Small Talk: Mayday

[lucindabelle]

Criminal Minds literally gave me nightmares. I hated opening scenes where innocent people killed. Hated.

[alexvillage]

5 hours ago, Ashforth said:

For the record, I did NOT activate Alexa. I won't have Amazon spying on me in my own home (at least not voluntarily).

Too late for that. I signed up to a medical thing the other day and in seconds they had my photo and all the information they (didn't) need. We are living in a dystopian reality.

[AllyB]

Ah guys, I really missed you all and my Wednesday dose of snark yesterday.

[AngelaHunter]

On 8/21/2019 at 3:24 PM, alexvillage said:

We are living in a dystopian reality.

I have an elderly friend whose kids got her the Google Home and the small Alexa version for her bedroom, just in case she needed to call for help. Anyway, one evening there was some mixup with her son who was traveling and she was afraid something had happened to him. Later on, he called her and she spoke to him on her bedroom phone. I guess she expressed relief that all was well. When she hung up, Alexa (without being asked anything) piped up with "And that's that." She was freaked out and disabled both devices.  I don't have this device but have read about concerns people have with spying. I just don't know...

[alexvillage]

10 hours ago, AngelaHunter said:

I have an elderly friend whose kids got her the Google Home and the small Alexa version for her bedroom, just in case she needed to call for help. Anyway, one evening there was some mixup with her son who was traveling and she was afraid something had happened to him. Later on, he called her and she spoke to him on her bedroom phone. I guess she expressed relief that all was well. When she hung up, Alexa (without being asked anything) piped up with "And that's that." She was freaked out and disabled both devices.  I don't have this device but have read about concerns people have with spying. I just don't know...

Wow! I don't have any of those devices and now even the camera door, the one from Amazon - Ring - is being marketed by the police and will eventually be used to profile people and for surveillance. The police departments are getting gifts from Amazon, which also writes their press releases praising the device.

Not to mention the face recognition scanners that are very inaccurate, with algorithms that cannot distinguish one black person from another.

[AngelaHunter]

Make of this what you will:

https://tinyurl.com/y6owtl8y

[alexvillage]

Somewhat related to the show because of actor and because of our political times.

Bradley Whitford is the voice in Ady Barkan's book, Eyes in the Wind.

I know BW has been very politically engaged but more in the neoliberal branch of the democratic party. Ady is more progressive, I believe he identifies himself as a "socialist" (quotes because I am referring to the type of socialism that is not really socialism). But still cool. I had already ordered the audiobook because I can enjoyed it with my roommate who prefers audio recordings - Libro.fm, not Audible because I avoid Amazon as much as believers say they avoid the devil.

[AllyB]

I may be a step towards forgiving this show for being so awful. I added Cloudbusting to my trail skating playlist after hearing it at the end of Liars. Most of that playlist is fast rock music to keep me moving fast, so I wasn't sure how it would work out but thought I'd try it. It came on yesterday evening for kilometers 21 and 22. I was skating hard, already high on adrenaline, skating alongside a lovely treelined canal, facing into the sunset. It was like a religious experience. Just beautiful.

Obviously Kate Bush actually deserves the credit, not this terrible show, but I wouldn't have heard it otherwise, so that's something.

[Baltimore Betty]

12 hours ago, AllyB said:

It came on yesterday evening for kilometers 21 and 22. I was skating hard, already high on adrenaline, skating alongside a lovely treelined canal, facing into the sunset. It was like a religious experience. Just beautiful.

Speed skating? Sounds wonderful.

[AllyB]

23 minutes ago, Baltimore Betty said:

Speed skating? Sounds wonderful.

Speedy for me anyway. I've goal of bringing my marathon time in closer to 2 hours but with winter on it's way, I'm just happy to get out for an hour or so when I can and just let loose. But pretty much anything with wheels or blades on my feet is my version of wonderful.

[Ashforth]

I'm cross-posting this in multiple threads and if I get banned, this is the hill I'm willing to die on because this may literally be a matter of life or death:

Tom Colicchio is out front in publicizing that the need to feed our nation's children during the COVID-19 crisis is even more critical than it quietly is every "normal" day. With schools closing because of the pandemic, millions of kids in the U.S. will lose their primary source of nutrition. https://www.sheknows.com/parenting/articles/2174246/coronavirus-children-school-lunch/

Not only that, millions of people, especially in the service industry, are going to lose their incomes and may be faced with going hungry.

If you can afford to, please donate to your local food bank. You can save lives with a $5 donation.

[Anela]

My grandmother would occasionally talk about hiding like this, but she would talk about them getting into a circle, and praying.  They were in the London area.  she was a child when the first war started, and a wife and mother, by the time of the blitz.  My mum was born at the end of 1945.  
 

https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/15-powerful-photos-of-the-blitz

[Anela]

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-blitz-begins
 

Quote

One of Hitler’s key strategic blunders of the war was to consistently underestimate the will and courage of the British people. They would not run or be cowed into submission. They would fight.

Once we’ve had our cup of tea.  I grew up learning about this.  

[PurpleTentacle]

Taking this here from the 5x10 thread because of mod request

18 hours ago, Bluesky said:

Something about the famous “let them eat cake” quote?  I don’t understand half of those sayings.  

That one is supposedly what Marie-Antoinette said in response to somebody telling her that the poor don't even have bread and are revolting because of it. It is meant to show how out of touch she was. It also was originally (roughly translated) "Well if they don't have bread, why don't they just eat brioche?". But historians are 99% sure that it's just propaganda and she never actually said something like that.

Today it is often used when a rich person is clearly out of touch. A more nerdy person would probably use: "It's one banana Micheal, what could it cost? $10?"