Posted by msmash from Slashdot
From the oops department: An anonymous reader shares a report: Fisker temporarily lost track of millions of dollars in customer payments as it scaled up deliveries, leading to an internal audit that started in December and took months to complete, TechCrunch has learned.
The EV startup was ultimately able to track down a majority of those payments or request new ones from customers whose payment methods had expired. But the disarray, which was described to TechCrunch by three people familiar with the internal payment crisis, took employees and resources away from Fisker's sales team at a time when the company was attempting to save itself by restructuring its business model.
Fisker struggled to keep tabs on these transactions, which included down payments and in some cases, the full price of the vehicles, because of lax internal procedures for keeping track of them, according to the people. In a few cases, it delivered vehicles without collecting any form of payment at all, they said.
Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the freedom-of-speech-missing department: An anonymous reader quotes a report from Techdirt: Nigeria doesn't exactly have a stellar reputation when it comes to respecting the speech rights of its own citizens, nor the rights of platforms that its citizens use. But I will admit that even with that reputation in place, I'm a bit at a loss as to why the country decided to arrest and charge a woman for violating those same laws because she wrote an unkind review of a can of tomato puree on Facebook: "A Nigerian woman who wrote an online review of a can of tomato puree is facing imprisonment after its manufacturer accused her of making a 'malicious allegation' that damaged its business. Chioma Okoli, a 39-year-old entrepreneur from Lagos, is being prosecuted and sued in civil court for allegedly breaching the country's cybercrime laws, in a case that has gripped the West African nation and sparked protests by locals who believe she is being persecuted for exercising her right to free speech."
By now you're wondering what actually happened here. Well, Okoli got on Facebook after having tried a can of Nagiko Tomato Mix, made by local Nigerian company Erisco Foods. Her initial post essentially complained about it being too sugary. So pretty standard fair for a review-type post on Facebook. When she started getting some mixed replies, some of them told her to stop trying to ruin the company and just buy something else, with one such message supposedly coming from a relative of the company's ownership. To that, she replied: "Okoli responded: 'Help me advise your brother to stop ki***ing people with his product, yesterday was my first time of using and it's pure sugar.'"
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Posted by from MMO Champion
Dragonflight Season 4 - Awakened Raid Rotation
Dragonflight Season 4 brings back the "Fated Raids" system from
Shadowlands Season 4, with a new rotation that includes all 3 Dragonflight raids! Every week, bosses within one raid will be empowered and drop higher item level loot.
Dragonflight Season 4 - Awakened Raid Rewards
Raid Achievements
tbody>tr" data-default-sort-slug="name" data-default-sort-order="asc"> Name Reward Category
Awakening the Dragonflight RaidsComplete all three Awakened raids on Normal difficulty or higher in Dragonflight Season 4.
Mount Reward:
Voyaging Wilderling Feats of Strength
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Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the unprecedented-situation department: According to a new study published in the journal Nature, timekeepers may have to consider subtracting a second from our clocks around 2029 because the planet is rotating faster than it used to. The Associated Press reports: "This is an unprecedented situation and a big deal," said study lead author Duncan Agnew, a geophysicist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego. "It's not a huge change in the Earth's rotation that's going to lead to some catastrophe or anything, but it is something notable. It's yet another indication that we're in a very unusual time." Ice melting at both of Earth's poles has been counteracting the planet's burst of speed and is likely to have delayed this global second of reckoning by about three years, Agnew said.
"We are headed toward a negative leap second," said Dennis McCarthy, retired director of time for the U.S. Naval Observatory who wasn't part of the study. "It's a matter of when." It's a complicated situation that involves, physics, global power politics, climate change, technology and two types of time. [...] McCarthy said the trend toward needing a negative leap second is clear, but he thinks it's more to do with the Earth becoming more round from geologic shifts from the end of the last ice age.
Three other outside scientists said Agnew's study makes sense, calling his evidence compelling. But Levine doesn't think a negative leap second will really be needed. He said the overall slowing trend from tides has been around for centuries and continues, but the shorter trends in Earth's core come and go. "This is not a process where the past is a good prediction of the future," Levine said. "Anyone who makes a long-term prediction on the future is on very, very shaky ground."
Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the consumer-rights-movements department: An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Oregon Governor Tina Kotek today signed the state's Right to Repair Act, which will push manufacturers to provide more repair options for their products than any other state so far. The law, like those passed in New York, California, and Minnesota, will require many manufacturers to provide the same parts, tools, and documentation to individuals and repair shops that they provide to their own repair teams. But Oregon's bill goes further, preventing companies from implementing schemes that require parts to be verified through encrypted software checks before they will function. Known as parts pairing or serialization, Oregon's bill, SB 1596, is the first in the nation to target that practice. Oregon State Senator Janeen Sollman (D) and Representative Courtney Neron (D) sponsored and pushed the bill in the state senate and legislature.
Oregon's bill isn't stronger in every regard. For one, there is no set number of years for a manufacturer to support a device with repair support. Parts pairing is prohibited only on devices sold in 2025 and later. And there are carve-outs for certain kinds of electronics and devices, including video game consoles, medical devices, HVAC systems, motor vehicles, and -- as with other states -- "electric toothbrushes." "By eliminating manufacturer restrictions, the Right to Repair will make it easier for Oregonians to keep their personal electronics running," said Charlie Fisher, director of Oregon's chapter of the Public Interest Research Group (PIRG), in a statement. "That will conserve precious natural resources and prevent waste. It's a refreshing alternative to a 'throwaway' system that treats everything as disposable."
Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the optimistic-thinking department: Neil Irwin reports via Axios: The dearth of productivity growth over the last couple of decades has held back incomes in the U.S. and other rich countries, according to a report out Wednesday from the McKinsey Global Institute, the research arm of the global consultancy. Productivity growth has been weak in the U.S. and Western Europe since the 2008 global financial crisis, but things looked better among many emerging markets. The McKinsey report finds that global labor productivity growth was 2.3% a year from 1997 to 2022, a rapid rate that has increased incomes and quality of life in large parts of the world. China and India account for the largest portion of that surge -- half of overall global productivity improvement, with other emerging markets accounting for another 25%, led by Central and Eastern Europe and emerging Asian economies.
In the U.S., the report finds that the decline in capital investment following the 2008 financial crisis has resulted in a $4,500 lower per-capita GDP in 2022 than it would have if pre-crisis trends had continued. Rapid advances in manufacturing technology, especially for electronics, petered out in the same time period, subtracting another $5,000 from per-capita GDP. "Digitization was much discussed as the main candidate to rev up productivity again, but its impact failed to spread beyond" the tech sector, the authors write. The authors are optimistic that a confluence of factors will make the years ahead different.
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Posted by from MMO Champion
WoW Hotfixes - March 27, 2024
Originally Posted by Blizzard
(
Blue Tracker /
Official Forums)
Achievements
Fixed bugs causing mounts related to A World Awoken to be unavailable, including Bestowed Ottuk Vanguard, Bestowed Trawling Mammoth, Bestowed Thunderspine Packleader, Bestowed Sandskimmer, Bestowed Ohuna Spotter, Coralscale Salamanther, Stormtouched Bruffalon, and Taivan.
Player versus Player
Fixed an issue that prevented Splintered Sparks of Dreams from dropping from PvP sources while eligible for catch-up.
Plunderstorm
The Storm’s fury swells! Lightning strikes during the final stage of the Storm are faster and more dangerous than before.
There is now a delay of 20 seconds after being revived where players no longer drop collected Plunder.
Additional enemies now spawn at Witherbark Village, the wild area northeast of Go’Shek Farm, and the wild area between Witherbark Village and Boulderfist Hall.
Fixed an issue where swapping back to default sword and gun appearances were not saving correctly.
Fixed an issue so that now, picking up an additional rank 2 spell while the same rank 2 spell is equipped properly grants the rank 4 version of the spell.
The Captain’s Orders quest “X Marks the Spot” now requires 1 item to be picked up (was 2 items).