So, I don’t trust them to have actually done what I’m going to describe, (and honestly I’ve just accepted that even with everything off, they’re still giving me ads based on stuff I’ve only talked about and never clicked or written anything), but:
The programs that recognize specific phrases(Ok Google), are always separate from normal voice recognition (and muchmuch lighter in terms of processing). So, if they weren’t Google, they might have left the “Ok Google” recognition on, but not process anything else that the mic receives.
I will say that that’s exactly how the google voice api works. Of course it’s all in a black box, but that’s how the documentation describes it and how it functions when making a voice app
Didn’t they just pass a law to make all that illegal spying legal, like that changes anything? Seems obvious if your phone is listening in a device like this will be used no matter what setting you use. I remember Amazon being caught leaving their mics on and also Facebook sending conversations to 3rd parties for transcribing. And this is just a small fraction of the shit we know about.
Not necessarily you or your case, but I’m still convinced that a lot of people just have confirmation bias (only noticing it when it happens and discounting the thousands of otherwise innocent ads). There’s also subconscious ad effects, like you were only talking about it to begin with because your saw it somewhere because it’s been spreading by weird of mouth from people who initially saw an ad
It’s not just that either. Google knows who your family is. They know who lives with you because of location data. So any time those people search for anything regardless of whether they’re on your home network, they likely serve ads to whole families at a time when one person searches for something.
This has been my theory as well, Google presumably knows when I meet up with a friend for lunch (I don’t know if they go to such lengths but they certainly have access to the data to figure it out), if my friend then starts searching for something related to our conversation afterwards, Google could serve me ads about it too, just inferring the topic of our conversation based on that
Doesn’t really explain why I was receiving cat litter ads after only speaking with my husband offhand about maybe getting a cat. We didn’t already have a cat, so hadn’t had any reason to look up any cat care goods ever, and I had never searched for anything even remotely cat-related up to that point. But wouldn’t you know it, about 45 minutes later, I was getting kitty litter ads. Very spooky.
Sorry but I want the true story to be that your husband immediately went off and started googling to find a cat to surprise you for Christmas thus you got cat ads (same network like someone else said).
Lmao, I wish but no, no hallmark movie plots here. This was a few years ago, and we now have said cat :) He definitely forgot immediately after I mentioned it until I showed up with a cat one day lol
As Pole’s computers crawled through the data, he was able to identify about 25 products that, when analyzed together, allowed him to assign each shopper a “pregnancy prediction” score. More important, he could also estimate her due date to within a small window, so Target could send coupons timed to very specific stages of her pregnancy.
One Target employee I spoke to provided a hypothetical example. Take a fictional Target shopper named Jenny Ward, who is 23, lives in Atlanta and in March bought cocoa-butter lotion, a purse large enough to double as a diaper bag, zinc and magnesium supplements and a bright blue rug. There’s, say, an 87 percent chance that she’s pregnant and that her delivery date is sometime in late August.
That’s the gist of how it likely works; the wake word is detected by an “always on” audio DSP, but a software mode prevents the passing of microphone data back up to the SoC. I’m actually quite familiar with Amazon Echo engineering design, and they implement the “mute” feature in a manner that takes privacy seriously: the LED indicator on that button is hardwired to only turn on when the microphone is literally powered off. Thus, an Echo device can’t even manage such a cheeky response, nor can a software bug or hack enable listening while the mute button is lit.
Also, why isn’t there a slide cover to physically cover the camera, and why can’t I turn off the mic and camera separately? So I just use one of those black foam stickers to cover the camera.
I want to agree with this, but I don’t. It presupposes that piracy harms the publisher. If you go by the premise that free info sharing is ultimately good for the creator or publisher, then it’s arguably morally better for people to turn their backs on Nintendo all together and put their time and energy into makers who aren’t so hostile.
It can be worth it to push through. It might just be for a sanity check. However, often, what is a huge issue to you, is far smaller to others. Once you start breaking it down, with someone who knows what they are doing, the problem ends up a lot smaller than it seemed.
It can be worth it to push through. However, often, what is a huge issue to you, is far smaller to others. Once you start breaking it down, with someone who knows what they are doing, the problem ends up a lot smaller than it seemed.
This sounds a lot like "it is what it is" by recommending pushing through and then minimizing concerns. Why would they be pushing through to go to therapy just to have their concerns minimized?
I think the key phrase there is with someone who knows what they’re doing, ie a therapist. A lot of things people are dealing with feel insurmountable without someone who understands mental health helping you to break it down and figure out what you can change (or not). That’s an oversimplification obviously, but if it was simple nobody would need therapy.
Going to therapy is hard, particularly for men. However it’s worth putting the effort in to go.
Often the problems you are facing look huge and insurmountable. However, when you actually start to truly attack them, they are a paper tiger. Often all you actually need to do is change you mindset and perspective, and they crumble. A mental health professional can often guide you through this process. It’s the difference between being trapped in a trap laden maze alone Vs with company and a detailed map. You still need to walk the path, but there are far fewer dead ends, and the support you need to do it.
I was diagnosed with ADHD (and ASD) several years ago. The treatment helped massively. The changes I’ve made were often tiny. However, by changing a few points early in my thought processes, the changes rippled outwards. What were massive, looming problems, dissolved like fog. The root problems were obvious to a professional, and are now far more obvious to me. On my own, I couldn’t recognise them however. Once I could see them, I could hit the bullseye, and the rest of the dominoes well like a house of cards, checkmate.
It can be so worth it. Sometimes I’m stressing about this great nebulous cloud of bullshit that just seems insurmountable and existential, but then when I explain it to someone, it’s like… 3 things. And yeah, those things may legitimately be a source of stress, but knowing that they are finite and number, and probably solvable, makes daily life a lot less daunting.
Ok it can’t just be me. It feels like at a certain point sound levels got messed up. When I watch older stuff it’s fine the new stuff I feel like I am skipping backwards to catch what they said.
What an obnoxious conclusion they have - we need to buy better speakers. I have good speakers. Old things sound great, but new shows sound like crap. This is their problem to fix, not ours.
One could also think of it as capital gains, since it grows in value when people “invest” in it. Nintendo’s lawyers may claim that because of that it should not be considered an income but an “asset” that they can take in its entirety to cover some of the debt.
Then again - if that GoFundMe can actually cover the entire fine, that could turn out to be a good thing. Yes, we’ll be giving money to Nintendo, but Nintendo does not really need that money. What they want is to ruin that man’s life in order to send a message. If the public can un-ruin that life, that would send an opposite message - and a signal backed by money, too.
I’d say more than half the crappy situations I end up in are both outside of and beyond my control. Sometimes, you just have to ride the suck train until things improve. Therapy is a powerful tool, but it has its limits, and it’s important to know when and how it can be helpful.
I’ve about had it with all these people complaining about COVID. Listen, you’ll be fine. You cough a bit, you sometimes develop symptoms that stay with you for the rest of your life, and if you’re over 60 you die. You would be dying soon anyway, what’s the use of complaining? This is just how things are.
Covid-19 vaccine researchers, if your opinion had any merit.
And you know what? I really need to hear less about all this climate change shit. It’s done. We fucked the world to get ours. I got my yacht and my mansion. Oh, you didn’t get yours? Well yeah, your kids will die. My kids might die too, but if they sell my yacht they’ll probably live more than yours anyway lmao. It’s over, you lost, gg, stop complaining. Bitching isn’t going to do any good.
I know a female supervisor that uses it daily to demean her employee’s valid concerns and needs. She was nicknamed The Witch and she has witch paraphernalia and decorations all over her office. She knows how far she can push and abuse people without raising any alarms to the executive staff.
Therapy doesn’t fix any of the most pressing issues I have. I’d wager about 85% or more of my stress is economic or environmental in nature. My big three worries are how am I gonna afford a house by myself, how am i going to be able to retire on little money and without kids, and is the envrioment going to lose the ability to sustain human life while I’m still alive and on nothing more than a fixed income.
I don’t need to journal my thoughts and pretend the outside world doesn’t exist, I need some damn material security in my life.
The thing therapy has helped me with in regards to that is feeling okay despite it all. Being content despite not having all of our wants and needs fulfilled is a valuable skill.
I understand your point, and I also think a bit in this direction. But i think there may be two counterpoints.
First you beeing depressed over the status and worrying at home and online about it, is not really helping your or doing anything against your boss.
Second, as i understand it, the goal is not to get really content, but to get more control over your feelings. It is perfectly fine if zou feel sad or angry over the situation. It shows you what you want or do not want. But this doesn’t need to control your life. If you have the possibility you should definitely use your anger to give you energy for the fight for better working conditions. But if you can not, you should your feelings taking complete control over you
There’s only so much that can be done to meet one’s needs. There will always be wants and needs that go unfulfilled, it’s just the nature of being human. Being able to exist with that, without it causing you extreme distress, is a very valuable coping skill that’s lost in a lot of people.
This doesn’t mean eschew meeting your needs completely, but simply acknowledging that some may be actually impossible to fulfill right now, at least safely, and working on an actual viable plan, instead of panicking and doing whatever short-term fix seems handy.
Im glad working on a viable plan and panicking are mutally exclusive for you, but they’re not for me. This is why my therapist started suggesting I simply stop paying attention to everything outside of my immediate daily view. My brain also failed to make itself happy through that kind of ignorance. Not to mention I couldn’t simply make that information unexists from my day to day social interactions. I was encountering at work what my therapist told me to avoid and since it was word of mouth it was less reliable than if I had just read it myself.
Actual doctors have tried, years have been spent and by the time I stopepd going id been going on about a year of weekly visits where I was no longer being taught anything new, simply checking in and making sure I was doing all the things I already learned. Copays were eating away at my actionable steps to fix the other problems in my life and I was no longer learning anything new or noticing positive behavioral change.
Sounds like a therapist that just didn’t mesh with you. If they’re just doing routine maintenance and not suggesting ways to improve either they’re not suited to your situation, or there’s something else confounding the situation.
You don’t have to completely put on blinders to be content despite being without. You can see all of the things you’re missing, or actively working towards but not at yet, and not be thrust into the middle of an emotional response. This is simply the point of my statement.
I want to commend you for what you’re doing. It doesn’t feel good, but you must remain effective. You can’t re-align schemas through Internet comments however, don’t burn yourself out.
Hey, man, thanks for the kind words! I enjoy these kinds of conversations, I like to think I’m working towards making the world a better place, no matter how small. If one person resonates with what I’ve said, I feel accomplished.
I want to thank you for your messages here. I agree with promethil that you need to consoder yourself, i think texts like yours can do quite something good. Sure you won’t heal someone with a few messages. However, I was brought to a mindfulness training* mostly by a reddit chain of comments and this helped me, along other things, a lot, getting out of difficult times.
*An app called “Mindfulness Coach” by the US Department of Veterans Affairs
Thanks for your message! I’ll take a look at that app, for sure. I’m leaps further than I was, but not where I’d like to be. Hope you have an excellent day, friend!
Ive been to multiple therapists, usually I switch when I get to the maintainace phase, except the last time when I just decided to save the money all together. This isn’t something that happend in isolation, and like I said last comment literal doctors have also intervened in some of these areangements. Please stop acting like you posses some truth I have yet to find. ‘Emotional response’ or not, having needs going unmet causes mental and physical duress and side effects, necessarily. No matter how happy you pretend to be about it.
I never said they didn’t. And I never said you have to be happy in the face of it. There’s a distinct difference between “content”, the word i used, and “happy”, the word you seem to hear.
Society fuckin sucks for the majority of people, I think we can all agree on that bit. And yet, a lot of people manage contentedness despite these absolute facts.
There exist things outside of our ability to control, directly or otherwise. Often, these things get in the way of our needs. You have 3 options in this case. Give up, ram into it with everything you have and fuckin hope it works, or accept it and find a way to be content despite the roadblocks.
Yes and I’m telling you I’ve spent years going to professionals trying to feel ‘content’ and it doesn’t really change shit. Either you can swallow it and smile or you’re gonna gag. Therapy didn’t move the needle nearly as much as investing in the knowledge and infrastructure to remove myself from the problem, which is property and small scale farming. Notice how the only thing standing in my way is means, means I was slowly giving an insurance company who took more than their fair share from my doctor or therapist to tell me to try and smile about it instead. Therein lies my point, therapy solves my bosses problems not mine, it’s a distraction from mine. You’re mileage may vary, but like I said way up top, therapy can’t solve every problem. Hell therapy can’t solve the same problem for every person either with how wildly different peoples brains are even on a chemical level. Sometimes it works, other times it doesn’t. Like every other medical treatment.
I’m sorry that therapy hasn’t worked out for you. I do acknowledge that not every kind of therapy works for every person, or for every problem. I only truly made progress when I found a very specific type of therapy that resonated for me, doing a lot of that journey on my own, and finally bringing it into a therapist office when I reached the end of what I could do alone.
I hope your life path has you moving towards something you consider better, however that looks for you.
We shouldn’t be striving to be “content” we should be livid, pissed, terrified, motivated.
Being content while the world is falling apart is madness and the more people that are “content” means more people unwilling to actually make the changes necessary to fix the problems we have.
“Content” simply means you feel as if you could live life with what you have. It doesn’t mean you can’t WANT more. It doesn’t mean you can’t hate how badly the system is bending you and others over. It’s simply a state of being that is, “at the end of the day, none of this is unbearable. I will continue living, and as such, there’s no need for an extreme emotional response.”
Drive, desire, fight… all of it can exist, and you can still maintain contentedness.
there’s no need for an extreme emotional response.
That’s the part I’m having issues with. There’s very much a need for extreme emotional response.
Idk clearly I’m not picking up what you’re putting down and I apologize for seeming so hostile. I’m just at the point of wanting to commit acts of terror because the people in charge are making protest illegal.
I just don’t see how that’s any different from “it is what it is” in the first place.
Man, I get it. I’m at that point, too. In a lot of ways society has failed all of us.
Society is also a large vessel that takes lifetimes to change. Essentially, the kind of thing one man can do barely anything about. Not that we shouldn’t try, but… Well, to quote Stephen King, “pray for water, but dig a well while you wait.”
I think the best way to describe it is, if I feel content, it’s a sense of stability within myself - a sense that I’m grounded, and going to get through. Some of my needs right now are going under-fulfilled, but that won’t be eternal. I’m uncomfortable now, but discomfort doesn’t mean I’m in a situation where I should panic and start grasping at the first possible way to fulfill my needs. Instead, I can be comfortable in my discomfort, think about what my needs actually are, and create a plan to fulfill those needs in a more healthy and sustainable manner.
UK? Yeah that shit is scary. I am gobsmacked they’re pulling that authoritarian crap.
I’m probably full of shit but here is what I’m thinking. Some things like employers not paying enough and treating employees like shit in various ways-- that is depressing if we are totally helpless. If we can form unions and protest in effective ways, that actually get some reforms going, then it feels like maybe there is some hope.
Content isn’t the right response. Neither is giving up in despair. Being able to channel anger and frustration productively seems lots better.
If you’re lonely for a bit, or some things aren’t going great you can learn to live with that, for now while also working on fixing what you can. Spinning your wheels fretting and self-pitying doesn’t help but taking action does.
Some things will always be outside of my control.
It is probably best to find a way to accept those things. Rather than stewing about them. Because all that does is make me feel worse.
I think you pretty well nailed my view of contentedness with your paragraph starting “if you’re lonely…”. That’s pretty much how I see it. It’s a state of being okay, despite some needs not being met in the moment. Tend to urgent needs, be ok with some less urgent ones sitting for a bit, accept things you have no control over, and work towards bettering your position overall, instead of sitting and wallowing in the self-pity mire.
I think I understand you. I also think there are needs for extreme emotional response. However, I would be interested how often they helped you in, and how often the only effect of these was making you feeling worse?
I did some therapy in this direction. And I am generally more content. I can enjoy way more time of my life than a year ago, even in similar situations.
But if we talk about the status of the world, I am at least as angry and sad as before. And I also do at least as much to change it as before. Which, to be honest, is not as much as I would like.
Edit: I think I can actually experience emotions more intense now, while not being overwhelmed by them.
Feelings of extreme loneliness. Accepting that, despite having a very real need (community, belonging, connection) not being met at the moment doesn’t mean that it ever will be, and I can actually be okay being uncomfortable, but still content.
I think it is worth pointing out that while therapy can certainly help you manage stress better and be more content maybe, if you are truly struggling and falling further behind here in the US, no amount of therapy (which you can’t afford anyway) is going to make you stop being hungry, sleep deprived, heal severe injury or illness, or give your home back. And going without food, sleep, or housing can lead to death.
Those items are a bit trickier for sure. There’s a biological need for them and so they can be pressing. There’s a certain bare minimum that yeah, you can’t just not have. Anything past that, though, past the absolute critical for life level, is something you can learn to be content with, learn to not desire more than, and instead just be thankful for the excess above starvation that you enjoy in this moment.
You have needs that go unfulfilled all the time. You’ve never been hungry without any immediate food? Part of being content is being able to go without needs for a certain period of time, being safe in knowing that it ISN’T going to be forever.
This, of course, doesn’t mean you can forego every need forever. Yeah, being without food or water too long can and will kill you, but that doesn’t mean you have to have that need 100% met 100% of the time.
Of note, I’m not saying that people just shouldn’t eat. That’s the kind of need that we as a society should have figured out by now, truly. But going without SOMETIMES okay, and learning that is huge.
You’re the one that thinks an integrated microphone would just ‘turn off’ because you tapped on a touchscreen so maybe cool it with the schoolyard insults you tossed some elemental chemistry into to make yourself sound smarter.
Yes, but you are the one who started to talk about a software switch. So obviously you were not aware of the fact that there are hardware switches. Or you just wanted to troll.
Pretty sure I was talking about the subject of the post and not, as many have pointed out, all the ways you could possibly wire up a fucking microphone.
You certainly could wire that up and I was aware of that when I made my comment but if you think any of your electronics, especially the big corp home devices like the Google home or Amazon Alexa, are wired like that then you’re out of your mind.
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