My company announced RTO the same day Amazon did. The Union is up in arms, but honestly the powers that be are handling it pretty well. My boss is happily going to the office for a couple of days a week. She’s a million miles from enforcing it on us though. Exceptions are already in place for people like me (3 hour TGV ride from the nearest office) and even a few people who just said “I really don’t want to”.

I’m sure a few people will leave and not be replaced, but perhaps they were just dead weight anyway. I couple that I know about definitely are.

I know, but my point is that sort of parent has no desire to do so.

Is the sort of parent who gives a 5 year old their own phone going really going to a limit the use? I think the crossover in that Venn diagram is pretty small.

What you have just described could be ZigBee and/or MQTT.

Either Slackware or Red Hat Linux 5, can’t remember. I do remember that when I first installed RH5 I used “Hick” for my language.

No, going overnight from running at a massive loss to “time to make loads of cash” is what ruins everything.

Do they still do the free tier that gives 10 pages a month?

50% of 0 == 0 :)

Will he cancel it though? Or will “Trump Trains” become a thing?

The US invented neither trains nor cars.

It is true the US was basically built on railroads, so I agree that it should have an awesome network, but it is just too big. Even if France ships you all a bunch of TGVs it will take days to go from NYC to LA. Something that takes hours by plane.

Why? I love being able to buy a 2 year old BMW for the same price as an equivalent Renault

I have one of those and it works perfectly from Linux using standard software. You can also go over the subscription, you just pay (still comparable to buying ink cartridges though, perhaps even a little cheaper if you’re printing photos). It also worked for 2 weeks with no internet connection, although it did complain about that lack of an internet connection after a week.

It has also proved to me that HP are conning everyone with non InstantInk cartridges. After 3 years we are still on the same cartridges, which I am sure it would have claimed were empty if it were not InstantInk.

Disclaimer: I got the printer for (effectively) free and use the free tier subscription which allows me 10(?) pages a month with no rollover. It has cost me about €2.50 in 3 years. I would never have paid for a modern HP printer.

Edit: I am not defending HP’s abhorrent business practices. However, in this case I found a loophole and was able to exploit it. It was also free because I had a awesome employer who gave out Fnac vouchers every year. I am also only able to exploit that loophole because I also have that little Brother laser that just works.

Laserjets up until generation 5 were amazing. There are laserjet 4s still trucking away churning out pages. I personally had a LaserJet 4MP that I sold when I got married due to its extremely low wife acceptance factor (it was huge, loud and ugly. We both regret that decision because 20 years later it would probably still be working.

Basically, what Brother lasers are now is what HP laserjets used to be up until ~2004. We can debate the exact switchover year ad nauseum, but you get the idea.

I think we can blame our parenta for that (at least I do).

My dad criticised me for years over not buying. When I did, he did not believe how much my mortgage repayments are. I would have paid of his house in less than 2 years!

You’ve never used find have you? Let’s not even get started on the config file syntax for sendmail either.

Valid point, didn’t think of that.

Kodi is what you are looking for.

Run it on Pi 4 or a NUC. We use Disney+ and Netflix on ours, although Prime video does not work (although it should, I just have not made any effort yet).

You have basically just described Kodi.

Look into “digital signage” panels.

Not cheap, but they are basically a 49"+ computer monitor that is rated for 24/7 usage.

We have a daily SUM which is supposed to last 15 minutes. It is usually over an hour, but work makes up at best 20 minutes. The rest is just us chatting.

We also have regular calls with other teams which follow a similar pattern.

It is easy to have “water-cooler” chats while working remotely.