I hate you, you hate me

30 09 2015

This is a nightmare-in-waiting: a human-rating app.

And it’s called peeple. (Of course it is.)

“So, you can’t please everybody, but if you’re a business owner, or you’re a professional, or you’re that young urbanite or you’re that parent looking to make better decisions, you also deserve to see where you could improve,” [peeple CEO and co-founder Julia Cordray] said.

“Think of this as an ability to grow and get some honest feedback.”

Yes, that’s just what the internet is good for: honest feedback.

And if you sign up and decide you don’t like it? Tough.

“Let’s say we allow you to delete your profile and let’s say you are a person of questionable character. All the people of questionable character could hide from the app and then what’s the point?” said Corday, adding those on the app could see benefits for their good scores.

What would be the point, indeed?

And even I, the epistemological nihilist, shrinks from this:

“It doesn’t matter how far apart we are in likes or dislikes,” she tells some bro at a bar in episode 10 [of her YouTube series]. “All that matters is what people say about us.”

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

h/t Shelby R. King, The Stranger

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Categories : Musing

Every move you make

1 08 2013

Move along, people, nothing to see here.

Yeaaaah, not so much:

Because who wasn’t reading those stories [about the Boston bombing]? Who wasn’t clicking those links? But my son’s reading habits combined with my search for a pressure cooker and my husband’s search for a backpack set off an alarm of sorts at the joint terrorism task force headquarters.

[snip]

What happened was this: At about 9:00 am, my husband, who happened to be home yesterday, was sitting in the living room with our two dogs when he heard a couple of cars pull up outside. He looked out the window and saw three black SUVs in front of our house; two at the curb in front and one pulled up behind my husband’s Jeep in the driveway, as if to block him from leaving.

Six gentleman in casual clothes emerged from the vehicles and spread out as they walked toward the house, two toward the backyard on one side, two on the other side, two toward the front door.

A million things went through my husband’s head. None of which were right. He walked outside and the men greeted him by flashing badges. He could see they all had guns holstered in their waistbands.

“Are you [name redacted]?” one asked while glancing at a clipboard. He affirmed that was indeed him, and was asked if they could come in. Sure, he said.

They asked if they could search the house, though it turned out to be just a cursory search.

[snip]

Meanwhile, they were peppering my husband with questions. Where is he  from? Where are his parents from? They asked about me, where was I, where do I work, where do my parents live. Do you have any bombs, they asked. Do you own a pressure cooker? My husband said no, but we have a rice cooker. Can you make a bomb with that? My husband said no, my wife uses it to make quinoa. What the hell is quinoa, they asked.

They searched the backyard. They walked around the garage, as much as one could walk around a garage strewn with yardworking equipment and various junk. They went back in the house and asked more questions.

[snip]

They mentioned that they do this about 100 times a week. And that 99 of those visits turn out to be nothing. I don’t know what happens on the other 1% of visits and I’m not sure I want to know what my neighbors are up to.

45 minutes later, they shook my husband’s hand and left.

[snip]

All I know is if I’m going to buy a pressure cooker in the near future, I’m not doing it online.

I’m scared. And not of the right things.

Hey, if Michele Catalano, her husband and son weren’t doing anything wrong, well, then, no harm, no foul, right?

Right?

~~~

h/t Melissa Jeltsen, HuffPo;  *Update* on the men-in-black, see this piece by Philip Bump of the Atlantic Wire (tip to Sullivan’s Daily Dish on Bump bit)


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Categories : Blog theft, Follow-up

Even kids with chickenpox

25 07 2012

You ever bite into a brat and look at it?

(A bratwurst, you perv! Bratwurst!)

Well, it’s a bad idea—no, not the bratwurst, not if you’re a meat-eater (which I no longer am, but once was)—but the looking.

You got that?

Okay, what I mean to say is that while a bratwurst, especially a beer-soaked brat slathered with whatever mess you want to slather on it and nestled in the only-to-be-found-in-southeastern-Wisconsin hard roll, is a damned fine meal, it is also a meal which one might want to close her eyes to enjoy.

Even the best wurst, after all, is sausage, and even the best sausage looks like. . . sausage.

All of this is to say that the spam this blog attracts is best not inspected too closely.

WordPress does a pretty good job of catching most of this canned internet sausage  in a filter, and it’s easy for me simply to shake out the spam en masse, but since every once in a great while a real comment is snared, I feel the need to inspect the filter before slamming it against the side of the computer to clear it.

And what do I find upon inspection? Ads for shoes/handbags/misc junk, generic compliments, generic suggestions, generic criticisms, comments in Cyrillic, comments in Greek, and these incredibly long and irritating comments on the global financial situation and, Zeus forbid, the gold standard.

Dull dull dull dull dull. I should be grateful I don’t attract trolls; while they can be amusing in their obvious trollishness, they are more often dull in their obnoxiousness. And these spam bits aren’t generally offensive—unlike some of the stuff I get in one of my email accounts, with subject lines containing come-ons for violent sex with teenagers.

(No, I don’t click through and yes, if I thought it were really child porn I would contact authorities. You would too, right?)

Still, if you’re going to splatter your junk all over the internet, why not show some pizzazz, a bit of flair? Why not slather that spam in some enticing mess to get me to bite?

Huh, I never thought I would miss the Nigerian dictators eager to share their millions with me.


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Categories : Musing

We play that we’re actors on a movie screen

2 12 2009

I have to get rid of my computer.

I’m not going to do that.

The internet, then. Save me some money.

Not going to happen.

No, I will keep my computer and my broadband and I will continue to waste time watching movies and bad t.v. shows and then watching them all again.

Yes, I finally got Netflix, and in the week and a-half I’ve had it I’ve watched 2 DVDs and a lot of streaming movies and t.v. shows.

A lot.

Now, I did learn one thing: I am over Law & Order. I watched an episode of L&O:SVU from their tenth season and just thought Blegggh—really?

And even tho’ I can watch CSI on CBS, my interest lags there, as well. Yes, there are still tw0-ish other shows I still tune in, but, mostly, I’m done with the whole t.v. thing.

That’s the good news.

The bad news is that there are all these movies which I can watch at the click of the mouse.

This wouldn’t necessarily be a problem, save for my inability to close out the Netflix window after finishing a movie. Nope, time for another.

Pitiful. There’s reading and writing and Oh! Going outside!

Not happening.

This will fade, I know. I’ll get sick of myself doing nothing but sitting in front of my (um, new [it was on sale!], larger, external) monitor watching explosions and tears and drinking and running and people doing all the things I could be doing were not I sitting in front of my new, larger, external monitor.

But in the meantime, what’s that crappy movie I won’t admit to liking even as a guilty pleasure which I’ve seen 18 kajillion times. . . ?

Lord. Pitiful.


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Categories : Musing

Do the right thing

14 02 2009

Cable companies suck.

I’ve been piggybacking on a coupla’ unsecured local wireless accounts, but know this has to end. One, I’m freeloading, and two, it’s not all that reliable. (And for the record, the first matters more than the second. Really.)

So I went to the local CableConglomerate website to find out how much a cable/wireless connection would cost. I dinked around on their site, checked out various packages, and, in the end, decided that all I want is a cable modem and service.

I have no idea how much it’ll cost.

Oh, I could do the Triple-Play and get Phone! Cable! and Internet! for the low low price of just $29.95* per month per service!

Do not want. I kicked the regular t.v. habit while living in my last apartment. It wasn’t totally voluntary—I didn’t have a t.v. in my room, and my roommate didn’t want me to put my t.v. in the common living space—but I don’t really miss it. Yeah, it was nice to veg out and watch the umpteenth episode of Law & Order or CSI (either the original or CSI:New York, but not Miami. Miami sucked.), or take in the glories of bad movies like Independence Day, but, christ, amidst my various jobs I got no damned time to watch t.v.**

So, just the intertubes, please.  That’s it. No super basic (i.e., all the regular channels you’d get if your antenna were worth a damn) for 16 bucks a month, no HDTV, DVR, HBO or M-O-U-S-E. Just the fucking cable modem.

No price. I guess I find out when one of their circling predators salespeople contacts me to strongarm me into a cable package let me know the details.

Bastards.

*Not including all the other shit they charge you for. Like $0.24/month for the remote. Did you know they charge you a monthly rental for the remote? I did not, before today.

**I am seriously considering getting a super basic Netflix package and the hundred-buck Roku box, which would allow me to stream mediocre t.v. programs and movies—and some good stuff!—for about 10 bucks a month direct to me t.v. Stigmata on demand. Awesome.


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