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Comment Re:What competition? (Score 1) 23

There is another way to solve it - require that you can't be a network provider *and* a retailer. All retailers become MVNOs buying capacity off the underlying wholesalers. Then, where necessary, you regulate the wholesalers as they are a monopoly (modern cell tech limits the number of carriers because there are only a small number of frequencies available.) Much like many countries are doing with fibre and landlines. Given current trends, eventually the tower tech will be so expansive and RF bandwidth hogging that cellular radio will become a natural monopoly anyway (like power lines - no one is going to build 2 sets) - perhaps embracing that early would be better than hoping we can continue to have competition in that part of the sector?

Comment Re:A lot of room for efficiency improvement (Score 1) 25

DHL won't tell you when they will arrive beyond 9-5, .

This may be a problem in your area, but is not a general DHL issue. DHL delivered me a parcel 2 weeks ago, and I got given a 2-hour window for delivery (9:15-11:15). They contacted me by both email and, surprisingly, WhatsApp. The WhatsApp contact included clickable replies to a chatbot interface that could let me override the signature requirement if I wanted.

Comment IBM experiments (Score 1) 40

IBM produced a few weird models around this time. I remember this one, and also the 755cdv that could have the back of the screen removed (taking out the backlight) and included straps to attach it to an overhead projector allowing you to show your screen to a meeting without buying a dafa projector which were only just coming into existence, and very very pricy... https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thinkwiki.org%2Fwiki%2FCategory%3A755CDV

Comment Rest of world... (Score 3, Informative) 443

Australian and New Zealand eliminated their de minimis equivalents for large overseas retailers some years ago. What they did was reach an agreement with the big resellers, AliExpress, Temu, etc that they would charge the very simple GST at order time. Then remit the tax to the government much like onshore companies. There was an exemption for small/occasional shipping companies (like those that couldn't even find New Zealand on a map but ship there because they're shipping provider can), this levelled the playing field a little between the local companies and the mass shippers. But didn't result in any extraordinary distortion of the market. However, those were planned and executed in an orderly fashion, and were feeding into far far simpler tax systems that didn't require multiple rates for different kinds of goods.

Comment Re:Project will be canceled (Score 2) 154

Why are sodium-ion batteries touted as an alternative to lithium-ion batteries when, because of their weight, they're clearly only an alternative to lead acid and metal-hydride batteries?

Because, at present lithium-ion and variants are being used as an alternative to lead acid and metal-hydride batteries for many applications.

For example the house-batteries on my solar system are LFP (lithium-Iron-Phosphate) - It would be perfectly reasonable to have Sodium batteries in that use as size and weight are not the highest priority for this.

Comment Re:charge those cars w/ capacity! (Score 1) 154

Agreed, but the units don't even line up. If you think of this as - we'll put the batteries at supercharger stations so we can charge cars from solar power when it's dark -, then 24GWh is enough to charge 240,000 cars where a car is 100KWh (most are smaller but some are getting there and that number makes the calculation easy...)

Comment Re: Where "we" is people with US-based credit card (Score 3, Interesting) 136

My bank has started a new scheme in which a second CVV number is available in the app, which rotates every 12 hours, so you donâ(TM)t have to give out the real code.
I could see a future variant where the on-card code rotates. Could be done without any extra support from merchants or payment providers unlike an extra code. That would need 3DSecure support - which not all sites do.

Submission + - Microsoft Releases and Patents 'Python in Excel'

theodp writes: "Python in Excel is now generally available for Windows users of Microsoft 365 Business and Enterprise," Microsoft announced in a Monday blog post. "Last August, in partnership with Anaconda, we introduced an exciting new addition to Excel by integrating Python, making it possible to seamlessly combine Python and Excel analytics within the same workbook, no setup required. Since then, we’ve brought the power of popular Python analytics libraries such as pandas, Matplotlib, and NLTK to countless Excel users." Microsoft also announced the public preview of Copilot in Excel with Python, which will take users' natural language requests for analysis and automatically generate, explain, and insert Python code into Excel spreadsheets.

While drawing criticism for limiting Python execution to locked-down Azure cloud containers, Python in Excel has also earned accolades from the likes of Python creator Guido van Rossum, now a Microsoft Distinguished Engineer, as well as Pandas creator Wes McKinney.

Left unmentioned in Monday's announcement is that Microsoft managed to convince the USPTO to issue it a patent in July 2024 on the Enhanced Integration of Spreadsheets With External Environments (alt. source), which Microsoft explains covers the "implementation of enhanced integrations of native spreadsheet environments with external resources such as-but not limited to-Python." All of which may come as a surprise to software vendors and individuals that were integrating Excel and external programming environments years before Microsoft filed its patent application in September 2022.

Submission + - Voyager 1 engineers adjust thrusters again.

plaidlad writes: After noticing thruster performance problems in 2002, Engineers made adjustments to fuel system pathing with more following in 2018.

Now, with 47+ years on her engine, Voyager 1 Engineers just made another long-distance tweak. This time they adjusted hydrazine flow through tiny (.25mm or 0.01inch) fuel tubes which had become blocked by the buildup of crud from seals and valves. As the article notes, " ...the tube opening was originally only 0.01 inches (0.25 millimeters) in diameter, the clogging has reduced it to 0.0015 inches (0.035 mm), or about half the width of a human hair."

Here I thought the carb on my old Citation was tough to work on.

Get more info on the Voyager 1 probe and her mission here https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fblogs.nasa.gov%2Fvoyager

Comment Re:Old becomes new (Score 1) 10

Also, iOS improved to the point where many of the things you previously needed to hack your phone in order to do got built into the OS or got an API for apps to provide. When it first came out I had to root my phone to even get it to work in my country! And for a long time I had f.lux installed to change the colour temperature of the screen in the evenings. Neither of those requre hacking the phone anymore, so the effort of doing so began to outweigh the value-add.

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