Day: April 4, 2016

Posted on

Ok I’m getting into it

There is nothing funnier than the look people give you when they say “Contact me on Facebook” and you tell them you don’t have a Facebook account.

Social Media

Or a LinkedIn account, Or Instagram, or Pinterest, or, or, or…

The inevitable reply is “But you’re in Technology.”

My response is “Yes, I am but I don’t have to engage in a bunch of time sucks, responding to friend requests, posting comments, liking what someone else said, or anything else. People who really know me can text or call but I have no desire to deal with people I don’t actually know in real life.”

Yeah, I’m old school.

I’ve got a smart phone and I like it, but I don’t want to be so into the unreality of the internet that I miss the reality around me, so I don’t have or want any of those “Services” that suck up my day offering little to nothing in return. I sure as hell don’t want to be so engrossed in my damn phone that I walk into a fountain, door, or a wall.

I read twitter sometimes, but don’t have a bunch of tweets. I browse the newsfeeds but am trying not to dwell on the crap that is going on around the world. I can’t do crap about it, and engaging in online discussions or “Causes” is rather pointless. I’ll admit that sometimes I’ll comment on a hashtag. #worstdateever or something similar is fun and good for a laugh. But none of this is an addiction anymore.

I’m over it, I’m trying to focus my attention on my life and what’s actually in front of me.

I have a new chapter opening in my life and I’ve wasted too many days and too much time to keep wasting it with something that is the height of unreality.

Ya want to meet me? Ya want to have a drink, or dinner? 

Call me, or text me.

I really do prefer, actually being in someone else’s presence. I find a real person is much more fulfilling than some “ghost from the net” sitting behind their phone of computer screen 10,000 miles away from me.

It may not be the right choice for you, but I think it’s going to work just fine for me.

Posted on

OK this is too funny not to share

And I’m even tweeting it because it’s indicative of the weird PC world that we live in today.

I’m searching for apartments in the San Diego area.

I was on a web site, that asked me to “Check availability” by sending contact information and sending a short note to the complex.

My note read:

I’m looking for a 1 bedroom, with assigned or covered parking. I’m moving to the area for work.
Do you have anything available and if so, when?
Thank you for your assistance.
Regards

What actually showed up and was quoted back to me in a reply from the apartment complex was:

I’m looking for a 1 bedroom, with a**igned or covered parking. I’m moving to the area for work.

Do you have anything available and if so, when?
Thank you for your a**istance.
Regards
Do you see it?
 
There is some kind of filter that scanned the text and triggered on the ASS portion of the words. In order to protect the sensitive eyes of someone who might be offended by the first three letters of a word it changed the “SS” to “**”
 
This is an example of a couple of things in our society today.
 
HYPERSENSITIVITY and poor Quality Assurance.
 
There is no reason that the filter software couldn’t have examined the whole character group and compared it against a list of allowed words.
 
It’s called a Whitelist. (No Racist intent there.)
 
The white list would include:
 
Assistance
Assurance
Assigned
Assuage
.
.
.
 
and any other legitimate words from multiple language dictionaries that began with ass-
 
OR, and this might be the easier solution.
 
Use a Blacklist (Again no racist intent)
As an aside isn’t it amazing how common terms must now be explained lest someone be offended that you’re using a term that might be misinterpreted by a relatively small yet vocal group of people.
The Blacklist would simply have all the bad words you wanted to edit from the message. Typically, the blacklist is much shorter and therefore a much faster search and compare.
 
Ass
Asshole
Asshat
Dumbass
Asinine
Assfuck
Assfucker
Asswipe
Asslick
Asslicker
Assbite
Assgrab
Assgrabber
Asskiss
Asskisser
Asskick
Assmunch
 
The programming process is straightforward.  If the first 3 characters is ass, branch to compare with words in the blacklist. If there’s a match, then edit the naughty bits. If there’s no match then leave the text alone and pass the message untouched.
 
The really funny thing is that if you see A**HOLE you know it means asshole. If you see the “N” word, you know what that really means so honestly what’s the point?
 
If your company had to impose filters to protect your staff from offensive language, maybe you need to have a look at why people are sending your staff offensive messages in the first place.
 
Ahh PC what would we do if we weren’t bound by your brownshirt insanity?  
 
Oh yeah, we could have a sense of humor.