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14 hours ago, Carol the Dabbler said:

VBS -- glad to see your shadowy face again!!!   :cowdance:

Carol and Hikari, happy to see you both are well. Oh, how much I miss that dancing cow!

I've always wanted to come here to discuss something, but when I had time I forgot what I wanted to say. I also need reading glasses now (I'm lucky, a bit late. I am 47) and it takes away one of favorite activities, reading! This forum doesn't display well in my mobile version, and I still haven't found the nice balance of not getting headache between wearing and not wearing the glasses! 

You can injure your forehead with the size of fonts I use now, but somehow it doesn't work on every site so I barely do any serious reading except when I am on my laptop or kindle. Oh well. Those are my excuses.

 

14 hours ago, Carol the Dabbler said:

The only recommended method seems to be soaking with various liquids, followed by rinsing with a rubber-bulb syringe of water.

Oh that sound pretty uncomfortable! 

Sometimes I got water in my ear for being in there for too long or because of some wrong movements, I had to clear the clog by putting in more water, bent the body so the ground was perpendicular with the ear canal direction, let it settle for a couple of second, and then tilt the whole body in opposite alignment to pour it out. It would poop and the stuck water would be gone, maybe it's similar concept? Not sure if that also cleaned my ear or took out some of my brain matter as well, but I only did that when there was water in my ear.

 

14 hours ago, Carol the Dabbler said:

If such leniency were helping the thieves to support themselves while getting a legitimate job, I might be somewhat sympathetic, but I fear that it's only encouraging them to continue in a life of crime.  I also fear that this will be the ruin of several of our big cities. 

1 hour ago, Hikari said:

Theft is not “okay” but is often overlooked if the value of the items is not deemed worth the effort of prosecution.  Under $1000 in value is considered petty theft—a misdemeanor.  If one is convicted of “grand larceny”—$1000+, that is a felony.  Generally you are not required to disclose misdemeanors on job applications but felonies are different.

Apparently yes, it encourages crime, because I think $1000 is a lot of money for grocery anywhere, right? It probably lasts me a long time. So, it's very lucrative for those who prefers not to earn money the honest way, especially because working could pay much less.

I have seen too many footages and read about thieves simply walked in and took merchandizes without anyone doing anything about it. And worse, for shop owners who took action, they were punished for protecting their places instead of the thieves, which is very ridiculous to me. I read about big chains closing like Target, Starbucks, Walmart, and more because of blatant retail thefts, I saw merchandizes locked behind glass cabinets or priced above $950 (shoppers get their 'refund' on the cashier). There are more news about organized retail thefts for high value stuffs like electronics and branded goods.

It sounds unbelievable to me and I don't discount that the reports might have been overblown, it probably worse than the actual data, but one thing is for sure: it happened. Well, free $950 grocery, I'd be tempted!

I have read about Romanian pickpocket's confession that he operated in Spain because the punishment for pickpocket was 3 days jail (regardless of how many times you offend) while it could be years in Romania, and they made much more than working or being a police officer.

 

2 hours ago, Hikari said:

with the current push being toward self check out, retailers are having more and more prosecutions of people who take items without scanning and paying for them.

I love self check-outs, although it sometimes not user friendly for my parents. I don't need to interact and I can use coins from my piggy bank all I want (most cashiers have policy that limits the number of coins you can use). That's why we can't have nice things.

On another note, I read interesting articles that revealed Amazon's 'just walk out' checkout tech was powered by 1,000 Indian workers which is hilarious to me because I am going to hell Amazon's Just Walk Out technology relies on hundreds of workers in India watching you shop but then Amazon sort of 'denied' it Amazon insists Just Walk Out isn’t secretly run by workers watching you shop. I tried to check Snopes but there was nothing about it.

 

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On 6/8/2024 at 11:25 PM, Hikari said:

Theft is not “okay” but is often overlooked if the value of the items is not deemed worth the effort of prosecution.

Unfortunately, the burden to the shop owner is not just the value of the items stolen.  There are apparently a growing number of cases where thieves enter after hours by breaking a window, quickly find the highest-price item(s) within easy reach, then flee, often before police can respond.  Those big store windows can't be cheap to replace!

On 6/9/2024 at 1:49 AM, Van Buren Supernova said:

I've always wanted to come here to discuss something, but when I had time I forgot what I wanted to say.

That's OK, you can come here anyhow and see what's up.

On 6/9/2024 at 1:49 AM, Van Buren Supernova said:

I still haven't found the nice balance of not getting headache between wearing and not wearing the glasses! 

I can relate to that!  I'm nearsighted and wear bifocals.  I tried reading my computer screen through the bottom section of the bifocals, then realized that tilting my head that far back for that long was the cause of the mysterious stabbing pains in the top of my head.  I finally got "computer glasses."

On 6/9/2024 at 1:49 AM, Van Buren Supernova said:

I read about big chains closing like Target, Starbucks, Walmart, and more because of blatant retail thefts

Yes, but fortunately Indiana is still pretty much Indiana.  It's only in certain other states and/or certain cities that thieves are treated so leniently, so it's in those places that more stores are closing, including some stores in those big chains.

On 6/9/2024 at 1:49 AM, Van Buren Supernova said:

I have read about Romanian pickpocket's confession that he operated in Spain because the punishment for pickpocket was 3 days jail (regardless of how many times you offend) while it could be years in Romania, and they made much more than working or being a police officer.

Well, at least it's not just here in the US, then!

On 6/9/2024 at 1:49 AM, Van Buren Supernova said:

Weird!  According to this article, though, the system is mostly run by AI, and "its workers [in India?] are tasked with annotating AI-generated and real shopping data to improve the Just Walk Out system — not run the whole thing."  Apparently, even though Amazon is selling the "just walk out" technology to other businesses, it's replacing that system in its own stores with what sounds to me like self-checkout right in your shopping cart.

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13 hours ago, Carol the Dabbler said:

Unfortunately, the burden to the shop owner is not just the value of the items stolen.  There are apparently a growing number of cases where thieves enter after hours by breaking a window, quickly find the highest-price item(s) within easy reach, then flee, often before police can respond.  Those big store windows can't be cheap to replace!

Yeah, not to mention that it could be quite traumatic.

I read (but wasn't really sure how legit, wait I think it is) that San Francisco wants to make it illegal for grocery store to close without six months' notice and must seek 'successor.' I had tried my hand in small business, and this is bloody ridiculous because of how hard it is to even survive without crime.

 

13 hours ago, Carol the Dabbler said:

That's OK, you can come here anyhow and see what's up.

But, but, what about my eyesight excuse? I can't read the forum from my phone now without getting headache.

13 hours ago, Carol the Dabbler said:

I can relate to that!  I'm nearsighted and wear bifocals.  I tried reading my computer screen through the bottom section of the bifocals, then realized that tilting my head that far back for that long was the cause of the mysterious stabbing pains in the top of my head.  I finally got "computer glasses."

Yes, I am still considered lucky and I am really grateful because my eyesight is still okay for everything else. I heard stories about pain and bad posture from a friend who has a similar problem with yours.

13 hours ago, Carol the Dabbler said:

Well, at least it's not just here in the US, then!

And my neighbor threatened to cut my hand because I touched her flower! True story, I was six maybe. Charming woman.

 

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10 hours ago, Van Buren Supernova said:

I read (but wasn't really sure how legit, wait I think it is) that San Francisco wants to make it illegal for grocery store to close without six months' notice and must seek 'successor.' I had tried my hand in small business, and this is bloody ridiculous because of how hard it is to even survive without crime.

I hadn't heard about that, but (looking online) it was indeed being proposed a couple of months ago.  (I have no idea whether it's still under discussion.)  Apparently, though, it would *not* apply to stores that are closing because they're losing money.

10 hours ago, Van Buren Supernova said:

I can't read the forum from my phone now without getting headache.

That's OK, just come visit us when you're on your laptop.

10 hours ago, Van Buren Supernova said:

... my neighbor threatened to cut my hand because I touched her flower!

Well, did you get fingerprints on it?

 

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On 6/12/2024 at 1:09 AM, Carol the Dabbler said:

Well, did you get fingerprints on it?

No. She caught me red-handed. We were not each other's fans.

 

 

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  • 6 months later...

Merry Christmas!

I remember it used to snow here and I have missed all of you greatly. Hope you are all well!

I can't find a good way to host my image anymore, a link is the best I can do. This is my dog Locky, posing with 'almost' all his toys, collected over 9.5 years from me, family, and friends. He doesn't destroy toys (he only digs plastic/button eyes :-)) and I wash them when they get too dirty, so they are all in good conditions.

https://ibb.co.com/7tW7gQZ

The rest of the toys are either scattered around, in his toy's lair, or are somewhere waiting to trip me.

 

I can't express how happy I am with this picture. We had just gone through weird times. He had a head operation early November to remove a lump (thankfully it's benign) but the few months leading to it and the time waiting for the biopsy result were hellish. Locky is a healthy dog, but he is 9.5 years old, has kidney issues, irregular heartbeat, and reverse sneezing. While all these didn't give him problems, it increased his risk significantly for anesthetic procedure. It didn't help that I had known a few healthy dogs that didn't wake up after simplest procedures, and there were multiple pet deaths around me including my brother's when I was told he needed the operation. The fear of him not waking up and going home with me paralyzed me with fear.

Besides that, I also went through my own operation that delayed his (thankfully, nothing permanent but it was unexpected. The only time I was hospitalized was almost forty years ago) but everything is okay now! We are out there again roaming the beaches!

So, Merry Christmas!

Hope you have the good one, too.

 

 

 

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We've missed you too, VBS and FL, and hope you're having a good holiday season!   :xmas: 

As for the virtual snow, Tim doesn't come around as often as he used to.  He keeps the software working, but isn't spending much time on frills.

Your link worked quite well, and I love that photo -- Locky is a very cute little fellow!  But how was he able to get his toys piled up so high, considering that the stack is way taller than he is?   :blink:

I can fully understand your concern regarding his recent surgery.  Our cats have had enough unexpected problems that I'm well aware things don't always turn out so nicely.

Merry [belated] Christmas to all!

 

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On 6/8/2024 at 8:32 AM, Van Buren Supernova said:

Is it true than in some part of America theft under $950 is 'okay?" Merchandizes have been locked up and stores are closing because of that?

I now have some specific details on that, plus an update.

Back in 2014, California voters passed a referendum turning shoplifting from a felony (serious crime) to a misdemeanor (less serious crime).  This meant that not only was the penalty far less, but -- perhaps more relevantly -- the California police cannot arrest someone for a misdemeanor unless it occurs in their presence -- which hardly ever happens, of course.  So, for all intents and purposes, shoplifting became legal in California.

Until the election last month.  There was another referendum on the ballot, to repeal the prior one, and it passed overwhelmingly (something like 70 to 30%), even though the governor had spoken against it and activists were calling it "racist."  As I understand it, the most severe penalties apply only to repeat offenders (as was also the case before 2014), but shoplifting is once again illegal in California.

 

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On 12/27/2024 at 4:47 AM, Carol the Dabbler said:

 But how was he able to get his toys piled up so high, considering that the stack is way taller than he is?   :blink:

 

I think you meant the ones stuck on our skinny Christmas tree? 

I was the one who put it on the tree, he provided tremendous help by making a few-minutes work into an hour, continously picking the toys from them and playing with it. They only perched there. I had the same tree with same decorations with the same dog posing for years (with same santa hat and scarf, I think I had posted it here before) so this (last) year I used his toys and I love it.

On 12/29/2024 at 1:38 PM, Carol the Dabbler said:

I now have some specific details on that, plus an update.

Back in 2014, California voters passed a referendum turning shoplifting from a felony (serious crime) to a misdemeanor (less serious crime).  This meant that not only was the penalty far less, but -- perhaps more relevantly -- the California police cannot arrest someone for a misdemeanor unless it occurs in their presence -- which hardly ever happens, of course.  So, for all intents and purposes, shoplifting became legal in California.

Until the election last month.  There was another referendum on the ballot, to repeal the prior one, and it passed overwhelmingly (something like 70 to 30%), even though the governor had spoken against it and activists were calling it "racist."  As I understand it, the most severe penalties apply only to repeat offenders (as was also the case before 2014), but shoplifting is once again illegal in California.

I believe I saw a video of cops going around and following two shoplifters to catch them on the third act because they could only do so. I could be wrong, but I think that is in line with what you describe there.

However, isn't it still a joke? I don't get the logic. Why would I work hard if I could just go in and 'get' my grocery for free? 950 dollar is a lot of money.

 

You see, I was baptized as Christian, I have a skinny Christmas tree decorated with saliva-ridden dog toys just because I love the feeling of Christmas, nothing religious, but you will see me pray hard when the cashier rings my grocery nowadays, hoping the dollars don't add up that fast, and it's a fraction and bloody far from $950.

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On 1/3/2025 at 7:59 PM, Van Buren Supernova said:

I think you meant the [dog toys] stuck on our skinny Christmas tree? 

Apparently -- I can't actually see the tree for all the toys!

On 1/3/2025 at 7:59 PM, Van Buren Supernova said:

I believe I saw a video of cops going around and following two shoplifters to catch them on the third act because they could only do so. I could be wrong, but I think that is in line with what you describe there.

However, isn't it still a joke? I don't get the logic. Why would I work hard if I could just go in and 'get' my grocery for free? 950 dollar is a lot of money.

That would have been about the only way to do it, yes.  But you probably understand why the cops didn't do it on a regular basis -- just too many shoplifters and not enough cops.  Thank goodness the voters of California finally decided that enough was enough!

But it wasn't generally groceries, near as I understand.  They'd typically go for electronics and other high-price items.  And walk out of restaurants (especially the expensive ones, I would guess) without paying.

 

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Recently, when I log into various internet sites, they put up a screen that says "Verifying that you're human," which goes away all by itself after a short time.  If this is a replacement for the "click on all photos that show a bus" puzzles, I am vastly relieved (I mean, is that one corner of a bus or not?).

But now I'm wondering how they're deciding what species I am (or more likely, whether I'm any sort of life form or not).  At first I thought, oh, they just look at the image from my camera.  But then I realized that my monitor doesn't have a camera.  Maybe they're looking at the image from the camera on my laptop (which is behind the monitor), in which case they'd probably see my left elbow.  Maybe that's enough.

Does anyone actually know how that new test works?

 

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It's solely to prove what you are NOT - a bot trying to interact with the website. Sometimes it's pictures (their bad quality ensures that only humans will recognize the elements), some simple mathematical calculations, or re-typing very distorted letters/numbers.

However, with the development of AI, this method might become useless very soon.

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56 minutes ago, J.P. said:

Sometimes it's pictures (their bad quality ensures that only humans will recognize the elements), some simple mathematical calculations, or re-typing very distorted letters/numbers.

However, with the development of AI, this method might become useless very soon.

Apparently it already has, because my basic point was that I am no longer seeing those methods used.  Lately there's just a screen telling me to wait a few moments while they decide whether I'm kosher or not.

I looked online, and some people say the decision is now based on my pattern of use -- for example, have I been entering data far more quickly than an actual human could?  Or saying -- in rapid succession -- that I am numerous different people?  If so, they'll decide I'm a bot.  Dunno exactly what they'd do then.  So far, they've always decided I'm human.

 

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On 1/5/2025 at 5:05 AM, Carol the Dabbler said:

But it wasn't generally groceries, near as I understand.  They'd typically go for electronics and other high-price items.  And walk out of restaurants (especially the expensive ones, I would guess) without paying.

The ones I had seen were shelves of daily necessity being locked up or marked above 950 (with note to get the reductions on the cashier). 

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On 1/5/2025 at 11:31 PM, J.P. said:

It's solely to prove what you are NOT - a bot trying to interact with the website. Sometimes it's pictures (their bad quality ensures that only humans will recognize the elements), some simple mathematical calculations, or re-typing very distorted letters/numbers.

Humans with below 40ish eyes, maybe?

Some images are so blur and unclear there were more than two times when I had to do ten tests. Once I gave up because it was never-ending.

On 1/6/2025 at 12:04 AM, Carol the Dabbler said:

But now I'm wondering how they're deciding what species I am (or more likely, whether I'm any sort of life form or not).  At first I thought, oh, they just look at the image from my camera.  But then I realized that my monitor doesn't have a camera.  Maybe they're looking at the image from the camera on my laptop (which is behind the monitor), in which case they'd probably see my left elbow.  Maybe that's enough.

I don't think they look at the camera (I hope not!). I am that kind of people who always have tape over the cameras. 

Judging by the amounts of bots frequenting almost every social media nowadays, I think they are not doing good jobs at separating humans and bots, although I strongly suspect bots are intentional. Just recently FB mentioned they are introducing bots to interact with humans. Not sure why, because they are already out there everywhere, posting propaganda, chatting users up, etc.

I am 'quite new' to Twitter, in terms of knowing how it works. There are countless of sexy bots thinking I am sexy, sending dms, following in batch. At first I thought they were genuine 'followers' (hate that term) After a while, I am getting slightly smarter now and know I can't be that sexy.

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12 hours ago, Van Buren Supernova said:

Humans with below 40ish eyes, maybe?

Some images are so blur and unclear there were more than two times when I had to do ten tests. Once I gave up because it was never-ending.

Now I don't feel quite so bad -- at least I have company!

7 hours ago, J.P. said:

I may sound like a conspiracy theorist, but I think the underlying purpose of bots is to train the AI behind them.

That doesn't sound the least bit off-base to me, and I suspect you're right about quite a few of them.  Others may be maintaining databases for search engines or doing other reasonable chores.  There's a lot of non-member activity on this forum, some of which I suspect is by bots.

 

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Speaking of Facebook, I'm considering deleting my account because of this: https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/07/tech/meta-hateful-conduct-policy-update-fact-check/index.html

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Thanks for that link.  I had heard that Facebook was changing its rules, and now I'm trying to understand what that article says about the new policy.

Please let me know if I'm misinterpreting the article, but apparently what Facebook did was remove a bunch of very specific former rules, and instead will create "community notes" from members' reactions to posts.  That may actually turn out to be more adaptable to specific situations that arise.  (And I assume they've still got the basic politeness rules that every forum has.)  The new system may take a while to evolve fully, but hopefully it'll be able to detect and deal with a wider range of rudeness than the old rules could.

 

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I doubt it. Woman can now be declared property, trans and non binary people are going to referred to as it an LGBT people as mentally ill, so no good news at all

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4 hours ago, Fantasy Lover said:

I doubt it. Woman can now be declared property, trans and non binary people are going to referred to as it an LGBT people as mentally ill, so no good news at all

Let me point out that this forum (for example) has no specific rules against referring to women as property, etc. -- yet that sort of thing hardly ever happens here, simply because most people don't consider it to be polite, and I assume that Facebook still has a rule that one should be polite.

In short, just because those very specific rules no longer exist, I doubt that most people will start breaking the former rules -- except, of course, for those (mercifully) few who seem to feel obliged to offend.  At which point a lot of other folks will object, and Community Notes will be posted.

In short, I encourage you to give the new system a try.

 

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