> Telephone number? There used to be phone books. And I still instinctively think they should be public.
I used to think the same. Around here I feel until a few years ago most people I knew with secret phones were people I would prefer to have fewer interactions with: people who frequently got into trouble, tried to scam others etc.
These days I’m more in the camp of layered security. Whatever I can do to make it harder for an attacker, the better.
For EU citizens, GDPR requires that if you ask for it, a human has to review your case. (Article 22 "The data subject shall have the right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing, including profiling, which produces legal effects concerning him or her or similarly significantly affects him or her.")
I guess a lawyer can argue against this, but I'd say that losing access to a lifetime if mails is absolutely up there with "legal effects concerning him or her or similarly significantly affects him or her."
And from my own experience building software for government services, I can tell you this: In my experience in those systems it is not acceptable to just have a list where someone clicks “deny” all day. Or allow for that matter. We tried with a system were the rule is that the citizen gets <think they apply for> whenever all relevant demands are met. Legal was very clear: No automated decisions either way unless the relevant laws or regulations explicitly allow it, every case has to be reviewed independently — even when the outcome seems completely obvious to anyone who knows the field.
No, but it wouldn't be surprising if they might be somewhat correlated?
I can recognize my wife easily now, but the first few months as we dated I was always scared that I wouldn't see her because I don't know what she looks like, I just recognize her and everyone else when I see them.
To the degree I have any day to day mental imagery it only works as a very very brief "overlay" when my eyes are open and I only see certain pictures:
a passport image of my Mom that I have in a photo book
a picture of my wife before we married that is my phone background and that I therefore have seen many times
the wedding photo of my parents from the hallway as a kid (even though I meet them a few times a year and often see other pictures of them)
And these images are faint, overlayed on other images and disappear in milliseconds.
I didn’t even try to imagine anything. Apples are just conceptually red by default. I can also tell you that it was tart, and crisp. I didn’t imagine those sensations either, they were just the first words that came to my mind when thinking about apples. The table is brown. I didn’t try to imagine anything table either, but the table in my kitchen, where there might be apples, is brown.
My guess is you are affected. You remind me of myself before I realised just how big the difference really is.
People who see images don’t just imagine them or "know apples are red" - they actually see them. I think a couple of comments in this discussion described it as controlled hallucinations. Not scary, rather something useful they can summon on demand.
You can deny it all you want, but there are people who once had a rich, vivid imagination, lost it, and can describe what changed.
I’m a weird edge case myself - I sometimes experience it briefly, right before falling asleep or just after waking up.
I'm a bit tired of people trying to explain it away.
I'm affected by it, and I know it isn't like you describe because I have experienced and sometimes still experience seeing actual images with my eyes closed but most of the time it is absolutely impossible.
There's also IIRC the fact that the reason someone started researching this topic was because a person who had very clear visual imagery with closed eyes lost it after surgery and his description got this thing started.
> If children are completely free from accountability, adults will form them into an army and convince them to commit crimes on their behalf, leading to an intolerable situation. This may already be a standard way of doing business in some parts of the world.
This is an ongoing problem in Norway now and I think it has been in Sweden for some time.
If you want to read more, search for the foxtrot network.
> But the irony is that when a non-European entity were to do something like this, e.g. nationalize their oil or mining etc. industry or a firm, the whole hell would brake loose.
Russia has nationalised a number of Western companies since 2022, even McDonalds.
Given the choice between massive, "complete" documentation with no examples and decent but incomplete docs with good examples, I’ll pick the second every time.
Why? Because if you don’t explain how to actually use something, all the fine-grained details are pointless.
Classic example: try looking up the Java docs around 2003–2005 to figure out how to display an image in a Swing application. Endless pages about Graphics2D and Image and double buffering and what not but not a single mention of the real solution:
FWIW that stuff was put in the Java tutorial (not sure if this is still the case today). The "Visual Index to the Swing Components"[0] (a copy i found online from ~2003) shows JLabel with an image and the docs even begin with "With the JLabel class, you can display unselectable text and images.".
I've been in the software business since 2007, which was also when I first met Jira and Scrum (at least something with 14 days sprints).
My first encounter with Scrum (or whatever it was) was good. It felt good to work in cycles and reprioritize twice a month.
Since then I have seen various versions of working systems and various versions of broken systems.
The two last projects have been extremely agile, the current project has exactly 5 mandatory meetings in an average week:
- 3 x stand ups that typically take <10 minutes and never more than 15.
- 1 stand up plus planning (scheduled 1 hour, typically takes 20 minutes)
- 1 stand up plus voluntary demo + retro (scheduled 1 hour, typically takes 30 minutes)
The previous project had a lot more structure but also worked well.
Common themes:
- Communication is 2 way
- Both teams are friendly and competent
- Customer care about results and leave programming to us
- Clear communication about what they hope, but without stress. Especially the first project were the stakes were serious: if we manage to hit the deadline we knew we would save the organization millions, but if not, nobody was in trouble. It was an actual challenge, not a scary thing.
Have I seen dysfunctional Scrum and Agile as well? Yes!
Some examples:
- endless estimation meetings which not only eats programmer hours but also mean that everyone feel they have to match the estimates
- one way communication (in a loop from customer - ux - programmer - tester - customer). Doesn't help if there are 14 days sprints when every sprint is a mini waterfall
- taking time of the project to do agile workshop after agile workshop while continuing to be absolutely rigid
- "release" after "release" but no actual customer
- "finish one thing" taken to mean that styling has to be perfect even on placeholder pages
I used to think the same. Around here I feel until a few years ago most people I knew with secret phones were people I would prefer to have fewer interactions with: people who frequently got into trouble, tried to scam others etc.
These days I’m more in the camp of layered security. Whatever I can do to make it harder for an attacker, the better.
> I have used https://www.fastpeoplesearch.com/ a couple of times to search for people's addresses and it really works.
Tangential:
Sorry, you have been blocked You are unable to access fastpeoplesearch.com
(Safari on a stock iPhone, mobile broadband from the biggest and most well known telecom company in my country, ipv6 address.)
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