Monday, September 02, 2024

Links - 2nd September 2024 (2)

Years after Friend's Death, Man Receives Unexpected Call from His Mobile Line, Shares Details - "A man has stirred emotions online after sharing details of an emotional phone call he received from his late friend’s son. The man identified as @joehans28 on TikTok said that he was in shock when his phone rang and it was his late friend’s number. When he picked up the call, the little boy politely requested a bicycle which he could ride around the house. On how he got his number, the little boy said he saw it behind a photo of his late father and the young man The little boy said his father wrote behind the photo that he should contact him if he needed anything and he was no longer around. An emotional Joehans did not hesitate to fulfil the little boy's desire by getting him a sound bicycle. Sharing the video online, Joehans narrated:
“My friend died a few years ago. I got a surprise call from his number today. It turned out to be his little son. He asks me for a bike. I asked him if he knew me. "He replied, ‘No, but I found a photo of my father with some man and on the back of the photo I saw this number and the text: If you need anything and I won't be around, ask him, he's me, just in another place.""

Please don't just say "hello" - "Chances are you were sent here by someone within Slack, IRC or another chat after you’ve started the conversation just saying “Hello” or “Good Morning!” waiting for a response and now you’re curios what they tried to tell you with this link… Have I done something wrong? Well, yes and no:
It is polite to start the chat with an introduction.
When you’re just saying “Hello” and then wait for a reponse you either force your chat partner to either ignore your introduction or to respond to it wondering why you’ve started the chat in the first place.
Lets imagine Alice and Fred. Alice is working on something difficult and is highly concentrated on that task while Fred needs to ask Alice a question:
9:34 Fred: Hey Alice, I’ve got a question!
9:35 Alice: Hey, what do you want to know?
9:40 Fred: [asks his question]
In this example Alice received Freds chat, stopped working on the task she was working on and asked him how she can help. After she had done so Fred starts to type his question and Alice either tries to get back on her task or waits for him to complete typing his question as she’ve seen the typing indicator. Either case causes her to loose her focus on her work at least once and it probably will take her some time to get back to it. Now lets take a look at another example:
9:34 Fred: Hey Alice, I was wondering whether you can tell me […]?
9:40 Alice: Hey, of course […]
Here some things went better than in the example above:
Fred had already finished typing his question and Alice was able to answer directly
Alice could instantly see whether the question needed to be answered directly or could be delayed: therefore she would have been able to postpone the response until she reached a point in her work where she didn’t need to maintain the context in her head"

Meme - "The fattest man in the world in 1890" *Chauncey Morlan*
"3rd fattest man at the local Walmart in 2024" *Chauncey Morlan*

Meme - "I'm glad I didn't buy any current gen consoles. The people who bought from scalpers are probably seething
My 12 year old cousin using her ps5 as an extension cord."

Man opens ‘fake ramen restaurant’ that serves instant noodles as a ‘social-experiment’ and the results are blowing minds - "A man was amazed after he set up a fake fine dining experience as a joke and people came in droves to taste the instant ramen noodles he was serving... Chen explained in his video online that he had once worked at a restaurant which marketed itself as selling fresh food, only to find out that they had made the food a week prior, and it was frozen... he started off with creating a website for his eatery before creating eye-catching images of his dishes to make it seem believable. The food included ramen in a bowl, with flowers from his garden, bamboo and an ice cream cookie as garnish... The website explains its ‘backstory’, which aims to make guests believe that it’s an exclusive pop-up eatery. It states it is: “An Experimental Omakase Ramen experience available only for 2 nights every year. Nise Jangaru Ramen has been travelling around the world offering pop-up ramen since 1953, and has so far hosted events in Japan, Belgium, America and 50 more - Now in Australia. “We liken our work to that of art in a museum. Subsequently, just like many museums our services are complimentary. We are walk in only.” Fit with a contact email and number, Chen was set to go. But he needed to find people to advertise it. That’s when he decided to send mass emails to influencers and offered them to try his food for free in return for them sharing it with their followers. Once that was done, he hired out an entire restaurant, decorated it to reflect an authentic and boujee ramen restaurant and waited for customers to come. As it turns out, people sure do love an exclusive offer and soon, the restaurant was teeming with people who wanted to get in on the hype, with some waiting up to 90 minutes to taste the ramen. And people seemed to be genuinely hoodwinked, believing it was a real fine dining experience. When one diner was asked if they had any notes to the chef, she said: "He needs to make me another bowl." Another said: "It tastes really nice and home cooked. The broth is really good.""

Fast-Food Ice Dirtier Than Toilet Water - "Jasmine Roberts never expected her award-winning middle school science project to get so much attention. But the project produced some disturbing results: 70 percent of the time, ice from fast food restaurants was dirtier than toilet water. The 12-year-old collected ice samples from five restaurants in South Florida -- from both self-serve machines inside the restaurant and from drive-thru windows. She then collected toilet water samples from the same restaurants and tested all of them for bacteria at the University of South Florida. In several cases, the ice tested positive for E. coli bacteria, which comes from human waste and has been linked to several illness outbreaks across the country... Both Roberts and Katz said that the ice is likely dirtier because machines aren't cleaned and people use unwashed hands to scoop ice. Toilet water is also surprisingly bacteria-free, because it comes from sanitized city water supplies. Roberts got interested in the project after reading a newspaper article about bacteria in airplane water and decided to do something similar. Plus, she said, all of her friends chew on ice, and it drives her crazy."

Meme - "Spoil dad this Father's Day. Stayfree Ultra Thin All Nights $4.50"

Meme - "Proof you can fruit and a vegetable *Emaciated woman in wheelchair, fat woman with short limbs in wheelchair, dwarf in wheelchair, with one wheelchair having the Pride flag and the woman having a Pride lei*"

Meme - "And what gift would a Dwarf ask of the Elves?"
"Nothing. Except to look upon the lady of the Galadhrim one last time... for she is more fair than all the jewels beneath the earth"
">Seethes at Elves for 140 years
>Catches the faintest whiff of Galadriel's elfussy
>Immediately starts simping
Are Dwarfcels really like this?"

Meme - *Removing the vein from a prawn*
"Share the road" *throwing the rest of the prawn away*
*Eating the vein* "Not following the rules you expect drivers to follow"
Bicyclists: *retarded look*

Meme - "When they say "threat to democracy." They mean "threat to government.""

Meme - punished rose @providenceluvr: "watching apocalypse now and can't stop thinking about this"
"I read somewhere that Coppola wanted him to lose weight so he assigned personal trainers to get him all his meals but Brando paid a PA to fill a canoe up with cheeseburgers and he would row into the middle of the river and eat them in view of Coppola, who would be shouting at him to stop and he would ignore him"

Meme - Alex @AlexM_37: "This woman's delivery instructions"
"Drop-off Instructions: Please leave by door and don't ring bell. My husband is cooking and I don't want him to know I already ordered backup dinner"

Meme - Jurassic Park T-Rex: "ROOOAAAR!"
"Woah, man! Eat a Snickers."
Jurassic Park T-Rex: "Why?"
"Because you turn into the horror icon of a successful Spielberg movie when you're hungry."
"Better?"
Barney: "Better."

Meme - "Starbucks 2.0
Whoever posted this hack is the real MVP. Bless your heart
Starbucks Iced Coffee Blend
Trenta
$5.45
4 Vanilla Syrup
Vanilla Sweet Cream Cold Foam +$1.25
3/4 Inch Splash of Oatmilk
4 White Chocolate Mocha Sauce +$0.80
4 Shots +$5.00
It's on us. 100 Star Reward applied.
Discounts -$12.50"

Meme - Blake Thompson. Partner at Vendito I Co-Founder of xrecruiter: "I just turned 30 and I'm worth $19m. Here's how I got there (not to brag) but to hopefully inspire you to get there too.
I woke up at 4am every morning for 6 years straight.
Started a recruitment agency.
Took 2 cold showers per day.
Invested in bitcoin at $59,000.
Engage with all walks of life - you never know what you'll learn.
Inherited $22m from my parents.
Post high value content on Linkedin.
Consistency is key.
Execute, execute, execute!!!
If I can do it, you can do it too. Make sure to follow me for more financial advice."

Meme - "HOW TO STOP AN ARGUMENT! *busty woman with top pulled up to expose bra*
Just showed this to my girlfriend and it made the argument worse it doesn't work at all"

Meme - Hide the Pain Harold: "Let's see how many reactions my meme got. Your account has been blocked for 30 days"

Historic Vids on X - "There are creative ads, and then there are Thai ads"

World’s first meltdown-proof nuclear reactor unveiled in China
This won't stop the nuclear haters from talking rubbish

Actual Fact Bot: Revived | Facebook - "Alcatraz was the only federal prison at the time to offer hot-water showers for its inmates because the prison staff felt the inmates would find the frigid waters of San Francisco Bay almost impossible to withstand during an escape attempt."

Meme - PETA: "There's a pretty good chance that you've eaten foods made from animal rectums recently."
"My entire generation is proud of eating ass. Y'all need new PR reps."

Benjamin Piatt Runkle - Wikipedia - "He was thought to be mortally wounded, and Whitelaw Reid, then a correspondent for the Cincinnati Gazette, had seen Runkle's wounds and filed a glowing obituary saying in part "He died a hero. Green grow the grass above his grave." Runkle not only survived but outlived Reid, and in turn praised him in an obituary"

Guano Islands Act - Wikipedia - "The Guano Islands Act (11 Stat. 119, enacted August 18, 1856, codified at 48 U.S.C. ch. 8 §§ 1411-1419) is a United States federal law passed by the Congress that enables citizens of the United States to take possession of unclaimed islands containing guano deposits in the name of the United States. The islands can be located anywhere, so long as they are not occupied by citizens of another country and not within the jurisdiction of another government. It also empowers the president to use the military to protect such interests and establishes the criminal jurisdiction of the United States in these territories."

Why do we name scary things? - "Our responses to extreme weather reveal the same tendency. We give hurricanes and storms the same names we might give our children, and describe their actions in the humanising language of wrath and vengeance. We can even see it in our angry reactions to IT issues – every time we curse our computers or cajole our smartphones, we are demonstrating the automatic urge to anthropomorphise inanimate objects. According to recent scientific research, our penchant for personification is a natural human reaction to unpredictable event, and while it is often harmless, it can sometimes lead us to underplay the real risks of the situation. It all depends on the specific characters that we create and the features we give them... At its worst, anthropomorphism can exacerbate irrational behaviour. Consider our perceptions of good fortune and the ways that it can influence our financial decision making. Katina Kulow at the University of Louisville and colleagues recently asked participants to report how much they anthropomorphised luck by rating statements such as: "To what extent does luck have intentions?" Kulow found that the more they attributed human-like characteristics to matters of chance, the more likely they were to opt for riskier choices when gambling. That's worth remembering, whenever you think that "Lady Luck" might be on your side. When it comes to our health, however, anthropomorphism may protect us from risk. Personifying an illness seems to make the danger feel closer and increases people's sense of vulnerability, and this encourages us to take suitable precautions, according to research by Lili Wang at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China, and colleagues."

Game dev under fire for mandatory “Sauna sessions” with staff - "Spectrum Studios creative director Jacek Piorkowski has caused controversy in the build-up to the developer’s new game by allegedly requiring employees to have naked sauna sessions. The situation was highlighted by Patryk Suchy, Lead Recruiter at 8bit, who made a post on LinkedIn calling out the requirement. In the post he says, “This dude, a creative director, requires NAKED SAUNA SESSIONS as a part of work in his studio.” The post contains screenshots of Piorkowski posting on LinkedIn, responding to a developer who he’d spoken to about the job (these comments have since been edited). Aleksandra Wolna, a narrative designer and writer responds on LinkedIn to Piorkowski potentially offering work, saying: “We already exchanged a few messages in the comments.” “From what you said, you consider naked sauna sessions part of the work responsibilities in your studio. I told you that was a dealbreaker.” Piorkowski went on to say: “You had a lot of time to prove me wrong. To write scene in sauna without being in sauna… Instead, we are wasting time on social media.” He continued: “My narrative girls had to go to sauna with me to came up [sic] with amazing script for proof of concept” “I absolutely adore the fact that they could use their sauna experience to write awesome scenes”... The “Main character will be a saunamaster and will be in charge of performing in various saunas (smells, music, choreography, everything)” The ad also specifies that attending sauna sessions is “not negotiable” because the “entire team needs to understand the product” Piorkowski went on to say, “We’re doing a game about Sauna Sessions. I don’t want to waste my time to explain what’s the difference between Ruska Bania or Dry Sauna. You have to feel it.” He then offered to “even organize female only event”. Piorkowski also said in another post: “If you knew anything about it, wetness level inside Bania or Steam one is around 90%. So, towel is extremely wet after few seconds. So, you can still do it, but it may result with fungal infection.” “You should be naked in Bania or Steam and with or without towel in dry one”"
Another screenshot (Mirror)

Meme - Woman: "ARE YOU TRAINING THIS HARD TO IMPRESS ME?"
Muscular Man: "NO."
Muscular Man: "DON'T WORRY GRANDMA, I'LL THROW YOUR OLD CAR BATTERY IN THE OCEAN."
Grandma: "I LOVE YOU!"

Actual Fact Bot: Revived | Facebook - "In the 1952 Olympics, Luxembourg won a gold medal which was so unexpected that the band did not know their national anthem and instead had to improvise and played gibberish."

As the world wakes up to a "digital pandemic", Microsoft suggests turning it off and on again 15 times - "It's been a wild morning for services dependent on Microsoft, with widespread global IT outages some reporters are referring to as a "digital pandemic." Planes have been grounded, bank account access frozen and even 911 operators affected by the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD). The mass outage, caused by an issue with security software Crowdstrike, has reportedly been "identified and isolated" with a fix deployed. Still, for the fix to work, many services must reboot. The old "turn it off and on again" will save us, and if it doesn't, don't worry—Microsoft says just do it 15 times. Yes, really. Azure servers are affected, and consequently, Microsoft 365 apps, with the website's most recent update, instruct users to reboot as many times as it takes to get the fix working... Crowdstrike is a cybersecurity firm based in the US that uses cloud-based AI and machine learning to prevent cyber attacks. It's used by government agencies, airports, and banks, amongst many others, and the update to its Falcon Sensor software has caused chaos with Windows, Microsoft 365, Amazon, and even Instagram. Microsoft has since suffered a separate outage due to the configuration change in the back end of Azure's settings, which has been fixed, but you may need to go through many restarts to see an improvement. What's most worrying is how easy it's been for this to happen. With so many systems across the world all dependent on the same software, turning it "off and on again" isn't as simple as it sounds."
Everything in the cloud means there's a single point of failure

Anshel Sag on X - "For those who don't remember, in 2010, McAfee had a colossal glitch with Windows XP that took down a good part of the internet. The man who was McAfee's CTO at that time is now the CEO of Crowdstrike. The McAfee incident cost the company so much they ended up selling to Intel."

Global IT outage shows dangers of cashless society, campaigners say - "Supermarkets, banks, pubs, cafes, train stations and airports were all hit by the failure of Microsoft systems on Friday, leaving many unable to accept electronic payments. The impact was especially severe for businesses that no longer accept cash... Cash payments increased for the first time in a decade last year, according to UK Finance, which represents banks. The number of people who never use cash, or use it less than once a month, reached 23.1m in 2021, but declined to 21.6m last year... Authorities in China and the US have fined businesses for not accepting cash. Delnevo said the UK should have a law requiring all businesses to take cash. Martin Quinn, campaign director for the PCA, said using cash allowed for anonymity. “I don’t want my data sold on, and I don’t want banks, credit card companies and even online retailers to know every facet of my life,” he said. Budgeting by using cash is also easier for some, he added."

Mark Atwood on X - "If you are in a regulated industry, you are required to install something like Crowdstrike on all your machines. If you use Crowdstrike, your auditor checks a single line and moves on. If you use anything else, your auditor opens up an expensive new chapter of his book. The real culprit here is regulatory capture. Notice that everybody getting hit hard by this is in a heavily regulated industry: finance, airlines, healthcare, etc. That's because those regulations include IT security mandates, and Crowdstrike has positioned themselves as the only game in town for compliance. Hence you get this software monoculture prone to everything getting hit at once like this."

Harrison H. Smith ✞ on X - "So let me see if I have this Crowdstrike story straight…. When Hillary Clinton was Sec. of State, she was illegally funneling sophisticated weapons through Libya to terrorists in the MidEast in an effort to take out Assad in Syria for Israel. When the weapons transfer went sideways and the US Ambassador was killed in Benghazi, it was discovered she was using an illegal private server for secret communications. She destroyed the server, but not before its contents were leaked by Wikileaks, including communications about bizarre occult rituals and inexplicable code words involving children and pizza. Instead of investigating the leak themselves, the FBI relied on a Crowdstrike investigation that falsely claimed the server was hacked by Russia. The FBI cleared HC despite admitting she broke the law, and launched the Russiagate investigation, using more fake Clinton campaign disinfo to tie Trump to Russia to get a FISA warrant and spy on Trump while leaking dirt to the press to undermine first his campaign, then his presidency. When Trump had a call with Zelenskyy and asked about Crowdstrike, a “whistleblower” falsely claimed quid-pro-quo and launched the first impeachment to stop Trump’s inquiries. (It was in the midst of this impeachment trial, btw, when Event 201 took place. But that’s another story.) Fast forward to 2024 and Trump is dominating Biden when he miraculously survives a deep state orchestrated assassination attempt two days before the RNC. Two days later Crowdstrike causes the biggest computer network crash in all of history, knocking millions of corporate and government systems offline for hours. Other than the fact that Blackrock owns Crowdstrike and a Blackrock affiliated investment firm placed millions of dollars betting against DJT in the hours before the assassination attempt by a shooter who was featured in a Blackrock promo, did I miss anything?"
Jinx the Future on X - "I think you have confused between the two servers - the Hillary bathroom server, which had no password, and was broadcasting secrets to her donors, and the DNC server, which contained the emails between the Hillary team and the DNC, showing how they cheated the Sanders Team. Crowdstrike was involved with the DNC server. The mails were published by Wikileaks. The mails were physically downloaded, indicating a mole inside the DNC, but the FBI claimed that Russia hacked the server, copied the mails and gave it to Assange. It later confessed that it never examined the server but took the words of Crowdstrike. The DNC volunteer Seth Rich was suspected to be the insider who downloaded the mails and gave to Assange. He was killed in an early morning "mugging". Assange announced a reward of $20k for any clues leading to his killers, but refused to confirm Seth Rich was the source."

Police uniforms in the United States - Wikipedia - "The navy blue uniforms adopted by many police departments in this early period were simply surplus United States Army uniforms from the Civil War."

Dare Obasanjo🐀 on X - "The final nail in the coffin for the streaming wars. After spending $20B on shows and movies since the launch of Apple TV+ to generate less views in a month than Netflix does in a day, Apple plans to cut back on TV spending. It was fun while it lasted."

More money could result in fewer trips to ER, study suggests

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