I recently called a contractor to do some work on my house. The first call to them was fielded by an ai assistant who couldn’t answer the questions I had about if they even did jobs like the one I had.

After a few rounds I gave up and ended the call. Then I get a text shortly after from their system trying to reengage me.

I ignored that too, as they were starting to piss me off.

Then, about ten minutes later I get a voice call from them, and it is a human! Yay! I ask her my question and quickly find out she is in a call center and also can’t tell me if they even work on jobs like the one I have.

This was my first and last experience with that company.

I see that as the way most companies will go. Poorly slapped together ai experiences, a workforce that is an army of contractors, and no one to help at the end of the day with anything mildly outside the box. This will be normalized, companies will spend less on people and get worse results.

He traded a bunch of our currency for Argentina’s money. If he gets out of his presidency (alive and not in jail) my money is on him heading there.

I’d tell you a udp joke but you might not get it.

Chris Cornell hit hard especially when you go back and listen to his lyrics.

There’s looking at the bright side!

That’s interesting! I always assumed it was the literal “that name is no longer with us”, but that makes a lot of sense.

They look constipated.

Yes that’s exactly what I was thinking about!

You could likely find something on the educational site pornhub.

“Good, you?”

I think now as things advance with AI and the US government is completely corrupt/dysfunctional some company is going to make a med bed with an array of sensors and AI.

One of the oligarchs will bless us with this technology and they will get a shit ton of money from the government, so long as the big guy gets his cut.

Money. Lots of money.

Funeral potatoes are my favorite.

https://www.tasteandtellblog.com/funeral-potatoes/

Turns out Trump has a shelter guy.

Yet every day he bends the knee to Israel

Smartphones with WiFi can now be used as an indicator of customer presence thanks to a WiFi mechanism that is common across all such devices: probe requests. These 802.11 management frames are transmitted at regular intervals from WiFi devices. The frames contain information that can be used to identify presence, time spent, and repeat visits within range of a WiFi access point. These devices can be detected by WiFi access points irrespective of its WiFi association state meaning that even if a user does not connect his or her device to the wireless network, the device’s presence can still be detected while the device is within range of the network and the device’s WiFi antenna is turned on.

I’m just a developer, so admittedly I’m unsure if the frames they refer to have any uniquely identifying information. Hopefully not. At the very least they get a heat map of where phones are in the store.

If you connect to the wifi they will get your MAC address for sure, but that’s usually randomized every time you connect.

Hypothetically if you hop on their wifi they can track your device for the duration of that connection all the way to the register. Then you use your credit card or rewards programs and they can put it together. (When I swipe my card at microcenter they always say “do you still live on…” since I’ve purchased online from them.)

Locally at one of our sports stadiums you swipe your card walk in to a snack area, grab what you want, and walk out with it. They use cameras and other sensor to make that possible. If they can figure it out Walmart certainly can.

This is all tinfoil hat stuff based on pieces of information I have, but it sure is interesting to think about.

I once worked retail and it was a pain to run around printing labels for hours. Granted, I got paid by the hour, so there were much worse things to do.

I also don’t believe this is a nefarious plot, but it does enable dynamic pricing. Stores are creepy these days, they have sensors and network hardware that can track you in the store. They also can do facial recognition.

So they know who you are, where you are / where you went, what you ultimately buy (just enter your rewards number!). So they could literally see someone coming and raise prices on certain items as they enter the store.

Not to say that is a strategy companies are actively employing, but all the pieces are there.

Reference to help you sleep at night: https://documentation.meraki.com/Wireless/Operate_and_Maintain/User_Guides/Monitoring_and_Reporting/Location_Analytics

The older I get, the more quickly it creeps.

Exposing ice agents to more Americans seems like a great opportunity to make them even more hated. Good luck with that.

Whoop whoop