unfocused

I work in government. Link 1 (2018) is essentially a dream. All of government got forced to use MS Dynamics CRM. Basically, anybody with a software requirement for case management, had to use MS Dynamics. I recommended we use Drupal in 2011. That was killed because everything had to be MS. I'm kind of surprised that it is in there given that nobody was allowed to use.

Link 0 and 2 are essentially from TBS and CDS. They coexist together. They are essentially working at the very top as entities that gather information from other departments. They can do whatever they want because they help write the rules.

I'm not trying to discredit your post, just saying that as someone who has brought OSS tools to development at the government and tried to use OSS tools for client (I failed at that), it is nearly impossible at the moment. We are married to Microsoft and its cloud.

I do agree, that it may take an entire generation because right now, 190+ departments are not exactly jumping to FOSS, and in many situations, they are down right told you are not allowed.

In addition, the current de facto document management system is from OpenText. Although many just use Sharepoint Online.

Ironically, as everything moves to the cloud, it would be easier to move to a solution that is FOSS based, and based in the cloud. Technology has matured enough that you don't need executables on a desktop, you just need a browser pointing to a website.

Less than $10,000, depending on what CPU and storage you select.

Agreed. I worked on the Canadian side of the legal side and there is a very comprehensive process for redaction. Nobody does redaction unless they follow the process. Never seen anyone 15+ years do something silly like this in the office.

Adobe Pro, when used properly, will redact anything in a PDF permanently.

Whoever did these "bad" redactions doesn't even know how to use a PDF Editor.

We have paralegals and lawyers "mark for redaction", then review the documents, then "apply redactions". It's literally be done by thousands of lawyers/paralegals for decades. This is just someone not following the process and procedure, and making mistakes. It's actually quite amateurish. You should never, ever screw up redactions if you follow the proper process. Good on the X-ray project on trying to find errors.

I just want to add, applying black highlights on top of text is in fact, the "old" way of redaction, as it was common to do this, and then simply print the paper with the black bars, and send the paper as the final product.

Whoever did it is probably old, and may have done it thinking they were going to print it on paper afterwards!! Just guessing as to why someone would do this.

Yeah, we were locking down the phones anyways, so in terms of features, they didn't use much. However, it's interesting you mention email because even in 2019, the Android system was better for email, and supported encrypted emails, Apple did not. We were told it was in the works, and a few months later, we could send encrypted email. We also had some weird bugs to iron out.

I always remind myself, that Apple does not care for corporate clients, just consumers. So I had to assess what we absolutely needed, vs what could be taken away.

That's good to know. I'm out of that space and glad to see they are much better now.

Not surprised. I met with Samsung for work purposes to buy hundreds of phone, and the best they could do with their flagship phones was offer 3 years of security updates. This was around 2019. Apple, who didn't meet with us, was around 6 years from our estimate.

From a ROI, for corporate phones, Apple iPhones had a longer lifespan, which is why we bought hundreds of iPhones, and not Androids.

On a personal note, I had the Nexus S, the Nexus 5, and they all died a horrible death either from lack of updates, or just having the physical button break, and the microphone stop working.

And let us not speak of Sony Xperia Z5, which all of sudden removed their fingerprint sensor due to a North American patent problem. They also broke their bluetooth audio so that song names STOPPED being displayed. That was all in a span of less than 3 years.

Never again Sony Android phones.

At that point, I got fed up of custom ROMS and joined the "iPhone, it just works" group and moved on.

Agreed! I have a 2020 Macbook Air (Apple Silicon) and it's been at 81% for about a year. Heck, it's now at 82% according to System Information, but Coconut Battery says 77.4%. Not sure which is correct any more, and if Apple is doing some funny business. Battery cycle count is at 845, with a manufacture date of 2020-10-05. So 1,770 days old.

I'll try and explain it simply with no technical information.

An API, or Application Programming Interface, allows you to interact with software using pre-defined agreements, or contracts.

Think of API as a set of legal contracts. I use this analogy when explaining it to lawyers.

If I give you $5, and I say give me an Apple, you will give me an Apple, as expected by the predefined contract, that I receive an Apple.

If I end up receiving Broccoli, then what we have here, is a bug. Or, in other words, the contract has been broken.

Now apply this to other domains in commerce - e.g. I give an ID of an item in a store, and I get back the name of the item, it's price, and if it's stock.

I highly recommend watching Jacques Pepin videos as well as Julia and Jacques.

Jacques Pepin is alive and well and some of his recipes are just 2 to 3 ingredients and easy to make. And yes, he is highly technical but explains things so easily to regular people like me.

My kids love this recipe: https://youtu.be/zjv_pAmiqhQ?si=63ppn2hCUBiQKiVG

The short answer is: Apple would give away control of their products if they did.

Enterprise/Corporate/Govt all have tedious amounts of niche needs and requirements to endlessly grow.

Can’t find the quote as I’m on my phone, but when a former exec from Apple left and joined a corp, and asked Steve if he wanted to expand to corporate, he said he won’t stop him, but he isn’t going to help him either. (I’m sure I butchered it), but something like that.

Remember, IT = Control.

Private meetings are fine. No issue there. The judge however, erred. He should've never allowed the disclosure to not be disclosed. You can redact information that is harmful to the state, or is not relevant to the case, but in this case, the fact that the system that was being used as the basis of detection of fraud, was in itself being audited, should've meant that it was to be included and disclosed to defense.

In my non-lawyer opinion, the judge is the one that erred, and it is compounded that this matter came up in a private meeting without defense, thereby supporting the idea that private meetings should never be had, when there are always exceptions for them.

So yes, this looks really bad all around.

This makes sense, because one of the more famous colonies that the Phoenicians established was Carthage, which is modern day Tunis. Since they had already invented creating purple back in Phoenicia (modern day Lebanon), they simply brought over their traditions/skills along.

I have a DVD from 2004 about them, as I did the National Genographic Project DNA test way back before it was popular, but I must admit, the DVD is so-so. I think afterwards, they got more and more data, and were able to track where they travelled to based on artifacts and DNA. Lots of websites about them, but hard to say what is what. I would trust information by Dr. Pierre Zalloua as he uses DNA analysis for his research into the Phoenicians.

Perfectly fine to buy cars that were rentals. I bought my Mazda 5 used and it came from Enterprise car rental. Still have it now and it’s 9 years old. Nobody aggressively drives a Mazda 5, so we knew it was less likely to have been abused, versus a Mustang.

We tried buying used again, but the deals are terrible. For the first time in my life, had to buy a new car. The days of a 2 year old car, with 60,000 km (37,000 miles) with a 45% discount are gone. We found it was like 15% to 20% discount for 2 year old card…we were only looking at Subaru Foresters in Canada.

I don’t know enough about Teslas, but being ignorant, they are giving you about 50% off a 3 or 4 year old car. It’s on the borderline of a good deal for both parties on paper, but what repairs do you need after 4 years? If the battery needs fixing in 4 years how much is it? Those kind of costs could kill this hot deal. Either way, the math needs to be done. Oh, and you’re probably going to need new tires. Used cars are notorious for coming with crap nearly dead tires. So add that to the price.

Thank you both for the replies!

I’ll be driving it in snowy conditions in Canada. Ontario , Quebec, and New Brunswick in the dead of winter trips :)

Would you say this is still true? I’m about to receive the 2023 Subaru Forester. It seems like it has good reliability from all the reviews.

Is there also any truth to scammers calling you but not saying anything, in the hopes of recording your voice as you talk to train AI bots for future scams that use your voice? Or is that some urban legend/myth.

They are getting more and more creative.

Here is the (probably) one of the worst payroll system failure: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_pay_system

As far as I know, no one was fired. The Phoenix pay system for the government of Canada is a good example of so many failures. People really need to stop thinking that building systems with 10s of thousands of business rules is « easy ».

For those interested in Electronics repairs, have a look at Mr. Carlson's Lab on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MrCarlsonsLab/videos

Lots of detail and explanations. P.S. I'm not affiliated with anything, I just genuinely think this is one of the best (educational) channels out there on this.

That's another element I can add, but didn't want to as it's not something I've experienced and know, but have friends in this area.

Regardless of the drug you use, many are used to alleviate whatever problem you have e.g. Stress, Anxiety, Disorders, and then it becomes part of you, and you no longer have the need to address the root cause of why you need the drug. Again, not a doctor, but I think the poster above put it best as a "crutch". It's ok for short term, but long term, you allow yourself to ignore the root cause, which has long term effects.

Here is a document (PDF ~266 pages) about INFORMATION FOR HEALTH CARE PROFESSIONALS Cannabis (marihuana, marijuana) and the cannabinoids

Dried or fresh plant and oil administration by ingestion or other means Psychoactive agent

https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/hc-sc/documents/services/d...

I think what people need to be reminded of is that addiction will always exist. Whether it is collecting Pokémon, Video Games, Gambling, Drugs etc.

What cannabis brings is less damage, post use, than say, Oxycontin. This is one simple example.

Not a doctor, so don't ask me for details!

Thanks! I actually ended up finding out that a partner government already had a solution and they even exchange info with the same people we do. They will be giving us a lot of their work for free. A good use of tax payer money!

It is realistic, but you have your work cut out for you, and you need to understand you can't fully ban them.

My son is 11, and finally got a phone, but with a talk and text plan, no data. He can take it to school but only if he thinks he is going to go to a friend's house after, so he can ask us/tell us what he is up to.

We fully understand he can just walk to the community centre to get WiFi, and recenlty told me how to access the School Board's WiFi LOL. In fact, he worked the AV club there managing all their gear for the school play. We fully understood he has the "knack" and we can't stop him, so we helped him, and by doing so, it built trust, and we explained why bringing the phone in the class is a distraction. It's not that the phone is bad, it just takes away from learning.

I have saying at home. When we eat, we eat. That means we do that one task, and nothing else. So in the class, when you learn, you learn.

They have their scheduled video time, weekends are 1hr morning, 30min afternoon, and 1 hour evening. If we take trips or go with friends, the time is gone. There is no "banking" your time.

The other interesting thing, and this was confirmed by my friend who is a high school teacher, is that Parents were the ones calling their kids the most during classes! Of course, there will be a boyfriend here and there, but overall, it's Grandma calling, or mom/dad.

Back on topic...we use an iPhone, because we can control which apps he can install, and it notifies us to approve/deny. This helps a lot. Also, Discord is a nightmare. Luckily, his account is installed on all of our phones, so we can see the chats, and some chats were REALLY bad. So we had a talk about them, and he even sided with us! SHOCKING!! I guess what I have to say is, if you are there with them in this journey, you are more likely to be able to guide them along, and be sure not to make a big deal if something bad happens, like a chat where someone posts inappropriate pictures, e.g. Porn, etc, and just direct them to the correct path.

Btw, my 11 year old can change my car tires and use all my power tools. He really has the knack. So that's why we knew banning wouldn't work. My younger son hasn't shown the same maturity, and generally follows along the rules that his big brother follows. So the effort you put in one kid, could be reused after. Although I don't think we will get our youngest a phone as early as our oldest, as he is happier playing active sports. He tends to be grumpy and doesn't handle losing at games, and doesn't know how to fix a controller that stops works. So his view of technology is not the same as our other son. So be aware that every kid is different in skill and cognitive abilities.

You are correct. I'm in the process of trying to find software to manage the collection of 1000s of fines. It's a very niche area. It's not even the payment part, as we have that part completed, it's the tracking and "attempting" at contacting people which may or may not want to be found!

I hope you succeed. Although I am in Canada, we tend to follow along with what happens in the US in terms of Standards.

I'm still a user of OTA tv, and use HDHomeRun with TVHeadEnd on a NAS to record any shows I like. This definitely would affect me down the road.

I still hold a grudge against Rogers (back when I had cable), when I recorded a bunch of sports from the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and liked watching them on the go. The Rogers PVR, I think it was the Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8300 HD PVR, had a firewire port, and my old macbook had a firewire port. With that, you could play your content from the PVR, and recorded it directly onto your computer as a .ts (transport stream) and then convert it to a smaller file.

Then of course, without my permission, they pushed a firmware upgrade and wiped all my recordings before I could get them off. Jerks.

True. Our inflation rates are not that far off though. We tend to be attached at the hip for many things, and Canada tends to follow US trends. The point being, there are savings accounts out there better than 1%, if you look for them.

In Canada, there are lots of Savings accounts close to 4.5%. Here are examples: https://forums.redflagdeals.com/bank-invsavacct-4-50-real-hi...

I still have some .mod, . S3m, .xm music files that predate mp3s :)

Samsung also has this. It's on my 10 year old Samsung and I confirm the latest Sony TVs have it.

Thanks for the tips! I'll keep that in mind and do 24-bit 96Khz wav. I think converting digital to digital, i.e. WAV to FLAC or mp3/aac will be straight forward, but given that I may not have that many records to convert, I'll try and keep them lossless.

I've also managed to get a working Sony STR-6800SD receiver for $200 CAD. That should help in getting a good analog phono signal.