AcousticallyChallenged

Once upon a time, the IOM Post was amazing. With some vendors, you could order past 7pm from the UK, and via Parcelforce, it'd arrive the next day. Now, even special delivery tends to be a day late. (3 days rather than 2).

I don't think I am..I know I am.

Is this something addressed to them, that has been delivered to you instead? In the circumstances, I would hand it back to the postie or courier, rather than risking making things worse by going round. If it's a personal gift from you, I'd carefully consider how the person that doesn't like you may misunderstand it. It may have an unintentional poor reaction.

You could argue it's easier to get right, either you get the blinking light at the end of the fibre or you don't. It uses less power overall though. By a fair margin. Most folks won't notice the extra 5 watts.

Didn't they say the same thing about the motorcar? Some argued that they were noisy, dangerous and antisocial, and that they'd never replace the horse. The Farmers Against Automobiles Association proposed that a driver at night send up rockets and Roman candles, and, if they come across horses, to cover the vehicle so it was camouflaged. Electric cars existed too, but, the battery technology couldn't compare to a gallon of petrol. For some, petrol was seen as a downside.

The upside to hybrids is you're striking a balance. The idea being that, when you run the engine, you're running it at peak efficiency, and siphoning off energy into the battery. In an ICE car, you're constantly varying the engine load and thus, the efficiency. Hybrids split that process up, so the engine can be kept in the 'sweet spot'. Even with charging losses, you can, and do, end up with a net positive in what you're saving. A small battery can be charged quickly, and isn't heavy. Toyota invented their hybrid system as a way into the American market, as the Americans didn't want diesels, but having the better fuel economy of a diesel was still appealing. On their own, their atkinson cycle engines would be a bit crap to drive. But, they're much more efficient. The electric motor is there to pick up the slack. Now, you even get engines that can swap between the cycles for a similar effect in ICE cars. On the other hand, the plug-in ones are a bit of a mixed bag, as you're always lugging around bigger batteries. So you get the worst of both worlds.

For better or worse, copper is going. Fibre doesn't corrode, uses less power and isn't subject to interference in the same way. The last bit means you aren't stuck with slow internet based on your distance from the exchange. You can also 'tap' it in the way the old party lines were. So, you're running one fibre optic cable where you had a number of phone lines. At some point, every copper line will fail due to age or tractors. As it gets phased out, the gear to support copper will also become harder to get hold of and maintain. Conspiracy theorists over the water claim it's so Government can control communication, not realising that it's all digital in the middle, and that they've been able to turn it off to stop people communicating for half a century or more. Plus, that exists for mobiles too.

That's already the case. Everything is monitored and correlated. Facebook were infamous years ago for working out where people without Facebook accounts fit in social circles, for example. See RIPA 2016, as an example. See the Snowden leaks. The only difference here is that private companies started it first, as it was a way to make more money. Even back in the 80s, UK police forces had big computerised lists of subversives to keep an eye on, and in the run up to a war with the soviets, round up so they didn't interfere. He was long dead before the appearance of COVID. But, he designed a system that would take some DNA, and make lots of copies of it, to make it easier to look at. What he didn't think, was that HIV had any bearing on AIDS. So the fact that his technique could detect HIV, in his eyes, was of no consequence in that matter. That's it. I doubt the inventor of a magnifying glass had any concept of a circuit board, but you can use one to look at one of those. I doubt the inventor of the wheel had any notion of it being attached to a Ferrari either, but, they do work pretty well together too.

The post hitting the island, whilst impacted by the boat, has been dreadful in terms of speed. I had a special delivery leave the UK on a Friday, before the cut off, it arrived on the Island the following Wednesday. With Christmas coming alongside the boat disruption, how will they get around the backlogs?

That's only going from the island, not coming to, which I think was the issue.

He's not the first Nobel prize winner to go a bit cuckoo. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_disease Nobel disease has its own article.

Do you have a smartphone? If so, you have a device covered in recording and monitoring ability, that, by its very existence and design, reports that back to a central location periodically. You can turn your data off, but it'll still happily chirp to let the tower know where to find it. Generally, they're filled with data harvesting tools, simply to be able to sell you things. Never mind how much data your browser gives off when you visit a website. The Electronic Frontier Foundation have a handy little tool here to show you how many data points: https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/ Even TOR users can be found if they're interesting enough. One of the drivers behind this, again, is advertising. The chip in the passports is very similar to the one in your bank card. It carries some data, including a copy of what's on the passport, and a digital signature, some of which you can read with the average smartphone. This isn't really some huge surprise. Remember also that facial recognition tech already exists and can be used to great effect too. As technology improves, it gets ever cheaper and easier. The Met Police have been trialling it over the years, for example. Also, remember what Snowden pointed out, the mass collection of citizens data on an enormous scale. RIPA, in the UK, allow a list of agencies from the Food Standards Agency to MI6 to request communications data. What actually changes with a 'digital' ID card?

As the big 4x4s on summer tyres find in the snow, 4 lots of no grip is still no grip.

As I said at the end of that post, you’d likely want to demonstrate with and without the safety nets. Some cars will let you step out a bit more before they take over. Others will panic at the slightest whiff of instability. I’d argue that it’s important for people to recognise what the electronics are doing for them as well. They can otherwise lead you into a sense of false security. It’s my understanding that they’re also designed to handle the situation you’re describing, where the driver starts over correcting. They’re about both reducing the chance of losing control, and helping in regaining it.

They generally have an off switch. Some will also have adjustable levels, where the vehicle will have higher thresholds for engaging the systems. The “drifters” will often pull fuses too, for things like ABS, I’d guess that the proper skid cars may well have switches wired in for disabling the always on features. I believe the police cars that measure road surface traction do something similar. I’ve also seen some of the skid training cars where the rear wheels are steered by the instructor to force it into a skid. If you’re asking about whether the training is done with the systems on or off, I don’t know. But, I can see it being useful to make students try the same thing with and without the safety nets available.