PietdeVries

I stared at Google Earth for a while, using the 41:30 and 73 as a guide, but wasn't able to pinpoint the location of the site. With these huge vents, it shouldn't be too hard to find where this site was located.

Anyone an idea?

Can you check if things improve if you turn off 5G and move to 4G/LTE instead?

Why would a power meter allow an unauthenticated client to turn the thing on and off wireless?!? Sure, if you flip a switch handling a large current often enough, something will break (and I am impressed it's not the AC in this case).

But why does the power meter accept commands from something 'outside', something untrusted?

Right!?! NSFW features like the Oral-B brush has, where you can order a special brush that helps you relieve certain stress in the bedroom. With the modified Sonicare firmware, the brush won't stop after 2 minutes but keeps "brushing" until, well, you're 'done'...

I might have misinterpreted the article, but I imagine that if the NFC tag on the brush locks out, the handset is no longer able to write new data to it (no 'brush seconds' can be added to the counter). This suggests to me that the handset will not start blinking and reminding you that you need a new brush, but will be happy to brush to infinity. I cannot imagine that the handset will refuse to brush if it can't write to the brush...

I think fusion-plants have always been "15 years away", and most likely will be so for quite a few years...

Edit: I was wrong, fusion is always 30 years away: https://www.discovermagazine.com/technology/why-nuclear-fusi...

While we're on the "wartime economy" topic - is your country currently at war? Is any EU country currently formally at war? Is the US? How would that justify a "war time economy decision"?!?

You can't just throw all democracy laws and regulations overboard just because Russia is messing in their backyard (okay - that is an understatement, but you get the point)...

Not sure how this would work outside the Netherlands where I live, but there seems to be a relation between the housing market and the interest rates...

We currently see the interest rates go up rather quickly. This has a great effect on your monthly mortgage payments, and (at least here) the amount of money the bank is willing to lend you.

While the EU had interest rates close to zero percent for the past decade, buying an expensive house was not a problem: your monthly payments for interest were almost zero. With the interest rate climbing, the number of people that still can buy this expensive house reduces significantly. And so the prices of the houses start dropping as well.

Of course, as long as you are happy with your house and all is well there is no problem. But when you get unemployed, decide to get divorced or otherwise have to sell your house but the bank still owns it, you have an issue. Where you bought it for 600.000, you now get 400.000 - and the bank really wants the 200.000 back...

This is just technological progress, right..?

With the centrally heated house rising, so we forgot the skill (and pleasure) to heat your house with a fire (coal, wood). We buy fully-prepared meals in the supermarket - no longer willing to go to three or four separate shops to buy the ingredients and spend time at home putting them together. Even bread-making at home has been replaced by a machine that does it for you.

Technology takes over, and there are always people that think this is a bad thing. But it's of all times and started before our ancestors decided to walk upright...

If more taxes is the reason for this rule, then why try to justify it with references to terrorism?

Well... The US Defense budget for 2021 alone is 7 times the money needed to build a new LHC (705 billion [1] for the US defense in 2021). Germany will spend a similar 100 billion dollars on weapons in the coming years. So while 100 billion looks like an amazing amount of money, the military spends this in the blink of an eye and without the slightest promise of a RoI...

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_...

Right - but that puts the 'solution' to this problem on your end, and not on the plate of the organisation sending it to you in the first place. Sure, this is the easiest way of dealing with it, but it's not how it should be. If Cloudflare needs more customers, they need to follow the marketing rules, and one of them is to allow users who are not interested in their offer to no longer receive these. The whole "verify your e-mail address" is bad enough and as stated above is nothing more than a barrier to prevent you from unsubscribing...

"Regardless that’s what insurance is for."

Wot?!? It appears you've never experienced the feeling that someone was in your house, your bedroom and went through your stuff - perhaps even while you were home... Money cannot fix everything. It can help, but the creepy feeling that your home is no longer private cannot be repaired...

I would assume they would just raise their prices. Like with shipping containers from China to the rest of the world - prices increased tenfold...

No - the use of gasoline does not impact the cost of the road. But it can be used to persuade people to use the bike lane next to it. People are amazingly sensitive to costs - check for instance tax benefits. As soon as a product is subsidized by means of a tax rule, people run as fast as they can to get it. Hybrid and now electric cars are a great example (at least in the Netherlands). By having people pay by the mile instead of whether they own a car or now, usage is more evenly charged. You drive a lot? You pay a lot. Even nicer would be to add a charge to the gas prices: your car uses a lot? You pay a lot. But it seems that the gap between buying gas at the pump and riding your car is too wide: people will get a guzzling car regardless. But if you know that every mile you pay 10 cents..? I guess it will get people out of the car very, very quick...

For the (north) Europeans here, there is a German project Luftdaten (also available in English) that does more or less the same [1]. Provides guides for air quality measurement devices [2], firmware and a 'worldwide' map that shows the location and measurement of each device. They have around 14.000 at the moment, mainly in Germany and the Netherlands. The device works with Domoticz, so you can get the read-out integrated in your dashboard. Shows temperature, humidity and PM10 & PM2.5 - very happy with mine!

[1] https://sensor.community/en/ [2] https://sensor.community/en/sensors/airrohr/

I don't think the IoT devices will care that their download speed is somewhat reduced and that they'd have to wait a few ms to get access. These devices will hardly transmit or received any data. Likely a lot of switches, wall outlets and some sensors that you'd want a reading from every minute.

The number of clients should not be an issue, the half-duplex shouldn't be as well...

I can't imagine it's the high number of (IoT) clients that is the problem - it is the high power that the AP's use that causes the issue.

WiFi goes two ways - the AP talks to the client, and the client has to talk back. Clients don't have the high transmitting power that an AP has, and actually the AP won't need this high power. After all, if you use a bullhorn to reach your backyard, but the guy over there can't talk back, there is still no communication.

The solution would be to set the AP's to a lower transmitting power, enough to cover the house but not the street.

Good question! Why would a company rather invest 1.5B$ in something volatile like bitcoin instead of investing it in the well being of their employees?

I think you over-estimate the CO2 emissions for solar panels and under-estimate the complexity of nuclear installations.

A quick google search [1] learns that the CO2 emissions of the solar panel are marginally higher than for a nuclear power plant, but more then 10-fold lower than coal plants. Vattenfall did a study, but it's from 1999, so relies on 20-year old solar technology.

In addition, building a nuclear power plant is amazingly complex. In Europe there are hardly any companies that have the technology and risk-appetite to build one without a solid (financial) support from the government. I recall that in the UK they are building one that is over time and way over budget [2] (spoiler: they started in 2008 and as of now still aren't producing any electricity, and the government-promised price of ~100 pounds/MWh was in 2016 already beaten by solar, implying that over the lifetime the nuclear power plant will cost the consumer 50 billion pounds on subsidies and 20 billion on construction)

And sure, you can't control the sun or the clouds. But with a bit of effort you can create a grid that evens out the impact of the weather. High-voltage power grids in Europe are increasingly interconnected and help fill the gaps in electrical power cross border. Excess solar energy from Germany can simply be transferred to the UK via the Netherlands.

[1]: https://www.startpage.com/do/dsearch?query=co2+emissions+sol...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_...

Can't speak for the UK, but in the Netherlands the tax deduction laws have changed (already 4 years ago) to no longer give lease-car drivers a tax advantage when driving a hybrid. Only full electric cars were eligible for a lower tax rate - the hybrids were taxed like regular ICU cars.

I have personally driven a C350e - a hybrid with an amazingly short range - and I really like the concept. If you compare the fuel consumption with similar cars (same, weight, size) it is much more fuel efficient. And indeed, that greatly depends on how disciplined the driver is. I charge wherever I can, manually set the car to 'full electric' until I run out of charge and don't "blaze around small roads at excessive speed". The 1600 kg Mercedes can run a comfortable 1 liter per 30 kms and more.

So sure, the fancy stories told by the salesmen, you are never going to see happen. But better fuel consumption without the charging stress (anyone seen the Tesla's waiting in line for supercharger-stations during the previous winter when we still were allowed to ski?) is easily done.

In the Netherlands there are two levels of sales tax (BTW); the high one for "luxury" goods - 21%, and a low (9%) one for necessary stuff. A lot of goods are necessary, and there is no need for the country to profit from (after all, the sales tax goes to the government, not to the shop owner).

You can also use sales tax to nudge people into buying more healthy food. The fact that hamburgers and chips are cheaper than a salad and fruit is something you can correct somewhat by moving junk food to the higher sales tax.

And I personally also think that the judges might have taken into account that this seems like yet another multinational that wants a tax cut over the heads of the normal companies. The news that Mr President pays nickles and dimes as income tax where John Doe pays tenfold nicely paints the picture...

How are ads "not the same thing"?!? The idea is that Apple takes 30% of whatever you sell via an app available in the App Store. Some sell games, Facebook sells ads. It is actually their core business.

Likely, the real reason why Facebook won't have to pay the 30%, is that it is too big a customer to lose. Facebook is too important for Apple as a customer to have in the App Store. So Apple and Facebook made a deal, which is what you can do if you are big enough...

The fact that a new iOS will reduce the tracking of users by Facebook is not even remotely touching the topic we're discussing here. If Apple has a rule that it can take 30% of every sale made via an app from the App Store, this should be applied to every sale. Everything else smells like Trumpism, where you pay less taxes the richer you are...

You'd need more than a regular 787, given that the circumference of the earth is 40.000 km so you'd have to fly roughly 1600 km/h or more than mach-1... Then again, that is when flying at the equator. Taking off further north/south would reduce the speed required to stay in sync with the rising or setting sun...

How cycnical - an article further down (Two young scientists built a $250M business using yeast to clean up wastewater) links to Forbes.com that indeed allows me to set my tracking preferences.However, anything other than 'accept' will result in a message stating 'we are processing the request <snip> this may take up to a few minutes'. So they can set hundreds (yeah - that is right, I have seen pages tell me they wanted 500+ cookies to set, some of them to last 20 years) of cookies in a second or so, but will take minutes of me waiting for the page to show while they 'process my preferences'?!?

True! If it would, then male baldness would have been "natural de-selected" a long time ago. But since men are getting bald mostly after they had their offspring, partners (nature) cannot select on this...

Also in today's world it is cheaper for one machine to produce 1.000 identical parts than for the same machine produce 10 times 100 different parts. You need stock of each, tests of each.

Imagine how efficient car maintenance would be of only we'd use one standardized car. You can have the larger model, but all components are the same, every garage has them...

For me it redirects to a page from https://guce.advertising.com, telling me my browser is out of date and that I have to go to browsehappy.com to get a new one...

But still - there are Tesla's driving everywhere, including ones with autopilot enabled, and I have yet to see the first Waymo car on the road...

The technology might be/seem superior, commercially Tesla has cleary won the race..

From the article: However, under the laws of the People's Republic, government agencies can more or less search any machine at any time in the Middle Kingdom, meaning profiles on 56.5 million American residents appear to be at the fingertips of China, thanks to CheckPeople – we assume Beijing has files on all of us, though, to be fair.

And that is exactly how the Europeans feel when their health records are handled by Google and the TSA wants to know their Facebook handle: what initially appeared as a nice-to-have is now all over a sudden a government source of data no one anticipated...

Edit - oh darn, I forgot Ancestry.com and 23andMe, which are even worse examples: US police has full access to all DNA samples provided by anyone in the past. That is 20 million DNA samples. Not name or age - full genetic info...