices do not include sale tax, which varies a lot by state and types of goods. Here the sales tax is always include in the retail price, what is listed on the shelf is what you pay at the checkout.
As an 'Anonymous Coward' I guess you may be tolling, but anyway here is how it works here. New Zealand's big cities get enough American visitors that staff will understand what you are doing and should have a system to handle it but try tipping in a smaller city or town and the staff will be confused. If it is a cash tip then they will be ok, but they will have no idea how to deal with it on their EFTPOS machine or what to do on the cash register. We have no systems to deal with tips so unless it is cash you are making work for them. If it is cash they then have to either break the law by keeping it all, or work out how much they have give to the IRD (like the IRS) and how they make that payment.
One of the more annoying things about visiting the USA is tipping. Always trying to figure out when you need to tip and how much. Most of my travel to the USA is business so costs are reimbursed but trying to fit tips in to official paper work is a pain as my country has no tipping so no accounting system for it.
I have traveled to quite a lot of countries around the world but the USA is the only place where I have had to deal with tips. It leaves me wondering if there are any other countries that consider tips a core income for employees as it apparently is in the USA?
Tip for USA international travelers. Don't tip in other countries you travel to, unless you have been told it is customary there. It annoys the crap out of the rest of us as setting an expectation that all foreigners tip. Your tipping systems is annoying, we don't want it infecting the rest of the world.
As a side note we have a 'minimum wage' here (New Zealand) and there is a push to have a 'minimum living wage' where the minimum wage is set to a level that you can live off it. The numbers are not far apart so I suspect it will happen soon. Such ideas as minimum wages and the minimum living wage are gather popularity around world, certainly in first world countries. It sounds like something badly need in the USA before you can phase out your tipping system.
I can charge an EV at home or work. There is not an EV I know of that could not handle the daily commute of myself or any of friends, family or co-workers. The rate at which battery range is improving means within about 5 years the range will be more than I can handle in a single days drive. On the other hand there is, as far as I know, not a single hydrogen charging station in New Zealand. If I was rich I could buy a new EV today and I assume my next new car, about 4 years from now, will be within my price range. Hydrogen cars have been demos for 30+ years and I see no technology on the horizon that will change that, whereas some of the battery hype over years has become reality. Look at the battery price and performance curves over the last few decades and you will see the trend is clear.
Tell you what, I will invest my money in EVs and you can invest yours in hydrogen cars. I bet I get to retire before you do...
Trains are in the unique situation that supplying external electricity is relatively easy, you string up a cable above the track. It is the form of EV that has been practical for decades and is widely deployed so why would you create such a complicated alternative? Yes, you could argue the less used or longer remote tracks would be expensive to electrify but do wonder if a hydrogen hybrid stacks up economically for those cases anyway.
Full disclosure: I thought hydrogen vehicles where dumb when I first read about how they where going to change the world "real soon now", in the 1980s, and nothing in the years since has change my view. If I subscribed to conspiracy theories then I would believe hydrogen vehicles were backed by oil industry to slow the development of EVs. It has annoyed me how long it has taken EVs to reach market but now they are here I think it is time stop giving press coverage to impractical hydrogen demo vehicles and focus on the real issue, the transition from ICEs to EVs.