Ah, the wonderful world of multiculturalism!
Two of my teammates are Indian women. My favorite PM ever was an Indian woman. And so I've been well-trained in the very formal, very friendly back-and-forth when you first start a professional communication: You MUST ask each other how things are going. You MUST express happiness that you have contacted each other. They're charming, trivial little formalities you quickly learn to observe when you're dealing with Indian women. It's a whole world of, "No matter how urgent things may seem, it costs you only a few seconds to acknowledge the other person as a human being."
So, today I got put on a chat to customer support with another company. Refreshingly, they didn't give the support person some stupid name like Dick or Jane, but it was a long Pakistani or Indian name. And the support person immediately started in with the Indian-style formalities that I recognized oh-so-well. I suspect most Americans would have been frustrated and immediately gotten to the point. Instead, I very carefully and meticulously responded in kind.
She was very obviously delighted, and of course my issue got resolved as fast as she could possibly manage. No arguments, no, "Well, you should have done this," just, "OK. I can do this for you."
It was very pleasant.
EDIT: Nope. Just not going there. Period.
Sometimes, learning raises more questions than it answers.
Google provided a remarkably informative video on the difference between passwords and passkeys. The HUGE difference I never saw usefully explained before is that the passkey is a huge cryptographic mess you never see -- when you're using your PIN or your thumbprint to sign in, that's NOT the passkey, that's giving your device permission to send the passkey.
So, video's great. I understand why passkeys are significantly more secure than passwords. But then...
...why does Global Megacorporation also implement an authenticator app?
So I've gone from, "Go to a corporate site, put in my password, get a code texted to me, put in the code, sign in," to, "Go to a corporate site, put in my PIN, get a notification on my authenticator app that there's an attempt to access my account, approve the attempt, sign in."
It's no easier for me, and I really don't understand the purpose of the authenticator app -- if someone's using my phone's passkey, they're already signed in to my phone, so they can just bring up the authenticator app as well.
Seems like a useless extra step to me...
Vany?
Interesting. Snopes did a far more in-depth analysis of the claim. It's a good read, and I stand (relatively) corrected.
Fascinating.
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Sometimes, learning raises more questions than it answers.
Google provided a remarkably informative video on the difference between passwords and passkeys. The HUGE difference I never saw usefully explained before is that the passkey is a huge cryptographic mess you never see -- when you're using your PIN or your thumbprint to sign in, that's NOT the passkey, that's giving your device permission to send the passkey.
So, video's great. I understand why passkeys are significantly more secure than passwords. But then...
...why does Global Megacorporation also implement an authenticator app?So I've gone from, "Go to a corporate site, put in my password, get a code texted to me, put in the code, sign in," to, "Go to a corporate site, put in my PIN, get a notification on my authenticator app that there's an attempt to access my account, approve the attempt, sign in."
It's no easier for me, and I really don't understand the purpose of the authenticator app -- if someone's using my phone's passkey, they're already signed in to my phone, so they can just bring up the authenticator app as well.
Seems like a useless extra step to me...
Vany?
If it's all being done from the phone then the authenticator app isn't particularly useful.
If you're inputting the passkey on a different device...like a laptop...and then the auth process hits the authenticator app on the phone...well that's the way it should work.
Passkeys are supposed to be device specific. Which is where passkeys will ultimately fail as people get lazy and use their bank PIN for everything.
And in today's "WTF Moments In Cooking", we present Trader Joe's tortillas...
...which include among their ingredients... baking powder.
Um, no.
So yes, my quesadillas have uber-floofy fried pillow-like crusts. Because why?
Some idiot somewhere thought a tortilla would be better with baking powder.
Flour (corn or wheat)
water
salt
lard
Anything else and you're doing tortillas wrong.
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Bacon powder, biscuits, bacon, scratch, bacon, and biscuits. The perfect match.
Lala la la la la la la la!
I did that with speak and spell.
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Flour (corn or wheat)
water
salt
lardAnything else and you're doing tortillas wrong.
Major premise: Round, flat, bready things – e.g., laganes, naan, parantha – are easy, fun, and tasty.
Minor premise: Tortillas are also round, flat, bready things.Conclusion: Therefore, preparing tortillas like any other round flat breads should be fine. >:)
If there isn’t already a Demon Lord of Wilfully Flawed Syllogisms, there should be one. :)
And now I’ll need to add paranthas to my grocery list this week, for some deliberately uber-floofy bread goodness.
I’m sorry to hear that your tortillas have been corrupted. Could you salvage some amusement by trying to style it out as some sort of fusion experiment? I’ve always found that culinary disappointments sting a bit less if I pretend I meant to do it that way all along. (Memorably, once, with a rather unorthodox take on lobster thermidor when substitutions proved necessary.)
It is really hilarious how different is playing as a (mostly) Strenth-based melee character from playing as a mage...
Things that I struggled with as a mage? Cakewalk.
Things that I steamrolled as a mage? *groan*
I have just defeated Rennala on a first try...
Of course, a big part of that is I sort-a know what I am doing now (also, I might have been lower level than I am now), but there is the fact that melee weapons seem to inflict much higher damage than spells with comparable stats and upgrades. Or maybe it's just because I am running with a decent flamberge instead of some kind of fancy dandy dress sword.
Sorceries on the other hand, give you range that lets you solve a lot of things from afar. Incantations feel more powerful, but are harder to use because of typically shorter ranges...
And in today's "WTF Moments In Cooking", we present Trader Joe's tortillas...
...which include among their ingredients... baking powder.Um, no.
So yes, my quesadillas have uber-floofy fried pillow-like crusts. Because why?
Some idiot somewhere thought a tortilla would be better with baking powder.
Flour (corn or wheat)
water
salt
lardAnything else and you're doing tortillas wrong.
I tend to agree with you, but I googled tortilla recipes and checked a handful of the results. About half of them had baking powder in them.
Apparently, a little baking powder can make the tortilla softer, even if it isn't enough to raise it.
Just because people copy a bad idea doesn't make it right.
We might have a tiny Mexican/Central American population in California. Ditto Texas. Ask LM what she thinks about baking powder in tortillas.
"This will make them softer" translates to, "When I fry them for many of their intended purposes, they will floof into unusability."
If all you want is a tortilla for a burrito, fine, add your darned baking powder. If you're doing a specialized fried tortilla to make a bowl for a taco salad, baking powder is called for. But for any other fried tortilla purpose, baking powder is an abomination. I stand by my stance.
EDIT: If I seem unnaturally uppity about it, it's because not only did it render last night's dinner ridiculous, but it's stealing from my childhood. If you went to elementary school in California in the 1970s (or possibly 1980s), part of your 'cultural heritage' education was to make tortillas from scratch. They're ridiculously easy to make, and one of the few things we all did well. I still remember my soft, warm tortilla coming right off the griddle.
And we had no risk of the teacher saying, "Oh, I'm sorry, I set the griddle's heat too high. Here's your 1/2" thick 'tortilla'."
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On the one hand, as I've posted before, I'm no fan of companies "double dipping" for profit: "We're going to charge you a monthly fee, and we're going to show you ads."
Nope. It's what killed cable for me, and it'll kill streaming as well. Just charge me what you consider a reasonable amount to provide ad-free content, be upfront about it, and we're good. (See my previous post on NetFlix vs. Disney+).
On the other, I'm eternally amused by customers becoming enraged when they refuse to participate in providing any kind of revenue to the company, then watching as the company refuses to provide service to them. The lack of Linux drivers for Nvidea cards is an (in)famous example -- a pseudo-history: Nvidia's approach was, "Well, if you'll pay us a nominal fee like $10 to use our cards, we'll develop drivers for you," and the Linux base was, "Linux is and always has been free! Up yours!", then they got outraged when Nvidia wouldn't develop drivers for them for free.
Anyhoo, YouTube. YouTube primarily pays for itself with ads. Yeah, yeah, they track you and sell your data like nobody's business, but ads are a significant portion of their revenue. And they follow the NobodysHome's Approved Business Model™ of, "You can either get YouTube for free and be stuck with ads, or pay $9.99 a month to skip the ads."
So, they just implemented a rather hilarious ploy to block revenue-skippers (people who use ad blockers to skip the required ads): They put in hourlong ads and labeled the "skip" button as an ad. So if you're not using an ad blocker, after 15 seconds you can just skip the rest. If you're using an ad blocker, you're hosed.
I have no love of Google, but I do find it a rather elegant solution to an actual, honest problem unrelated to stealing people's information.
EDIT: And yes, GothBard and I both noticed starting somewhere around December when ads were suddenly an hour long, and we were thinking, "Who the heck would sit through an hourlong ad!?!?!?"
Apparently now we know...
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Sorry, I'll read this post later, I'm catching up on my ads.
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Helping Impus Minor with his resume, which is, of course, ridiculously short.
So at the end under "Personal Skills", I added, "I don't mind carrying boxes or stocking shelves. Am beeg guy."
Honestly, after 28 years of reviewing resumes, that one would get a laugh and an interview out of me if that work was appropriate to the position (which it is, in his case).
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On the one hand, as I've posted before, I'm no fan of companies "double dipping" for profit: "We're going to charge you a monthly fee, and we're going to show you ads."
Nope. It's what killed cable for me, and it'll kill streaming as well. Just charge me what you consider a reasonable amount to provide ad-free content, be upfront about it, and we're good. (See my previous post on NetFlix vs. Disney+).
On the other, I'm eternally amused by customers becoming enraged when they refuse to participate in providing any kind of revenue to the company, then watching as the company refuses to provide service to them. The lack of Linux drivers for Nvidea cards is an (in)famous example -- a pseudo-history: Nvidia's approach was, "Well, if you'll pay us a nominal fee like $10 to use our cards, we'll develop drivers for you," and the Linux base was, "Linux is and always has been free! Up yours!", then they got outraged when Nvidia wouldn't develop drivers for them for free.
Anyhoo, YouTube. YouTube primarily pays for itself with ads. Yeah, yeah, they track you and sell your data like nobody's business, but ads are a significant portion of their revenue. And they follow the NobodysHome's Approved Business Model™ of, "You can either get YouTube for free and be stuck with ads, or pay $9.99 a month to skip the ads."
So, they just implemented a rather hilarious ploy to block revenue-skippers (people who use ad blockers to skip the required ads): They put in hourlong ads and labeled the "skip" button as an ad. So if you're not using an ad blocker, after 15 seconds you can just skip the rest. If you're using an ad blocker, you're hosed.
I have no love of Google, but I do find it a rather elegant solution to an actual, honest problem unrelated to stealing people's information.
EDIT: And yes, GothBard and I both noticed starting somewhere around December when ads were suddenly an hour long, and we were thinking, "Who the heck would sit through an hourlong ad!?!?!?"
Apparently now we know...
Honestly YouTube+ has been one of the most worthwhile investments for me. A good 90% of my time spent watching stuff is on YouTube - not just videos but listening to music and podcasts.
We're down to just YT+ and Nebula. I keep leaning back and forth about also grabbing CuriosityStream.
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My life right now feels like an endless litany of, "Okay, now I can check that big stressor off my list; what's next?"
Yesterday's was Hermione's Big Four-Hour Audition for the performing arts high school here in Dallas.
We did a lot of work to prep. Now we wait until March 1st to find out if she's accepted. I can't afford private schools, and the public high schools (other than the magnet schools) here are terrible if you want to do anything other than football or cheerleading.
And now to play the waiting game...
...
...
Aw, the waiting game sucks. Let's play Hungry Hungry Hippos!
My life right now feels like an endless litany of, "Okay, now I can check that big stressor off my list; what's next?"
Gods if I don't know that feeling. Sympathies.
Ah yes, dubious food.
LE GAH!
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I swear, communication is an art, and some people are kindergartners.
Co-worker: "I just tested this in two environments and it doesn't work! We need to have an emergency meeting about this issue ASAP."
So, co-worker is competent so I don't doubt that he saw this behavior. But he claimed he tested it in multiple environments and then didn't bother to name a single environment.
So I went to our standard test environment and everything's working just fine, so I had to sent back, "Erm, before we hold an emergency meeting for the entire team, can you at least tell us on which environments you actually saw this happening?"
Which should've been in his original email.
EDIT: Even better. We're back in the days of browser wars because Google has turned evil, and he was using an unsupported browser. As soon as he switched to the supported one everything worked. What a concept! :-O
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Aaaand, automated job applications are getting a little out of hand.
Impus Minor submitted several applications yesterday to stores around the El Cerrito Plaza. He got his first rejection notification 3 minutes later.
I guarantee that no humans were involved in this decision.
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Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human resources drone.
Aaaand, automated job applications are getting a little out of hand.
Impus Minor submitted several applications yesterday to stores around the El Cerrito Plaza. He got his first rejection notification 3 minutes later.
I guarantee that no humans were involved in this decision.
They can't have a stinky human take the work away from an honest robot, can they?
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“It was hot the night we burned resumes…”
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They can't have a stinky human take the work away from an honest robot, can they?Aaaand, automated job applications are getting a little out of hand.
Impus Minor submitted several applications yesterday to stores around the El Cerrito Plaza. He got his first rejection notification 3 minutes later.
I guarantee that no humans were involved in this decision.
It was supposed to be giving the work to the honest robots so the stinky humans could devote their lives to leisure, learning, and art. But nooooooo, that doesn't make ALL the money.
The urge...
The urge has returned.
The time has come.
Once more...
LET US STRIKE THE EARTH!
*explodes*
Mix enough water colors and you get a color worse than brown.
On the advice of a friend who knows a lot of international teachers, I've expanded my search to English schools in China. It may be one frying pan into another, but...
Why I'm not a manager:
Yet again on one of the Slack channels at work, people have taken to starting every post with, "Hi, @channel!"
They receive a warning that this violates company policy and they should only do it for extremely urgent cases, but as with all users, they're so inured to warnings that they ignore it and just click through.
So every day, hundreds of uninterested employees are getting notifications of urgent messages they need to check.
My solution? If you include @channel in your message, your pay is docked by $1 per recipient per message.
Done.
Suddenly we wouldn't be getting hit with these idiotic swarms.
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"Talking out of turn? That's a paddlin'. Lookin' out the window? That's a paddlin'. Staring at my sandals? That's a paddlin'. Paddlin' the school canoe? Oh, you better believe that's a paddlin'."
*Penny drops, years after the fact, thanks to the Referotron.* (In one of my old play-by-post games, I now understand the GM was making an allusion, it seems.)
Because what I really needed this morning was a reminder of how detached I am from much of pop culture. :)
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Am I so out of touch?
No. It's the children who are wrong.
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Because what I really needed this morning was a reminder of how detached I am from much of pop culture. :)
At this point, 90s Simpsons references aren't pop culture, they're historical esoterica.
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Well, at least I learned something useful this morning. One of the notifications got locked in the "on" state so Slack was insisting that I had new messages when I didn't. While trying to clear it, I found, "Disable @here and @channel notifications". We'll see whether that works.
And as usual, I am forced to ask, "Why isn't that the default? And if it isn't the default, why is it so hard to find?"
Either make it the default, have a pop-up the first time you get one of these stupid notifications, "Do you want to turn these off?", or make it easy to find.
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This morning I learned that English (later British) monarchs did not stop styling themselves King/Queen of France until...
1802.
G!!@*&N I wish I had that kind of commitment to delusions.
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So, California's trying to secede again, which is always entertaining.
Will California ever be allowed to secede? This map says, "No."
(For those who don't trust links, in terms of net Federal money, California's one of 11 states that fund the other 39. So we're a cash cow. End of secession discussion.)
I've been in favor of an "amicable divorce" as a solution to the increasingly-hostile disagreements between states in the US for some time.
Give a few years (and maybe some financial aid) for families to relocate to the states that jive with their personal positions, then go our separate ways.
But that's admittedly unrealistic for a whole host of reasons and especially ignores the fact that it's a certain particular set of states that provide all the funds and a certain other particular set of states that receive all of it.
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I’ll be deep in the cold, cold ground before I recognize Missourah!