Random Rant

[flyingveepixie]

2 hours ago, Petra said:

Love getting the small change bag out when head of a queue to pay the exact amount😮🤔

I did that this morning at Farmfoods : £5.60 for 4 bottles of milk and I gave her 60p in ones and twos. She was actually quite pleased because she had just ran out of 2P's..😎

Edited March 22, 2023 by flyingveepixie

[Bigmarc]

4 hours ago, bluemoon said:

In my view this ties in with the reasons people have doorbell cameras these days or CCTV outside their house as though they're a supermarket. Even road users have cameras including those obnoxious cyclists with stupid GoPros on their head, ready to record and report anyone who pisses them off. All these cameras give the illusion of security but why do they feel they need for security? It's because 1) we're constantly being told to live in fear of the next big threat, and 2) we're indeed turning into a 3rd world country with 3rd world crimes on the rise. The semi-amusing thing is crime is rising in spite of the cameras. Criminals won't stop just because people put up these placebo cameras which their consumerism made them think their new toy will keep them safe.

It's the same with digital payments. Hacking of bank or PayPal accounts happens with monotonous regularity. Then of course there is the easy theft of digital payments by the governments either through taxation or inflation. Businesses are still safer off using cash and saving more money that way.

P.S. I saw a till worker in Boots wearing a bodycam the other day which I thought was rude, and then there are the self-service machines at Tesco which display your face up close. Surely any thief would walk out of the shop with their loot without coming to the self service machine in the first place? But it's us who actually pay, who get our faces filmed up close. I always cover the cameras with my glove. Wish I could have done that to that mare's bodycam too, but that would have intruded on her personal space.

Went off on a tangent towards the end but hey this is the random rant thread! I do want to slap those Go-Pro cyclists though, they're just looking to start trouble!

In my late teens I lived in a semi remote farm-ish house with my parents. We kept getting ripped off by someone as they kept breaking in to the shed, garage and having our post nicked. At the time I worked away alot so I nipped down to maplins and bought a CCTV set as I wanted to catch who ever was doing this. When buying the equipment I was informed if I want a conviction I have to display signs saying CCTV was in operation (this is why speed cameras are painted yellow). I wonder if this law is still in effect? I am thinking not because of the amount of cameras in people's cars and strapped to cyclists heads. 

We ended up catching the lad after a few days. It was a kid who came around washing cars (use to give him a tena, early 90s) if we wasn't in he would just nick our stuff. He use to sell our stuff to the local corner shop owner (same one we used daily). We also caught a gang of thieves a year later. They lived in a compound in little houses on wheels, police knew who they were but did nothing. 

I find the security camera situation disappointing, I even see them in the changing rooms at my local swimming pool. It use to annoy the c**p out of me sitting in a restaurant whilst eating with a camera on me. 

[NGMD]

4 hours ago, CazLikesCoins said:

Set up facial recognition for bank transfers if available on you bank app. It stops the pong pong from ever starting.

I have fingerprint, facial recognition, blink recognition, tick boxes to confirm warning, security check text confirmation and confirm verbally but still problems .

Yo can see why it gets frustrating.

 

[CazLikesCoins]

2 hours ago, NGMD said:

I have fingerprint, facial recognition, blink recognition, tick boxes to confirm warning, security check text confirmation and confirm verbally but still problems .

Yo can see why it gets frustrating.

 

They just don't want you your spend your money. 😅

[bluemoon]

4 hours ago, Bigmarc said:

In my late teens I lived in a semi remote farm-ish house with my parents. We kept getting ripped off by someone as they kept breaking in to the shed, garage and having our post nicked. At the time I worked away alot so I nipped down to maplins and bought a CCTV set as I wanted to catch who ever was doing this. When buying the equipment I was informed if I want a conviction I have to display signs saying CCTV was in operation (this is why speed cameras are painted yellow). I wonder if this law is still in effect? I am thinking not because of the amount of cameras in people's cars and strapped to cyclists heads. 

We ended up catching the lad after a few days. It was a kid who came around washing cars (use to give him a tena, early 90s) if we wasn't in he would just nick our stuff. He use to sell our stuff to the local corner shop owner (same one we used daily). We also caught a gang of thieves a year later. They lived in a compound in little houses on wheels, police knew who they were but did nothing. 

I find the security camera situation disappointing, I even see them in the changing rooms at my local swimming pool. It use to annoy the c**p out of me sitting in a restaurant whilst eating with a camera on me. 

I can certainly see strategic and polite uses for CCTV. Doorbell cameras are a stupid strategy and very impolite. I was in Currys today and looking over the home security section, reading some of the features of various items. I think the sheep consumers just like their toys, combined with being unhealthily obsessed with safety & authority.

[MonkeysUncle]

Thing is every single doorbell camera on the market is about as insecure as Ukraines Eastern border when bad Vlads lads turned up.

So if I'm a techopikey I watch you go out and go and rob you. Seeeeemples!

[Bigmarc]

10 minutes ago, MonkeysUncle said:

Thing is every single doorbell camera on the market is about as insecure as Ukraines Eastern border when bad Vlads lads turned up.

So if I'm a techopikey I watch you go out and go and rob you. Seeeeemples!

I said this a little while back. How easy would it be for a crook to get kyc information from coin shop of all those with precious metals in their house? 

Having said that, this forum is open, anyone in the know how could probably trace an individual through messages and ip addresses. 

As a nation I feel we have given up on privacy a long time a go and if we were being realistic, the majority don't seem to be bothered. 

[Spark268]

the other downside to the cashless society is that young folk can no longer do basic mathematics - and numerical/financial literacy to begin with

[MonkeysUncle]

Totally agree Bigmarc, sad state of affairs isn't it? People don't seem to know or care (or both).

Only yesterday (with help admittedly) I subverted the security of a pretty sophisticated alarm system with a simple sub £200 scanner. If I can do that their are far better minds than mind doing so to make their filthy lucre.

A not too bright teenager who can think a bit and follow videos on the internet is into your doorbell. And from their planting nasties in your likely vulnerable router that are going to have off with your bank details when you open your banking app...

[GoldDiggerDave]

12 hours ago, Spark268 said:

the other downside to the cashless society is that young folk can no longer do basic mathematics - and numerical/financial literacy to begin with

Thats the idea, also to only give the population a 2 minute short term memory with constant "breaking news" and 1000's of  notifications, most people who live like this have almost zero mid-long term memory.  No one will ever question what happened the week before.  

[SidS]

On 22/03/2023 at 18:47, Spark268 said:

the other downside to the cashless society is that young folk can no longer do basic mathematics - and numerical/financial literacy to begin with

Same thing happened with decimalisation, or so I'm told.

[flyingveepixie]

On 23/03/2023 at 07:04, GoldDiggerDave said:

also to only give the population a 2 minute short term memory

I always wondered why no one ever listens to my 25 minute musical odesseys....🤔🥴

Edited March 25, 2023 by flyingveepixie

[GoldDiggerDave]

25 minutes ago, flyingveepixie said:

I always wondered why no one ever listens to my 25 minute musical odesseys....🤔🥴

Why do you you think platforms like instagram, tick-tock, YouTube-shorts have been so popular, most people who use them need the 1000’s of hits of dopamine they get daily from these tiny rewards. 
 

try and have a conversation with someone under 30, ask them about themselves etc it’s a very short conversation.  The species is loosing the art of having real world social interactions. 
 

I still try and talk to people over the phone where I can instead of PM’s and emails as I find you learn more about the person you are communicating with. 

[flyingveepixie]

36 minutes ago, GoldDiggerDave said:

Why do you you think platforms like instagram, tick-tock, YouTube-shorts have been so popular, most people who use them need the 1000’s of hits of dopamine they get daily from these tiny rewards. 
 

try and have a conversation with someone under 30, ask them about themselves etc it’s a very short conversation.  The species is loosing the art of having real world social interactions. 
 

I still try and talk to people over the phone where I can instead of PM’s and emails as I find you learn more about the person you are communicating with. 

I've been noticing the lack of people's attention span for years now, and all joking aside, I really did notice it when I first started to put out these long musical pieces.  That kind of stuff was what I grew up with in the 70s when one song could take up the entire side of an LP and lots of people loved it back then. I still love listening to longer epic pieces of music and am particularly partial in my old age to certain operas like The Magic Flute for example which is a three hour extravaganza in German with elements of colloquial Austrian dialect chucked in - a real challenge !   Nowadays if a song is longer than two minutes and if it contains any real instruments rather than a load of computer generated c**p and a robotic repetitious lyric line it's too complicated for most of the simpletons out there.

With regard to ticktock and instagram I'm afraid I've led a very sheltered life and have never once looked at them..😅  I don't regret it!

Edited March 25, 2023 by flyingveepixie

[Bogart]

I wouldn't know how to look at them being a Luddite myself.

[Spark268]

from the TikTok wikipedia:

 

Quote

TikTok executives and representatives have noted and made aware to advertisers on the platform that users have poor attention spans. With a large amount of video content, nearly 50% of users find it stressful to watch a video longer than a minute and a third of users watch videos at double speed.

 

[bluemoon]

Well I do have YouTube videos set to autoplay at double speed but that's due to time saving rather than attention span. A 20 minute tutorial is very time consuming so if I can slash that time in half, I will.

[Bogart]

I like those who have the timelime at the bottom. Skip the chaff and get to the meat

[Bigmarc]

2 hours ago, flyingveepixie said:

I always wondered why no one ever listens to my 25 minute musical odesseys....🤔🥴

I had an apprentice who listened to pink Floyd's pulse album on my recommendation. The only thing he said was the songs were too long. Those days are gone. 

[SidS]

2 hours ago, flyingveepixie said:

I've been noticing the lack of people's attention span for years now...😅

If long music is out, then God help succinct novels as penned by Leo Tolstoy and Charles Dickens.

[Bogart]

Especially if in the paper form and not on a kindle.

[Bigmarc]

2 hours ago, GoldDiggerDave said:

try and have a conversation with someone under 30, ask them about themselves etc it’s a very short conversation.  The species is loosing the art of having real world social interactions.

Recently I have been trying to increase my step count at work and go on long walks during lunch (the place is the size of a small town and it is a couple of miles to walk it all). The workforce is massively diverse with many different cultures and recently I have noticed a pattern. All the Romanians sit together outside and share their lunch each bringing different bits. The Jamaicans sit together in the same room and every table they are playing dominoes. The polish men all stand in the smoking areas whether they smoke or not, the polish women sit alone on their phones eating lunch. The Indians are mostly still working through lunch and every English person is having lunch alone with their heads in their phones with their thumbs going like the clappers. Now me personally I don't talk to anyone either but I also don't do tick tock or Instagram, the only thing I use my phone at work for is podcasts, music and a quick read of my forums. 

So I generally do think it's a British thing. The majority of the guys at work are racist and the town where they are from is generally racist but I am not sure it's anything other than the break up of the community they once had. 

Another thing to look at is there is a program on BBC (think 3rd series now). It's called race across the world. Basically they need to get from a to b on minimal budget. They are currently in Canada and they are having issues receiving help from the locals. In previous series in different parts of the word you can see how open other cultures are in helping others. 

[SidS]

I think I'd sit with the Jamaicans and play dominoes. It's been a long time since I did that.

[Bigmarc]

4 minutes ago, SidS said:

I think I'd sit with the Jamaicans and play dominoes. It's been a long time since I did that.

It gets quiet aggressive in there, scares the c**p out of me (probably my point tho)

Edited March 25, 2023 by Bigmarc

[flyingveepixie]

1 hour ago, SidS said:

If long music is out, then God help succinct novels as penned by Leo Tolstoy and Charles Dickens.

Ah, yes.  That's another point of irritation for me.  My kids love The Lord of the Rings but only because they've watched the movies.  My daughter has the books but hasn't read them.  And don't even mention The Silmarillon....🙄