I'd really like a rejection physical letter back saying thankyou for application but no thanks signed by a human. I put some effort in to applying, they could at least exert some effort coming back, rather than simply ghosting. A reasonable barrier to bots collecting CV's.
Readit Newssoftgrow commented on Employers, please use postmarked letters for job applications (2025) soapstone.mradford.com/em... · Posted by u/MattyRad
softgrow commented on NYC Spends $200 Million on Cell Service for School Chromebooks nysfocus.com/2025/12/22/e... · Posted by u/h2si
I hope the students can choose to use their own wifi at home if they have it, much better service for them. Depending on how it's setup, the cellular contract may be not be that crippling. When enterprises buy thousands of services they pool data across the SIM's and get quite reasonable rates for what is used, be it a fleet of IOT devices with low usage or laptops with some high usage. If you are just buying one service, you are really at a disadvantage compared to enterprise deals.
softgrow commented on Rubio stages font coup: Times New Roman ousts Calibri reuters.com/world/us/rubi... · Posted by u/italophil
As documented at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Google_Easter_eggs google search for "times new roman font" and the results are returned in that font. (https://www.google.com/search?q=Times+New+Roman+Font for the lazy). Looks terrible on my screen.
softgrow commented on My dad could still be alive, but he's not jenn.site/my-dad-could-st... · Posted by u/DustinEchoes
What about helicopters? Does Melbourne not have/use theirs in those cases or is the system just overwhelmed?
Asking because (different country) when we had a person present with stroke symptoms and called 911, they sent both an ambulance and the helicopter. The heli came first but it had to land a ways off on a field and they had to walk over and basically arrived around the same time as the ambulance. A couple minutes earlier basically. No fire engine dispatched but that made sense too as it's volunteer based and while they would've been much closer, getting them to the station would've taken longer than the helicopter.
Driving time for the ambulance if it came from the same place as the helipad would've been about 15 min for the ambulance. Fire engine driving time from volunteer department: 2 min but no dedicated paramedic services, just volunteer firefighters. Heli time in air probably about 2 minutes given the "as the crow flies" distance I just checked, add whatever time is needed to get them in the air and such.
Now I can't really trust these numbers fully of course but according to "a quick AI analysis" :P Melbourne with millions of population has 0.08 helicopters and 8-10 ambulances per 100k population while the aforementioned location is at about 0.3 helicopters per 100k and 6-12 ambulances. Can it be true? It also says New York City has no emergency helicopters at all? Los Angeles has 0.18 per 100k? I know my current location definitely also has none at all. For millions of people.
I don't think my taxes/insurance costs/donations to charity are high enough. London (donation funded) has a helicopter service that attends 6 serious trauma cases a day. Denmark, Germany and others has a Helicopter Emergency Medical Service which delivers a senior doctor and paramedic. It probably doesn't scale well.
Basic issues like overhead powerlines make life difficult for helicopters. They are used in rural Australia as an alternative to road, but only due to time saving. In a city, well you get a road ambulance/paramedic/medical team.
The (Melbourne) Victorian Ambulance Cardiac Arrest Registry claims third best in the world in out of hospital cardiac arrest.
softgrow commented on My dad could still be alive, but he's not jenn.site/my-dad-could-st... · Posted by u/DustinEchoes
Wow melbourne is getting that bad! Does your org have a name?
Sounds like Hatzolah Melbourne, https://hatzolah.org.au since 1994
Since 1998, in Melbourne for anything that might need a defibrillator a fire engine is sent at the same time as the ambulance (EMR Emergency Medical Response Program). https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2002/177/6/cardiac-arrests-tr... Medical Journal of Australia article. There is also GoodSAM https://www.ambulance.vic.gov.au/goodsam/ for individual helpers
softgrow commented on I hate screenshots of text parkscomputing.com/page/i... · Posted by u/paulmooreparks
Worse still, I loathe screenshots of text on a website. Please make text is text so it works with a screen reader, can cut and paste etc.
Less of it about now but used for multilingual websites for the secondary language, particularly if non-latin alphabet. Will no-one think of Unicode!
softgrow commented on Don't Be a Sucker (1943) [video] youtube.com/watch?v=vGAqY... · Posted by u/surprisetalk
I love that this was US propaganda at one point.
The US always has failings, but this message is something we can be proud of.
I watched the film and was surprised when it moved on from gambling and scams. Initially thought it was aimed at avoiding being scammed of your hard earned cash by shysters. I wonder if there is a film produced at the time about that?
I immediately searched the site for interior pictures and had my pessimism confirmed ... it's a design-free interior with no physical controls.
At least they kept the stalks on the steering column ...
At least it has a steering wheel. Wait until that disappears to be replaced by a joystick or worse still a USB port, bring your own mouse.
softgrow commented on Why does a fire truck cost $2m thehustle.co/originals/wh... · Posted by u/Guid_NewGuid
Fire and rescue appliances are a bit of a problematic thing to buy as they never go very far and are retired with low mileages.
In my Australian State, South Australia, this a huge contrast with police who buy new from the manufacturer, get a three or maybe five year service contract from the manufacturer and then sell them when the warranty expires and they've done around 100,000 km (60,000 miles). So no servicing worries and they get some tax benefits so it works for them.
Ambulances have less mileage and my guess is retire after 10 years. Ambulances are very standardised so can swap metro and country vehicles to get value from the asset. There was a "twin life" ambulance (http://www.old-ambulance.com/Twin-Life.htm) that had a long life rear bit on a light truck chassis so swap out the motor bit two or three times every 200,000kms, but these days vans are used. There was much sadness in the ambulance fleet buying community when Ford discontinued the F150 type chassis in Australia.
But your average (fire/rescue) appliance in the city or country has low mileage. In the city plenty of use but never have to drive far. In the country not much use but do drive further but end up the same a very old vehicle without much mileage on the clock. Trailers can be even older 50 or 60 years before retirement. Another issue with a fire appliance is they carry water which is heavy, three tonnes is a pretty common load. And have other readers have mentioned a monopoly on manufacture wouldn't help.
Couldn't find the actual light levels associated with relative most/least bright.
It's in Table 1, of the paper. The "safe" night-time level for the bottom 50% of the population is surprising low, 0-1.21 lux. I've been sleeping for years with 10-20 lux (inner city, blinds open so I can enjoy the city lights). Maybe I'll need to close the blinds?