It all used to be very easy in Australia, you bought the phone at a supermarket and gave bogus info when registering the SIM. Then the “War on Terror™” began and the government started taking things a bit more seriously started mandating the paper registration forms needed to be completed or the retailers could get in trouble. But your average supermarket worker wasn’t going to take the time to do that and it was way too widespread for the government to actually crack down on it.

Took a few years but the Telcos started actually paying attention to the fact that the majority of prepaid phones weren’t getting completed paperwork at point of sale so they just moved to make all sim card activations require online or over the phone ID checks.

Every bit of training I ever did made it clear it was all about catching terrorists, drug dealers and paedophiles, which of course means “We want all that juicy data without citizens asking any annoying questions.”

My fault, I missed the “Stop AI” at the end.

He is right, accelerating climate change, wealth disparity and economic collapse is likely going to unite a lot of us, probably not the way he suspects though.

It is a really good filter for me, any company that wants to harvest the bogus information I will use to access them had better do a good job of convincing me it’s worth the effort.

I have a similar take on online stores wanting me to create a login to get a shipping cost, unless they are offering a truly unique item, or outrageously good price I just don’t buy anything from them.

If we all had a similar standards these bits of UX fuckery would disappear over time, unfortunately most people don’t even think about it.

Guessing that would be They Live. Haven’t actually watched it myself but cultural osmosis being what it is… Anyway here is some more info https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_Live

Well how many people on Death Row are handing out juicy consultant work when he gets sick of being in local politics (or gets kicked out)?

So start making the penalty for data breaches executive fingers. It will really bring home the importance of getting it right.

Plus there are more than a few companies that will have to work out how to get signatures from people who have lost all of their digits within weeks of that rule being put in place.

As things stand you have together caught breaking privacy laws, then you have to be unlucky enough to get properly investigated, then you need to be even more unlucky to actually get fined, and truly monumentally unlucky enough to not be able to tie things up in court long enough for the consequences to hit faster than the golden parachute can open.

Fines are just a cost of doing business and there’s so many avenues for “accidentally” having data leak after all.

Tongue, bloody autocorrect

Oh god, I pretty savagely bit the very back of my younger last night somehow. Its kinda horrible looking and hurts when I swallow. I bet these would fix me right up, if only we lived in more enlightened times.

Maybe they don’t want the competition?

Does the UK government outsource that sort of service?

Oh please be somewhere you can sue for racial discrimination… Please!!!

There was a time, before Google showed their hand, that I would go out of my way to leave Google reviews. Good, bad or somewhere in between I would document the customer experience.

Since Google made it clear what trajectory they are on I have returned to the old ways. Amazing service gets a letter, great service gets a quiet word to the manager. Bad service gets a word to the manager at the end of the transaction, terrible service and I just never return again and tell anyone who asks why. Everything in between those extremes gets me acting as a polite customer and that’s about it.

Have I over thought this?

I know it’s Piers Morgan and he will say shit just to rile shit up cause it gets him the views. You could probably fit a summary of his actually deeply held convictions on a corner of a postage stamp.

But sometimes it is hilarious when his acceptability to fascists and far right types lulls them into thinking he is on their side, rather than just the side that personally enriches him the most at that moment in time.

He is in the perfect position to sink the knife in right up to the hilt and give it a little twist.

Yeah I know. Sorry to have stepped on your… Joke isn’t the right word… Social commentary?

I hear what you are saying, but that’s a matter of perspective. I tend to be no more or less scared of Muslims than I am Christians. Talk to a lot of people in South East Asian and they can tell you some tales that don’t make mainstream news about Buddhists. I’m sure there’s a bunch of lore out there covering Hindus as well.

Well… I mean… Who knows what sort of crazy demon he was trying to summon with that spell he was writing?

I’m from Australia, that would scare and confuse a number of the locals here too. We are also pretty damn racist.

Just nowhere near as religious.

And verily he said unto the assembled flock: “I use Arch by the way!” and there was much rolling of eyes and snorts of derision from the unbelievers.

Would be amusing to see the look on her face if a Muslim sat next to her on a plane and started preaching. Or a Hindu. Or a Christian from a different sect.

All these special snowflakes need to fuck right off and let the rational people live their lives in peace.