Agreed.

Now imagine my dismay when I've discovered furnaces now demand cloud access so that they push firmware updates without notification. Excuse me? My furnace keeps the pipes in my house from freezing and essentially destroying the building. There is no effing way that I'm going to let my furnace or its controller on the Internet. Like everything else that they've managed to make electric, this is a hugely regressive step and we really need our respective governments to step in and draw the line. Ditto the OTA controls in my new car. There is absolutely no good reason for my car to require access to the Internet.

The problem with Google/Apple/Meta/Microsoft going on about Wind and Solar-generated power is that these sources are invariably part of a larger mixed portfolio of power-generating facilities owned by the large utilities. So when one of these companies goes to the utility and contracts to buy a gigawatt of solar power, that just means that the rest of the customers will be "using" more of their fossil-fuel-generated power.

In a grid, there is no meaningful way to identify the source of power used for any specific customer. Claiming that their data centers are carbon-neutral is a shell-game. And it doesn't make sense for these companies to create their own private grid. Our electricity supply system works as well as it does because the reliability and adaptability improves as the size of the grid increases. Just ask Texas. There is a very good reason why Canada and the USA have cross-border ties. Same for Europe.

it is an advertising platform focused on collecting personal information. Whether they realize it consciously or not, they are instinctively gravitating to "Not-Microsoft".

Naming Microsoft AI something else might have helped. There is a reason that GitHub and LinkedIn have kept their independent branding.

Given Microsoft's ability to ram their products down our throats, this is a pretty abject failure.

I shouldn't be surprised but I can be disappointed.

My guess is that if a company like Logitech lands a Chinese product at a United States port, they are unable to separate out the 10% destined for the Canadian market and we wind up paying the Trump Tax like the Americans.

Can somebody knowledgeable explain how this normally works? Does product destined for Canada need to be bonded when it lands? And did it need to be bonded before Trumps tarrifs?

OP writes "The problematic update, QTS 5.2.2.2950 build 20241114, was released last week before being partially withdrawn " (my emphasis) but according to QNAP, the fixed version has the SAME BUILD IDENTIFIER:

For the love of all that is good and proper, you don't re-use a build number!

The release notes for this build make no mention of the latest fix. This is sloppy sloppy sloppy release management. It may not be as globally disastrous as CrowdStrike but it demonstrates just as much negligence on the part of the vendor.

I'm waiting for the next release and am going to let it soak out in the wild before I apply it.

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2F...

At least my wife is happy when I give her flowers.

For a Canadian perspective, our Canada's federal sales tax is 5%. That revenue constitutes nearly 6% of all federal revenue and as much as people whine about taxes, we all benefit from those tax dollars. The 2-4% charged by Visa and Mastercard is utterly lost.

So next time the sales tax bothers you, complain to your member of parliament about Visa and Mastercard first. Oh, and bank fees too.

You make a fair point, albeit with a rather jaundiced view.

I think we also have to admit that not all businesses, or roles within businesses are suitable, even if all we do is sit in front of our computer 90% of the time. And 100% WFH may not be viable. (That's why I'm flying across the ocean to meet my team in person in a couple of weeks; sometimes you just need to be able to scribble on a whiteboard and wave your hands.)

But I think my point stands: if the business case is there to support a WFH culture, then businesses which ignore it will lose a competitive advantage. Poorly run businesses seldom last. It may take a decade or more for the transition from a "traditional" office environment to one more accepting of WFH. But I believe it will happen.

"Executives are increasingly resigned to a world where employees don't come in every day"

I'm not sure "resigned" is the best word here. I think that in addition to improved employee satisfaction and, often, improved productivity, they're realizing that they can reduce the cost of their office space leases. That can be quite significant.

With several years of experience now available, it is possible for employers to make some quantitative assessments of today's enhanced work-from-home culture.

Regardless of any moral suasion, at the end of the day employers are going to make these sorts of decisions based on business imperatives.

Early this evening, the Council of Elders announced a planetary day of mourning and magnanimity.

K'Nord, Speaker for the Council, spoke thusly:

"Citizens and Podmates, the Council is pleased to announce that after seven and a half full years -- the longest campaign in the history of the Martian Defense Force -- the diabolical mechanized adversary from the blue world has been defeated. Our defense forces, counted in the billions, have finally surrounded and denied the invader the light and warmth it needs to survive. The blueworlders have acknowledged defeat and ceased contact. Ths invasion, at least on this front, is now over.

Let us raise our glasses to mourn the lost gelsacs of at least half our press corps, some of whose entire careers have been dedicated to coverage of this conflict -- and in a spirit of magnanimity in victory, we -- the victors of the Conflict at Endeavour Crater -- must also raise our glasses in awe and respect of our longest-lived and most challenging foe."

Shortly thereafter, a wizened old retired Councilmember, his gelsacs having long ago been ceremonially ground into a fine tartare and shared amongst the Council, wiped a perchlorate tear from his eye: "Well-done, blueworlders. Well-done."