I think there are shades of gray to be recognized between obstreperously "Retro" and obstreperously Luddite. There are still a significant cohort of people alive that grew up in the era where the rotary phone interface was the only phone interface. Using this device in public could be merely a nod and a wink to others in the same cohort and a nice conversation starter rather than a position against the advancement of technology. You will pry my smartphone out of my cold, dead hands but I think it would be fun to have this device around to occasionally sport out in public for the laughs. And in a nod to yourself and the other comment, thank you for teaching me a new word (obstreperously).
I would've assumed something like "Ostentatiously" would've been the word; but I've seen "obstreperously" couple of times in this thread now, and had to look it up (it's a new word to me:) - seems to be "noisy and difficult to control", and that gives it a whole different, perhaps more negative slant?
P.S. FWIW, in my limited experience, it is typically the most technologically savvy amongst us that go through incredible effort to discover, purchase, setup, own, operate and integrate retro/Luddite devices in their lives :-)
> P.S. FWIW, in my limited experience, it is typically the most technologically savvy amongst us that go through incredible effort to discover, purchase, setup, own, operate and integrate retro/Luddite devices in their lives
Oh, absolutely! Part of it is the enjoyment and skill to make something like that work (it's a non-trivial bit of programming to interface modern electronics with a rotary dialer, cell modem, audio codec, etc, and to have it all more or less work reliably).
The other part, though, I think is that people in those spaces see just how wrong everything has gone - the piles of complexity that never quite work, the constant data leaks, the invasion of privacy for surveillance profits, the fight for attention based on what's good for the company and not good for the users, etc. And a lot of us, myself included, want no part of that.
My wife and I spent last night on the couch listening through a wonderful recording of Handel's Messiah, on 4 quite heavy vinyl LPs. It was a great evening!
Tech Enthusiasts: Everything in my house is wired to the Internet of Things! I control it all from my smartphone! My smart-house is Bluetooth enabled and I can give it voice commands via Alexa! I love the future!
Programmers / Engineers: The most recent piece of technology I own is a printer from 2004 and I keep a loaded gun ready to shoot it if it ever makes an unexpected noise.
I'm definitely on the second half. We still have a Nest, but only because I've not convinced myself that the HestiaPi will actually run our system properly... and I can't get parts for it.
I started the "obstreperously" thing in this thread, so I guess I'm honor-bound to explain. You've exactly pegged what I meant to communicate: loud, obnoxious, over-the-top obvious, like ostentatious, but no chance of being taken as non-annoying.
Since you are looking for different tips other than the usual "eat less" and "lift weights", both of which are important but the former far more than the latter, let me submit using the pen instead of the sword. Try this: Before you put anything in your mouth, write exactly what you are going to eat, including the portion (get a cheap scale), down in a food log. Then go ahead and eat it. Do this for a couple weeks without trying to make any changes and then take an afternoon and review your data. You'll see some patterns emerge and then the next week, don't make radical changes, but continue to capture your data and try to change one thing. For example, if you drink things with sugar in them, like Sodas, substitute flavored water. It takes a long time to change habits and also lots of people suffer from eating "mindlessly", e.g., opening up that bag of chips and then nomming the whole thing without thinking about it until they look down and the whole bag is empty. Build a foundation of awareness and then continue to make tweaks week after week until you find an equilibrium and then start moving in the right direction. Be patient, don't rush things. It takes a long time to gain a bunch of weight and also a long time to lose it if you want to lose it in a way that you also develop the awareness and habits to keep it off. Good luck! You can do it!
Agree with the other comments here and would like to add that the OP may have the same name as a person on one of those government lists like OFAC and are getting identity confused with a "known terrorist". US Gov requires certain companies to check the list before doing business with people.
I can confirm I had issues flying for about the first four years post 9-11. The first flight I took, there was kind of a panic and security showed up. Every time I flew, there was always some kind of issue and a call for assist, though each time it got less and less of a panic. One time the desk attendant lamented, “more and more of these every day”. I asked why this keeps happening. He said my name or ssn was close enough to someone on the govt watch list that I was effectively on the list.
I had the same issue post 9/11 for a few years. I was unable to check-in to flights or receive boarding passes. I had to get a "gate pass" from a baggage agent to go through security and then check-in with the gate agent to be assigned a boarding ticket. This also applied on every connection and they required identification and occasionally additional questions each time.
Exact same for me for about four or five years post. I eventually came across my (extremely normal) name in an article about common names that were on the watch list and causing issues for many Americans. Even members of Congress were caught by it. Unfortunately, that article came out a few years of no airline agent being able to tell be why I couldn’t check in for my flight. They were cagey every time I asked.
One of the gate agents told me I must share a name with someone on a terrorist watch list early on. I have a common name as well so I figured that was it. Most gate agents thought nothing of it but being unable to get a seat assignment until near boarding meant I was stuck in the middle a lot. Several were awesome and took pity by upgrading me, but a few power tripping ones treated it like an interrogation. I can easily see how much worse it was for those with Middle Eastern names or appearance.
Yes, but if I was looking to make a fake identity, I would steal a real one and fudge something like the SSN plus or minus one on a random digit. Then you can blame the mismatch on their people making a typo, and they would be less likely to look closer at my forged SSN card/Passport/Drivers License.
Okay but the issue here is SSNs close to one that's already flagged also get flagged apparently. If you know your social is flagged and are giving a fake one why would you make it anything remotely similar to your own already flagged one?
I had issues travelling a few years ago, nothing serious just lots of back-to-back secondary screening. I contacted DHS and was notified weeks later my case had been reviewed. They never explained what happened but the screenings stopped.
I guess Elon Musk had the right idea giving his kid a non-alphabetic name.. less chances of this stupidity to affect them.
(The above is a joke, I'm guessing US government systems can't handle non-ASCII characters, and a German named Müller would have to be Mueller or Muller)
It's definitely not a terrible idea to have a unique(ish) name. Your name is somewhat like your username for non digital things, or at least part of your username.
I don't have a particularly common name but when I google it I share it with an English football player and someone from South Africa who has been convicted of real estate fraud.
I've never been to South Africa but I have worked for a real estate portal, and it's on my LinkedIn (which I barely use, but still). I can see how someone outside would not be able to separate the two.
Ouch. I can't think of any other plausible explanation. If so, is that a problem that can actually be fixed except by changing your name? They're not going to strike the name from the list (and all its copies) just because it's a nuisance to someone.
It kinda makes one wonder if anyone getting into a bit of terrorism for a hobby wouldn't do well to change their name to that of someone in the US congress first: no way that name would stay on a blacklist for long.
I would have 1000% agreed with you except I had a very different experience last year. I was out seeking loans for a car and shopping around for low interest. One of the lower ones was from a company branded LightStream but on the back end is really SunTrust/Truist. They had a great rate, no origination fees, and weirdly, asked specifically not to set the loan up so that the car was collateral. Maybe it was a credit rating thing (mine is quite good) and they would incur more costs setting it up that way.
The Valpack envelops make me so sad. I just take them out of the mailbox and toss them into the recycling bin. Think of all the trees used, energy wasted, and chemicals used in making the ink that are now in the environment for absolutely no reason.
Unrelated to my original post, but I have been on a quest to purge all the junk from my physical mail. It is a huge PITA, but in almost all cases you can email someone and eventually get them to stop.
That's great insight. Do they hold the notes or package and sell them off? Would be interesting to follow the money and short the ultimate debt holders if the market appears to be bubble prone within the timeframe you stated.
It's really a perfect assessment. I couldn't articulate why exactly Facebook felt like I was purely wasting time each time I engaged with the experience (few times a year). This description completely crystallizes my thinking.
I reached out to the author and they're using an uHoo Smart Air Monitor and will be writing a review of it in the future. Most reviews of air quality monitors seem to focus on details like the size of the screen, or whether the monitor app is easy to use, and fail to actually test the accuracy of monitor itself. Hopefully this author's review is different.
I second this emotion. We have spent years and countless hours investing in documentation and automation as we re-engineered a very large legacy application into cloud based technology (AWS). The application and supporting CI/CD pipeline is far better documented and supported than most and all of the underlying technology is within 5 years current. There are video based tutorials on nearly every aspect of the platform and machine images to accelerate development environment setup. Yet still, people new to the development pipeline will hand wring over "tribal knowledge" and "deployment complexity". News flash, anything constructed to support hundreds to thousands of business processes and millions of customers is more often than not going to be complex. Sometimes you just have to roll up your sleeves and try to improve the trail for those coming behind you.
Seriously. I hate "video tutorials" on how to do technical stuff. I read faster than videos can explain stuff, and with text I can go back and forth to the stuff I need without trying to forward and reverse a video to a certain time.
The feedback is totally fair. What we do is conduct live "learning sessions" with experts in aspects of our implementation that go through tutorials on specific technical aspects of the platforms. These learning sessions are recorded and referenced next to the text based documentation that complements inline comments in the code. They are not a replacement for the text based documentation. Think of them as equivalent to various YouTube videos you might reference when learning how to do something. You might read the particulars in a piece of documentation but then also watch a walk-through of a specific piece of technology if you find that helpful.
I think you are exactly right. It smells like a company that has grown beyond the startup stage but key processes, such as employee onboarding, are being led by people that are inexperienced with how to handle all aspects professionally at scale. I would expect some significant dysfunction across most functions and I would really have to believe in the company's mission, and/or have a nice chunk of equity, to push through and hope they successfully can grow to maturity.
