This seems… reasonable…? They’re not telling you not to do this. It’s a safety measure in case 1. You either fat finger the tip screen and don’t realize it or 2. You write a $5 tip on your receipt and the waiter rings it up for $50. It probably triggers after 25 or 30% on a tip. Who cares?
I don’t really get a lot of people on this website. This is just a good faith, consumer friendly security check email and people will still read it and find a way to feel morally superior about it
A friend of mine got fucked by a local pizza place after the waitress changed a tip by adding a comma and a few zeros.
Pizza place refused to refund, credit card company wouldn’t cancel the transaction because it was too large. We had to start a social media campaign to shame the place into refunding him. They turned a $15 tip into a $1,500 tip.
What credit card company? That seems like such blatant fraud.
Once my friend put total in place of tips. He was very drunk that day. He went over next day to talk to them and they obviously fixed it. That seems like common sense to me.
In about half of the states, that meets the threshold for a charge of felony theft. If they could count the full $1500 as a theft, (instead of $1485), it would qualify as felony theft in all but six states.
I don’t know enough about the legal side to know if it could be pursued as theft though.
I don’t understand why credit cards are secured so badly in the states. Here you can’t adjust a charge after it has been confirmed (plus you usually have to enter a pin whan swiping the card if the amount is over a certain threshold).
Kind of related: when my family went to the US for vacation and we ate at some restaurant, the waitress came with the bill, my dad said something like “make it $x”. When she sait to just write in the tip on the bill and my dad told her that won’t work she insisted that thats how it always works (which tbf it probably does for american customers). Sure enough when we checked the card statement later on they just took out the original amount, not the tip writen in.
Huh? There so so many protections with cards. All of my cards can very easily do a charge back and they’ll fight the charge with the retailer, not you. You only use a PIN for debit cards using a debit transaction because it’s a direct transfer, resulting in no card fees, very much the same as cash. No real credit cards have a PIN.
Edit: ah, I see they weren’t talking about American credit cards. My mistake! Interesting to learn that other countries do though.
Not sure why you weren’t billed for the tip in your story. Having to write the tip amount down on the tip line of the bill is 100% how it always works in the US. You may have written it on the customer copy of the receipt, perhaps.
It’s because unlike with american cards you have to confirm the transaction on the card reader while it shows you the amount (with either a pin or signature in some cases). After you confirmed it the transaction cannot be changed, i.e. the tip cannot be added. So the american way of tipping does not work with foreign cards.
Server here, usually with restaurant Point of Sale systems the transaction isn’t sent to be processed by the financial institution until the ticket is closed out. (Presumably because tipping culture 🙄) I don’t blame your server for not putting her tip on there, if you get caught without sufficient ass-covering (having the guest initial the tip field is what I usually did) that’s a fireable offence.
I have always been very confused about whether the tip line on the receipt in the US works with my British cards given that I enter a PIN into a terminal that doesn’t show that tip amount.
As of last year I’m pretty sure the tip is deducted from my card, but I don’t think that has always been the case. I understand it works based on PIN-authenticated pre-authorisation for a higher amount and they later take your tip+bill from that pre-authorisation.
It doesn’t seem very secure but the US always seems behind on card security.
When I first started travelling to the US for work restaurant staff were always extremely confused about why my card needed a PIN. They often tried again and again or said my card wouldn’t go through, then worked out that it needed a PIN. Lots of places then had no way to hand you the terminal to enter it, like they would have to push aside mountains of junk to get the terminal out, or invite me round to the other side of the bar because it’s literally screwed down.
Yeah the argument itself is so transparently dumb that no legitimate person would hold it; and I think the dunk tweet is pointing out that in addition to having no good argument, Amazon thinks we’re too stupid to notice the astroturf.
There are people who genuinely believe this, sadly. I’ve encountered them here where I live in South Dakota where we’re propagandized against unions from a very young age. These are people who would easily fall for obvious astroturfing like Darla above. It’s one reason I think basic tech and media literacy are so important.
Alright, I’ll try to do better. I will say that while this doesn’t defend my actions, I’ve been under a high amount of stress in the last 2 weeks. If people want, I will resign as mod without question.
EDIT: Restored the posts with “Restored due to community feedback/me being a dick.”
EDIT 2: I am going to do some shopping and chores, if the community wants me gone, I will remove myself when I am back, or have the mod team boot me.
Mainly because I sometimes need a reality check. I agreed to be a mod here at a normal point of the last year, and the last ~5 months have been putting so much weird shit in my brain it’s not been healthy.
Yeah I’d rather see an Internet community keep a mod who has shown they’re capable of introspection then they made a mistake, than try and pretend they can find a new mod who won’t make mistakes.
Anyone who says being a mod for a community is easy has never been one
That shit is hella hard on your mental health
IMO an ideal mod team is one where there’s enough mods that all of them only have to head over to their community once every few days so that it doesn’t become overwhelming
Lol I mod multiple large subs. I hardly ban anyone and am very pro free speech. People bitch about changes and target me and my fellow mods but we ignore it because it’s petty drama at the end of the day. My point still stands, if you get emotional and abuse your power like this mod did because some user talked shit about you, you’re a terrible mod. Judging by your comment, you have no clue what you’re talking about, but that’s typical for the Internet.
No you brought up how you mod a discord, and how you think you should jump into petty drama to solve problems. The mod in question removed comments that were critical of them, meaning they fed into drama. I made a statement, that points out that being a mod requires thick skin and if your feelings get hurt easily you shouldn’t be a mod… apparently a bunch of thin skinned mods/people didn’t like that.
lmao, either reading comprehension is not strong with you, or you’re really trying to instigate conflict by intentionally misinterpreting what I said in the worst way possible. Also “everyone that disagrees with me is thin skinned” lol.
Anyway, I’m not a mod here, I’m not interested in resolving this one sided conflict, and neither am I interested in furthering it, so peace o7
Which makes my point stand. If it’s effecting your mental health, modding isnt for you. How no one here is understanding that is beyond me. Being a mod/admin on anything that deals with people/the public is a thankless job and requires thick skin.
I wasn’t involved in the post in question, but FWIW I appreciate you taking feedback into account and putting the posts back up. Everyone’s human and is going to make sub-optimal calls sometimes, being open to fixing it is basically the best that can be asked for.
I don’t want you to resign over this or anything like that, but please do take care of yourself even if that means taking some time away. If internet modding is adding to your stress in an already stressed time, you gotta put on your own oxygen mask first before you assist others, you know?
Fair enough, but I sometimes feel like “if no one will clean up the mess, who will?” in most things in life. Small and big, trivial and actual problems. From “if I don’t do the dishes, who will?” to “If there’s a flood of Mod requests, and everyone else is busy, I should deal with it.”
Being an online moderator is simultaneous the most trival and easy task and “I can’t believe people say these things, why do I have to clean up the messes users leave with zero thinking behind them?”
I recently left a role as a voted in admin of something since I grew tired of moderating my friends and the straw that broke the camels back was during the self-immolation protest a few months back
spoilerTwo people heavily implied if not directly said that if anyone in the server didn’t want to do it themselves, they are a false ally and why socialism never took root in America.
Really was dumbfounded by such a take that I screenshot the chat logs for clarity, removed the chat, banned them, and resigned as admin and told my friends “If you wanna hang with me still, I’ll be here in this place, otherwise I’m done being here.”
Sometimes people just say the dumbest things online, I’m one of those people sometimes.
Geez no wonder you’re in a bit of a funk. It’s terrible having to moderate friends in general, and that’s a messy situation that will only lead to misunderstanding when done over text. Hope you take some time for you and check in with yourself.
Having modded internet forums in the past I totally get it, especially anything queer related is going to attract just the absolute trash of the internet. It’s legitimately distressing for many people to see that shit all day even if you’re getting paid for it, but on a volunteer basis? It’s basically a miracle anywhere is modded at all, much less in a timely manner.
It sounds like there were some jackasses on that server. There’s probably someone smarter than me that’s explored the concept of forum moderation as emotional labor which is expected to be performed and devalued; but in lieu of that I’ll just say don’t discount the effort you put in. If it was so easy everyone could do it then there would never be a lack of mods or disagreement about modding (which, LMAO).
I have no horse in this race, but the fact that you’re being communicative and taking any responsibility means you’re probably a better mod than most. Admittedly, it’s a low bar but still.
This statement by itself restores a ton of my faith in you. I have no weight to throw around here and ultimately my opinion is more or less meaningless, but in my meaningless opinion, if an actual effort is made to improve on this then I’m happy to have you stay. A simple apology, explanation and promise is more than I’ve gotten out of 99% of all other moderators I’ve ever interacted with.
I think that your willingness to self-examine, admit fault, and attempt to make amends speaks well of your character and suitability as a mod (if you desire to continue and it is healthy for you to do so). You come across as genuine and willing to try to listen and self-correct.
We all have bad days/weeks/months/years. It’s unfortunately just part of being human. And we all do things that we may not think are necessarily right when reflecting on them, often because of emotional state, etc. That’s ok. Yeah, it may cause some hurt or upset, and damage that we do may not always be repairable but, that’s just life as a social being. As long as you try to do better, there’s nothing more anyone can legitimately ask of you. Personal growth and emotional health isn’t linear - don’t beat yourself up if you hit a rut. You’re human; screwing up is one of our species’ greatest talents.
Please take care of yourself and see what you can do to address stressors in your life, where possible. Your well-being is more important and any moderation queue. If taking some time away is needed but you wish to continue, please coordinate with the other mods to get it.
Gonna throw my hat into the ring here and say this kind of self-reflection and improvement is exactly how communities of any kind improve.
People have problems, stress and issues. This shit happens. The ability to say “I fucked up”, then fix the fuckup and prevent similar fuckups happening in future is how we as a global society improve and become better people.
In short: everyone should attempt to be better, that’s all anyone can ask.
Completely agree. I understand that as of now, Queue has stepped down as a mod, but I hope that at such a time in the future where their mental health is better that they will return. The ability to say, ‘You’re right. I’m too stressed to properly do this right now. Here’s what I’ll do instead’ is incredibly appreciated.
That’s the kind of person I WANT as a mod, provided that they actually take the time to de-stress, reflect and come back as a better person.
there's a lot of stupid, ignorant assholes running small businesses all over the place that think they own their employees and can boss them 24/7. this could totally be a legit posting somewhere.
if you want me answering my phone 24/7, you're paying me 24/7--and providing the phone you want me to answer.
I’ve seen shit like this working in an understaffed restaurant. It was understaffed because the management decided to drug test and most of the staff was let go. Then whined the entire time about people unable to cover shifts and pulled shit like this. I promptly left after coming back from being sick.
Great red haring though. Not that I ever would but I’ve also considered using a bald cap if I ever needed to do something illegal. They’ll be looking for a bald person and I’ll be here chilling with long hair.
The good ol’ wartime razzle-dazzle or temporary skin paint.
In my country there is a band of artists from a neighboring country that perform with hoodies and ever changing face paint. To this day, their true identities are still unknown for many years and with many TV appearances. So very effective
Lol. Normally Elon just posts cringe that isnt funny in any way. But this is hilarious. “I love your transphobia, but have you tried thinking about literally anything else?” Like he wants her to start posting great replacement shit
Awards are just bespoke emoji. You can still react to a comment with a picture or emoji if you want.
IMO your comment, actually expressing explicit and specific approval, is worth more than, like… a picture of a little whale with money coming out of its blowhole, or whatever.
Awards or any other monetarily focused system inherently balance discussions towards the inclinations of wealthy people. We already have too much of that in the world, that they can buy law, buy awareness, buy support, it is a bad idea to let them buy opinions and discussion. Everyone gets one vote, nobody is special enough to be worth more than any other.
There isn’t any truly stopping them however, they can buy users, buy botnets, buy influence anywhere. Fuck it I guess, nothing is sacred, everything is tainted.
I mean, sure. My comment was entirely tongue in cheek. I didn’t like awards, especially those that are more than just a glorified emoji (such as those I mentioned)
But, truth be told, the wealthy can just straight up buy discussions and opinions. User farms/bots aren’t free, and neither was Twitter currently X. Nothing can hide from the cruel hand of capital. The fediverse isn’t immune to this either: it’s too small for anyone rich to buy out, but there’s very little preventing them from just buying one of the larger instances. And even without that, it still privileges those with money - hosting isn’t free.
The most we can do is to stay vigilant, I suppose. Be aware of the inherent biases in the world and refuse to engage with systems that are too strongly captured - Twitter currently X, the zuck platform, Reddit soon (probably).
The thing that always bugged me about awards, especially Reddit gold back in the day, is occasionally I would comment about something wrong with the world, and someone else would see that and give three bucks to Reddit when they could have donated it to an organization trying to solve the issue I was commenting about. Like, I get that you’re showing appreciation for my comment but I’d rather that money go to something other than Reddit premium.
As a connoisseur of technology, the rationale behind this phenomenon resides in the fact that the aforementioned image was captured precisely seven hours subsequent to the creation of the post. Consequently, the temporal emphasis predominantly lies upon the image itself, thereby insinuating that said image has existed in the digital realm for a duration exceeding ten years. This engenders an optical fallacy wherein the image appears to have traversed the vast expanse of time in a mere flicker of moments.
Stop trying to make this about Swift being a woman.
She’s getting all this attention about it because her legal team sent a cease and desist letter to the guy tracking her jet threatening him with legal action over priding publically available tracking information.
How does this make her “actions wrong”? Because you disagree?
Yes, it’s legal for him to do what he’s doing, but it is also legal (and completely reasonable) for Swift to challenge that right because she fears for her safety. This is literally what our legal system is for.
There are a lot of insane people out there (and most of them tracking Swift’s plane at this moment are right wing psychopaths that wish her harm). I really can’t fucking blame her for wanting to do something about it.
So you think it’s perfectly moral for the ultra wealthy to abuse the legal system to threaten and bully random people into submission because they are ruining the billionaires image?
And again to reiterate, this is all publically available information, anyone who wants to track her jet can do so without the tracker that guy set up. She has no legal standing in her actions.
So you think it’s perfectly moral for the ultra wealthy to abuse the legal system to threaten and bully random people into submission because they are ruining the billionaires image?
Lol yeah bud, that’s what I said.
Dude, I understand it’s public information. I understand that current law (probably rightfully) allows air traffic to be tracked, including private jets.
I was simply doing something that you’re clearly incapable of, and empathizing (you remember empathy right?) with her position. A position that is markedly different than Musk’s, given that she receives a constant stream of legitimate death threats from people known to be violent; she has valid reason to fear for her life right now. I think I would probably do similar in such a situation.
I don’t think it’s “wrong” for her to seek to do what she can to protect herself, and that includes this.
The argument that “what they’re doing is legal” is pretty stupid too… I’m not even saying that I disagree that it should be legal, but how do you think laws change? The boundaries of them get tested in courts. This is not an abuse of the legal system, this is using it as intended.
There’s no way musk doesnt get nearly a billion death threats per day, but when your job is to be known by as many people as possible, it scales up the good and the bad.
But if either of them are having a bad day I’m sure they can dry their tears with a couple hundred dollar bills and sue some more poor people into dust (completely legally!) to make themselves feel better
I would bet my next paycheck that Taylor Swift gets at least one order of magnitude more death threats on a daily basis than Elon Musk. At least.
Let’s just say there are certain demographics that tend to lash out in that manner, and they seem to overlap quite a bit with Musk fans.
And yeah dude, I get it. They’re billionaires, it’s hard to empathize. I agree to a point that they should shut the fuck up and just wipe their tears away with $100 bills. But in this case, when we’re talking about legitimate threats against her life constantly, by people who have shown to be very capable of carrying out such threats, then I can start to see why she is doing what she’s doing. Just because she’s got money doesn’t mean she doesn’t deserve to live a life free from that kind of fear.
I would bet my next paycheck that Taylor Swift gets at least one order of magnitude more death threats on a daily basis than Elon Musk. At least.
I worked in video games, and at one company there were five game designers, one of them a woman, the rest men.
I think she got a death/rape/etc threat once a week. One of the other designers had never even been messaged, and another designer was also the Community Manager. So, despite one guy being the literal face of the company, the single named woman on the design team got almost every single threat.
She left the industry, which is worse for it, but I don’t think anyone thought she made the wrong choice.
That is in fact, literarily, what you are saying and what you are continuing to say in the rest of your comment.
I was simply doing something that you’re clearly incapable of, and empathizing (you remember empathy right?) with her position.
Oh wont somebody please empathise with the poor billionaires that are using the insane wealth to bully people for criticising their insane over-use of private jets.
You guys are doing actual mental backflips to try and make Taylor Swift the victim here and its honestly just kind of sad.
given that she receives a constant stream of legitimate death threats from people known to be violent
And those people could find that same PUBLICALLY AVAILABLE information even without the guy’s tracker. So even if he did take it down, she is in literally no better position when it comes to stalkers.
Literally all getting him to take down the website does is stop people from criticising how much she uses her jet, which hurts her image. Thats it.
Like if she ACTUALLY cared that much about being tracked and her safety she could just charter private jets instead of owning her own. That way no one could track her. But she doesnt, because its not about her safety, its about her image.
This is not an abuse of the legal system, this is using it as intended.
FYI (because apparently this needs to be said), I’ve never once purposefully listened to a Taylor Swift song, and besides maybe two, I couldn’t even tell you if a pop song currently playing is her or not. That’s how little I care about this person’s art/music. My feelings toward her can be described as, at most, ambivalent. I’m definitely neurotic though, but that’s unrelated to this subject.
All I’m doing is empathizing with another human being. Billionaires might be (for the most part, though I’m not sure I can imagine a more ethical way to become one than how she has) awful people, but they’re still people and they deserve basic human rights such as: not being in 24/7 fear for the lives of you and your loved ones because fascists are mad that she told young people to vote.
I’m not even advocating for taking down the site or making the info no longer publicly available. I’m literally just putting myself in her shoes and rationalizing why she did what she did and understanding that I might have done the same.
We seem to be having two completely different conversations here, which I guess I shouldn’t be surprised about given that you clearly can’t comprehend nuance. Your clear hatred for this woman is clouding your ability to be a decent human. Do better.
Lol yeah dude that’s definitely “all you were saying”. You’re being such a reasonable interlocutor 🙄
She’s not harassing an innocent student. I don’t think it really matters to her who created it. She is just doing the one thing she can do that would maybe give her a fraction of a feeling of security back into her life. Something that I bet most of us, including you, would do. A student being involved is irrelevant.
And yeah, I do empathize with that guy as well. Assuming they didn’t create the app specifically for these types of people to be able to harass and endanger her more easily. Which he may have, I don’t really know all the details.
Isn’t that crazy? Empathizing with both people in a situation? Wild right?
Also, this pretending that it’s about giving her shit because of the environmental impact, give me a fucking break. Let’s not waste everyone’s time with that bullshit. Conservatives only “believe” in climate change, when they can use it as a cudgel against someone they feel threatened by. Actually a textbook fascist move (this isn’t a joke, it really is).
You are bending over backwards to excuse what she is doing. and its really just kind of sad.
She is just doing the one thing she can do that would maybe give her a fraction of a feeling of security back into her life.
Like i said last time. If she actually cared so much, she would just charter a jet instead. That would literally solve her whole problem, no one could track her and she would be perfectly safe. But you keep ignoring this point because it doesnt fit dumbass position you’ve argued yourself into where Taylor is just an innocent girl whose scared for her life 🥺 and shes just using her vast wealth to threaten people into doing what she wants because shes sooooo scaaaared.
. Let’s not waste everyone’s time with that bullshit. Conservatives only “believe” in climate change
And now you’re trying to claim everyone critical of her is a conservative? You dont think there are any leftists out here criticising the billionaire for being one the most directly polluting people on the planet?
Empathizing with the guy who programmed it: An unprovoked, targeted campaign of rape threats, death threats and harassment (and the media/legal storm that follows) against another person, all because of some little thing you coded for fun in your free time (again, giving benefit of the doubt)? And then being dragged into all of this? Yeah, I empathize like a motherfucker .
You dont think there are any leftists out here criticising the billionaire for being one the most directly polluting people on the planet?
No, I think the only people who give a shit about this are right wing concern trolls.
Based on the way you’ve been spelling words, it would seem you’re not actually from the US. Perhaps if you lived here, you would understand the real and actual danger this kind of stochastic terrorism as we’re seeing it every single day. Taylor Swift is a figure who has just recently become a major target of hate and actual legitimate death/rape threats from the right because she encouraged young people to vote (no, I wish I was kidding). I don’t think she even endorsed a candidate.
The GOP is so terrified of her; this is a half-assed, stochastic call to violence against a young woman who has done nothing, and this tool has gone way far beyond basic “FAA transparency,” and into tool to target and potentially ruin the lives of people who do not deserve it.
(In case anyone didn’t see my previous comment: not only am I not a Taylor Swift fan, I don’t think I could name more than one or two songs. And if a song of hers came on the radio, I wouldn’t be able to know if it was her or not)
No, I think the only people who give a shit about this are right wing concern trolls.
Then you’re wrong (to nobodies surprise)
Perhaps if you lived here, you would understand the real and actual danger this kind of stochastic terrorism
We literally had Jo Cox, a sitting MP, murdered due to stochastic terrorism, but go off like you know something.
this is a half-assed, stochastic call to violence against a young woman who has done nothing, and this tool has gone way far beyond basic “FAA transparency,” and into tool to target and potentially ruin the lives of people who do not deserve it
Except use private jets so much you’re co2 emissions just from private jet travel for a year is over 1,000x higher than an average person’s total yearly emissions.
And are you going to have the same bleeding heart response when you learn that this started out as a guy tracking Elons jet?
I’m from the US, and I can tell you the biggest threat to the US are billionaires and their special interests.
Someone of the billionaire class like Taylor Swift does more environmental damage in a year than the average US citizen does through their entire lifetime. It is completely valid to call her out on this.
But please, continue to disingenuously call all those critical of Swift a right wing troll. Always easier than acknowledging the nuance of a topic.
How is knowing at what airport an airplane is, public information that anyone can just pull up and find without that much know how, a massive risk to safety.
And if it is, hpw is she going to stop them from dping the neglegable research themselves
It’s not about it being public information. There’s tons of shit that’s “public information,” and available to get, but there are steps that need to be taken to get it. Some more steps than others. Kind of like a soft “paywall” of sorts (minus the pay) that makes it so the internet isn’t just inundated with data constantly. And sometimes, get this, you can even be denied requests for information that’s “publicly available” if, for example, t’s deemed that you shouldn’t have it for whatever reason. But I digress…
Just because something is “publicly available information” doesn’t mean it just gets broadcasted all over the internet to anyone with a Facebook account that the algorithm knows is a hateful conservative.
It’s a joke that people are pretending that this is about free speech or something, and not about making it easier to constantly harass and threaten.
It’s about it being targeted at one specific person, and it’s about the people who are doing the targeting (which differentiates it from the Musk situation). No, not the college student who made the app, before you go there to try to undercut this argument. I’m not talking about him.
I’m talking about the people who would use a tool, that they found in their far right/conservative/republican/fascist echo chamber bubble to threaten rape and death to another human being and their loved ones.
And if it is, hpw is she going to stop them from dping the neglegable research themselves
This is kind of the crux of it, isn’t it? These people are being whipped into a frenzy by whatever hate-media they consume, and without a Fox News or Tucker Carlson or whomever else to steer that frenzy toward Taylor Swift and this app, then that info would have remained “public knowledge” behind a simple search as it probably should be.
The college kid who made the app is just a tool (witting or not).
No what I mean is the FAA has a very easy registry search, and then I go to any number of FOSS aircraft trackers and I can now find the aircraft by redgistry number. that took me what 10 minutes and I was done? no need for an app. The FAA does it because its public information the plane trackers do it because plain spotting is a genuine hobby (and public information) I am someone who holds this hobby. So taking this app down does basicly nothing, it turns 2 simple steps into 1 simple step
Ontop of this, it is unreasonable to send a LEGAL team out to send a threat when no laws a broken, in some states that is an illegal act, a request from her to stop sure is reasonable (and its reasonable for him to refuse).
It doesn’t matter how easy the search is to you or I… The people who have found this tool (or made it, I don’t know. Don’t want to accuse the student of anything untoward) are distributing it to people who would have otherwise:
never even knew such a possibility exists,
had no fucking idea how to even begin finding that information themselves regardless of how simple it may seem to you and I, and,
not have even had the idea to use the information that way in the first place.
This is basic transparency on the part of the FAA. They disseminate this information to keep track of things, and for research purposes. It was never intended to be used in this way.
In fact, if anything significant comes out of this, it would be to limit what info the FAA makes public (and it will skew toward private jets of course). So in the long run this will probably have the opposite effect of what you want.
While yes it will likely remove public access that is more so because that is what capital has been wanting for a while, not only that but I would argue that this is part of the intended use case, to keep track of who is using our air ways and how often. Just because its not often thought of does not mean it is not right proper or intended.
Lol it’s funny how quickly this place became reddit. There were maybe three weeks or so there where people here actually understood and cared about nuance…
Musk isn’t receiving credible rape and death threats at nearly the level of Swift (if he is at all, let’s be real) by people who are known for following through on such threats.
Look, I even empathize a little with Musk regarding that specific situation. If I were in his shoes, I also wouldn’t want an app like that to exist. I don’t think his situation warrants any kind of action to stop it because it’s really just an inconvenience for him. And he knew that it’s just an inconvenience, so how he handled himself from day to day didn’t really change.
For Swift, this is legitimate fear. I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced actual fear for your life, but it’s crippling, and it effects your psyche.
To experience that on a daily basis because of an app? You bet your goddamn ass I’m going to talk to my lawyers about what my options are.
i linked your comment in the original post because yeah. this is the fact that no one gets.
the public information was available for ages and the cease and desist only happened after fox news et al sicced their rabid hoards on her.
we can still debate whether legal action was the “correct” option, but if you think it wasn’t understandable, or counts as “harassment” somehow, it’s because you have never been in the shoes of a woman who lives her whole life in fear.
Na, she is getting this attention because some very powerful people, who benefit from producing a lot of greenhouse gases, would prefer that everyone be mad at T Swift instead of them.
Or, the much more likely thing that private jet usage has become a big talking point on the inter etc recently and swift having by far the biggest jet emission footprint of any celebrity.
Oh yeah, I agree, it is an interesting talking point. But If you have the goal of reducing green house gas emission, is memeing on T Swift the best target for that? Don’t get me wrong it is hilarious. I just get really frustrated when people say they are doing it for the environment, when what they are doing is mostly ineffectual and playing into the desires of the major polluters (who are very wealthy).
So in my mind, either a large group of online environmentalist have decided to be less effective at working towards their goal for no reason. Or there is a significate astroturfing thing going on here. Given that oil companies have done this kind of thing multiple times in the past, I think I have a reasonable assumption. I smell bullshit and I am calling it.
Well, I work for a healthcare company that creates electric wheelchairs and apps to use them.
Wow that is amazing, that sounds so rewarding! What specifically do you do?
Thanks! I designed the pricing structure so that each aspect of the wheelchair experience is gated behind carefully designed paywalls that are significant enough to help me my boss get a good bonus at the end of the year but not significant enough that all those poor people out there can’t afford it if they have too. Ideally the cost is always a bit more than people can afford to pay since usually people have more you can squeeze out of their social connections if the need is desperate enough (we are optimizing right now for pricing structures that most encourage customers to make gofundme’s to engage with our products which is cool to be part of a new project).
Honestly the only response to something this callous is “Wow, hey do you wanna check out this really cool blender?” and then shove the Defense Blender you carry around into their face.
I genuinely don’t understand how people that work for companies like that can sleep at night. Like no matter how much evidence I see that the vast majority of people don’t put any effort or conscious thought into being a “good” person and only think about themselves and maybe their close family, I just can’t accept it.
All the stuff like that is done by folks on the Bastard Committee. While the programming and stuff is done in pieces small enough to not get recognized, and then later assembled by the Bastard Programmer.
Step 1: Before it happens, you’re asked to publicly dream about what an extra $4000 will do for you on social media. Step 2: Once it passes, you get a 0.1% tax cut. Enough for one extra pizza. Per year. The bill will also includes 3 tax raises only for the poor, one every 4 years that follow. Step 3: The corporation you work for, meanwhile, gets a 16% tax cut. With it, they’ll announce a $2000 one-time payment to all workers. Which will be rescinded as soon as it’s been reported about on local news. The bill also includes 3 further, even bigger tax cuts for the rich, one every 4 years.
End result: taxes raised on the poor, taxes lowered for the rich, but lots of social media euphoria from the working class, lots of newspaper clippings of bosses giving their workers generous one-time payments (that never materialized). And next election cycle, Fox News can dig up all the happy reports and the truth of the matter has never even entered the attention span of the royally-effed-over working class voters.
Just don’t ever expect your existence to change their beliefs. Hell you could climb the ranks in the party even make it to the Supreme Court. As long as you have no problem shutting the door on people who look just like you because of the way they look.
If you were to try to argue their view, I think they would say that their only problem is when you exhibit immortal behavior. Their definition of immoral behavior isn’t the only historic definition but is certainly a prominent one.
Here is an article about it. Even if it’s technically right in some ways, the language it uses tries to normalize pedophilia in the same ways as sexualities. Specifically the term “Minor Attracted Person” is controversial and tries to make pedophilia into an Identity like “Person of Color”.
It was lampshading the fact this is a highly dangerous disorder. It shouldn’t be blindly accepted but instead require immediate psychiatric care at best.
I think you’re misunderstanding. This is NOT normalizing it at all. This is giving you an actual answer/explanation to why those people think and act like they do.
Normalizing would be saying something such as “it’s okay or just accept it” but that’s not what’s going on here.
It should also then mention how wrong it is to have those feelings and that those people have some sort of mental health issue and need to be evaluated.
I keep thinking these screenshots have to be fakes, they’re so bad.
You’d think the mainstream media would be tearing this AI garbage to shreds. Instead they are still championing it. Shows who pulls their strings.
The other day the local news had some “cybersecurity expert” on, telling everyone how great AI was going to be for their personal assistant shit like Alexa.
This bubble needs to burst, but they just keep pumping it.
They can’t afford to have the bubble burst, so many important organizations and companies need this to succeed.
If it fails… then what was the point of the mass harvesting of data? What was the point of them burning billions of dollars to lock down peoples interactions on the internet in to platforms? What will be left fix search engines other than preventing SEO and stop selling places on the page?
There are of course other reasons, but not ones that can be admitted. For them to admit what a farce this all is, would be to admit that they’ve been wasting all our time and money building a house of cards, and that anyone who’s gonna along with it is complicit.
The promises made at the c-suite levels of many (all) industries to use AI to replace workers is the biggest driver here. But anyone who is paying attention can see this shit is not going to work correctly. So it’s a race to get it deployed, get the quarterly earnings and bail with the golden parachute before this hits the fan and this deficient AI ruins hundreds of industries. So many jobs will be lost for no reason and so many companies will be forced to rebuild, if they can. Or just go under and the big guys will take over their share of the market. So yeah this is all pretty fucked. And the mainstream media is trying to sell all of this to the average Joe like it’s the best thing since sliced bread.
Then there’s nvidia and the VCs. It’s almost like dot com 1.0 all over again.
Yes, and add a little bit of cold war style paranoia in there as well. These companies know that their product doesn’t work very well, but they think their competitor is maybe right on the verge of a breakthrough, so they rush to deploy and capture market share, lest they get left completely behind.
They’re also putting it in control of autonomous weapons systems. Who is responsible when the autonomous AI drone bombs a children’s hospital? Is it noone? Is noone responsible?
Also don’t wear any clothing you bought from a unique Etsy store (or any store you physically visited and paid with a card).
The clothes you wear to the protest should also be bought from a thrift store that you visited without your cellphone and paid for the clothing in cash.
Otherwise, yes, your clothing purchases are tracked, and the young lady who torched a cop car during the George Floyd protests was literally found by the FBI searching Etsy purchase records for people who had bought that shirt.
Yeah, the gait analysis is where I am truly fucked because I’m visibly disabled (and have gone to protests where i have been threatened with arrest, but evaded so far). I have been thinking about using my wheelchair at more protests though, so that might be able to fuck it up in the future.
Or everyone just needs to stick a rock in their shoe, or wear one shoes that has a bit of a platform.
I remember reading a book about this hacker student kid that would do that to sneak out of the school because they had gait recognition cameras. Can’t remember the name of the book though…
I’ve had this vague recollection of that book for over a decade and could never find it despite multiple search attempts and even requests on tip-of-my-tongue esque forums. I just could not remember any useful specific information about it for the life of me.
To make this discovery from a random thread so organically is incredible.
You’re not alone - what I did remember was completely incorrect. I would have sworn that the cover was burgundy with the title in black lettering. Also I had thought the whole time it was called Big Brother - which was quite the wrench in the machine when it came to searching online. Wrong on both counts. Goes to show how fallable memory is.
My library didn’t have a copy but the author has it available for free on his website in a few different formats. I’m looking forward to reading it - it’s a good deal longer than I’d thought. Thanks again.
I highly suspect the “adverserial attack” clothes are gonna work, it seems more like they are just taking advantage of a buzz word and it goes against not wearing easily identifiable clothes (you will be one of a handful of people wearing your stylish riot sweater). Carry a concealed ski mask with you and wear it when you need to and keep it hidden when not (so you don’t get easily identified as a rioter and become a target when alone).
I think they work, but will quickly be defeated. Facial recognition is nothing more than advanced pattern recognition. This clothing works by confusing the pattern the AI is trained to recognize. That may work with current models, but all it takes is to train the AI on what this adversarial clothing looks like so it can differentiate it from actual faces.
That’s certainly true. I think the more effective method is using makeup/face paint instead. But any of these methods are designed to confuse AI, they fall apart as soon as there’s any human intervention.
Not to mention if you get hit with OC spray, you’re not going to want to keep them anyhow. That shit is meant to get into and onto anything you touch. Getting it out again, is a pain in the ass.
Please don’t use those sweaters thinking you’re not identifiable by face recognition. Making an AI think you’re an animal is good for walking around the city. The second a human is reviewing the footage they’re going to correct the AI and go straight to your face.
Yup, that’s what happened when I found out other people were trans. I was like ‘You can do that!?’. The feeling had always been there but seeing others made it obvious that you don’t have to just be dysphoric and depressed.
Counterpoint: cover letters are exactly the kind of time-sucking circle jerk that should be automated, and at least your candidate is showing that they can use technology to automate time-wasting menial tasks and prioritize their time effectively.
When I got stuck whilst writing a cover letter for a job I really wanted (and needed), I gave up and had ChatGPT write one with heavy guidance. I was prepared for the interviewer to ask if I used AI to write it (applying to IT in a library, so I figured it might come up).
I concluded that I would definitely say “yes” if asked. If they were to accuse me of cheating, I wouldn’t deny that perspective, but I would offer my own: When I reached my limits, I found the right tool for the job, understood its strengths, worked within its limitations, then validated the result.
I did not simply throw the job description and my resume at a robot then submit whatever it spat out without inspection. That would be irresponsible of me, and disrespectful to the hiring manager. I took care to make sure the result was desired and fit my needs, and I made several adjustments (both via prompt and via keyboard) until I was sure that it fulfilled my wishes.
Did I do An Engineering™ on the prompt? Fuck no.
But did I choose the right tool, learn how it works, operate it with care, then ensure the finished product was acceptable to the concerned parties? Fuck yeah, I did.
Come to find out, they didn’t ask, and didn’t care. I got the job and have been here for several months. Boy, am I glad I didn’t let my inability to write an original cover letter ruin my chance at the best job I’ve ever had.
I don’t need to see the cover letter, if you just email me the prompt, that’s faster for both of us. (On the other hand, I don’t ask people for cover letters, so I’m probably not the target audience)
Honestly, cover letters are something that needs to die out for most jobs, they’re entirely pointless. 99% of the time, it just seems like they want you to rehash the contents of your resume and grovel a bit for the company. Screw that.
You want someone with 5 years experience in a role, my resume shows I have ten years doing that job, make your call if it’s good enough to interview me or not. I’m not writing an essay about how excited I am for the opportunity to count widgets at your company, and how it’s always been a dream of mine to work inventory control for a company that changes the world by ensuring stock buybacks can regularly happen by overworking and underpaying their staff.
Biggest waste of time I see recommended for applications. I don’t apply to any job that requires them.
As a hiring manager I’d have preferred someone not have a cover letter over submitting an AI one. The point is to express yourself in a way that just a list of your job experience and skills can’t. I never discarded an application for not having one but if I knew they didn’t write it they’d get cut for sure.
I’ve been a hiring manager, I simply don’t see the value in them for most job postings. Maybe if you’re trying to get your first job out of school, or you’re trying to pivot into a new industry, sure. If you’re applying for, say, an accountant role, you’ve been in the industry for 20 years and the position you’re applying for is largely in line with your experience, just a step up the career track or a change in volume, I don’t see the point.
Heck, I see retail jobs asking for a cover letter sometimes to be a cashier and stock merchandise. Waste of time for everyone involved, and only serves as a filter for the employer to see who’s desperate enough for a job, or passionate enough about whatever is being sold, that they’ll put up with whatever.
I 100% use GPT to write every cover letter. I’m searching for a job and don’t have the capacity to write a unique cover letter for every role. So I’ve got a huge thread with all my work history, resumes, writing examples, achievements, and a whole litany of other things about me that I go to and tell GPT to write my cover letters with. I proofread them, make edits, and send.
Oh, nothing special. My work life has been a mess, from mostly informal jobs to a public employee gone wrong, and now helping a relative with a small business.
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