dade_

I was hoping the mushroom grew razor blades, but immediately disappointed.

https://www.photonics.com/Articles/Nortel-Completes-Acquisit...

Oh bubbles... their so bubbly. Remember when there was an unlimited demand for fibre optics because - The Internet? So Nortel and other manufacturers lent the money to their clients building the Internet because the growth was unlimited forever? Except they actually didn't have any money, just stock valuations?

"This is a critical step in our effort to unleash the full potential of our high-performance optical component solutions business," said Clarence Chandran, COO of Nortel Networks. "This acquisition really strengthens Nortel Networks' leadership position in high-performance optical components and modules which are essential to delivering the all-optical Internet."

Great, wake up at 5 in the morning.

Is printing money inflating stockmarket and every other price?

It’s Vista 2! I switched to Mac in 2008, and I just did it again a few days ago. Reality is that almost everything I do is Linux, but Office with its horrific file formats keep it around. Fortunately Visio is nearly dead, 3 to go.

Everything is moved to Linux, but I still need Windows for the occasional proprietary Office document and tax software, which is available for Mac. I expect Windows 10 malware to be horrific so security risk is unacceptable and I despise Windows 11. I guess I’m buying a MacBook Air.

The next cloud android app is particularly bad if you use it to back up your cameras DCIM directory then you delete the photos on your phone. It overwrite the files on Nextcloud as new photos are taken. I get why this happened but it is terrible.

And, as noted in the article, it still wrongfully states decline Prime and pay for shipping despite shipping already being free if you are willing to wait for delayed shipping.

Since I cancelled Prime, I have saved a fortune in addition to my $100. Not just on Amazon, but period. Super convenient and fast resulted in me buying more, now I am just buying much less stuff, make fewer orders less often. even waiting to go to a store I figure out a way to solve a problem without buying anything, and sometimes to need goes away.

I guess I have Trump to thank for it, never would have cancelled Prime if it wasn't for the US boycott.

Except that Matrix is a protocol.

Web app is faster, has more features, easier to use. Copilot key is useless, it took me a while to figure out how to get it to open the M365 app, instead of the corporate blocked personal one, and then I used it zero times. Never think to use it and I found it has no practical purpose, except Microsoft marketing.

My work PC has the app, because but like Onedrive and NewOutlook, the Windows app has fewer features, more bugs, and is more difficult to use that the Web app. At this rate Linux with Microsoft Web apps will have superior feature set than their 'Native' Windows apps.

I am surprised they weren’t already killed. Switched to Ecobee after the acquisition. I gave my friend my Nest. A year later there was a software problem, Google was like, it’s old, buy a new one. Glad I ditched it.

I was in Shenzhen, electronics market district. I hear Christmas music. What the hell? I round the corner to see a large stage and seating. There is a large banner in English that says, “Consumption Festival”.

Strange advice to companies that can’t figure out how to deploy AI is to not use BPO when obviously they can’t figure it out themselves. Also, I am looking at a BPO RFP right now for a huge organization and they mostly care about is how the vendor going to leverage AI to reduce their price over the term of the contract.

You are absolutely right, let me fix that.

lol. Amerika Freedom ™

Heathen! You clearly haven’t been baptized by the rusty water.

Dunno, it’s a cult.

Asyncio is too dull. Twisted for the win! My favourite insane package of wonders.

Or the Protestant work ethic? I didn’t think this needed a new explanation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_work_ethic

There’s no SSML. The model that came up with the text knows what it’s saying in theory and therefore would know that it’s a question, if the mood should be sombre or excited and then can pass this information as SSML tags to the text to speech synthesizer. The problem I’ve been seeing is that pretty much all of these models are just outputting text and the text is being shoved into the TTS. It’s on my list to look into projects that have embedded these tags so that on the one hand you have like open web UI that’s showing a user text, but there’s actually an embedded set of tags that are handled by the TTS so that it sounds more natural. This project looks hackable for that purpose.

US ports are quiet and shortages are next, but with that will also come panic buying and hoarding. https://www.npr.org/2025/04/18/nx-s1-5367762/the-busiest-por...

Only ads.

86% of lead being mined is for batteries. I just replaced my UPS battery, and their shop was stacked high with UPS devices and battery packs and it was a real reminder to the massive amount of batteries out there.

So data centres and edge compute UPS devices. Something has to keep the lights on when the power goes out while the generator kicks in. While the lead is recyclable, the power demand keeps going up. So my guess is AI…

Your comment caught my attention as I’ve noticed GenZ comments on social media making a major point about stage of life and age. Curious to know why your friends need to be your age and in the same stage of life? I’ve always had friends that are older by 15 years, and now also younger by 15 years. So Millennials to Boomers and we connect on interests, hobbies, sports teams, hikes, walks, climbing, games, favourite beverages (beer, cocktails). My 2 cents: Over the years, friends of different ages have been essential for connections, opportunities, referrals for services, housing, advice and learning from other people’s experiences (aka the easy way).

Many people refuse to have any of these devices in their home over privacy concerns, one person I know wants them unplugged when visiting. I like the convenience, but there is a line and Amazon is crossing it. The lack of innovation, layoffs, and reports of financial losses were the warning the enshittifcation of Alexa is coming and I expect this is only the start.

Alexa and Google Assistant created the market, now it will be interesting to see how it evolves. Home Assistant is working well in testing and has a great feature set for home automation, the LLM support is fun, and most of the smart devices I've bought over the years are compatible including Apple Homekit. At least for people that do care, there are options.

Back in the 90s John C Dvorak wrote an article calling a Mac a Cuisinart. It was a criticism of Apple that they had created an appliance, not a general purpose computer. Granted the guy hated Macs at the time, but I think it’s a reasonable way to describe an iPad.

Horrific diplomacy failure. These are usually pleasant photo ops because the work was already done behind the scenes. Incompetence is on full display. Story I understand is the Rubio thought he had a deal, but clearly didn't. JD Vance should be kept out of the room, he is out of his depth and his behaviour abhorrent. And Trump's kiss the ring makes me sick to stomach. Why America wants a King after a bloody revolution to get rid of the last one is puzzling to say the least.

It’s not unusual to add a few minutes wait time for customers that didn’t input their data into the system, or for lower priority customers (ones without a support contract for example).

What HP did is just incompetent management. Anyone that works in CC would advice against his strongly. Handle time will go up as every call will start with a complaint about the long wait time, agents will disengage and have higher absenteeism, supervisors will be stressed & angry about it. Brand damage is priceless though. Bravo.

They also have excellent support, that I’ve only used once in 15 years.

Impersonating humans is creepy, unnecessary and a bad business practice that creates negative customer experiences that are likely to result in a hostile response. This law is only necessary because of incompetent management making decisions for short term profit at the expense of reputation and long term growth.