I doubt they’d have to retire the phone - digital radio power levels are normally pretty easy to change in the radio firmware. Which also means it’s pretty easy to change, intentionally or unintentionally, in a later OS version.

Perhaps Apple chose to cheat to improve reception after mandatory testing was complete and the phone was available to buy, figuring they’d never get caught out. Perhaps Apple didn’t retest with later OS versions and it was unintentional. We will probably never know.

The last syllable is usually pretty subtle, like the br- in bread, but very quietly voiced. I’d say I hear it maybe 75% of the time I hear the word. Currently in Yorkshire, via SW England, London and NW England. The syllable is a lot less subtle in a West Yorks accent!

Did you learn French at GCSE level? Possibly there’s a relationship between that and pronouncing the re like that in French-derived words. Cadre is another example. If it is related to learning French, then it’s probably on the decline as French teaching is on the decline and foreign languages are no longer compulsory at GCSE.

In some of the accents around here, blood, wood and food do rhyme, more or less.

British English voices those letters in most accents. I think the two silent letters is just a North American thing.

Similar to herb.

If you’re on-call 24/7/365 without a break, and it’s not because you have equity in the company, then find a new job.

If you don’t, then your health (physical and mental) will eventually force you to leave anyway. I did it at a startup where I was employee #1 (no equity for me), just me and the founders, and I nearly had a nervous breakdown from it, and ended up quitting from stress. Afterwards I decided I would do no more than 1 week in 3, and life got better after that.

What? Tech companies the world over have people on 24/7 on-call rotas, and it’s usually voluntary.

Depending on the company, you might typically do 1 week in 4 on-call, get a nice little retainer bonus for having to have not much of a social life for 1 week in 4, and then get an additional payment for each call you take, plus time worked at x1.5 or x2 the usual rate, plus time off in lieu during the normal workday if the call out takes a long time. If you do on-call for tech and the conditions are worse than this, then your company’s on-call policies suck.

I used to do it regularly. Over the years, it paid for the deposit on my first house, plus some nice trips abroad. I enjoyed it - I get a buzz out of being in the middle of a crisis and fixing it. But eventually my family got bored of it, and I got more senior jobs where it wasn’t considered a good use of my energies.

Your internet connection, the websites and apps you use, your utilities - they don’t fix themselves when they break at 0300.

If TSMC’s approach to on-call is bad, then yeah, screw that. I don’t see anything in the article that says that one way or the other. But doing an on-call rota at all is a perfectly normal thing to do in tech.