mmsimanga

Not OP but I did laugh because I saw the joke in the use of the word bill.

Edit for none English speakers the words beak and Bill are often used interchangeably to mean a bird's beak or bill.

Speaking from a developing nation. Upfront solar costs aren't cheap. Reasons why people invest in solar include unreliable grids which result in power cuts from lack of maintenance or capacity. For new buildings bureaucratic processes are so cumbersome and often there is lots of corruption for you to get connected to the grid so people rather just invest in solar and have nothing to do with often hostile local government officials looking for a bribe to get you connected to the grid. It can take years to get connected to the grid.

South African here. Just about all notifications have moved to WhatsApp. Most school classes have a group for the parents, extended family group, immediate family group, residents association group, high school classmates group, gym class group, home town group ... the list goes on. Sounds like a lot but most groups tend to have few messages.

Most people cannot afford to have it in their home. They will get access at school or shopping centre. Most kids don't have phones either but I really do get your point. The other danger is they tend to be susceptible to fake news and stories made up using AI. I have had cousins from the village send me a picture of a mermaid claiming she was caught in one of the rivers.

African here living under and shit hole government who has no interest in improving the lives of the people. Starlink has been a game changer! An absolute game changer. I do not support Elon Musk but just putting out there that Starlink is helping kids in remote areas with no electricity (they use small solar panel) to access the Internet.

Which products are you now using?

As a middle child this rings true for me.

I see a lot of comments critical of the product. I don't know much about the field but I have a teen and I would like to give her product of this sort and see how far she takes it. I would appreciate suggestions and links.

On South African national TV the interviewee's chair broke. Still cracks me up to this day. https://youtu.be/XnHIeXQCfog?si=u4kzKfPLKSNGbBf_

I wonder if the issue is that the use of AI has generated so much work, a substantial amount none essential and incorrect as per the article and for one to cope with the volume of work you have to use AI. The irony. More pull requests to check, more pages or documentation to review, more new apps or features to get acquainted with all at a rapid pace.

To add. It is jarring for me when I occasionally get to use someone's browser that does not have an ad blocker. It is indeed surprising what users have accepted as the norm.

Turtles all the way down.

I dabbled in hydroponics for some years. Due to my inability to get my Rasberry Pi and Arduino working I ended up using a 12V pump and one of those cheap $10 electric timers on Aliexpress. I estimated how much time it took for my hydroponics system to drain and that's what I set on the timer. Other people I followed had all sorts of sensors rigged up, which I would have done if I had the time and skill but I failed, so in the end it was just the timer. I too had single solar panel and battery and the system worked for over 7 years with no issues. I just replaced the pump once or twice.

Yes. The key point of view being from someone outside the US. I cannot speak for those in the US. But the point is techies outside the US had been reduced to merely configuring US products. Speaking where I am from IT organisations were now being led by accountants and lawyers because there wasn't any decision to make, just go with Office 365. The hardest part was negotiating the often opaque licensing. There has been a revitalization of the craft of software development and I think in the long run this will be good for the industry. Yes there might be fragmentation but hopefully standards start getting adopted to counter this fragmentation and interoperability.

I am often amused at how people outside the US don't like the current US government yet if it wasn't for the current US government the whole world would have been sleep walking into Office 365 and Teams. I don't hold any political opinion but do like that we are now going to have alternatives and true competition.

+1 I have a couple of digital.clocks from Temu. They look nice but cannot keep the correct time. They slowly edge ahead and in a month they are about a minute ahead. It is annoying having to correct the clock and would be great if they time from WiFi connected source.

African women often carry a 25l water can on their heads which is 25kg/52pounds. Often they have another 25kgs in one hand. They navigate narrow paths up and down hills, duck under branches without spilling a drop. Usually maintaining a casual conversation the whole time with whoever they are with.

Reminds me of that academic paper that was generated by a computer, this was before current wave of AI agents. The paper was just word soup but was accepted into a journal. Apologies I don't have link typing on mobile.

I can't even send attachments using Gmail. The restrictions opened up the world of KVM switches for me. I have a personal mini computer and at the touch of a button I switch between my work laptop and home mini computer using the same keyboard and screen.

Another nuance I would like to add, being an immigrant myself, not in the US. There should be more discussion about fixing the source of the migrants, the countries people are running away from. What is it that makes people leave their families behind and how can it be fixed. I know it isn't up to the US to fix other countries but it should be a point of nuanced discussion. We cannot all end up in the US.

Ah that makes sense. Thanks for the insight.

It is even worse for those of us in Africa. The equivalent phone I can buy for USD$150-250 back home is absolutely shocking in terms of how bad it is in ram ,disk space and often an outdated version of Android. I buy my phones on Amazon US which delivers and I get a much better phone for the same price range.

I dropped my phone and it literally fell apart. As a result I have been locked out of my AWS account. The get a phone call verification just does not work. Only saving grace is that it was an account I used to test things.

Absolutely. I have social media accounts primarily to view links people send me but I am not an active user. A quieter world works for me.

Not OP and not an expert but seems the aim is outrage which leads to more engagement and more advertising clicks, more followers and so on. Distorting news and social media from reality. I must say I too have found that people are nicer than what news portrays. I had the pleasure of being able to visit New York a few years and the people were just people and pleasant.

IMHO, speaking from a data engineer perspective. Excel is used excessively by industry specialists who aren't in IT or but IT people who are being constrained by environment. As in they don't have a better tool to work in. It is a great tool to quickly mock up a report.

Why am I am not good at excel, it is because I am the person who tends to fetch the data from the different systems and consolidates it for the analysts to analyse and some do use Excel to analyse the data.

You could be right but I would like to put forward another possible reason. They could be telling the truth. I studied computer science late 90s and to this day I cannot use MS Excel beyond summing a column of numbers. To make matters worse I work in data engineering space. So people often assume I do not want to help them when I tell them I cannot help them with their fancy spreadsheets. I have never owned a Mac book and sometimes I get asked for help and I haven't a clue how to help. The answer is how come but you have been working with computers for all these years.

Typical structures in the villages are bungalows built by people you know. Sounds like the crisis in the link you shared is from corrupt approvals and poor construction of commercial properties sold to people. People build houses they will live in in the villages and for me this is a big enough incentive to build it properly. You will have no one to blame when your own roof falls on your head. The builders are also known and it would be a business ending move to build a rubbish house for your neighbour. Word would get out pretty quick. One thing people do in the village is talk as they have plenty time. I think all these other factors make up for the lack of regulation.

In my village there is no regulation for building residential property. You don't have title deeds either. You get allocated a piece of land by the local chief or headman/woman and you decide where and what you can build. The only regulation is you must have a toilet. Which tends to be a no brainer and one of the first things most people build. A simple Blair toilet.

In my country in Africa there is a huge shortage of homes in cities where building is regulated. Not enough homes are being built and many people live in shacks. Building in the villages has literally no regulations and amazing houses are being built at an amazing pace in the villages because you don't need any regulatory approval.

I don't think all building regulations should be put aside but we have a crisis something needs to give.