Thursday, January 12, 2023

Welcome Year 2023 - from #davidlimnz @davidlim, Auckland, New Zealand

Kia ora and welcome to year 2023!  I wish peace and happiness to everyone on earth!

We have had a two weeks break for the year end holiday and have had a good rest along with the year celebration (Christmas and New Year parties).

Global survey finds U.S. public glad to leave 2022 behind, but many are concerned about inflation, unemployment, and natural disasters; majority of Americans optimistic about 2023?
Following a very challenging couple of years in 2020 and 2021, many people around the world feel 2022 has been a little better. Two in three Americans (64%) are hopeful that 2023 will be a better year than 2022. However, there is some lingering concerns about a wide array of issues, stretching from rising prices to unemployment to natural disasters.

t a global level, signs of improvement are not apparent in all areas of life, however. About half of the 17 questions where we have trend data since 2021, particularly those focused on what 2023 will be like, show a significantly more pessimistic view of what next year will bring. Much of this negativity surrounds the economic situation, but it extends beyond the economy to encompass climate-related disasters, the use of nuclear weapons, and even asteroid impacts and visits from aliens.

The Economy in 2023
Overall, there is much more pessimism about the global economy than at this time last year. Only 46% on average across all 36 countries believe that the global economy will be stronger next year, compared to 61% who did so last year and 54% in 2020. People in Belgium are the most pessimistic about the economy with as few as 27% expecting to see improvements, while those in China and the UAE, where 78% and 76% respectively anticipate better times, are the most optimistic. In the U.S., about two in five (42%) expect the global economy to be stronger in the new year, down from 54% saying the same at this time last year.

The reasons for this pessimism are clear. Large majorities globally expect increases in the cost of living (79% expect prices to rise, 75% expect to see higher inflation rates), levels of unemployment (68%), and interest rates (74%). Proportions of Americans with the same expectations are in line with the global averages.

Even more worryingly, nearly half globally (46%) think it likely that their country will need to be bailed out with emergency funding from the International Monetary Fund, with those in South Africa (78%) and Argentina (70%) being particularly worried about this possibility.

Around half both globally (50%) and in the U.S. (47%) think it is likely that major stock markets around the world will crash – significantly more than did a year ago (+15 points globally, +10 in the U.S.

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Thursday, December 22, 2022

The worst technology of 2022 #drmobileslimited, #phonerepair #iPadunlock #imeicheck #aucklandrepair #iPadPro #0800429429



The worst technology of 2022

Zero covid, a fraudulent crypto exchange, Elon Musk’s content moderation, and other technologies that went so, so, wrong.

We're back with our annual list of the worst technologies of the year. Think of these as anti-breakthroughs, the sort of mishaps, misuses, miscues, and bad ideas that lead to technology failure. This year's disastrous accomplishments range from deadly pharmaceutical chemistry to a large language model that was jeered off the internet.

One theme that emerges from our disaster list is how badly policy—the rules, processes, institutions, and ideals that govern technology’s use—can let us down. In China, a pervasive system of pandemic controls known as “zero covid” came to an abrupt and unexpected end. On Twitter, Elon Musk intentionally destroyed the site’s governing policies, replacing them with a puckish and arbitrary mix of free speech, personal vendettas, and appeals to the right wing of US politics. In the US, policy failures were evident in the highest levels of overdose deaths ever recorded, many of them due to a 60-year-old chemical compound: fentanyl.

The impact of these technologies could be measured in the number of people affected. More than a billion people in China are now being exposed to the virus for the first time; 335 million on Twitter are watching Musk’s antics; and fentanyl killed 70,000 in the US. In each of these messes, there are important lessons about why technology fails. Read on.

See the full article here...






Stars we've lost in 2022, #drmobileslimited #mobilephonerepair #iOSupgrade #toll0800429429


Always in our hearts. Hollywood mourned the loss of icons such as Betty White and John Madden in the final days of 2021 — and unfortunately, 2022 also came with celebrity deaths that have fans reeling.

The sports world lost a football great in Dan Reeves who passed away on January 1. The 77-year-old Georgia native appeared in nine Super Bowls during his career — winning once as a player and once as an assistant coach.

As one of the winningest coaches in the league’s history, his loss was felt near and far. “The football world lost a heckuva coach and man today in Dan Reeves,” former Denver Broncos quarterback John Elway said in a statement on January 1. “Dan was a winner and I owe a lot to him. My heart goes out to Pam and the entire Reeves family.”

Read the full article here...