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[Raphael]

ZBB question: given that I've changed my settings to always hide my online status a while ago, I wonder: can zompist himself, as an Admin, see me when I'm online?

I still have admin privileges from when I helped upgrade the board a while back; I don’t actively use them, but I can confirm that I can see the status of all users, including yourself — though it puts your name in italics as a signal that other users can’t see you.

Ah, thank you!

[Raphael]

...

[Raphael]

Don't mind me

Ignore this

I'm just trying to figure out how to post tables.

[Raphael]

Very minor personal news somewhat related to AI, since it's about machine translation:

I had written a fairly short, not very important German text mainly for my own use and was too lazy to translate it into English myself. So, since it doesn't contain any personal or sensitive information, and I don't plan to do anything commercial with it, I thought I might try out how well machine translation would work on it.

I used Duckduckgo's online translation tool, of which they themselves say that it is a frontend for a Microsoft tool. Since the tool leaves out line breaks in its translations, I decided to translate each paragraph on its own. After I was done with that, I made some adjustments to the result.

Verdict: Mostly quite OK, sometimes a bit clumsy, and some outright howlers.

The tool apparently doesn't let you pick a specific version of English. This is relevant in this context because the machine translation consistently calls association football "football". First, that only makes sense if you're addressing a relatively small part of the world's English-speaking population. And second, it would be especially confusing for this text, because this text is a brief description of a different code of football.

The biggest howler is that the machine translates "köpfen" as "to decapitate", when, of course, in the context of team sports it has to be translated as "to head".

Then, it translates "Mänteln oder Kitteln" as "coats or coats". "Mantel" and "Kittel" are two words which describe two different types of clothes that, as far as I can tell, are both covered by the word "coat" in English. Oh, and it uses the pronoun "she" for the word "team".

Still, a good deal better than Babel Fish would have done it.

[alice]

Don't mind me

Ignore this

I'm just trying to figure out how to post tables.

Some words of advice:

- Use large and sturdy envelopes, or cardboard boxes if possible
- Break your tables up into flat sections to take up less space
- Include reassembly instructions
- Ask for proof of posting

[malloc]

Surprisingly enough, my speeding ticket is stuck in the courts with probably another month before it actually goes to trial. My lawyer says the lawyer at the county government she originally contacted retired without her knowing so she has to start the negotiations over. No guarantee that she will get the charge reduced which is quite a problem given my ever tightening budget.

[Travis B.]

If you use Discord, stop using it immediately. The new 'age verification' they are introducing is a major privacy trojan horse, as you are feeding your personal data directly into the hands of Palantir (the surveillance company) if you 'verify' your age with them despite the promises they make (which are definitely lies). And Discord had a major data breach not long ago, so I would not trust them with any of your personal data.

[Raphael]

If you use Discord, stop using it immediately. The new 'age verification' they are introducing is a major privacy trojan horse, as you are feeding your personal data directly into the hands of Palantir (the surveillance company) if you 'verify' your age with them despite the promises they make (which are definitely lies). And Discord had a major data breach not long ago, so I would not trust them with any of your personal data.

WTF? Don't they have exactly the kind of audience you'd most expect to get angry about that?

[bradrn]

If you use Discord, stop using it immediately. The new 'age verification' they are introducing is a major privacy trojan horse, as you are feeding your personal data directly into the hands of Palantir (the surveillance company) if you 'verify' your age with them despite the promises they make (which are definitely lies). And Discord had a major data breach not long ago, so I would not trust them with any of your personal data.

Well, I for one have no intention of giving them any such data. (And given that I’m in the UK, they would have asked me for it already if I had needed to.)

[Travis B.]

If you use Discord, stop using it immediately. The new 'age verification' they are introducing is a major privacy trojan horse, as you are feeding your personal data directly into the hands of Palantir (the surveillance company) if you 'verify' your age with them despite the promises they make (which are definitely lies). And Discord had a major data breach not long ago, so I would not trust them with any of your personal data.

WTF? Don't they have exactly the kind of audience you'd most expect to get angry about that?

From the reactions to this, it seems they have pulled a Tumblr.

[Raphael]

Random silliness, or, if you prefer, silly randomness: does anyone else think that the lab that did my blood tests sounds like something run by an old b-movie villain?

perhapsamissingh.jpg (94.37 KiB) Viewed 2681 times

I guess it's possible that whoever owns it really is quite glad to be rich, though.

[linguistcat]

If you use Discord, stop using it immediately. The new 'age verification' they are introducing is a major privacy trojan horse, as you are feeding your personal data directly into the hands of Palantir (the surveillance company) if you 'verify' your age with them despite the promises they make (which are definitely lies). And Discord had a major data breach not long ago, so I would not trust them with any of your personal data.

WTF? Don't they have exactly the kind of audience you'd most expect to get angry about that?

From the reactions to this, it seems they have pulled a Tumblr.

And from what I've heard, people are already upset and discord is already reconsidering. Don't know if that'll do anything. If they do go through with it I have another chat system I can use as a backup though it's annoying to migrate if I don't need to.

[Torco]

If you use Discord, stop using it immediately. The new 'age verification' they are introducing is a major privacy trojan horse, as you are feeding your personal data directly into the hands of Palantir (the surveillance company) if you 'verify' your age with them despite the promises they make (which are definitely lies). And Discord had a major data breach not long ago, so I would not trust them with any of your personal data.

WTF? Don't they have exactly the kind of audience you'd most expect to get angry about that?

tumblr, and the history of IT the last 20 years, taught us that tech company boards, at least sometimes, give very few fucks to what their users want or need

[Ahzoh]

Fucking pisses me off when mom blames me for things that aren't my fault.

She fucking blames me for her car's back tire getting a nail in it because I wanted to get pizza (which she fucking offered us to get) instead of cooking gnocchi. I didn't want to cook because I was tired and sore from helping moving to new house.

She could have said "no, cook food", but she says she didn't because she "felt bad" since we wanted to go to a restaurant which was unavailable.
But she some-fucking-how expects me to mindread her one true desire about the situation!!!

The nail came out today as we were driving to the tire repair shop, so tow truck and whatnot gonna cost $300, so we can't go to the restaurant today either, but she has to fucking present that as if it's my punishment for making the erroneous judgement of wanting pizza last night.

[Raphael]

Commiserations, Ahzoh.

[WeepingElf]

My commiserations, too.

[Raphael]

Less infuriating, but weird: I ordered something from my phone company. Shortly ago, they sent me a message, and, well... ...I think I'll just post a cropped screenshot here without comment. (The text is not that important, just a message that a package is supposedly on its way.)

messagefromthefuture.jpg (106.64 KiB) Viewed 2236 times

[Richard W]

Could that be an Indian timestamp? It's conceivable that the message delivery has been outsourced to India.

[Raphael]

Could that be an Indian timestamp? It's conceivable that the message delivery has been outsourced to India.

Hey, now that you mention it - yes, that's very much possible!

[Raphael]

So back in January, I had an appointment at my ophthalmologist's office. But something came up, and I had to send them an email asking to cancel and reschedule the appointment.

At first, I got an email offering an appointment yesterday. That suited me just fine, and I accepted. But shortly after I had accepted, I got another email from them telling me that they didn't have any near-future appointments available, and that I should show up in July. I shrugged and marked the appointment in July.

Then, in the days leading up to yesterday, I kept getting automated reminders by email and text message telling me that I had an appointment yesterday. I assumed that that was simply some kind of computer error. That someone had forgotten to tell some software that yesterday's appointment had been moved to July. I didn't think much of it.

But this morning, I got another automated email telling me that I had missed an appointment yesterday. I wondered what was going on and sent them an email asking for clarification, with a file with all the emails I had gotten and sent attached.

And they responded that, first, that initially, two different staffers had, without knowing about each other, given me two different appointments, which had both been formally scheduled for me, but second, since I had gotten all those automated reminders, I should have "known" that I "had" that appointment yesterday.

You know, if they really want to blame me for the fact that their staff messed up, I'll be a bit annoyed.