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Comment Re:1K crises per hour? (Score 1) 60

Some calls are repeats, either different people calling about the same event or the same person calling when he or she doesn't get through. 911 also gets automated calls from alarms, some of which are false alarms. That's why, of the 1700 calls that could not be heard, they estimate that about 400 represent human callers who did not get through.

Comment Re:Single dumbest way? (Score 5, Informative) 165

The logic is economic autarky -- the belief that we're always better off having complete political sovereignty over every part of our supply chains than having to depend on imports for anything.

This is likely also behind Trump's trade war with Canada. His demands with Canada aren't about discirimatory tariffs -- those were negotiated away with NAFTA then re-negotiated in his first term. His demands are now infringe on Canadian sovereignty, to give US control of Canada's external trade policy, and even on its internal markets (e.g., the use of French in Canadian internal commerce). Symbolically, that's why he wants to rename Lake Ontario to "Lake America". HIs establishment of US control over the Venezuelan oil industry is his greatest foreign policy achievement -- although it's not clear he understands the legal limits on what he can do with their money.

There's a foreign and military policy angle to this too: Taiwan is absolutely critical to the US economy, so we are absolutely committed to defend them if China invades. Semiconductor autarky would mean it's not our problem.

The problem with autarky is that even if it's a good idea (which economists don't believe), you can't conjure it into existence overnight. It will take many years, possibly decades for the US to replace the Taiwan's semiconductor industry. In effect, the administration is proposing to inflict the very damage on the US economy that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would inflict.

And, once the US has voluntarily self-inflicted that damage, China would be free to invade Taiwan.

Comment Re: The long-term impact of this on the US (Score 2) 194

I suspect you were just asked to be nice, and through a combination of spectrum OCD and insufficient cognitive therapy, you decided somehow you were being asked to do something wrong.

So you helped elect an ignorant sociopath. Congrats on that. Maybe you should have attended more of those cognitive therapy sessions.

Submission + - New York City 911 system missed 1700 calls due to software update

belmolis writes: Part of the New York City 911 emergency system was off-line from 3am to 10am on August 18th due to a software update according to Medical Daily. Of 5,659 calls to the Bronx call center, 1,700 calls connected but could not be heard by emergency operators. Some were rerouted to other call centers, but an estimated 400 human callers never got through. The potentially serious consequences of delayed response to emergencies are not yet known. The City did not notify the public and only released information when journalists inquired. How buggy software came to be installed on a running system is not yet known.

Comment Re:It was never intended to end (Score 1) 96

today Microsoft is one of the world's largest users of Linux. It has no current motivation to harm Linux and every reason to defend it.

False. As a hosting provider Microsoft doesn't care what OS people are using, they just have to host it. But as an OS provider, Linux is still competition, so they still have a reason to attack it.

Yeah, you're not understanding what I'm saying: Azure doesn't just host Linux VMs, significant parts of the infrastructure are built on Linux. Microsoft has just as much (if not more) to lose from a resurgent SCO lawsuit than anyone, they aren't going to be the ones rocking this boat.

Comment Sounds attractive but how is it as a phone? (Score 1) 39

This sounds attractive but what I've seen on their site and reviews is not very clear on how good it is as a phone. I don't care about most cell phone apps. I either don't need the functionality or I do it on my Linux laptop. I want a voice phone on which I can text, take photos, and run a browser. That's about it. The option attaching a keyboard is attractive as I find typical virtual keyboards very slow and error prone. So, how well does it work as a telephone? Is it limited in which services it is compatible with?

Comment Re:120 years. (Score 1) 45

Who bothers with computers when you just created the World in 6 days?

One could argue that no one is doing it in six days without a shit ton of automation support. Some cherubim in ops saved eons when he wrote createstar.pl and it's still running in production today (though it looks like creategalaxy.pl stopped executing some time ago and hasn't been restarted and/or patched yet).

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