salmonlogs

I've submitted many reports through similar apps to my local council and find 25% of them are even acknowledged, 10% at most are "fixed" and the fixes are worthless.

A pothole I reported last October was "fixed" in December, and has already opened up again after the ineffective repair failed to take.

The article suggests the solar capacity is aggregate of installs by individuals because the power is so unreliable from the grid

Azure has some really horrible design patterns from a security perspective

If a user creates a resource they have the ability to delete it later, regardless of their permissions. An IT Admin creates a Network/VM/Storage/Whatever and later changes role and has no access to Azure. They can STILL delete that object whenever they want.

MSFT Bug Bounty declared it working as expected and by design. Owner can delete anything they own, regardless of permissions and access.

In the UK I had a minidisc drive in a PC I built, which I used for both data storage and for writing music to play on a minidisc player

The technology was so far ahead of its time, it felt like a real step forward

Why would you need to look at a screen? Surely the feedback from a volume knob is the volume changing?

If it doesn't change -> change it more

It it changes too much -> change it less

If you realise it needs to be moved slowly -> move it slowly

I can operate physical buttons without taking my eyes off the road.

I know where the volume knob is and I can easily grab it and turn it without looking away. If it's slow to respond I can go again and dial it back down, without looking away. Or I can just keep my hand on the dial and spin it back a bit.

With a digital screen I can't leave my hand on it without continually pressing the input, and if I want to put the volume down I have to look and see where that button is.

A physical control absolutely fixes this

Highly recommend the TV show Black Mirror, which has an episode called “Be Right Back” where a character talks to her dead husband using an AI trained model in an app type setup.

Very interesting discussion piece on the real world impact and repercussions of these types of systems

Also own some newer Miele washer/dryer and found the estimated time is almost perfectly accurate

I connected the Wi-fi for the app and I get a push notification to tell me the actual time remaining once its done the measurements

Miele already offer this on newer washing machine. They can connect to your inverter too and start a load when there is available local solar/battery/low spot prices.

It’s called “SmartStart”

It works very well in my experience. Load the machine in the morning, and it will start later in the day, then send my phone a notification when the load is done

In my personal experience, and through my network of friends/former colleagues, it's incredibly easy to find work as a contractor - in the UK at least.

I've never met a contractor who was short of contracts and options. There is pretty constant demand. Most of my contractor friends work 8-9 months of the year, take an extended break, then when they are ready for new work will land a new contract within 2-3 weeks at most. Totally normal to land a new contract within a few days.

There are some SIGNIFICANT downsides as an employee to using an employer of record. It's another example of companies reducing employee rights and outsourcing risk and responsibiility.

1 - No equity. The legal company structure prevents you getting equity in the company.

2 - Significantly reduced employment rights. During the current waves of layoffs people employed through these type of arrangements found they had significantly less rights than normal employees, primarily due to fewer people being employed this way did not meet the usual thresholds for redundancy planning and payouts.

A friend of mine employed through an employer of record was "made redundant" and was offered exactly zero notice, severance or payout. When he tried to negotiate they effectively told him to sue them, knowing it will take significant time and legal costs to bring forward a claim.

If you don't manage them directly that sounds like you don't have authority.

Without the authority to make changes you this will be very hard to do, given the scope of changes required. Soft skills and influence works up to a point but given your remarks about resistance to change this is a big challenge.

You need to ask for the proper remit and authority, or decline and move onto another project or job.