@PlacidPenguin I’ve seen things like this at offices. But why did the pink jacket outfit (bottom center) fail, other than pink (i prefer dark blues and greens but my kids keep buying me pink stuff because “moms like pink”)?
@sammydog01 that’s about my level of cleavage and i think most (including my MIL) think i am a bit prudish in level of cleavage i show.
The bell bottoms would be equal to the cleavage as an issue.
@Thumperchick what state are you in (and by state I don’t mean mental LOL)? That at least gives those folks a heads up that sales tax is coming to a street corner near them. : )
Finally! I get to ask my questions… I know if there is nothing next to a persons name they are a member with no VMP rewards (at least I think I know) and if you do have a little shield with a V in it it means you have VMP status (at least I think that’s right) and the little beaker or flask means you’re a mediocre employee (at least that’s what I assume). But I’ve also seen what looks like a suitcase or medical bag (at least that’s what it seems to me) and I’ve also seen some with animals (at least I know they look to be). But, what in the world does it all mean and when or how do they get changed (at least I think someone can tell me)? If I’m close to right on the beaker/flask then I tip my hat to @thumperchick.
We could use a few black on black, or very dark on very dark, t-shirts.
For occasional activities resembling various on-site work or biz or seriousness in real life;
that’s why the dark colors and nearly invisible logos.
Just sayin’.
Hope that new warehouse and open-air dinosaur park are coming along nicely.
Congratulations @Thumperchick. At least I hope it’s in order. You seem to be pretty cheerful about the whole affair so I’m assuming it’s a good thing. I will update Discord with the appropriate permissions and whatnot once I have my computer back together.
@f00l Well, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, right? So if I pretend that it’s all about me, then as long it’s true to me, that’s all that matters. Or something.
Geez, about time they hired someone who knows what the hell they’re doing! Congrats and more importantly, are they giving you back pay to the start of your volunteer moderator date? Wait, does this mean you’re not allowed to buy Fuko’s for yourself anymore?
The question now is who do we tag when the forum needs a cleaning? Do we still tag you or do we tag @dave? Or will a “tattle” button be eventually added like it is at Woot?
@Pavlov You once told us about a service you used to “park” a phone number. I’m wanting to save a number for a future cell phone use. Do you remember which service you used?
@Barney I killed Mom’s phone line yesterday…It was a sad affair. The phone line I grew up with, the very first phone number I committed to my small brain…
GONE
The phone number that was so close to a local trucking company that Dad would get calls so late at night…
GONE
The one phone number I could call, at anytime to get help…
@therealjrn Oh, I know how it hurts. It hurts so much that I can’t even begin to describe it.
I’m planning on getting my first smart phone and I want to save her phone number and use it for this. I’ll then have a small piece of her with me. Silly, isn’t it.
@Barney Maybe right now buy $10 flip phone from net 10 and then pay $30 for 2 months of service and 300 min. Then when you get your smart phone transfer the number over. It may be harder to get that number now that you have turned her phone off. You might have to quickly reverse that.
@Kidsandliz Her phone has not been turned off; her former place of employment will still pay for it for the next 3 months, if I need it that long. I just want to be able to park her number (if I need to) until I purchase a smart phone.
I need to do some research on smart phones before I make the purchase. I’m just not able to concentrate on that right now.
@Barney If the company owns the number in order to transfer it over you you will need them to release it to you via the phone company that the number is currently registered with. At least that is how it worked when I moved in with some people with a land line, transferred my number to their bill as it was cheaper to do it that way. Then a year later when they moved, they had to release it to me for me to put it on my cell phone (first used net 10 now smart talk since it is $5/mo cheaper). This as AT&T so don’t know it will work that way with other companies.
@Barneynumberbarn.com is the cheapest I could find, $5 setup and $2 per month to park a number.
Alternately, you can transfer in your number to Google Voice for $20, pay nothing monthly and transfer it out for $3 when you’re ready to use it with a cell phone. The $3 is waived if the number was originally a cell phone number but I’m thinking this is a land line.
What do you want in a smartphone? Of course, if you never had one, you may not even know. But perhaps we could do a little research for you.
My rec to people:
If your local family/friends use Android, get Android.
If you local family/friends use IPhones, get an IPhone.
The reason; you can share the same apps, people can answer questions, people can show you stuff.
If you wanna buy an iPhone, they are ridiculously easy to use, and have a very smooth interface. They are a bit locked down, so you can’t do quite as much. How much that would bother you would depend on what you wanted to do.
The two communities routinely sneer at each other. Fanboi stuff. Ignore it. If you were gonna care about that, you would already have owned one for more than half a decade.
Modern IPhones (most recent releases) all work on all the big carriers. They are kinda easy to shop for.
New ones (IPhone 7) are expensive. Also the new ones don’t have a headphone jack, which is annoying.
Pick the size you want. The iPhone 5, size, the iPhone 6 size, the iPhone 6Plus size. (A major wireless carrier ought to have all these in the store.)
Go to swappa and get a decent recent model. Do not get a 16gb one. Get at least 64gb.
Sometimes woot runs decent deals on recent model IPhones.
Unless you want a 6 Plus sized phone, you shouldn’t spend that much.
Android. It gets complicated, there are so many phones. They do a bit more, but the more they do may not matter to you if you haven’t been motivated to get one till now.
File management is much easier and much much re powerful, for starters.
There may be security differentials. I don’t have a clue which one is more or less secure. Comments, anyone?
If you get an iPhone, Apple will know all about you. Prob, so will google. Also the companies that make other apps will know way way way too much. If you get an iPhone, immediately install Google maps.
If you get an Android phone, google will know all about you. They already do, but they will know more.
So will the app companies, as you start installing apps.
Att or Verizon or whoever you buy service from will also know all about you. But they already do.
If you wanna minimize the personal data leaks, don’t install any apps that you don’t absolutely need. Don’t install games. Turn off gps unless you are using it at the instant. Turn it off immediately when you are not using it.
I promise most of us are not that careful about our personal data. Most of us prob turned over way way way too much data before we realized what we were doing. Now … how strict do you wanna be? Most people, and most of us here prob give in to convenience.
@shrdlu is careful and conservative and has self-discipline and knowledge. That is a really really rare combo. I don’t know anyone else that careful, including a buncha techheads.
Most of the time, even the people who collect all that data on everyone don’t bother to cut down that much on what companies like google and Facebook and Apple and ATT can gather in their own daily lives. We modern folk who use technology appear to have decided not to care.
Guilty as charged, here, kinda.
Perhaps we won’t regret this bigtime. Or perhaps we will.
Give this some thought before you get your first smartphone. Unless you just want the convenience. Which is a what most people do anyway.
If we’re all going to hell in terms of personal data, and you decide only to worry a little, or not at all, you’ll have lots of company. Like, about everyone. Most people don’t have even a tiny clue how much data these devices hand off to the carriers and the companies who wrote the operating systems.
Many of these companies don’t directly sell your personal data. They keep control over it, or sell only aggresgate data if large sets and f people.
Google prob is gonna know about everything no matter what you do.
People will argue till the end of time about which is best and which has the best apps. (Android vs iOS)
Just get the one that matches up to what other people you like and care about, who will be in your life for years, are using.
The two communities routinely sneer at each other. Fanboi stuff.
@f00l You forgot about the WP fanbois, whom in spite of a market share that rounds down to zero, will still yell “hey, we’re still relevant!!”
(As a WP user, I won’t make any claims about that, nor could I recommend WP to anyone who doesn’t understand its limitations and while still supported by MS, is still essentially a dead-end OS.)
@Barney I have used several “parking” services for phone numbers - the one I use most often is https://www.numbergarage.com/ - they have fewer issues than all the others we have tried, and their service is impeccable.
Seems like many here offered a lot of good advice also.
Sorry for the late reply - took the family to see Roger Waters at the Sprint Center tonight. (It was kind of meh honestly, but @MrsPavlov has a thing for him . . . and my son loves Pink Floyd, so I pretty much had to go)
@f00l@Barney
I cannot help myself, with smartphone conversations (I have a strong iOS preference, but I try not to fall into shilling for Apple, who do not need the help). I do second everything that @f00l said.
Might be worth adding that, if you like what are now “small” phones, the newest iPhone 5-sized one is the iPhone SE. It is from the same generation as the iPhone 6s. (The “s” is a half step toward the next number.) There is also an iPhone 5s, but that is older. Both the 6s and 7 generations had/have a larger “plus” model that costs $100 extra.
I believe that Apple is meaningfully less privacy-hostile than Google, if you care about that kind of thing. This is because Apple is not a massive king of web advertising, which Google is. Therefore, their business does not depend on surveillance in as direct a way as Google’s does. Apple decided that one of the ways they were going to differentiate themselves was by being better at privacy, so they market their privacy efforts (and they have the reputation of being somewhat less successful with machine learning as a result – having less raw data to feed the machines). You still have to worry about individual applications, but the phone itself tells you what it is sending off to Apple in good faith… I hope.
I have heard that Android finally added per-app privacy settings recently, so that is good.
iPhones tend to receive OS updates for a longer time (the usual span on Android, I have heard, is two years from the phone’s release; iOS 10, the current one, runs on the iPhone 5, which was released late 2012). While neither operating system is without vulnerabilities, iOS has better OS-level security. There is a highly public bounty for remote jailbreak exploits for iOS: it is $1,500,000. The corresponding Android exploit appears to be worth $200,000. (https://zerodium.com/program.html)
Publicly available jailbreaks for iOS devices have a lower bar to clear than ones which meet the requirements of that bounty, but they have sometimes-spotty availability. Compare that to the availability of apps to “root” (jailbreak) Android on the Google Play store.
Apple’s App Store is also more regulated than the Google Play store. Their app review process is stricter. App rejections are common. When Uber was tracking device identifiers in a way that Apple did not allow, Tim Cook had a meeting with Travis Kalanick, demanding that Uber stop that behavior, or else be removed from the store (thus being made entirely unavailable on iOS). That would not happen on the Google Play store, I don’t think.
@narfcake I would like nothing less than to argue about iOS vs. Android. I have said my piece.
As for those articles, though, the first uses companies’ privacy policies as the beginning and end of companies treatment of user data in practice, which is a bad mistake. Privacy policies are legal shielding, more than they are anything else. The only advantage to treating them as a company’s actual practices is that it fits into a single blog post.
The second article is sensationalistic and lacks much in the way of context or substance. Where it is specific, as far as I see skimming the Android and iOS bits, it reiterates what I said above.
@InnocuousFarmer All your points are valid ones and in no way was I arguing against them. Indeed, the second article does reinforce what you’re saying, not counter it.
@narfcake@InnocuousFarmer@fool Now you see why I’m so confused about smart phones. Just one mention of them causes long discussions.
I’ve been using a flip phone the past few months. I’m quite happy with it. Who knows I might just end up keeping it. But I will want to change its number. I get a lot of weird calls for the previous owner.
So, when it’s time for me to make a decision, I’ll start a new thread. Thank you for your input.
@djslack Thanks for the info. (Cheap is good.) And my dear, Uncle @Pavlov, I don’t expect you to be at my beck and call 24-7. You may have a couple of hours a day off.
I’ll check out both of these services and see what I might need. Thanks again.
Edit: I’m finding it really hard to make any kind of decisions right now.
FIrst, get an unlocked phone, if at all possible. Then you can take it to another carrier much more easily.
If you get a recent iphone (Iphone 5 or later, i think), it will work on all the major carriers. so no worries there as long as it is unlocked.
I think the fairly recent flagship “big tv ad campaign” type phones on the android side often also work on all the major carriers, but I haven’t actually checked this out.
If you want, for instance, a recent Samsung “S” series phone, and you aren’t buying it from the carrier, make sure it will work on all four major carriers properly, and is unlocked.
The limited availability of android OS updates on flagship Android phones is really annoying. They will often only do one or two major os updates for a given phone, even tho the hardware is fine for more recent updates.
There are often ways to get more recent updates onto, say, a Samsung phone, when Samsung refuses to offer them, but it’s prob more of a pain than you want to deal with.
Updates have recently been marketed, to my knowledge, as “features and usability” updates and “isn’t it cool” updates. I don’t know how much improvement one gets with updates that really impacts how people actually use the phone, but this stuff sure does make for a lot of tech blogging and media hype.
More to the point, to me, is being able to update to the next major version of android for security reasons. I don’t know how manufacturers like Samsung will handle this, for phones they don’t want to offer further major OS updates for, if there are security issues with an older OS that can’t be easily handled with a small software patch.
One way around this is to get one of the stock Google phones - a Nexus phone or the newer Pixel phones. Those phones have a clean OS without a lot of manufacturer gunk added on, and they run fast, and they get all the updates until the hardware can’t handle the update well anymore.
The downside of getting one of these Google-branded phones is that they never have removable batteries, and they never offer the option of adding a storage card.
Re: the extra storage card: this may matter to you if you put a ton of photos or audiobooks or music on the phone. If you don’t do that, 64GB may be fine. The space limitation is also a factor on Iphones - 16 GB is not enough.
The future android phones I get may all be nexus or pixel phones, just so that I don’t have to worry about not getting the latest OS. Undecided.
anyway, if you get an android phone, you will have to decided if a removable battery or being able to add extra storage matters to you. Don’t make this painful. Just ask people who use their phones about like you intend to use your phone how it matters if you can add storage or swap batteries.
The IOS app store has been more careful about what it lets in. And currently it’s easier to do granular app permissions regarding apps accessing GPS and contacts, using an Iphone. Some of that can be done on android, but it can be a PITA.
If android is about to lock that down more than they have, that’s great.
One of the problems with app permissions is that you have to get used to checking them to see what they want, and most people (99.99999%, including in the US) never do.
Furthermore, app permission lists are written in a way so that for many permissions, you kinda have to be a techhead to suss out what they are doing.
I have no idea what some of the app permissions refer to. I have also been extremely careless about this, because once I got used to android and got an idea what the apps were doing, it was too late. And I kinda gave up, after finding, that at that time, there was no easy way to control what an app could do from the user end, and they already had my contacts etc, even if i uninstalled the app.
From a user perspective, the app stores strongly temp a user to go for impulse tryouts, and not think about it. Most of us succumb. (Guilty here, at least often enough.)
Maybe this isn’t a prob or won’t be. Most of the people in Silicon Valley, and most of the Google employees behave in exactly the same casual way toward privacy. And even if a user is careful about apps, doesn’t install anything but critical apps, turns off the GPS, etc, the carriers and the companies who create the OS still have ways of getting the data, even if the data is not being handed out to companies who write apps.
Apple and Google make little effort to make it easy for a consumer to understand how Android and IOS do or do not pass data over to apps, and little effort to explain exactly what they collect and keep in clear, simple language.
I have heard techie lawyers who actually read all those agreements say that parts of those privacy policy agreements leave a lot of room. I tend to assume that these companies grab all the data they can, and make all the aggregate use of it they can, but that they don’t actually sell the raw data, just access to slices of it. If Google and Apple actually sold their raw data, they would be selling the world’s biggest Cash Cow. Why sell the Cash Cow itself, when you can instead sell limited access to defined demographic slices of the Cash Cow and keep the Cash Cow at home pumping out Cash?
Some very few people avoid smartphones because of all this. Most of us don’t. Many of us think, it’s just the modern world. Companies like Apple and Google and Verizon and the less-well-known Big Data companies are gonna get the data anyway, by other means. And perhaps those companies will.
I have heard (rumor from someone who was an app developer) that some senior engineers at Google and Apple are about as casual with their smartphones as the rest of us.
There are also two issues to separate out here, and I am not really competent to comment on right or wrong, or good or best practices, on either of these topics - just to bring them up.
Privacy is about what personal data we are giving away, and by clicking “I accept” somewhere or other, we agreed to it, even tho we mostly have no idea we are giving away the data.
Security is a separate item. I should have made that clear, earlier. Security is related more to this ransomware nightmare that just hit unpatched windows machine. Who is or might get into your phone’s operating system, or you data who isn’t supposed to? If someone steals your phone, can they get in? If someone is around your phone a lot, can that person get in? Is the operating system vulnerable either to something that disables it, something that perverts it (so that you think you’re doing one thing, and you’re actually doing something else), or something that silently steals data or processing power or that sits and waits for an event or trigger?
Both of these areas are complicated and arcane. In both of these areas, even tech journalists and tech mavens who specialize don’t know what we wish they knew. National security planning, emergency planning, critical infrastructure planning, and industry planning in these areas seems pretty infantile, apart from projects that fit into the “let’s make money and be flashy” motivators.
But a lot of that is also true of your current home computers, your current old-style phone, your current relationship with your electric co, and bank and doctor’s office and so forth. Whether someone gets a smartphone or not, we’re still all vulnerable. And Google and the big data companies in Silicon Valley still know all.
So have I made what should be a fun decision horrible yet? Have I ruined it yet?
I use smartphones. I gave in. Sometimes you just do. And I have a blast using them. If you aren’t some sort of purist, get a smart phone, and have a good time.
I don’t know an easy answer to whether we, as a culture, should have these devices and use them the way we do, or not; but hell. There they are, calling to us. There they are, in everyone’s hands. And the world has come to a place where everyone and every organization you interact with expects you to have one.
When you do get a smartphone, the best way to protect yourself practically, for most of us:
Don’t download apps just to try them or because they look cool. Esp be wary regarding games.
Get the apps you need. Get apps for pleasure or convenience after giving them some thought. Uninstall stuff you don’t use. Keep the phone clean of app clutter.
Turn off access to the GPS for apps that don’t need it. Same with contacts. If you find some app permission that you don’t understand, and you can turn it off, try turning if off. See if that breaks the app’s ability to function. If the app still works, leave the permission disabled.
Don’t allow any apps on an iphone to use your GPS data “ALWAYS” unless you have a really good reason. I allow this for things like a weather app. Not for things like a food app. Your call.
Use 2-factor authentication (where they have to email you or text you to confirm a login on a new device) for everything that allows you to set that up.
And don’t worry too much, and have fun. Worrying too much won’t help anything anyway.
I would love to have people who actually know stuff about smartphone privacy and security to comment here, esp if they can avoid the IOS vs Android arguments.
@PlacidPenguin - thank you for the list. So, now I need an explanation on what the heck is Kickstarter and @fOOl should have a first aid kit if I’m understanding that what you said it means is someone who tries things out or opinions for mediocre company. Or am I way off on that?@jbartus on the animals: if you’re going to teach me about the birds and the bees I’m good on that . But if you have further on the goat and the octopus you can school me on that. To all - I appreciate the feed back.
@WTFsunshine
Kickstarter is a crowd funding site. Several people kicked in a few bucks to get this website started. Those people have a ‘K’ badge next to their name.
The medkit badge designates a volunteer moderator. Someone who helps remove spam, fixes links/images, generally helps keep things running. (Until a few days ago, that was my role here.) At the moment, there is not a volmod.
The other comments covered the goat/octopus pretty well.
@WTFsunshine Just a brief FYI. Our foolish person is called f00l; that is to say, eff zero zero ell, and not eff oh oh ell. Clever child, she is, attempting to confuse the innocent by this odd spelling. You should note that (if it were spelled in the way you’d done), it would just as easily have been fool (and oh, so ordinary).
It’s a @f00l you want, and a @f00l you shall have.
@Thumperchick,@PlacidPenguin Thank you both for the posts and links. I liked seeing names of people from back in 2014 that are still here today. However, I noticed that ThumperChick had a flask in 2014 - assuming you stepped down or up to the medical kit to continue to keep watch of the site and are now back to a flask? Also, I thought PlacidPenguin had a badge but now no badge? You don’t have to explain ii they were just observations. The sad thing is realizing that I may never get a Fuko since I do not do social media- I’ve never gotten onto Facebbok, Twitter or any of the 50 million other social things that have come around since those first started. I worked law enforcement and then after getting hurt I then went to 911and for all of the things I learned through my careers about those types of sites it did not leave a positive impression/desire to be social. Until Meh this is the first time I have been “social” with a group of people and it has been a very positive and fun experience. I find it fascinating that a group of people sponsored this through Kickstarter. But, I did want you to know that the fact you both (as well as @Shrdlu correcting my error with @f00l) took the time to teach me on how this all became (and what the different badges mean) means a lot to me - so once again - Thank you!
Once you get some sort of badge - K for Kickstarter, Flask for staff, a GOAT icon if you are that month’s goat - all your posts show that badge, going back into the past.
If you lose the badge, then all your posts lose the badge.
So now if you go look at the posts that @Hollboll made when she was staff, then those posts will have no Flask staff badge. Even tho last week they did. because last week she was still an employee.
It’s not a perfect system - people make reference to someone having a badge sometimes, which is accurate when the post is made, but then later when someone looks at the old post, someone’s status and badges have changed, and so the reference doesn’t make sense anymore.
But there is no system of “emeritus” badges for people who used to have a given badge in the past.
I was Goat for Dec 2016. I had a goat badge for all my posts, even posts I did previous to becoming Goat, during that month. In Jan 2017 we had a new Goat (@jbartus), and all his posts got the Goat badge, and all my posts lost the Goat badge.
@ShrdluLove the cats! Thank you for the correction. I think I’ve done it right in the past but I definitely don’t like insulting anyone with a misspell to their secret superior superpower. @f00l I humbly apologize.
/image crying face
I know you’re busy. But if you are able, don’t completely forget about the @Puppycat pix.
This brings up a question. At what age do you stop putting pictures of children into forums because they become too identifiable?
I see how it could be cool with infants and toddlers. I’m guessing it’s a no-no when the child is old enoigh to have a social presence of their own, and be a quite visually identifiable individual in the street, in a way that younger children often are not?
@f00l I’m actually leaning towards limiting those photos and updates now. As a baby, she’s another chubby cheeked ball of cuteness. As she grows, that anonymity is fading quickly. So I’ll throw this one out there, but consider it her photographic farewell to the forums, until she’s old enough to choose to post her own photos.
You are very wise to not put up further pictures of the little one. She’s already clearly developing a strong personality, and I’d wager that I would be able to identify her at five or ten just from details in the photo you’ve posted. There’s already a lot of intellect in that picture; I hope we’re all still around when she turns 13.
Ah, yes, the teenage years. My favorite.
My daughter’s apologized multiple times for those years. She started apologizing in her early twenties.
@Shrdlu I’m just trying to make it through these toddler days right now… I cannot fathom all of this sass and stubborn in a teenager. Send help… and liquor.
At school, I am viewed as the crazy mom, because I won’t let my kids’ names and photos be released… or their names and addresses. If you want to use a photo for publicity, great, but you are giving out their school and their image already, don’t give out their name! Or for the local library contest, they want poems to put on the wall of the library, with the kids’ names, ages and addresses. REALLY??? I won’t let my kids enter the contest. I just shake my head at the people who give away all that info…
I see these magazines which feature drawings by kids, and naturally, the magazine publishes the name, age, and town & address of the submitters.
The worst is if there is a picture of a kid (or multiple kids) who created something with Magna-Tiles (or the like).
Then besides name(s), age(s), and location, there’s also a picture.
Sure, the kid(s) probably wanted the picture sent in, but they don’t know really what kind of world we live in.
@PlacidPenguin full address… I know I am probably considered the crazy mom for other reasons, but, seriously people – who gives away that much info these days??
@mikibell
Just Wow.
I think you are doing the right think being “crazy”.
I think that school system might be vulnerable to a lawsuit in the future, if there is some less than wonderful event. I hope nothing bad ever comes of that foolishness.
My school knew not to publicize addresses and personal info way back when in the dark ages.
Congrats?
@Barney Thank you.
@Thumperchick Hey, I’m so happy for you!
@Thumperchick You stole @carl669’s?
@Barney yup. He didn’t put up much of a fight.
@Thumperchick @Barney hey! give that back. i need it for this weekend!
in other news, congrats on the new gig! now i can fondly look back and say “yeah, i knew her before she was crushed by mediocre corporate culture.”
@carl669
could be worse
could be amazon corporate culture https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-wrestling-big-ideas-in-a-bruising-workplace.html
@Thumperchick
(And good, I can add another name to one of my lists.)
@PlacidPenguin thanks!
/giphy huge mistake
@medz Ha! Yep, that’s pretty huge.
@medz for me, or them?
@medz
THESE are huge mistakes.
@PlacidPenguin I’ve seen things like this at offices. But why did the pink jacket outfit (bottom center) fail, other than pink (i prefer dark blues and greens but my kids keep buying me pink stuff because “moms like pink”)?
@mollama Cleavage?
@PlacidPenguin
As officewear, all that fails.
As streetwear, it’s just looks like the normal madness out there.
@PlacidPenguin speaking as a simple man who avoids clothes shopping and wearing pants whenever possible…
All of those photos look like clothes. At the end of the day, isn’t that successful?
@InnocuousFarmer
Who needs pants?
@PlacidPenguin
In that case, pls stay indoors.
@sammydog01 that’s about my level of cleavage and i think most (including my MIL) think i am a bit prudish in level of cleavage i show.
The bell bottoms would be equal to the cleavage as an issue.
@f00l
Relax.
I’m wearing pants right now.
(I think…)
@mollama I was seeing the necklace as skin.
/giphy never mind
@sammydog01 I give up giphy
@sammydog01
Paging @giphy @DrunkCat and @ruouttaurmind.
@PlacidPenguin
@sammydog01, thank you for seeing the light!
/giphy just say “no” to giphy!
@sammydog01 @ruouttaurmind I can rely on /giphy doing one thing right, though …
/giphy cat videos.
See?
(Blame @drunkcat.)
@narfcake Hahahahahaha!
You can count on giphy for one thing… to screw up!
@PlacidPenguin
/giphy screw up
@ruouttaurmind
/giphy "Nol. Giphy, No!"
@PlacidPenguin
And I’m relaxed. I think.
@DrunkCat And then, every once in a while (not very often), giphy dumps in a gem like that.
@f00l
/giphy Bad giphy! Get off the couch!
@ruouttaurmind You’re either awesome, or your not me.
@ruouttaurmind
/giphy dumps in a gem
/giphy has a search engine that’s even worse than Amazon’s.
@narfcake
/giphy powered by Bing
/image animated gif powered by Bing
Ok, I guess technically Chandler is a Bing. Just not the Bing I was getting at.
Congrats @tHumperchick.
Does this mean another state is going to be getting taxed.
@Ignorant Ooh, good question.
@Ignorant gotta double check with @Dave on that - tax law is not my strong suit, or even my leisure suit.
@Thumperchick what state are you in (and by state I don’t mean mental LOL)? That at least gives those folks a heads up that sales tax is coming to a street corner near them. : )
@Kidsandliz
I think PA perhaps? @thumperchick, did I miss by more than 1K miles?
@f00l I think New York, actually.
@narfcake @f00l @Thumperchick
Sigh… NY has enough ridiculous tax ideas.
@Humper - Any chance you want to pick up your family and move to Nebraska or Idaho?
@PlacidPenguin @Humper or North Dakota.
@PlacidPenguin it is a bit odd that you think he gets the vote on where we live.
/giphy feminism
@Thumperchick
(Just trying to give him ideas.)
Congrats on the promotion!
Hope that flask is full of vodka.
@KDemo it totally should be.
@KDemo it only looks half full
@SHAWN!!!
@shawn - Who started the party early, on their own?
So, the cat is out of the bag. I’ll say congrats publicly then. (We learned about this before in chat.)
Ooh awesome. I am happy for you and the meh community.
Find the speaker docks and hook us up…
Finally! I get to ask my questions… I know if there is nothing next to a persons name they are a member with no VMP rewards (at least I think I know) and if you do have a little shield with a V in it it means you have VMP status (at least I think that’s right) and the little beaker or flask means you’re a mediocre employee (at least that’s what I assume). But I’ve also seen what looks like a suitcase or medical bag (at least that’s what it seems to me) and I’ve also seen some with animals (at least I know they look to be). But, what in the world does it all mean and when or how do they get changed (at least I think someone can tell me)? If I’m close to right on the beaker/flask then I tip my hat to @thumperchick.
@WTFsunshine
K - Kickstarter backer.
First aid kit - Volunteer mod.
Flask - Mehmployee.
Octopus - Solely for the Breakfast Octopus (@snapster).
Goat - Monthly scapegoat.
Cat (still in progress) - for @narfcake.(edit - shhhh@PlacidPenguin narfcake needs a cat shirt not a cat
@WTFsunshine maybe we’ll teach you about the animals first hand. Best way to teach in my experience
@PlacidPenguin
Re: Octopus icon and @snapster
Technically, if one reads the D Magazine article, it was, at that time, "an octopus for breakfast, not “an octopus having breakfast”.
I hope the icon now indicates “An Octopus Having A Major Breakfast Feast”.
Just sayin’.
@snapster:
We could use a few black on black, or very dark on very dark, t-shirts.
For occasional activities resembling various on-site work or biz or seriousness in real life;
that’s why the dark colors and nearly invisible logos.
Just sayin’.
Hope that new warehouse and open-air dinosaur park are coming along nicely.
There will be surprise inspections, ya know.
@WTFsunshine - @PlacidPenguin’s list is correct.
@Thumperchick
Yay. I needed a win this week.
Congratulations @Thumperchick. At least I hope it’s in order. You seem to be pretty cheerful about the whole affair so I’m assuming it’s a good thing. I will update Discord with the appropriate permissions and whatnot once I have my computer back together.
@jbartus Are you afraid they kidnapped her?
/giphy forced to work
@jbartus There’s a mediocre Discord???
@Kawa
https://meh.com/forum/topics/meh-community-discord-server
https://discord.gg/mp2pWvF
@jbartus and other nice folk hang out there a bunch. Much speaking about gaming and many other things.
@sammydog01 it wasn’t outside the realm of consideration
@thumperchick:
Huge Congrats!!!
Educidations, pls. What sort of monster have you transmuted into, in becoming an employee?
/giphy transfigurations
@f00l Oh! An employee.
I was going to warn her not to drink from it if it was one of those cheap white label flasks from Amazon (i.e. most of them).
@f00l
CSR
@Thumperchick
Awesome image!
Since we have your attention, how about a pix of @puppycat as an Honorary VolMod and Honorary CSR?
Seems to me that @puppycat needs a Meh t-shirt or 6.
@f00l I’ll try to get some cutes for you later today. I might even wrestle her into her meh onesie!
@f00l - @thumperchick transformed into one who now had money? Oh wait. @puppycat will take care of that in short order. LOL
Congrats1…so what is your official job?
@Kidsandliz
@Barney
Summer fun!
@Kidsandliz Thanks! I’m a CSR.
@Thumperchick @f00l which means she’s joined the @woodhouse Customer Support Mehnagerie
@woodhouse
Glad to hear the working group is named after you and your pal, the Tin Woodman.
/image “tin woodman”
@f00l Well, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, right? So if I pretend that it’s all about me, then as long it’s true to me, that’s all that matters. Or something.
@woodhouse
You got it! ; )
@woodhouse they put you in charge already? I knew you had it in you, Bunyan-Chan!
@jbartus In my head, at least!
Excellent. Congratulations!
Geez, about time they hired someone who knows what the hell they’re doing! Congrats and more importantly, are they giving you back pay to the start of your volunteer moderator date? Wait, does this mean you’re not allowed to buy Fuko’s for yourself anymore?
@cinoclav ಠ_ಠ
@cinoclav they were always pretty cool about sharing some perks with me as volmod. But yeah, no more fuko for me.
@Thumperchick
We could send you random garbage whenever we want though.
@Thumperchick So who is going to be the new volunteer moderator?
@woodhouse (Shhh… she’s the new girl, I’m trying to boost her self-esteem!)
@Kidsandliz
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Yea! That’s great news!
/giphy grate
Congrats TC, that is pretty swell news! Couldn’t have been a better person for the job!
Congrats on the promotion, @thumperchick!
The question now is who do we tag when the forum needs a cleaning? Do we still tag you or do we tag @dave? Or will a “tattle” button be eventually added like it is at Woot?
@narfcake
DIY
@Barney They give me a medkit, and I will. I already volmod at catshirtswoot … and occasionally at the other woot subsites.
@narfcake
You would be great!
/giphy great!
@narfcake You can still tag me for that.
Ohhhh, so THAT is what your facebook post meant! Congrats
/giphy work from home
@Pavlov
@Pavlov You once told us about a service you used to “park” a phone number. I’m wanting to save a number for a future cell phone use. Do you remember which service you used?
@Barney I killed Mom’s phone line yesterday…It was a sad affair. The phone line I grew up with, the very first phone number I committed to my small brain…
GONE
The phone number that was so close to a local trucking company that Dad would get calls so late at night…
GONE
The one phone number I could call, at anytime to get help…
GONE
Cheeze & Crackers losing my Mom sucks.
@therealjrn Oh, I know how it hurts. It hurts so much that I can’t even begin to describe it.
I’m planning on getting my first smart phone and I want to save her phone number and use it for this. I’ll then have a small piece of her with me. Silly, isn’t it.
@Barney Maybe right now buy $10 flip phone from net 10 and then pay $30 for 2 months of service and 300 min. Then when you get your smart phone transfer the number over. It may be harder to get that number now that you have turned her phone off. You might have to quickly reverse that.
@Kidsandliz Her phone has not been turned off; her former place of employment will still pay for it for the next 3 months, if I need it that long. I just want to be able to park her number (if I need to) until I purchase a smart phone.
I need to do some research on smart phones before I make the purchase. I’m just not able to concentrate on that right now.
@Barney If the company owns the number in order to transfer it over you you will need them to release it to you via the phone company that the number is currently registered with. At least that is how it worked when I moved in with some people with a land line, transferred my number to their bill as it was cheaper to do it that way. Then a year later when they moved, they had to release it to me for me to put it on my cell phone (first used net 10 now smart talk since it is $5/mo cheaper). This as AT&T so don’t know it will work that way with other companies.
@Kidsandliz The phone number is hers. The company told me that I am free to do whatever I want with it.
@Barney Not silly at all Barn.
@Barney numberbarn.com is the cheapest I could find, $5 setup and $2 per month to park a number.
Alternately, you can transfer in your number to Google Voice for $20, pay nothing monthly and transfer it out for $3 when you’re ready to use it with a cell phone. The $3 is waived if the number was originally a cell phone number but I’m thinking this is a land line.
@Barney
Smartphones:
What do you want in a smartphone? Of course, if you never had one, you may not even know. But perhaps we could do a little research for you.
My rec to people:
If your local family/friends use Android, get Android.
If you local family/friends use IPhones, get an IPhone.
The reason; you can share the same apps, people can answer questions, people can show you stuff.
If you wanna buy an iPhone, they are ridiculously easy to use, and have a very smooth interface. They are a bit locked down, so you can’t do quite as much. How much that would bother you would depend on what you wanted to do.
The two communities routinely sneer at each other. Fanboi stuff. Ignore it. If you were gonna care about that, you would already have owned one for more than half a decade.
Modern IPhones (most recent releases) all work on all the big carriers. They are kinda easy to shop for.
New ones (IPhone 7) are expensive. Also the new ones don’t have a headphone jack, which is annoying.
Pick the size you want. The iPhone 5, size, the iPhone 6 size, the iPhone 6Plus size. (A major wireless carrier ought to have all these in the store.)
Go to swappa and get a decent recent model. Do not get a 16gb one. Get at least 64gb.
Sometimes woot runs decent deals on recent model IPhones.
Unless you want a 6 Plus sized phone, you shouldn’t spend that much.
Android. It gets complicated, there are so many phones. They do a bit more, but the more they do may not matter to you if you haven’t been motivated to get one till now.
File management is much easier and much much re powerful, for starters.
There may be security differentials. I don’t have a clue which one is more or less secure. Comments, anyone?
If you get an iPhone, Apple will know all about you. Prob, so will google. Also the companies that make other apps will know way way way too much. If you get an iPhone, immediately install Google maps.
If you get an Android phone, google will know all about you. They already do, but they will know more.
So will the app companies, as you start installing apps.
Att or Verizon or whoever you buy service from will also know all about you. But they already do.
If you wanna minimize the personal data leaks, don’t install any apps that you don’t absolutely need. Don’t install games. Turn off gps unless you are using it at the instant. Turn it off immediately when you are not using it.
I promise most of us are not that careful about our personal data. Most of us prob turned over way way way too much data before we realized what we were doing. Now … how strict do you wanna be? Most people, and most of us here prob give in to convenience.
@shrdlu is careful and conservative and has self-discipline and knowledge. That is a really really rare combo. I don’t know anyone else that careful, including a buncha techheads.
Most of the time, even the people who collect all that data on everyone don’t bother to cut down that much on what companies like google and Facebook and Apple and ATT can gather in their own daily lives. We modern folk who use technology appear to have decided not to care.
Guilty as charged, here, kinda.
Perhaps we won’t regret this bigtime. Or perhaps we will.
Give this some thought before you get your first smartphone. Unless you just want the convenience. Which is a what most people do anyway.
If we’re all going to hell in terms of personal data, and you decide only to worry a little, or not at all, you’ll have lots of company. Like, about everyone. Most people don’t have even a tiny clue how much data these devices hand off to the carriers and the companies who wrote the operating systems.
Many of these companies don’t directly sell your personal data. They keep control over it, or sell only aggresgate data if large sets and f people.
Google prob is gonna know about everything no matter what you do.
People will argue till the end of time about which is best and which has the best apps. (Android vs iOS)
Just get the one that matches up to what other people you like and care about, who will be in your life for years, are using.
Don’t let decoding become a chore, or painful.
@f00l You forgot about the WP fanbois, whom in spite of a market share that rounds down to zero, will still yell “hey, we’re still relevant!!”
(As a WP user, I won’t make any claims about that, nor could I recommend WP to anyone who doesn’t understand its limitations and while still supported by MS, is still essentially a dead-end OS.)
@Barney I have used several “parking” services for phone numbers - the one I use most often is https://www.numbergarage.com/ - they have fewer issues than all the others we have tried, and their service is impeccable.
Seems like many here offered a lot of good advice also.
Sorry for the late reply - took the family to see Roger Waters at the Sprint Center tonight. (It was kind of meh honestly, but @MrsPavlov has a thing for him . . . and my son loves Pink Floyd, so I pretty much had to go)
Hope you are doing well sweetheart - we love you!
@f00l @Barney
I cannot help myself, with smartphone conversations (I have a strong iOS preference, but I try not to fall into shilling for Apple, who do not need the help). I do second everything that @f00l said.
Might be worth adding that, if you like what are now “small” phones, the newest iPhone 5-sized one is the iPhone SE. It is from the same generation as the iPhone 6s. (The “s” is a half step toward the next number.) There is also an iPhone 5s, but that is older. Both the 6s and 7 generations had/have a larger “plus” model that costs $100 extra.
I believe that Apple is meaningfully less privacy-hostile than Google, if you care about that kind of thing. This is because Apple is not a massive king of web advertising, which Google is. Therefore, their business does not depend on surveillance in as direct a way as Google’s does. Apple decided that one of the ways they were going to differentiate themselves was by being better at privacy, so they market their privacy efforts (and they have the reputation of being somewhat less successful with machine learning as a result – having less raw data to feed the machines). You still have to worry about individual applications, but the phone itself tells you what it is sending off to Apple in good faith… I hope.
I have heard that Android finally added per-app privacy settings recently, so that is good.
iPhones tend to receive OS updates for a longer time (the usual span on Android, I have heard, is two years from the phone’s release; iOS 10, the current one, runs on the iPhone 5, which was released late 2012). While neither operating system is without vulnerabilities, iOS has better OS-level security. There is a highly public bounty for remote jailbreak exploits for iOS: it is $1,500,000. The corresponding Android exploit appears to be worth $200,000. (https://zerodium.com/program.html)
Publicly available jailbreaks for iOS devices have a lower bar to clear than ones which meet the requirements of that bounty, but they have sometimes-spotty availability. Compare that to the availability of apps to “root” (jailbreak) Android on the Google Play store.
Apple’s App Store is also more regulated than the Google Play store. Their app review process is stricter. App rejections are common. When Uber was tracking device identifiers in a way that Apple did not allow, Tim Cook had a meeting with Travis Kalanick, demanding that Uber stop that behavior, or else be removed from the store (thus being made entirely unavailable on iOS). That would not happen on the Google Play store, I don’t think.
@InnocuousFarmer This article puts the data collection on par with each other:
https://decentralize.today/apple-vs-google-vs-microsoft-which-company-handles-your-data-better-a7022bd452b1
As for the structural security:
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/secure-mobile-operating-system/
One huge negative with Android: updates are at the mercy of your phone manufacturer and service provider.
http://www.computerworld.com/article/3173068/android/android-upgrade-report-card-nougat.html
@narfcake I would like nothing less than to argue about iOS vs. Android. I have said my piece.
As for those articles, though, the first uses companies’ privacy policies as the beginning and end of companies treatment of user data in practice, which is a bad mistake. Privacy policies are legal shielding, more than they are anything else. The only advantage to treating them as a company’s actual practices is that it fits into a single blog post.
The second article is sensationalistic and lacks much in the way of context or substance. Where it is specific, as far as I see skimming the Android and iOS bits, it reiterates what I said above.
@InnocuousFarmer All your points are valid ones and in no way was I arguing against them. Indeed, the second article does reinforce what you’re saying, not counter it.
@narfcake @InnocuousFarmer @fool Now you see why I’m so confused about smart phones. Just one mention of them causes long discussions.
I’ve been using a flip phone the past few months. I’m quite happy with it. Who knows I might just end up keeping it. But I will want to change its number. I get a lot of weird calls for the previous owner.
So, when it’s time for me to make a decision, I’ll start a new thread. Thank you for your input.
@djslack Thanks for the info. (Cheap is good.) And my dear, Uncle @Pavlov, I don’t expect you to be at my beck and call 24-7. You may have a couple of hours a day off.
I’ll check out both of these services and see what I might need. Thanks again.
Edit: I’m finding it really hard to make any kind of decisions right now.
@narfcake hehehehe. Veridian Dynamics is my favorite. I would never buy a cell phone from them.
@InnocuousFarmer Oh come on, they can be trusted. Usually.
@Barney
There are a few things I forgot or said badly.
FIrst, get an unlocked phone, if at all possible. Then you can take it to another carrier much more easily.
If you get a recent iphone (Iphone 5 or later, i think), it will work on all the major carriers. so no worries there as long as it is unlocked.
I think the fairly recent flagship “big tv ad campaign” type phones on the android side often also work on all the major carriers, but I haven’t actually checked this out.
If you want, for instance, a recent Samsung “S” series phone, and you aren’t buying it from the carrier, make sure it will work on all four major carriers properly, and is unlocked.
The limited availability of android OS updates on flagship Android phones is really annoying. They will often only do one or two major os updates for a given phone, even tho the hardware is fine for more recent updates.
There are often ways to get more recent updates onto, say, a Samsung phone, when Samsung refuses to offer them, but it’s prob more of a pain than you want to deal with.
Updates have recently been marketed, to my knowledge, as “features and usability” updates and “isn’t it cool” updates. I don’t know how much improvement one gets with updates that really impacts how people actually use the phone, but this stuff sure does make for a lot of tech blogging and media hype.
More to the point, to me, is being able to update to the next major version of android for security reasons. I don’t know how manufacturers like Samsung will handle this, for phones they don’t want to offer further major OS updates for, if there are security issues with an older OS that can’t be easily handled with a small software patch.
One way around this is to get one of the stock Google phones - a Nexus phone or the newer Pixel phones. Those phones have a clean OS without a lot of manufacturer gunk added on, and they run fast, and they get all the updates until the hardware can’t handle the update well anymore.
The downside of getting one of these Google-branded phones is that they never have removable batteries, and they never offer the option of adding a storage card.
Re: the extra storage card: this may matter to you if you put a ton of photos or audiobooks or music on the phone. If you don’t do that, 64GB may be fine. The space limitation is also a factor on Iphones - 16 GB is not enough.
The future android phones I get may all be nexus or pixel phones, just so that I don’t have to worry about not getting the latest OS. Undecided.
anyway, if you get an android phone, you will have to decided if a removable battery or being able to add extra storage matters to you. Don’t make this painful. Just ask people who use their phones about like you intend to use your phone how it matters if you can add storage or swap batteries.
The IOS app store has been more careful about what it lets in. And currently it’s easier to do granular app permissions regarding apps accessing GPS and contacts, using an Iphone. Some of that can be done on android, but it can be a PITA.
If android is about to lock that down more than they have, that’s great.
One of the problems with app permissions is that you have to get used to checking them to see what they want, and most people (99.99999%, including in the US) never do.
Furthermore, app permission lists are written in a way so that for many permissions, you kinda have to be a techhead to suss out what they are doing.
I have no idea what some of the app permissions refer to. I have also been extremely careless about this, because once I got used to android and got an idea what the apps were doing, it was too late. And I kinda gave up, after finding, that at that time, there was no easy way to control what an app could do from the user end, and they already had my contacts etc, even if i uninstalled the app.
From a user perspective, the app stores strongly temp a user to go for impulse tryouts, and not think about it. Most of us succumb. (Guilty here, at least often enough.)
Maybe this isn’t a prob or won’t be. Most of the people in Silicon Valley, and most of the Google employees behave in exactly the same casual way toward privacy. And even if a user is careful about apps, doesn’t install anything but critical apps, turns off the GPS, etc, the carriers and the companies who create the OS still have ways of getting the data, even if the data is not being handed out to companies who write apps.
Apple and Google make little effort to make it easy for a consumer to understand how Android and IOS do or do not pass data over to apps, and little effort to explain exactly what they collect and keep in clear, simple language.
I have heard techie lawyers who actually read all those agreements say that parts of those privacy policy agreements leave a lot of room. I tend to assume that these companies grab all the data they can, and make all the aggregate use of it they can, but that they don’t actually sell the raw data, just access to slices of it. If Google and Apple actually sold their raw data, they would be selling the world’s biggest Cash Cow. Why sell the Cash Cow itself, when you can instead sell limited access to defined demographic slices of the Cash Cow and keep the Cash Cow at home pumping out Cash?
Some very few people avoid smartphones because of all this. Most of us don’t. Many of us think, it’s just the modern world. Companies like Apple and Google and Verizon and the less-well-known Big Data companies are gonna get the data anyway, by other means. And perhaps those companies will.
I have heard (rumor from someone who was an app developer) that some senior engineers at Google and Apple are about as casual with their smartphones as the rest of us.
There are also two issues to separate out here, and I am not really competent to comment on right or wrong, or good or best practices, on either of these topics - just to bring them up.
Privacy is about what personal data we are giving away, and by clicking “I accept” somewhere or other, we agreed to it, even tho we mostly have no idea we are giving away the data.
Security is a separate item. I should have made that clear, earlier. Security is related more to this ransomware nightmare that just hit unpatched windows machine. Who is or might get into your phone’s operating system, or you data who isn’t supposed to? If someone steals your phone, can they get in? If someone is around your phone a lot, can that person get in? Is the operating system vulnerable either to something that disables it, something that perverts it (so that you think you’re doing one thing, and you’re actually doing something else), or something that silently steals data or processing power or that sits and waits for an event or trigger?
Both of these areas are complicated and arcane. In both of these areas, even tech journalists and tech mavens who specialize don’t know what we wish they knew. National security planning, emergency planning, critical infrastructure planning, and industry planning in these areas seems pretty infantile, apart from projects that fit into the “let’s make money and be flashy” motivators.
But a lot of that is also true of your current home computers, your current old-style phone, your current relationship with your electric co, and bank and doctor’s office and so forth. Whether someone gets a smartphone or not, we’re still all vulnerable. And Google and the big data companies in Silicon Valley still know all.
So have I made what should be a fun decision horrible yet? Have I ruined it yet?
I use smartphones. I gave in. Sometimes you just do. And I have a blast using them. If you aren’t some sort of purist, get a smart phone, and have a good time.
I don’t know an easy answer to whether we, as a culture, should have these devices and use them the way we do, or not; but hell. There they are, calling to us. There they are, in everyone’s hands. And the world has come to a place where everyone and every organization you interact with expects you to have one.
When you do get a smartphone, the best way to protect yourself practically, for most of us:
Don’t download apps just to try them or because they look cool. Esp be wary regarding games.
Get the apps you need. Get apps for pleasure or convenience after giving them some thought. Uninstall stuff you don’t use. Keep the phone clean of app clutter.
Turn off access to the GPS for apps that don’t need it. Same with contacts. If you find some app permission that you don’t understand, and you can turn it off, try turning if off. See if that breaks the app’s ability to function. If the app still works, leave the permission disabled.
Don’t allow any apps on an iphone to use your GPS data “ALWAYS” unless you have a really good reason. I allow this for things like a weather app. Not for things like a food app. Your call.
Use 2-factor authentication (where they have to email you or text you to confirm a login on a new device) for everything that allows you to set that up.
And don’t worry too much, and have fun. Worrying too much won’t help anything anyway.
I would love to have people who actually know stuff about smartphone privacy and security to comment here, esp if they can avoid the IOS vs Android arguments.
@Barney
Don’t make decisions right now.
You’ll figure all this out when you’re ready.
Huh?
Now you know damned well that the innards of my brainz is just a whole bunch of zeros.
/giphy zeros
@f00l Chill.
@Barney
/giphy "chill zero"
@f00l Hahahahaha, exactly!
@Barney
Don’t call us. We’ll call you.
/giphy cellular telephones
@InnocuousFarmer Yep, have your people call my people. And when you do, I want to hear all about the perfect cell phone. Yep, that’s what I want.
@Barney
/image the perfect cell phone
/giphy the perfect cell phone
Damn …
/giphy I blame @drunkcat for giphy actually giving a relevant result!!
@Pavlov I saw Roger Waters preform The Wall in its entirety on tour a few years ago and it was the best concert I’ve ever been to.
@f00l
@jqubed
ButtOfCourse
/giphy off course
be afraid
be very afraid
/giphy very afraid
Hey, congrats! Have to admit it took me a solid minute of reading to understand wtf we were talking about, I figured it out eventually
Anyways good, you made it… now that you’re on the inside, just stop by a day or so before a fuko drops and say “red falcon” - we’ll know what you mean
@Chops I can play the weirdest game of Red Light; Green Light with you!
Red Balcony!
Pink Panther!
@Thumperchick @Chops and White Bed so we know it is ok to sleep?
@PlacidPenguin - thank you for the list. So, now I need an explanation on what the heck is Kickstarter and @fOOl should have a first aid kit if I’m understanding that what you said it means is someone who tries things out or opinions for mediocre company. Or am I way off on that?@jbartus on the animals: if you’re going to teach me about the birds
and the bees 
I’m good on that 
. But if you have further on the goat and the octopus you can school me on that. To all - I appreciate the feed back.
@WTFsunshine
Story behind Meh scapegoat
List of goats
@WTFsunshine
Kickstarter is a crowd funding site. Several people kicked in a few bucks to get this website started. Those people have a ‘K’ badge next to their name.
The medkit badge designates a volunteer moderator. Someone who helps remove spam, fixes links/images, generally helps keep things running. (Until a few days ago, that was my role here.) At the moment, there is not a volmod.
The other comments covered the goat/octopus pretty well.
@WTFsunshine Just a brief FYI. Our foolish person is called f00l; that is to say, eff zero zero ell, and not eff oh oh ell. Clever child, she is, attempting to confuse the innocent by this odd spelling. You should note that (if it were spelled in the way you’d done), it would just as easily have been fool (and oh, so ordinary).
It’s a @f00l you want, and a @f00l you shall have.
/image f00l
@Shrdlu
Zero brainz is whut it is ah say ah say.
: )
@Thumperchick,@PlacidPenguin Thank you both for the posts and links. I liked seeing names of people from back in 2014 that are still here today. However, I noticed that ThumperChick had a flask in 2014 - assuming you stepped down or up to the medical kit to continue to keep watch of the site and are now back to a flask? Also, I thought PlacidPenguin had a badge but now no badge? You don’t have to explain ii they were just observations. The sad thing is realizing that I may never get a Fuko since I do not do social media- I’ve never gotten onto Facebbok, Twitter or any of the 50 million other social things that have come around since those first started. I worked law enforcement and then after getting hurt I then went to 911and for all of the things I learned through my careers about those types of sites it did not leave a positive impression/desire to be social. Until Meh this is the first time I have been “social” with a group of people and it has been a very positive and fun experience. I find it fascinating that a group of people sponsored this through Kickstarter. But, I did want you to know that the fact you both (as well as @Shrdlu correcting my error with @f00l) took the time to teach me on how this all became (and what the different badges mean) means a lot to me - so once again - Thank you!
@WTFsunshine
Once you get some sort of badge - K for Kickstarter, Flask for staff, a GOAT icon if you are that month’s goat - all your posts show that badge, going back into the past.
If you lose the badge, then all your posts lose the badge.
So now if you go look at the posts that @Hollboll made when she was staff, then those posts will have no Flask staff badge. Even tho last week they did. because last week she was still an employee.
It’s not a perfect system - people make reference to someone having a badge sometimes, which is accurate when the post is made, but then later when someone looks at the old post, someone’s status and badges have changed, and so the reference doesn’t make sense anymore.
But there is no system of “emeritus” badges for people who used to have a given badge in the past.
I was Goat for Dec 2016. I had a goat badge for all my posts, even posts I did previous to becoming Goat, during that month. In Jan 2017 we had a new Goat (@jbartus), and all his posts got the Goat badge, and all my posts lost the Goat badge.
PS Glad you like it here.
@f00l Thank you. Yes, I do like it here - I like the people.
Congratulations @thumperchick!
@jqubed ohmygoodness, that’s two much cute!!
I just realized that I never congratulated you on this. Congratulations!
Full time? Benefits? Living wage?
Okay, at least the ability to torment the deserving, then…
Seriously, you might as well get paid. @snapster’s lucky to have you.
@Shrdlu Thank you! They’ve offered me 3 peanuts and my own snuggle time with Irk from time to time. I’m a happy TC.
@Shrdlu Love the cats! Thank you for the correction. I think I’ve done it right in the past but I definitely don’t like insulting anyone with a misspell to their secret superior superpower. @f00l I humbly apologize.
/image crying face
@WTFsunshine
to clarify, for the ages:
@f00l is a f00l is a fOOl is a fool is an idgit.
capisce?
@thumperchick
Now’s your chance. Go for it!
/giphy attitude
@Thumperchick
I know you’re busy. But if you are able, don’t completely forget about the @Puppycat pix.
This brings up a question. At what age do you stop putting pictures of children into forums because they become too identifiable?
I see how it could be cool with infants and toddlers. I’m guessing it’s a no-no when the child is old enoigh to have a social presence of their own, and be a quite visually identifiable individual in the street, in a way that younger children often are not?
2-5 perhaps? Parents, what are your comments?
@f00l I’m actually leaning towards limiting those photos and updates now.
As a baby, she’s another chubby cheeked ball of cuteness. As she grows, that anonymity is fading quickly. So I’ll throw this one out there, but consider it her photographic farewell to the forums, until she’s old enough to choose to post her own photos.
We’ll miss you @PuppyCat. Bye!
You are very wise to not put up further pictures of the little one. She’s already clearly developing a strong personality, and I’d wager that I would be able to identify her at five or ten just from details in the photo you’ve posted. There’s already a lot of intellect in that picture; I hope we’re all still around when she turns 13.
Ah, yes, the teenage years. My favorite.
My daughter’s apologized multiple times for those years. She started apologizing in her early twenties.
@Shrdlu I’m just trying to make it through these toddler days right now… I cannot fathom all of this sass and stubborn in a teenager. Send help… and liquor.
@Thumperchick
Best not to think of the teen years.
Then again, I know of numerous people who went through the teenage years with their kids and came out mostly intact psychologically…
@PlacidPenguin
@Thumpercheck
@Shrdlu
People grow out of being teenagers? Really? At what age does that happen?
I’m good on the apologies tho. Reallygood.
Also good on the repeats.
/giphy play it again
@Thumperchick
@shrdlu is much much better at this than I. Until I “know” someone, I wouldn’t be able to spot her tomorrow on the street, let alone at 13.
But I understand. I kinda worried when I asked for a pix that she was already a bit too old for that.
Consider this request, at some point in a few years: just the hair. From the side or back. I would like to see what that looks like.
But any of you have the the teeniest, slightest reservations, don’t do it. Really, don’t. I get it. I want her to be safe and private and happy.
@Thumperchick Don’t worry, teenagers don’t need any parental guidance since they already know everything.
@Thumperchick She is adorable…
At school, I am viewed as the crazy mom, because I won’t let my kids’ names and photos be released… or their names and addresses. If you want to use a photo for publicity, great, but you are giving out their school and their image already, don’t give out their name! Or for the local library contest, they want poems to put on the wall of the library, with the kids’ names, ages and addresses. REALLY??? I won’t let my kids enter the contest. I just shake my head at the people who give away all that info…
@mikibell
Full address, or town & state?
I mean, either way it’s unnecessary.
I see these magazines which feature drawings by kids, and naturally, the magazine publishes the name, age, and town & address of the submitters.
The worst is if there is a picture of a kid (or multiple kids) who created something with Magna-Tiles (or the like).
Then besides name(s), age(s), and location, there’s also a picture.
Sure, the kid(s) probably wanted the picture sent in, but they don’t know really what kind of world we live in.
@PlacidPenguin full address… I know I am probably considered the crazy mom for other reasons, but, seriously people – who gives away that much info these days??
@mikibell
That’s flat out absurd.
@mikibell
Just Wow.
I think you are doing the right think being “crazy”.
I think that school system might be vulnerable to a lawsuit in the future, if there is some less than wonderful event. I hope nothing bad ever comes of that foolishness.
My school knew not to publicize addresses and personal info way back when in the dark ages.
@f00l @Shrdlu I meant to do this forever ago - but here’s a pic of @puppycat’s curls, as requested:
She’s in kindergarten now and it blows my mind every day how much she’s grown.
(Humblebrag here - I made the kid and the coat she’s wearing.)
@f00l @PuppyCat @Shrdlu @Thumperchick
And a fantastic photo too!
@compunaut @PuppyCat @Shrdlu @Thumperchick
Didn’t you paint wonderful wall murals for her?
She looks so wonderful.
@f00l - a friend of mine did the mural in her room. I’m not all that artistic.
Thanks!
@compunaut Thank you! @humper’s cousin is a fantastic photographer.
@Thumperchick Awwww! Where has the time gone? Beautiful.
@f00l @PuppyCat @Shrdlu @Thumperchick I have to ask- what color is the coat she’s wearing?
@f00l @PuppyCat @sammydog01 @Shrdlu It’s black corduroy with a purple minky lining.