Venezuela: widespread blackouts could be new normal, experts warn

Found on The Guardian on Tuesday, 23 July 2019
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“This blackout is the result of negligent mis-operation of the power grid,” said José Aguilar, a Venezuelan energy and risk consultant based in the US. “These will keep happening and it will get worse before it gets better.”

Other analysts express similar incredulity. “It’s hard to believe that it was an electromagnetic attack, when you’ve seen years of theft and corruption in the energy sector,” said Geoff Ramsey, an analyst at the Washington Office on Latin America. “This blackout shows government doesn’t have the tools to return to normalcy.”

Corruption aside, many power grids all over the world are not as robust as one would expect.

Fatal Accident With Metal Straw Highlights a Risk

Found on New York Times on Sunday, 14 July 2019
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A British woman was impaled by a metal straw after falling at her home, a coroner said in an inquest this week that highlighted the potential dangers of metal straws. Such straws have surged in popularity as cities, states and even countries have banned single-use plastic straws.

Many people with disabilities rely on straws to drink, Ms. Sauder said, but could have difficulties finding them in states and cities, such as California and Seattle, that have banned or restricted single-use straws.

While his is an unfortunate accident, it does not really prove anything. If plastic straws are essential for people with disabilities, then the solution is simple: provide them on prescription. That still reduces he junk of single use plastic by an immense amount; those used by disabled people won't be much of an issue. All that aside, media needs to stop with fear mongering: you can kill yourself in many various ways that would normally never happen; that's why it is called an accident. Teach people to think a little instead of wrapping everything in bubble-wrap.

'The kids emptied our bank account playing Fifa'

Found on BBC News on Tuesday, 09 July 2019
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In Fifa, special players can be bought in packs, but the contents are only revealed after payment is completed.

Mr Carter said his children, who are all under the age of 10, felt very remorseful and had not understood the impact of what they were doing.

However, he also said he felt that the in-game concept of buying player packs without knowing what was inside them was unethical.

So, it's nothing else but gambling; there are laws out there dealing with that.

The Netherlands’ national airline is encouraging people not to fly

Found on Quartz on Sunday, 07 July 2019
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In a June 29 open letter from its CEO, Pieter Elbers, the airline invited air travelers to make “responsible decisions about flying,” and encouraged customers to invest in the airline’s carbon offsetting scheme, CO2ZERO.

Environmentally conscious customers, especially in Europe, are increasingly opting out of flying, which contributes about 2.5% of global emissions.

When you can fly around for pocket change, then something has clearly gone wrong.

Frontier customer bought his own router—but has to pay $10 rental fee anyway

Found on Ars Technica on Wednesday, 03 July 2019
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Son and his wife, Karen, still use that FiOS router with their Frontier service at their home in a suburb near Dallas, and Son says Frontier never provided him with another router. But Frontier started charging them $5 a month for what's listed as a "Wi-Fi Router" fee on their bill, and the company raised the router fee to $10 a month in April of this year.

Son filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission; Frontier responded to the complaint but stuck to its position that he has to pay the fee. A voicemail that Frontier left with Son and his wife said the company informed the FCC that "the router monthly charge is an applicable fee, and it will continue to be billed."

Time for a lawsuit. It is ridiculous that Frontier assumes it can demand money for a feature that is not wanted, needed, or used.

879% drug price hike is one of 3,400 in 2019 so far; rate of hikes increasing

Found on Ars Technica on Tuesday, 02 July 2019
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The average price increase per drug was 10.5%, a rate around five times that of inflation. About 40 of the drugs saw triple-digit increases. That includes a generic version of the antidepressant Prozac, which saw a price increase of 879%.

"Requests and public shaming haven't worked," Michael Rea, chief executive of RX Savings Solutions, told Reuters last December.

If being nice does not work, make laws for it.

Microsoft's Ebook Apocalypse Shows the Dark Side of DRM

Found on Wired on Sunday, 30 June 2019
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Microsoft made the announcement in April that it would shutter the Microsoft Store’s books section for good.

And starting as soon as this week, it’s going to remove all purchased books from the libraries of those who bought them.

Microsoft will refund customers in full for what they paid, plus an extra $25 if they made annotations or mark-ups.

For certain types of readers, particularly lawyers and academics, markups and annotations can be worth far more than $25.

Just refuse to buy products infected with DRM malware.

Boeing's 737 Max Software Outsourced to $9-an-Hour Engineers

Found on Bloomberg on Saturday, 29 June 2019
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The Max software -- plagued by issues that could keep the planes grounded months longer after U.S. regulators this week revealed a new flaw -- was developed at a time Boeing was laying off experienced engineers and pressing suppliers to cut costs.

Rabin, the former software engineer, recalled one manager saying at an all-hands meeting that Boeing didn’t need senior engineers because its products were mature.

Cutting costs is not a viable long term business plan. All this would be such a perfect and costly lesson to teach management that outsourcing is not a solution for everything if there would no be 346 reasons why it should have never happened in the first place.

Robocalls Swamp Hospitals As The Trump FCC Pretends To Fix The Problem

Found on Techdirt on Monday, 24 June 2019
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Despite endless government initiatives and countless promises from the telecom sector, our national robocall hell continues. Robocalls from telemarketers continue to be the subject the FCC receives the most complaints about (200,000 complaints annually, making up 60% of all FCC complaints), and recent data from the Robocall Index indicates that the problem is only getting worse.

The problem will only get worse until somebody in government grows a spine and mandates that all carriers must implement anti-spoofing tech and provide completely free robocall-blocking tools to consumers by default, giving consumers full control over who can call them and when.

Spam works via more than one medium it seems. If it didn't, it would not exist.

Slack: Why is this loss-making tech firm worth $20bn?

Found on BBC News on Sunday, 23 June 2019
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That values the Silicon Valley-based business at $20bn, not bad for a messaging app that was only publicly released in 2014 and has never turned a profit.

The biggest corporate customers pay at least $100,000 (£78,570) a year for the service. But Slack has never made a profit. Although revenue rose 80% to $400m in 2018, losses were $144m.

Slack may not be an email killer. It may, however, offer an answer to the stress of email overload.

It's not. It's just another tool for another niche; and there are competitors like Mattermost which you can self-host to keep the data of your company in your company. It has absolutely no potential at all to even remotely replace email, because you need an account with the repicient's channel. So instead of using a single emailaccount to contact others, you'd have to manage dozens, or even hundreds of accounts.