Its not that I'm against AI as a tool for artists, but there's this cousin of uncanny valley where art looks like waaaay too much effort went into it for what is needed. I find that off putting, but not because of some moral sentiment like unemployed artists, but because it just looks gaudy, out of place, or just inappropriate. Its like the modern version of the filigree. Looks like we might need a new word for it.
I can understand the motivation. I've had the same number since the 90's and never once got a spam call until I was in the hospital last year and since then I've been getting 2-3 a day every day. They've probably left at least a thousand voice mails for a great loan opportunity, all from different numbers and different loan amounts.
I found myself in front of the hospital representative and they started asking for marital status and religion. I had to shake it off and say, "What? I'm not giving you that information"
Personal anecdata: I get much more spam calls on a number from a country with mandatory ID sim card registration than on a number from a country where anonymous sim cards are allowed. Both numbers are almost 20 years old and I barely use them for anything but calls/sms to friends/relatives and receiving bank 2FA SMSes.
Personal anecdote from my wife yesterday. She doesn’t get many spam calls but has noticed that when a particular friend calls her, she gets a spam call later that day.
I surmised that the friend has some spyware on their phone which is reporting “active” numbers.
Get yourself locked up in the slammer for a night while carrying a fresh burner; observe them writing down your IMEI and IMSI; see if that makes you start getting robocalls.
It probably is today. There was a time when hospital admissions/discharges were published in the local paper.
As a population we used to be a lot less concerned with privacy. It was nicer in a way. It was a time when you didn't really worry about your identity getting leaked or stolen. If someone knew you were in the hospital, they might send you flowers or a card.
I'm glad I'm not the only one, this was giving me big problems, with Firefox on my mac
I'd click on a youtube video, nothing would happen, and I'd tab over to my CPU monitor (which I kept running for just this purpose.) and I'd see the load up around 230%. I'd have to kill the process and usually give up on the video. It would only happen to some videos, but consistently the same ones. And I'd definitely see a problem with the buttons below the video - seemed like when the tab locked up sometimes the far right button would be rendered beneath the column on the right, like the reflow failed.
I haven't seen it happen again in the last few days.
They were the best way to pirate software from work, like Photoshop and illustrator.
I also learned a 90's bubble investment tip on TV that if you went to the companies office and night and all the lights were on they were cooking and worth investing in. And the TV investor said he visited Iomega and they were cooking.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filigree
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