Random Rants 80: Computer Says No

[Takhisis]

Outsource it to your boyfriend.

 

[Synobun]

Outsource it to your boyfriend.

But we already established I couldn't handle it...

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Once upon a time I had a clean email inbox

I can't remember how many years ago that was, but I just noticed I'm into 6,000+ unread territory.

This hits close to home for me as well

 

[Zkribbler]

Went to take the dog for a short walk last night and got buzzed by a drone with a mini-floodlight on it. People around here fly their drones somewhat regularly which I'm not a fan of in a residential area due to the privacy concerns, but as I rounded the corner I saw it was actually the local police playing with their new toy. They were flying it at a sufficient height to look into everyone's windows in my building. I'm sure there are legitimate uses for drones but our cops have zero checks on their behavior. It's like when Obama sold decommissioned armored cars to local polices forces and then everyone was surprised when the police began to confront protestors with those vehicles using the same tactics the army used against insurgents. Really, I'm sure the drone, like the wiretap and police helicopter before it, have perfectly legitimate uses for law enforcement. But we need to put standards in place and enforce them before we hand over every new invention to the police. It's bad enough that I have to worry about eavesdropping civilian drone flyers peering into my windows, I shouldn't have to worry about the cops doing the same. Hell, if they were just practicing flying the drone (which is what it appeared they were doing), they could have just as easily gone to a non-residential area to do it.

May I suggest a letter to the editor?

 

[Takhisis]

PBS did a series of stories on the growth of Chinese surveillance-state technology exports around the world, with special focus on what's going on in Latin America. It is getting way out of hand and I do believe the US Gov when they say Huawei et al are going to build surveillance backdoors into their 5G technology. Why do I believe this? Because the US has effectively done the same thing per Edward Snowden. There was a recent story I saw on the news where US intelligence agencies were able to quickly verify some communications between foreign agents and my immediate thought was: why the hell isn't anyone wondering how the US was able to do that?

Because it's been normalised. You get spied on, all your personal information (banking, messages, sex life, actual daily paths to and from work, school, strip clubs, the supermarket, corner shop, etc. combined into one tiny wonderful device that also lets you pay for the privilege!

But we already established I couldn't handle it...

‘Established’ would mean you have proven it.

 

[Arakhor]

This hits close to home for me as well

How do people let this happen? Do they just subscribe to every mailing list in sight? Not having a working spam filter? I don't get it.

 

[choxorn]

I just click "Mark all as Read" without actually reading any of them if I can tell the messages aren't worth reading, which a lot of them aren't.

 

[JohannaK]

Me too but sometimes I forget and so I have an inbox with circa 700 unread...

 

[AmazonQueen]

3rd working day in a row start calling the doctor for an appointment at 8:30.
By the time I eventually get through all appointments are gone and so they meet targets of all appointments being same day they won't book appointments for another day so same thing tomorrow.
Safe in their bleeping hands!

 

[AdamCrock]

So it's not only Poland that doctors are somewhat infamous for their lack of care for patient's service satisfaction ? Their logic must be "They'll get sick eventually and they'll have to come to us. No need to care if they're unhappy about our service" and "I'm the big boss doctor and You're just a puny small dot in the line, see if I care"

 

[hobbsyoyo]

How do people let this happen? Do they just subscribe to every mailing list in sight? Not having a working spam filter? I don't get it.

I have only ever subscribed to two or three mailing lists and habitually opt-out of everyone I'm given a choice about (like when buying something online). But I still manage to get on tons of mailing lists I don't want to be and I don't usually go to the effort to hit unsubscribe - and often I find that the unsubscribe options don't work. I have a spam filter but it only seems to grab a handful of random emails and scamming attempts, the rest of the 'legit' spam gets through. All that, plus laziness and virtually unlimited email storage means the backlog gets huge.

 

[MaryKB]

I get lots of emails. I get ones from Burlington and Chadwicks, and I often do follow those advertisements and sometimes buy something (it's nice when you get a good discount offer) I have hundreds of emails from Amazon, either order notifications, shipping notifications, or returns correspondence. I get lots of emails from Ally Investments, about notifications and dividends and such. I also have a Quora subscription for MBTI things, and I mostly enjoy reading those. I also get emails from Steam when something on my wish list goes on sale (I have too much crap on there I don't even want any more) Each time I order from Shipt I get like 3 emails in total, and on and on it goes.

I don't read most of my emails, so every now and then I just click that "Mark all as read" button and be done with it.

 

[The_J]

Crazy stuff.
The only unread emails I have are 8 in my private inbox (contains 2 newsletters which I still need to read, 1 airbnb booking, 2 event tickets), and 30 in my work inbox (all still need to look at them).
My private email I have now for 20 years, it never got flodded with spam, and I've never hit the "mark everything as read" button.
I do buy stuff online though, but always take care to mark what I don't want.

 

[Kyriakos]

You people are either rock-stars or slobs
I only have (in total) 1500 emails, and likely read the vast majority of them, with the rest either sent directly to my spam folder or manually. I check every day, cause I need to (publishers/seminars etc).
Messages sent to trash get auto-deleted after a while, and I think something similar happens with spam, given the total is only at 1500 although I've been using this mail for 5 years.

edit: checked now, mail in the spam folder gets auto-deleted after a week; there's next to nothing there, man!

 

[The_J]

Oh, forgot, actual rant:
The drinks with the girl, which were postponed from Saturday (me being sick) to today, are postponed again (she having migraine).
Originally I thought I had overbooked myself for tonight (somehow had work drinks in my private agenda too), now I have nothing to do .

 

[MaryKB]

You people are either rock-stars or slobs
I only have (in total) 1500 emails, and likely read the vast majority of them, with the rest either sent directly to my spam folder or manually. I check every day, cause I need to (publishers/seminars etc).
Messages sent to trash get auto-deleted after a while, and I think something similar happens with spam, given the total is only at 1500 although I've been using this mail for 5 years.

edit: checked now, mail in the spam folder gets auto-deleted after a week; there's next to nothing there, man!

Oh, I also get regular emails from your Patreon, and every month there's like four ehen it's subscription renewal time.

 

[Lexicus]

May I suggest a letter to the editor?

Better keep it anonymous or your building will be surrounded by a cloud of police drones 24/7 @hobbsyoyo

 

[Zkribbler]

So it's not only Poland that doctors are somewhat infamous for their lack of care for patient's service satisfaction ? Their logic must be "They'll get sick eventually and they'll have to come to us. No need to care if they're unhappy about our service" and "I'm the big boss doctor and You're just a puny small dot in the line, see if I care"

Philippines too.

 

[Synobun]

I don't know why I keep trying caffeine. All it does is make my head feel weird.

 

[AdamCrock]

I don't know why I keep trying caffeine. All it does is make my head feel weird.

It really is "energizing" but only at the beginning. Now You're in advanced stage , which is drinking just not to have shakes