They are things that you know, that you don't know you know. For example, uncovering links between existing knowledge that uncovers something that then feels obvious.
This happens occasionally where two previously thought seperate fields of study discover a common link with each being able to explain the questions the other had struggled with.
Based upon the recruiters messaging me, if I gave up my remote job for one that required in-office attendance I would get an immediate 30% pay bump.
That would however, demand an hour and half commute each way and that would impact my ability to take my children to school and be involved with family meals. Back when I did have a hour commute each way it was costing me £2,800 a year in fuel, plus £2,220 in parking fees, plus about the same again for lunch out with colleagues.
So yeah, i'd get a 30-40% pay bump, but a large percentage would be consumed by additional costs with no benefit to my performance.
Not forced but the tooling has been made available to those who ask. Work have provided Microsoft Copilot through Teams and Github Copilot through my IDE of choice.
I found the Microsoft Copilot to be reasonably good when given a complete context with extremely limited scope such as being provided a WSDL for a SOAP service and asked to write functions that make calls and then writing unit tests for the whole thing. This had a right way and a wrong way of doing things and it did it almost perfectly.
However, if you give it any problem that requires imagination with n+1 ways of being done it flounders and produces mostly garbage.
Compared to the Microsoft Copilot I found the Github Copilot to feel lobotomised! It failed on the aforementioned WSDL task and where Microsoft's could be asked "what inconsistencies can you see in this WSDL" and catch all of them, Github's was unable to answer beyond pointing out a spelling mistake I had already made it aware of.
I have personally tinkered with Claude, and its quite impressive.
My colleagues have had similar experiences, with some uninstalling the AI tooling out of frustration at how "useless" it is. Others, like myself, have begun using it for the grunt work; mostly as "inteligent boilerplate generator."
I had similar many years ago in a custom paint shop. We had an expensive colorimeter that interfaced over serial with a program that ran in DOS.
When the pysical computer gave out, I replaced it with a reasonably new one but instead of using a modern OS I installed MS-DOS in order to get it up and running as reliably and quickly as possible.
If I were doing the same today, I'd likely get a new computer and install FreeDOS.
Yes. When I started working in hospitals it wasn't the case. We had an onsite laundry facility and tailor. You would obtain your uniform from the tailors, tailor made to fit, they would also repair any damaged uniform.
You would place worn uniform in a bag labeled with your name and drop if off at the laundry to collect the next day.
Then privatisation came, first they shut down the tailors and you were expected to both purchase your uniform and pay for alterations and repairs (costs you could claim back as a tax rebate if you knew how, how not being advertised.) Then they privatised the laundry, shutting down the one on site and shifting everything to a central location, by everything I mean just the bedding, you were now expected to wash your uniform at home.
The only exception I am aware of is Surgical scrubs, those were provided in sterile wraps and were to be returned to a certain laundry bin for cleaning.
You're right about the food industry, when I worked in kitchens that days uniform was provided, freshly cleaned and returned for laundering at the end of my shift.
I guess a lot of people don't leave the door open so the machine can dry between loads. None of my washing machines have had issue with smell but I also run a 90 degree boil wash once a month to clean things out.
It's almost as though people forget these are machines that require maintenance and cleaning.
I have a similar spider story, for the past nine years a rather large spider (for the UK) had been living under the bookcase by my front door. I have left it alone, but do hoover up the graveyard of consumed insects every couple of months. I caught it a few months ago when I had new carpet laid, released it back to its spot once the bookcase was back in place :D
While there may be a 100% anilation with matter-antimatter reactions the resulting thrust is not perfectly efficient due to energy consumed as the rest mass of charged and uncharged pions, energy consumed as the kinetic energy of the uncharged pions (which can't be deflected for thrust); and energy consumed as neutrinos and gamma rays.
I'm unsure if the resulting efficienty is 60% however, not all of the energy produced in the anilation is converted to "stuff" that is useful for thrust.
haha, many years ago when I worked in a large office the three meeting rooms where constantly busy so my team would grab a laptop and pop down the road to the pub for our meetings.
I bought a second hand X230 about three years ago and was so impressed I bought a second one for my Wife. Thinkpads from that era feel so well built and for a laptop thats a decade old at this point it still holds up as a daily driver now that I have replaced its battery with a new one.
Where I live it's very similar to electric and gas supply, where you have a common carrier that you get your supply over. There is one fibre cable into the building that goes out to some kind of interface accessed via a manhole ourside; all the local telcos use that fibre as common carrier and either rent existing fibre thats already been laid and hooked up to that interface, or lay their own at their own cost.
I have choice of half a dozen suppliers this way but only one set of hardware in the house.