If the job market has dried up for "tech workers" in Seattle, why stay? There are opportunities out there....just not in Seattle.

If the thieves don't have industrial scale partners to "launder" the phones, they become worthless.

It's very difficult to do anything at that scale in China without the government being complicit. That trail shouldn't be particularly hard to follow, but nobody seems willing to confront the obvious corruption problem and government complicity in the criminal behavior.

It's kinda like laying work off on bottom feeder outsourced labor consultancies. You'll absolutely generate a lot of "activity," but generating better outcomes???...not so much.

RO is the way to go. A decent unit isn't even expensive and fits under your sink (or on your counter top). It makes much more sense than paying more per unit of volume than you'd pay for petrol for "fancy water."

That said, conspicuous consumption has been with us throughout recorded history. I doubt we'll see an end of those that boast about their good fortune any time soon. A shame that so much glass and plastic needs to be wasted in the process.

Indeed. Everyone knows Bizzard is a sweatshop yet there is no shortage of people who wanted to work there nonetheless....even before being partially unionized. Like everything else organized labor touches, you'll see quality deteriorate and costs increase. That train is never late. Good luck with that.

Those type of gamers are likely going to tweak the voltage regardless. So perhaps the slightly higher default voltage plus an additional tweak is sometimes enough to tip things over.

Have you tried a slight decrease in voltage to see if that "cures" the problem?

I would be less concerned about feature updates and more concerned that being "stuck" on a deprecated version would be the end of any future security updates.

I don't really use it to look for jobs, but the level of spam has increased exponentially. Between the cold call emails from developing countries, offers from total strangers to "compensate" me for interviews about products they are hawking or soliciting information about my project needs, or just "hey I'd love to connect" from someone with zero contacts in common and a young female glamor shot attached to the fake account.....I've just started to tune out. I should have known it was going to quickly deflate with the advent of pet videos, political commentary, and a gaggle of "self help" blowhards all trying to compete for eyeballs.

Zero value add....seeya.

Using a "by the pound" bottom feeder for offshore contract labor is its own reward. Paying 20-30% of the unit cost of a qualified domestic employee generates a "savings" that's just a mirage. When you layer in poor execution, incompetence, and using anthill labor that nullifies the "cost advantage," the juice isn't worth the squeeze.

TCS (Tata Consulting) announced last week they were going to be laying folks off.

https://www.hindustantimes.com...

Though they are claiming these are not driven by AI.

It will be interesting to see the impact on the hordes of consultancies that specialize in low bidder "ant hill" labor to do things like "eyes on glass" for operations, man call centers, and perform basic coding. I suspect that model is about to be turned on its head.

Best,

if you don't like the ads. You can consume Amazon services (prime/video/music) without an echo device.

If you're using it for "smart home" type of things, look into home assistant instead:

https://www.home-assistant.io/

You can run that on a raspberry pi and keep your data private and local. It works great!

Best,

I like the idea that the manufacturer can find and fix a bug without a trip to the dealer. I also like that the manufacturer has the ability to add new features and update things like navigation maps at no additional cost or (again) the hassle of making a dealer visit.

Do I like the fact that I can be "tracked"? Not really, but I have resigned myself to trading that lack of privacy for the ease of getting updates. If the day comes where I'm no longer OK with that trade, I'll get a classic car, stock up on consumable parts, and call it a day.

Frankly, who the fuck cares? If that's something that will influence someone's decision around who should manage our government affairs then well....we're already fucked.