korlja

Should be, but I'm not so sure about Outlook, which is usually involved in all such reply-all-storms. Replies and threads in Outlook are very weird.

A pedestrian with headphones needs to ensure that he can hear any relevant traffic noise, e.g. my bell or an approaching car. Noise-blocking headphones or loud music impeding the hearing of a pedestrian are a traffic offense.

Leaving your computer unlocked usually also breaks policy (except if the policy is very much useless). The non-embarassing way would be to report the user leaving the computer unlocked, leading to disciplinary action and eventual dismissal. I think something slightly embarassing is the kinder option here.

in postfix.conf, set header_checks = pcre:/etc/postfix/header_checks and in /etc/postfix/header_checks add:

/In-Reply-To:.*msgid-2948573294867@example.com/ REJECT reply-storm

However, blocking the whole thread that will originate is not as easy.

Yes, but the parent post specifically referred to Germany. And due to taxes, renewable subsidies in the range of 3 to 10ct/kWh (which every household pays (but not all industries)) and sky-high generation prices due to prematurely switching off cheaper power plants like nuclear and coal in favour of far more expensive gas (even back then), Germany has had far higher household electricity prices than most of Europe.

Quite impossible, except if you run a steel mill or something. End-user prices for electricity have been >0.20Eur/kWh for around 10 years now, currently approaching >0.40Eur/kWh (sometimes even more).

See e.g. some comparison website like verivox.de (beware the dark patterns, use "Postleitzahl" 20095 for Hamburg center).

Edit: and those are 2022 prices, usually most suppliers have a 12month fixed price which changes on 1st of January. So all the current price hikes in power and gas will only be priced in in 2023, current offers usually don't include those yet.

There are easy, non-offensive, non-interrupting methods of communicating while another person is talking. Signal yes/no, dissent, agreement? Thumbs up or down, Nod or shake head. Applause? Deaf people's clap (raise both hands, oscillate quickly around z-axis). Want to say something? Raise one hand. Want the speaker to get on with it? Circular motion with the tip of the index finger around the y-axis. Strongly disagree with speaker and intend to insult? Show middle finger (ok, that one is offensive, intentionally).

There is a rich repertoire of non-verbal communication available to us that most people will understand. And if you use them, the problem instantly vanishes.

That people don't use them is imho not a problem of not knowing or not understanding. It is a problem of lacking civility. Of the desire to assert dominance by interrupting. Of asserting dominance by talking for a long time. And of the myopic concentration on verbal communication.

Now if you are on the phone, there isn't much else you can do, of course...

The translation is accurate. "Bei Level-2-Fahrzeugen bleibt die Fahrerin oder der Fahrer grundsätzlich immer in der Verantwortung." can be translated this way. The only nit I would pick is about the translation of "grundsaetzlich" by "as a matter of principle", it could also be read to mean "generally", "usually", "always" or "basically". In this case, they probably wanted to say "always", but there would also be the legalistic meaning of "grundsaetzlich" which is "normally, but with exceptions".

All in all, no matter the above nits, they are obviously trying to shift blame away from their vehicle.

If you read carefully, they are talking about the difference in responsiblity between level 2 and level 3 autonomous driving, with the explicit remark that the driver is fully responsible in a level 2 vehicle and that the vehicle in question is level 2, not level 3. They fully avoid saying whether the autonomous driving was active at the time of the accident or had anything to do with it. It really reads like something has gone wrong and they want to avoid bad publicity and shift the blame on the driver by tiptoeing around the real issue of whether their autonomous driving software caused the accident. Instead they are trying to redefine the general notion of "autonomous" to mean "level 3" which their vehicle isn't.

Translation of the part of the article I'm talking about: BMW said on tuesday: "The car has a driver assistance system of level 2, which are even today shipped in normal consumer vehicles and which support the driver if they so desire. With level 2 vehicles, the driver is generally always responsible." Only with highly automated vehicles of level 3, the driver may, under certain circumstances, delegate driving fully to the vehicle.

BMW said: "At the moment we are researching the exact circumstances. Of course we are in a close exchange with the authorities. But it is already certain: The BMW involved was not an autonomously driving vehicle".

a hash of an ip address could still be 'personal data' under the eyes of gdpr.

We did something similar for a project, which got approved by the relevant data protection officer: hash(IP + daily secret) as an identifier in the logs. This will be used to count unique visitors, the wraparound at 24:00:00 didn't matter to us. The daily secret is just a random number that our one (small setup) application server generates each day. It is never written out to disk or database, so an appserver restart also recreates that secret, it is strictly kept in RAM. That way, we could argue that, barring extreme measures like attaching a debugger to get the secret, we technically prevented deanonymisation.

But that was just a small-scale project, has never been tested in court and the usual YMMV, IANAL, ...

Edit: I think some webservers can be configured to do something similar

As a user, I've yet to see the user-facing benefits of analytics. I suspect there might be some which I don't know about. But mostly what I see is "we cancelled feature X you care about because analytics told us nobody uses it" and "you now get this annoying newsletter popup, because analytics told us we get more subscriptions that way".

For that perception to change, you have to educate users about their concrete, relevant and obvious benefit from analytics. I think this is hard or impossible. I also think that all the bad players in the market make this even more impossible, because you get lumped in with them.

I think the easiest solution is log analytics, preferably from anonymized or pseudonymized logs that are present anyways. That way, you don't collect any extra data, and as long as you do not keep the logs but only aggregated results, privacy isn't an issue. While a privacy policy and legal team need of course be aware of log analytics, the users cannot adblock it away, so that might be a plus. Also, no scripts, no cookies, no performance impact, etc. But of course the insight is limited by whatever is logged. Maybe some (privacy-preserving) data can be added to the URL parameters to augment the logs and provide a little more insight.

Another solution (that I just thought of, no idea if it would work) is that of recruiting users for testing your website under observation by the UI team. While this might invoke the image of recruiting 20 people off the street and sitting them down in a lab, I have something totally online in mind: Offer a voucher (or something) in return for participation. Participation should be instant. The users session should be connected such that the UI people on duty can see the website interaction (ala VNC, but limited to the website in question, so this should be possible by getting geometry, mouse position and keypresses alone via javascript). In case of difficulties, the UI team can interact with the user via voice chat (preferred) or text chat. After the user has finished their task, maybe ask them a few extra questions. You will gain much better insights, because you can ask for motivations and problems. You can point the user at the intended way and see if it works at all. But of course this approach requires lots of manpower and is technically challenging.

My absolute demands would be: Respect the relevant laws ala GDPR. Respect the DNT bit my browser sends. That way, you would already be above 99% of the analytics industry imho.

I guess the stigma is too established to get rid of. Maybe you can sway some users by transparency, i.e. a very thorough but user-friendly explanation about what your software is doing and how it cannot possibly be used to invade their privacy.

But unfortunately, as far as my opinion goes, any kind of analytics and tracking just results in an instant "yuck" reaction, like a spider landing on my lap. I don't bother with analyzing it, I'll just try to get rid of it as quickly as possible.

The notion of privacy-friendly analytics has also been thoroughly burned by sleazy marketing departments outright lying. Or technical solutions that claimed to be privacy-friendly, but actually didn't really because of technical reasons. Or technical solutions being so complicated and obscure that it might as well be a privacy-protecting voodoo ritual for all a user knows.

Analytics is generally (in detail this might or might not apply for this project) seen as an invasion of privacy, wasting bandwidth, increasing load time and lowering performance. There is a population of users who would gladly accept advertisements without analytics, because they see the invasion into their privacy as the predominant evil. This is why most adblockers nowadays either block analytics by default, or at least provide a configuration to also block analytics.

RedHat licenses are just too expensive by sticker price. Beancounters haunt us for deploying RedHat because "the Windows license for that box would have been cheaper in our licensing model". That there is support included which we never use doesn't matter to them, the usual suggestion being "buy support for one box, test everything on that one, and open a support case for that one box, replicate the solution everywhere".

If you want to fix this, make a RedHat license be significantly cheaper than the equivalent Windows product. Charge for support by ticket/case and only support licensed boxes. You'll earn a lot more because it'll look cheaper to the beancounters.

'sz' for 'ß' is sometimes used to make things roundtrip-proof in capslock, e.g. on military stencils. HTML calls it 'szlig'. Also, some use "Esszet" as the name of the character. But all are wrong in that ß isn't a ligature of s and z, it is a ligature of s and s. The shape of the character stems from the fact that in fractur writing and even some grotesk fonts, 's' at the end of a word was written 's', while 's' within a word was written 'ſ'. Thus the end of a word like Fuss was written Fuſs, giving a ligature of Fuß. No 'z' anywhere.

That is correct and solves the roundtrip-problem (in this case and language). But uppercase 'ẞ' is just an additional option at the discretion of the writer, the recommended variant continues to be 'SS'.

Forget towns. Talk about the fucking name of the country.

Actually, the name is "Deutschland" (if you leave out the political decorations declaring it a federal republic).

One should think, knowing where the word comes from, that the english name would be "Dutchland". But it isn't, instead they call someone else "Dutch". Admittedly a neighbouring country with some shared history and origins waaay back then, but still. Tyskland is great, thanks to everyone using a variation of that.

Then there is "Germany". Way back then, when the romans tried and failed to establish a longterm presence on the other side of the rivers rhine and danube that might have been ok, but that was 2000 years ago. For at least the last 500 years, "deutsch" or some variation thereof was official. Germans are also only part of the historic inhabitants of what forms modern-day Germany, there are also a few Slavic tribes in there. Also, there are many German tribes that didn't settle in what is modern-day Germany, instead they now form the nordic states, the Netherlands, parts of Switzerland and Austria. So mostly wrong, no fish.

Alemania is even more wrong, because that actually only talks about the southwestern german tribes, in current southwest Germany and northeastern Switzerland. "Alemannisch" strictly only describes the traditions of that region in german. Nothing else.

Then there is Niemcy and stuff. I've been told it means something like "mutes" or "the ones you cannot comprehend". I'm not sure if that is supposed to be an insult or a compliment, but really, after you started talking to us you couldn't be arsed to ask what we call ourselves?

Talking about insults: Saksa might be considered a compliment or an insult in Germany, depending on where you are. Historically, saxon tribes settled in the northwest (later England, but that is not relevant here). This corresponds to a part of what currently is the German land Niedersachsen. There are two Länder that are called something with "sachsen", but they are faking it to get a grab at the former glory. Talking about "glory", it is quite the opposite in southern Germany, there nobody likes "Sachsen" and considers them the worst kind of "Preussen". Which are all considered insults there.

There are a few others, getting more and more weird until: Navajo: Béésh Bich’ahii Bikéyah ("Metal Cap-wearer Land"), in reference to Stahlhelm-wearing German soldiers.[1] I can get behind that. But the rest, please stop it, it is "Deutschland". Or I might have to wear my metal cap again ;)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_Germany

Vereinigtes Königreich von Grossbritannien und Nordirland bitte.

Also, even more weirdness about the channel islands and the "British" overseas territories (which are isles, but not British isles...).

.ToUpper() is locale-dependent, so can only be used if the locale of the text in question is known. E.g. German ß capitalizes to SS, and .ToUpper().ToLower() should give you either 'ss' or 'ß' depending on what it was before. Always outputting 'ss' is okish and readable, but actually wrong.

Blindly calling .ToUpper() on anything is a typical anglo-centric mistake. Just don't use .ToUpper(), shoutcase is ugly anyways ;)

See also: one of the many "100 fallacies programmers assume about natural written language" documents or such.

I do think computers are a huge net positive.

And for what we need computers to do, there is a necessary, irreducible complexity involved, so there is a limit to how simple things could be even in theory.

But the problem isn't with that necessary complexity per se. It is the lack of knowledge in the responsible upper layers of any organisation about how to deal with that. Computers are complex, as essential as pen and paper (or more) and exhibit highly correlated failure modes (i.e. one faulty update or one trojan takes down all of them, just like a fire burns all your papers). This means that a large amount of resources should be expended to prevent problems from occuring in the first place, because they are usually large-scale and severe. Instead, IT gets the minimum amount of resources to keep up with constant firefighting. Also, risk-prevention is frowned upon, the new shiny or the crap everyone uses always has priority, even if it increases risk. Because nobody ever got fired for buying HAL or something.

Yes and no.

I think at least a part of that problem is that the usual support ticketing process infantilizes users. If you call in and the first question is along the lines of "is it plugged in? have you tried turning it off and on again?" then of course your next ticket will take that level of questioning into account. And call in even for a switched off monitor next time. Because they wouldn't ask that question if that wasn't their job to fix, right?

Also, of course users will try and fail to fix issues themselves. They should be applauded for the intent and empowered to be successful next time (if possible). Instead they are usually berated for failing and breaking stuff along the way. Which leads to the usual sheepish "I didn't do anything, I didn't touch it, it always was broken like that".

Of course there is a minimum number of imbeciles. But most people can be educated and empowered, so they do behave like adults when dealing with problems. "The system" just has to give them that chance.

It isn't FUD if it is still true for a majority of deployments, even new ones.

One popular example: EV chargers still rely on easily cloneable Mifare Classic for access and billing and are only very slowly changing over to more secure alternatives. And in case it isn't obvious: Mifare Classic security problems were literally more than a decade old knowledge when EV chargers started to be deployed.

https://community.nxp.com/t5/NFC/good-alternative-for-EV-cha...

It isn't FUD if reality is that bad...

Around here, I as a support guy could theoretically open a ticket. But I'm shielded by policy, so users cannot call me directly. Instead they will reach a call center (same for emails) where tickets are written down, classified and assigned. It usually takes an hour from initial call until I even see the ticket.

Back in the day, if your pencil was dull, you sharpened it with your own personal workplace sharpener. You could replace your pencil or maybe even typewriter by just going to the supplies closet and get a new one. Security was done by cleaning your desk and locking the file closet in the evening. Also, the friendly security guy at the main entrance greeted you nicely and knew your face.

Nowadays, if there is a problem with your pencil-equivalent computer plus word-processor, you have to get support from hardly available technicians. You cannot just take the next computer out of a nearby supplies closet. Even worse, after an update, all computers company-wide break at the same time in the same way, no chance for a quick fix. Security is done by weird processes that must be followed to the letter, including learning a new "key profile" by heart every 8 weeks instead of just taking along the company-provided file-closet-key on a keychain. If you use the company provided email client like it is built to be used, e.g. click on attachments, you are at fault for breaking policy and endangering security. If you fail to use obscure processes that said email client doesn't actually want you to use to check for the originator address of an email, you are endangering security. Same for the fancy new phone-replacement-software that needs you to download and execute arbitrary executables which you aren't supposed to do. And the guard at the door has been replaced by an RFID badge that any kid in the subway standing next to you can clone with his phone. Of course you are supposed to know this and wrap that badge in tinfoil outside company premises.

IT issues are so debilitating because users are powerless to fix them. They are blamed for problems that arise just because of the mandated software being unsuitable and insecure. All this gets papered over by heavy processes such that even the people in IT who are trying to help are powerless, bogged down in ticket-pushing busywork, and tons and tons of policies that actually do nothing useful.

Many superconductors are insulators at room temperature.

The interesting part here is that it seems to depend on the angle between overlayed graphene sheets.

Stake in the ground, as the sister post said, non-corroding, in the simplest case.

But there is more to it: The stake has to have permanent contact to some electrically conductive layer in the ground, so you need to take geology and local climate into account. In central europe, with generally wet climate, you just need to reach the year-long stable, frost-free, local water table at a depth of (usually) between 1m and 10m. If you cannot reach sufficient depth, don't know the required depth, a simple stake isn't going to cut it. Because in case of an electrical fault, the grounding has to withstand and dissipate in the order of a few hundred Ampere. To achieve that you then shallowly bury lines of non-corroding material in a grid, or bury a grounding net something like 1 to 2m deep over an area of 100m^2 to 10000m^2.

If you are on sandy or rocky ground, permafrost, arid climate and no handy body of water is nearby for grounding, you need to have a far larger grounding net or use conductivity-enhancing methods like permanent watering, adding salts or carbon to the soil or replacing it outright with something more conductive. In all, very expensive.

And as for large installations, you just measure the soil conductivity, calculate the necessary grounding current and scale up the aforementioned methods.