Occasionally I'll know someone who wants to send me a text using their stupid custom emojis. It comes into my phone as blank, mostly because the whole fucking point it to make me download their shit, and probably track me.
As far as I can tell, most emojis are just graphic files, and used in such a way that I am supposed to give a shit you wanted to send "champagne champagne monkey poop rhinoceros" like that's some form of language.
Except for old school text-driven emojis, I generally find the prevalence of emojis is inversely proportional to my giving a damn about what is being said.
Like that one lady in the office who always insists on changing the background and font of her emails so they all look like they were sent by a 12 year old.
I see "official national emojis" and I want to shoot someone.
So the cynic in me says "we'll be able to see you better, and monitor your cellphone activity better".
According to Ericsson senior vice president and head of business unit Radio, Arun Bansal, LA is becoming a role model for other smart cities developing Internet of Things (IoT) solutions.
Oh, I see.. LA has been hoodwinked into funding someone's marketing drive, and LA will be the reference case for how they leveraged their synergies with emerging IoT technologies to deliver the blah blah blahs in an agile manner.
Give it a few years, it won't work, it will have cost too much, and will be found to have massive security holes which can't be fixed without spending huge sums of money.
So basically they have a formal policy to mislead, misdirect, or lie to their clients in order to implement a policy and pretend it's always been there?
I can't speak for Google Voice, but my Panasonic cordless phones have built in things which say "block calls from unavailable or private numbers".
If you are concealing your caller ID, my phone hangs up on you. Not my problem if you feel I should be answering your call without you telling me who you are.
And then the rest of the time it's some other bullshit like "The Microsoft" who want me to believe they're calling me because I have a virus. Or want to clean my ducts. Or because they can lower my credit card interest. Or that I've won a cruise. Or they want me to fill out a survey.
If I don't recognize the number, I simply don't answer any more. If it's legit they'll leave a message. But these days 95% or more of my incoming calls are outright fraudulent.
And if I don't know you, or already have a business relationship with you... I don't owe you any duty of caring what you have to say, or being polite to you when I tell you that I don't care.
So, here's the difference... the PM for the bridge construction can't say due to time and cost you're going to remove half of the structure of the bridge, simply not pave the bridge deck, and let the client file a defect for any missing functionality. The CEO doesn't also get to sneak it into a sales deck and add 9 different features to it when nobody is looking. The sales guy didn't tell someone it would also work for trains without telling the engineers.
See, engineering is mature enough to have an end to end process. Far too much of creating software is smoke and mirrors, lies, creative interpretations of definitions, and specifications which change fairly constantly.
Rigorous design and engineering principles can be applied to software, but so much of it is a square on a blackboard which says "insert miracle here".
Neither the profession, nor the process in most cases, lives up to "engineering".
I have a degree in Computer Science, and worked as a code monkey for a lot of years. I also know people who are Engineers.
Where I live, engineer is a regulated word, part of a professional governing body (like doctors and lawyers), and which carries with it legal responsibilities and liabilities, and a minimum level of education.
In no way shape or form do programmers live up to the title of "Engineer". They do things which have commonality with engineering, but they are not Engineers.
There is no licensing, no accreditation, or professional body which oversees it.
In my experience, calling programmers (or most people in the tech field) "Engineers" does a real dis-service to people are really are engineers. It's just usually people looking to add fancy sounding words to their business cards.
Sir, I would love to commend you on reaching level 7 in your quest to be a full-fledged pedant.
And while your goal of offering enlightenment to others is commendable, I must caution you that pedantic behavior is, ultimately, a reward only to the one opting the exhibit the pedantry.
But, with great haste and alacrity I will endeavor to send my endorsement letter to the Counsel of Tedious Grammatical Endeavors.;-)
That's OK, I have an EULA on my phone which says you will not install any software without directly getting written permission, or I will give you an epic smackdown right there in the store.
I'm not acting outside the law either now.
Sorry, but this is stalling software which give them remote control of your phone without consulting you.
Here's the alternative: the technicians are so incompetent they don't know the meaning of individual steps and just do them by wrote, have no idea what the policy says, and don't give a fuck about your phone.
At what point was the technician handling his phone, and what was he doing with it?
Because if I go in for you to add me to your network, and you start installing shit on my phone... I'm going become unreasonable quite fast.
I just can't quite figure out from the article how the technician came to be installing this in the first place; it was obviously in the middle of something else.
Surely he didn't walk into a Sprint store and hand the technician his phone, did he?
The author of the post received an SMS stating an MMS from someone was sent to him (in the example, a German phone number is listed and the SMS was written in German). The SMS goes on to say âoeThis MMS cannot be directly sent to you, due to the Android vulnerability StageFright. Access the MMS within 3 days [Bitly link] with your telephone number and enter the PIN code [code]âoe. Once the link is opened, a site loads where you are asked to enter the code from the SMS along with your phone number.
So, basically if you click on random links in text messages you can get this malware.
Well then, this is a decades old problem and is as much a human issue as it is a technology one.
This is precisely why I will never click on ANY link behind an URL shortener; because you have no bloody idea what it is.
Well, here's the problem with all of this: this was a treaty America wanted, actively pushed it as being important, and allowed industry to write most of it (like all US laws and treaties are written by industry).
America pushed this on the rest of the world, not the other way around.
If there's a treaty expanding copyright terms and otherwise giving corporations the upper hand, it's being championed by Americans, and pushed on other countries.
Sorry, but this is hardly the first treaty the US has championed which only serves corporate interests. And the rest of the world has no sympathy when Americans suddenly say how bad this treaty is -- because it's your government who pushed for it.
Your government has been so thoroughly coopted to serve the interests of huge multinationals, you should be yelling at your own politicians, instead of acting tough by saying you'll grow a pair and tell the world this is an unfair treaty. We already know this.
Why do Americans keep thinking this is being done to you by other countries? It's your own politicians who drive this crap.
So don't whine about your sovereignty, because this is what the rest of the world has been dealing with for years. And it usually is the US threatening trade sanctions if we don't give up OUR sovereignty for YOUR interests.
Cry us a river, you're not the only ones getting fucked over here. But you have been driving the bus.
Slashdot Mirror
Are emojis even characters? Or just graphics?
Occasionally I'll know someone who wants to send me a text using their stupid custom emojis. It comes into my phone as blank, mostly because the whole fucking point it to make me download their shit, and probably track me.
As far as I can tell, most emojis are just graphic files, and used in such a way that I am supposed to give a shit you wanted to send "champagne champagne monkey poop rhinoceros" like that's some form of language.
Except for old school text-driven emojis, I generally find the prevalence of emojis is inversely proportional to my giving a damn about what is being said.
Like that one lady in the office who always insists on changing the background and font of her emails so they all look like they were sent by a 12 year old.
I see "official national emojis" and I want to shoot someone.
Meh, I was feeling lazy and didn't want to waste my time .. hence the "blah blah blah".
Failed products? Wastes of taxpayer money?
Why? You can't claim to be, er, "paving the way forward" when all you're doing is paving the way forward.
That doesn't cast you as an innovator building the city of tomorrow.
Where's the excitement and photo ops there?
So the cynic in me says "we'll be able to see you better, and monitor your cellphone activity better".
Oh, I see .. LA has been hoodwinked into funding someone's marketing drive, and LA will be the reference case for how they leveraged their synergies with emerging IoT technologies to deliver the blah blah blahs in an agile manner.
Give it a few years, it won't work, it will have cost too much, and will be found to have massive security holes which can't be fixed without spending huge sums of money.
So basically they have a formal policy to mislead, misdirect, or lie to their clients in order to implement a policy and pretend it's always been there?
Isn't shit like this illegal?
Pretty much this.
And plastics which have likely not been deemed food safe, or otherwise been studied for their safety.
I mean, has anybody spent any time looking at the composition of these plastics and said "gee, should we be handling this, or making forks from it?".
I assume at this point, it's totally untested, and just whatever random plastics had the right material properties.
And, really, just how hard is it to be toxic to the embryos of zebrafish?
Easy ... use that as a blocking criteria.
I can't speak for Google Voice, but my Panasonic cordless phones have built in things which say "block calls from unavailable or private numbers".
If you are concealing your caller ID, my phone hangs up on you. Not my problem if you feel I should be answering your call without you telling me who you are.
And then the rest of the time it's some other bullshit like "The Microsoft" who want me to believe they're calling me because I have a virus. Or want to clean my ducts. Or because they can lower my credit card interest. Or that I've won a cruise. Or they want me to fill out a survey.
If I don't recognize the number, I simply don't answer any more. If it's legit they'll leave a message. But these days 95% or more of my incoming calls are outright fraudulent.
And if I don't know you, or already have a business relationship with you ... I don't owe you any duty of caring what you have to say, or being polite to you when I tell you that I don't care.
So, here's the difference ... the PM for the bridge construction can't say due to time and cost you're going to remove half of the structure of the bridge, simply not pave the bridge deck, and let the client file a defect for any missing functionality. The CEO doesn't also get to sneak it into a sales deck and add 9 different features to it when nobody is looking. The sales guy didn't tell someone it would also work for trains without telling the engineers.
See, engineering is mature enough to have an end to end process. Far too much of creating software is smoke and mirrors, lies, creative interpretations of definitions, and specifications which change fairly constantly.
Rigorous design and engineering principles can be applied to software, but so much of it is a square on a blackboard which says "insert miracle here".
Neither the profession, nor the process in most cases, lives up to "engineering".
But it's not pretentious to claim to be an engineer to people who don't know better? Or they just don't know you're being pretentious?
I have a degree in Computer Science, and worked as a code monkey for a lot of years. I also know people who are Engineers.
Where I live, engineer is a regulated word, part of a professional governing body (like doctors and lawyers), and which carries with it legal responsibilities and liabilities, and a minimum level of education.
In no way shape or form do programmers live up to the title of "Engineer". They do things which have commonality with engineering, but they are not Engineers.
There is no licensing, no accreditation, or professional body which oversees it.
In my experience, calling programmers (or most people in the tech field) "Engineers" does a real dis-service to people are really are engineers. It's just usually people looking to add fancy sounding words to their business cards.
No, their plan actually calls for making evidence based policy instead of simply deciding what they want the facts to be.
You know, collect information and use it to make decisions, instead of just making decisions based on ideology which has nothing to do with reality.
But, hey, go live in your mountain cabin and continue to believe this stupid crap.
You seem like you just need to learn to spot humor.
Sir, I would love to commend you on reaching level 7 in your quest to be a full-fledged pedant.
And while your goal of offering enlightenment to others is commendable, I must caution you that pedantic behavior is, ultimately, a reward only to the one opting the exhibit the pedantry.
But, with great haste and alacrity I will endeavor to send my endorsement letter to the Counsel of Tedious Grammatical Endeavors. ;-)
That's OK, I have an EULA on my phone which says you will not install any software without directly getting written permission, or I will give you an epic smackdown right there in the store.
I'm not acting outside the law either now.
Sorry, but this is stalling software which give them remote control of your phone without consulting you.
How's "computer fraud and abuse act" sound?
Here's the alternative: the technicians are so incompetent they don't know the meaning of individual steps and just do them by wrote, have no idea what the policy says, and don't give a fuck about your phone.
Essentially a malicious level of incompetence.
At what point was the technician handling his phone, and what was he doing with it?
Because if I go in for you to add me to your network, and you start installing shit on my phone ... I'm going become unreasonable quite fast.
I just can't quite figure out from the article how the technician came to be installing this in the first place; it was obviously in the middle of something else.
Surely he didn't walk into a Sprint store and hand the technician his phone, did he?
LOL ... did I say taller?
How? By running scripts when you hover?
Sorry, but if I don't trust the URL shortener, I don't trust it to tell me what the URL is.
I've pretty much marked the entire .ly domain as untrusted.
So, basically if you click on random links in text messages you can get this malware.
Well then, this is a decades old problem and is as much a human issue as it is a technology one.
This is precisely why I will never click on ANY link behind an URL shortener; because you have no bloody idea what it is.
So, I want the one which can pivot around like I'm shooting at tie fighters.
I'll just sit there in my desk panning around going "pew pew", and after an exhausting morning of that, I'll take my afternoon nap.
I won't be needing papers or files or paperclips in that scenario.
No, just the hygenist. ;-)
Yeah, and the morning nap, and the mid morning nap, and the noon nap, and the afternoon nap.
Right, it's going to make you more productive AND help with naps.
We believe you.
I'd be interested in a desk which could quickly switch from sitting to standing. But the reclining desk? That sounds like a terrible idea.
Just in case you need a space heater?
That must be some huge closet. The first VAX 11/780 I was was the size of two side by side ovens.
Well, here's the problem with all of this: this was a treaty America wanted, actively pushed it as being important, and allowed industry to write most of it (like all US laws and treaties are written by industry).
America pushed this on the rest of the world, not the other way around.
If there's a treaty expanding copyright terms and otherwise giving corporations the upper hand, it's being championed by Americans, and pushed on other countries.
Sorry, but this is hardly the first treaty the US has championed which only serves corporate interests. And the rest of the world has no sympathy when Americans suddenly say how bad this treaty is -- because it's your government who pushed for it.
Your government has been so thoroughly coopted to serve the interests of huge multinationals, you should be yelling at your own politicians, instead of acting tough by saying you'll grow a pair and tell the world this is an unfair treaty. We already know this.
Why do Americans keep thinking this is being done to you by other countries? It's your own politicians who drive this crap.
So don't whine about your sovereignty, because this is what the rest of the world has been dealing with for years. And it usually is the US threatening trade sanctions if we don't give up OUR sovereignty for YOUR interests.
Cry us a river, you're not the only ones getting fucked over here. But you have been driving the bus.