There exist ERP systems for small, mid-sized, and enterprise-sized companies with corresponding scope, size, and complexity. The OP's business sounds as if it is large enough (plus multinational) to justify an enterprise-grade system, but e.g. an implementation of Visual Manufacturing(tm) for a small-medium engineer-to-order or make-to-stock company is well within the ability of a 1-3 person staff to understand and manage.

sPh

Agreed - every complaint about self-driving cars has been for the migration time when there are both autonomous and human-driven vehicles on the roads.

When you take human drivers out of the equation, and autonomous vehicles are the norm, utilizing things like mesh networks to keep other nearby vehicles informed, all of the complaints suddenly disappear.

Autonomous cars might wait at lights longer, and stop for more yellow lights, but imagine a line of vehicles stopped at a light all accelerating at the exact same moment and rate. Imagine vehicles re-routing around an accident with correct ratios going to alternate routes so no one alternate route gets slammed, leaving other routes empty.

I worked retail for a long time, including an Apple Store. I cannot remember the policies at Apple when I was working there, but most places will not take a verbal approval code.

If the person on the other end of the phone (generally you get to them by calling the 800 number on the back of the card) has the ability to run the transaction, they have the ability to clear whatever prevented the card from going through the first time. They would have to - they have to clear the hurdle before they can run the transaction themselves.

So policy at most places is that the telephone operator clears the issue (usually it is a daily spending limit that card issuers never mention) and then the store runs the card again. There was no procedure for manually entering a verbal approval code.

My memory of Apple Retail (this was '04-'06), however, is that they had almost every contingency covered. The POS machines all had USB modems attached so that in case the Internet went down at the store, credit cards could still be processed. We even had the old CH-CHUNK imprint devices when everything went pear-shaped. I do seem to remember having the ability to enter a manual authorization code for a credit card transaction. It is Apple Retail - there are supposed to be no hurdles keeping a Specialist from keeping a customer happy.

That's not faking delivery though. The data is actually being delivered, just from a different source. I don't give a shit where the data comes from our how it gets to me*, I care about how fast my page loads.

* except for the handful of times per month I do something sensitive, like online banking, but that's all encrypted.

Time to re-read _A Fall of Moondust_

sPh

Some bad news: unless you live in Bemidji MN (or one of the towns on the watershed divides of the Rockies or Appalachians), you are already drinking treated sewage.

sPh

Ah, thanks.

[cryptic response]

Hooray! Congrats!

I've never had a CFL fail. I've been replacing incandescents with CFLs whenever a bulb burns out. My oldest CFL is 7 years old and my newest is a little under 1 year old.

Many of us are still living! Just a bit dispersed here and there.

Please proceed, Senator from Arizona.

sPh

(I was trying to be reasonably neutral - after all, the nation's financial stability was at risk)

= = = The difference between banks and MTGox is that while banks also use fraction reserve, the full liabilities are backed by assets in the form of loans they have handed out, and security on the assets of the borrowers such as property. At the time of the financial crisis, those assets and collateral were not sufficient to cover the fractional reserve liabilities, but at least they had something, unlike MTGox which had nothing to back the fractional reserve liabilities. = = =

Spot-on. Of course the major Western money center banks and financial institutions also had the backing of the full faith and credit of major, stable governments including both the maligned US Federal Reserve and ultimately the US Treasury. While bitcoin has the full faith and backing of... Satoshi I guess.

sPh