I think we have to thank people like this for demonstrating that losing your collection isn’t just a theoretical risk.

Well thank goodness that Microsoft isn’t pushing AI on us as hard as it can, via every channel that it can.

I cannot see how they could comply with both that and the GDPR, so the UK is asking Apple to choose between operating in the UK and operating in the 27 countries of the EU. Tough call.

He probably did it to troll people and spark outrage but that does not mean that he isn’t also a Nazi / fascist.

In the medieval period, there was the common idea that if something is too perfect, it must have been made by the Devil. To forestall accusations of having done a deal with the Devil, craftsmen would often deliberately introduce flaws in their design.

That’s why there are always gaps in my dovetails.

Loving people is what makes it painful. It opens you up to constant worry and inevitable loss. Even so, I think it’s a price worth paying.

Your ICE has a significantly longer range, and the road network has evolved so that you can be reasonably confident that you’ll find a filling station when you need one.

Today I’m driving an EV that doesn’t have it, and I’m missing it. Different EVs have different ranges and not every filling station on the autobahn has chargers. On the other hand, there are lots of places just off the autobahn which do have chargers. It’s a different game. Your mileage may vary of course.

The Megane E-tech has functionality in its satnav that lets you plot a route with charging stations on the way, showing how much capacity you will have left when you get to them. Not essential, but very useful for somebody who is new to EVs.

Software that communicates with power companies to allow the car to charge overnight at advantageous rates, or even feed energy back into the grid. Again, not essential, but good for the customer and helps with the transition to green electricity.

As far as I can tell, Microsoft tried to hold off these anti-trust lawsuits by intentionally making the interoperability and feature-parity between its products shockingly bad.

Because it’s much more likely that aliens flew here, across the galaxy, in their space ships, with advanced technology that we can only dream of, to stack rocks.

They’ll probably publish the abridged version, sadly. The full version reads, as we well know:

Thou shall not commit adultery but, if thou doest, thou shalt pay off the other woman so that it harmeth not thy chances in the presidential election. Nor shall it turn thy supporters against thee when they heareth of it.

You also punt in rugby.

Last year, Tesla announced that they had improved with autonomous emergency braking system, to go ‘beyond standard AEB functionality’. And yet, here we have a story where a Tesla drove straight into a stationary vehicle and, according to the cop, didn’t slow down.

Yes, the driver should have been paying attention, but why did the AEB do nothing?

Is it an uptick? Ausländer were 11.2% of the population in 2016 when the proportion of crimes was about the same (40%). 50% more Ausländer, the same amount of crime => the rate is clearly going down.

I chose 2016 because the rates were the same, but you can do the same analysis for 2017. The population of Ausländer has increased by more than their share of the crime rate.

I think the convenience very much depends on the journey you want to make. To travel from London to Edinburgh by car means several hours where you can do nothing but hold the steering wheel. If you go by train, you can spend the time usefully … or sleep. If you’re talking about commuting, well, driving into most cities during rush hour means sitting in traffic jams every day, not just occasionally.

That’s true, but they did already try it and it didn’t catch on. There’s a section about it on the Wikipedia page (“Copy protection”).

That section also mentions that Philips stated that these discs couldn’t have the CD logo on them. Since Philips was behind SACD, together with Sony, you’d think they wouldn’t have imposed that restriction on themselves if they had the choice.

You can definitely put DRM-protected content onto the physical CD media - that is exactly what SACD is. But then it isn’t an audio CD, even if it will play on a regular CD player. Search for “nonstandard or corrupted” on the Wikipedia page https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_Disc_Digital_Audio .

It’s my understanding that only conforming CDs can carry the CD logo. It’s usually on the case, not the disc itself, and it isn’t always there, particularly when the case isn’t a jewel case. All the same, I think that most things that look like CDs are conformant.

Thanks for the tip - they do seem to have a lot. I had assumed that the labels had made it unprofitable for that type of service to exist. I guess maybe it’s simply that there is more money to be made from streaming.

There certainly are some services where you can legally download MP3 and FLAC files. Bandcamp, for example. If you download your music like that then, yes, you do own it.

But I’m not aware of anywhere you can get music from the major music labels nowadays (Amazon used to sell MP3s and so did Google Play Music, but neither does any more). If you do, I’d love to know.

On the other hand, you can still - although it’s getting harder - buy CDs for major label artists and then you own the music (that copy of it).

No, a CD that carries the actual CD logo cannot have DRM. It is true that the music industry has often pushed ‘enhanced’ formats that look like CDs that do; SACD, for example.

Ownership is different to possession, and I want to actually own my music, not just possess the files.