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Sounds like something straight out of A Prairie Home Companion.

Presumably when it was first pitched internally it was called "Amazon 5-Star", then they realised that meant they basically couldn't sell anything, since nothing popular gets a full 5 stars. So they changed it to "4-Star"

This would not be the first off-by-one error at Amazon.


I take it you know roughly nothing about how the world works?

Even New York City has a county sheriff.

https://www.nyc.gov/site/finance/sheriff-courts/sheriff.page


If by the world you mean America, then yes. One really only hears about sherifs in westerns and florida man videos.

If, by your own admission, you don't know anything about America, why would you post a snarky personal attack like that?

Go rage-post on Reddit. HN is supposed to be better.


Yeah, fair point. Too much rage inducing news lately I guess.

If they're not responding to either violent crimes or nonviolent crimes, what are they doing all day?

According to a police administrator I once knew, filling out all the endless paperwork that makes the studies possible so people can complain about what little time cops spend fighting crime.


The only times were cops were useful to me was to fill a theft report that I needed for an insurance claim.

Similar story for me. Except in Rome, and the ending wasn't happy because all I could do is watch my wife's iPhone go to Tunisia where it disappeared.

Still, in those very early days of "Find my" I could see how this was going to eventually change things.


Simlar (sad) story in Spain, very recent. Airtags and Find My are known by police by now. When my friends bag was stolen, he located it on the police station via Find My. It was located in a residential multi-story house nearby, which was known by the police. The place is known to house several members of organized petty crime. Police told him they cannot do anything as they can't enter the house without a warrant and won't get one just based on his testimony.

Yup, that’s how it is sadly, happens every day in Barcelona. Once it’s inside a building they can’t do anything.

As opposed to the UK police, who can't do anything once it's... anywhere.

Yeah, or the police in my state capital, who, when I got confirmation that my stolen phone was being sold on eBay, by a seller who lived near me, whose eBay profile contained nearly 100 phones, and 50-60 laptops, all 'without chargers/accessories", some "activation locked", etc., as well as the strong implication of theft on eBay (I was actually contacted by someone who'd bought my phone from him, and when he discovered it was locked, with my info on the screen, contacted the seller who initially refused a return/refund on it, until the buyer said "So you know, if you don't, the phone is actually telling me who the real owner was, and how to contact them, and I can send them and/or the police your info..."), the police said:

Police: "Well, he probably didn't steal it himself."

Me: "Isn't selling known stolen property a crime in itself?"

Police: ...

Me: ...

Police: "We're not going to pursue this further."

Thank you for your service?


This is why I never understand the expansion of surveillance tech and how people believe it will make us safer. So many people have these types of stories and how does expanded surveillance solve those problems? The police already know a crime has been committed, who did it, where they are, and we need more surveillance?!

The trick is making the criminal by law responsible to pay the costs of the investigation.

Now the cops and judge have an incentive to actually prosecute, since it generates their funding.

Now it only costs them money.


The criminals know this as well, of course.

How is it just his testimony if they can literally locate the device to the location?

That’s just ‘oh, my poor back’.


[flagged]


Do you read Chinese, Hindi, and Vietnamese to read about thefts in those countries?

Latin-based-language countries also have more relations to the english world (mostly through Britain historically conquering most of them), and so as an English speaker you're more likely to see news about those countries.

I'm not sure if you're trying to imply something else, but if you are, please don't. The relationships between languages, what countries are reported in the western news, what countries americans (i.e. the HN audience visit), and so on is complicated, multi-faceted, and cannot be easily boiled down to language as a root cause of anything.


Because they happen to be at the mediteranian cost (for reasons related to how the roman empire conquered and reigned) and are popular tourist destinations today.

I don't think you'd find any link between countries with latin based languages and theft. Differences in crime rates are going to be much more likely to be based on economic inequality, social policy, enforcement, and how crime is reported

The connection to the language spoken in the countries that you are making is completely spurious. The real reason is the the current elected politicians have a great deal of tolerance for the African thieving and fencing gangs, and exert their influence so that the gangs enjoy protection from the consequences of the justice system over the native population. A reduction in crime could happen from one day to the next if the people are willing to abolish the two-tier system, reintroduce a measurement of accountability and enforce the law.

This is just green washing on the level of “93.65% natural ingredients”.

I keep seeing products in the supermarket with big "Made with REAL ingredients!" labels on them.

As opposed to what? Imaginary ingredients?

Classico pasta sauce is the most recent offender.


After all, Polonium is a REAL ingredient - but I would't want it in my pasta sauce...

Chemicals. That’s what they mean by real ingredients: no chemicals.

Like orange juice: can be from a chemical powder or real oranges.


This is a good example of how easy it is to fool people if they don’t have their own understanding of how things work.

Highlighting this has been a priority in my parenting. My child is having a great time trying to scare friends about the dangers of the chemical dihydrogen monoxide, which is found in a surprisingly large number of manufactured foods.


Right. And wonder bread is awesome for your health.

Wonder Bread is horrible for your health, but it’s not because of “chemicals.”

Orange juice is also bad for your health BTW!


Nobody said it was. But it's not bad because of chemicals, because all bread is created with chemicals.

As for natural versus artificial - that's also bullshit. There's many natural ingredients that are poison, and many artificial ones that are good for you.

I mean, if I eat home made fried chicken everyday, you can bet your ass I'm not gonna live very long.


Asbestos is all natural.

Don't forget poison ivy, amanita mushrooms, and box jellyfish.

Cooking is chemistry anyway.

But that's total nonsense. Everything in our physical world (including water, air, food, and human bodies) is made of chemicals. They can be naturally occurring or artificially manufactured.

You can nitpick and be pedantic about the wording I used, but if you equate artificial flavors or ingredients with natural ones…

Is it really pedantic? Everything is ultimately a chemical compound. H2O is a chemical. Where do you draw the line between "chemicals" and "not chemicals"? Is it more about what you can find in nature? You can find acetone in nature.

yeah, this is kind of a definitional example of pedantry. you probably understand what people are trying to say when they talk about "chemicals" but instead of engaging with the actual conversation, you spin off a metanarrative to pick apart the word choice as if that's directly relevant to the point they're trying to discuss.

not trying to pick on you specifically, because sure everything's a chemical, and i don't really care to fight about that, but you asked :)


"Chemical" is just a really, really vague and poor word choice. I honestly don't understand what people are trying to say when they use it. Food and chemistry are inextricably intertwined. You can't even talk about food without talking about all of the various components food is made up of. Not a single food item out there isn't made up of chemicals. Some found in nature, some created in a lab or factory process. Some healthy, some not. Some with long names, some with short names. Some have effects on food taste, longevity, appearance. Some are inert. It's really a meaningless word to use in the context of one's food.

>I honestly don't understand what people are trying to say when they use it

Like, banana-flavoured milk product vs banana yogurt - seed oil and potato starch compound with artificial flavorings vs REAL milk yoghurt with REAL banana.

It tastes different, it has different nutritional value and overall "chemical" product feels scammy because it tries to mimic proper one.

This is all about words, like, why do we use "Artificial" in Artificial Intelligence?


What is real banana? How much processing is allowed for it to be still real? Considering the selective breeding of banana, is banana even still real?

Chemical is just a bad word choice. Artificial, or ultra processed get closer to the issue. They still are vague with a lot of grey area. If you cook at home, you're also highly processing your food. The fruit in winter is likely also artificial, in some sense: Grown against the will of god/nature with pesticides, in a tent, in a climate that doesn't naturally feature them, devoid of flavour because they were artificially bred for yield, color and size, etc.


>What is real banana? How much processing is allowed for it to be still real? Considering the selective breeding of banana, is banana even still real?

This is arbitrary subjective qualifier, goes somewhere between "isoamyl acetate" flavoring chemical and organic wild forest bananas. I would subjectively say that any grown bananas is REAL while isoamyl acetate made by rectification of amyl acetate is not REAL banana.


Is Baking Powder considered a “chemical”? How about sodium bicarbonate and monocalcium phosphate?

Maybe people are simply reacting to chemical-sounding words.


Add some artificial bacon flavouring, starch and you will get "beef flavoured product" which most people would call "chemical".

> you probably understand what people are trying to say when they talk about "chemicals"

My understanding is that when someone complains about "chemicals" in their food, it's because they've seen something they don't understand on the ingredient list and are scared of it.


I think it's actually a great example of very very important non-pedantry. The entire crux of their argument/issue is dependent on their definition of "chemicals". I would even go so far as to say it's just the nature fallacy in disguise.

With the nature fallacy, the definition (or more like the lack of) of what is natural is the entire crux of it. In both cases (natural and "non-chemical") it's the very non-defined-ness that reveals the problem with it: You cannot create a sensible definition.

For nature, what's the definition that puts "rape" and "artificial insulin" on the morally correct side?

For chemical, what's the definition that puts "fortification with iodine, flouride, or whatevers in flour" and "arsenic" on the right side?


Could you describe the difference between the artificial flavour vanilin made in a lab, and the natural flavour vanilin extracted from a vanilla bean?

OK for vanilla, however most of the fruit artificial flavors are compound that have nothing to do with the elements from the natural fruit but at some point, someone in the food industry decided it tasted "similar" to the natural fruit.

For some of them, like cherry or coconuts, the artificial flavor tastes nothing like the natural flavor.


To my knowledge benzaldehyde is the most common cherry flavor, and I agree it doesn't taste much like cherries. It's also a naturally occurring compound we produce from cassia oil, and it's naturally contained in almonds, apricots, apples and cherries.

As for coconut there's Lactones, which - you guessed it - occur naturally.

> OK for vanilla, however most of the fruit artificial flavors are compound that have nothing to do with the elements from the natural fruit but at some point, someone in the food industry decided it tasted "similar" to the natural fruit.

Care to provide a source?


Just stating the obvious that not buying one of these thing that we never seemed to need until they told us we needed it

I never thought I needed one until my wife lost her car keys, and the Fiat dealer charged $1,200 for a replacement.

And it's not even the electronics that makes them so expensive. Modern car keys aren't like the 1970's where it's just a piece of metal with the edges shaved off. Those little key cutting kiosks at Home Depot can't cope with today's complex engraving.


I have cats. I can’t count on things being where I left them.

Buy a Volvo. Then you can pop out the SIM card to disable the car's cellular communication. (On mine, located behind the mirror.)

When you really need it, like to download maps into the satnav, you can connect it to your home WiFi, or tether via Bluetooth.


Hahah, I just traded in 2023 (unrelated brand) for 2012 model since it was less of a computer. Computer systems in the newer car kept having faults that caused sporadic electrical issues workshops couldn’t fix. I just want my car to be a car and nothing else.

2005 Toyota Corolla.

1997... and that's my last car. No way I'm going to be driving around in a piece of spyware.

Until they switch to eSIM...

cut the antenna

... and get a Check Engine light+fault code for the built-in emergency SOS feature, thereby making it unable to pass vehicle inspection until you fix the antennae

so either 1) disconnect it most of the time and reconnect it for inspections, or 2) buy a dummy load RF terminator matching the resistance of your antenna

Live in an inspection free state.

Hrm HN seems very triggered by this reasonable suggestion.

Chinese-owned Volvo?

OnePlus and other Chinese brands were modders-friendly until they suddenly weren't, I wouldn't rely on your car not getting more hostile at a certain point


There was a video by MKBHD where he said that every new phone manufacturer starts off being the hero and doing something different and consumer/user friendly before with growth and competition they evolve into just another mass market phone manufacturer. Realistically this is because they wouldn't be able to survive without being able to make and sell mass market phones. This has already happened to OnePlus back half a decade ago when they merged with Oppo, and it's arguably happened with ASUS as well when they cancelled the small form factor phone a couple years ago.

Chinese-owned Volvo?

Shhh. Nobody tell him where his phone, computer, and vast majority of everything else in his house was made.


A phone without SIM can still be used to call emergency services (911/999/0118999 8819991197253). The situation we're discussing though is an attack by an extremely-APT. You really think not having the SIM card is going to do anything? If the cell phone hardware is powered up, it's available. All the APT has to do is have put their code into the baseband at some point, maybe at the Volvo factory when the car was programmed, and get the cooperation of a cell-phone tower, or use a Stingray to report where the car is when in range.

> 8819991197253

Which sadist decided that that is a good number for an emergency call?


it's actually 0118 999 881 999 119 7253, you missed the beginning

it's from IT Crowd https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWc3WY3fuZU


Hehe, that's hilarious, especially the way they add the 3.

There is a surprising number of carriers in the world that don't care if you're using a stolen phone.

Not surprisingly, stolen phones tend to end up in those locations.


If I were an attorney in court, I would argue…

A guy who's not a lawyer arguing about lawyering with an actual lawyer. Typical tech bubble hubris.


What makes you think I'm not a lawyer? The point is that we're not in court, we're in a pseudonymous open forum on the Internet, where everyone has a stinky opinion, where actual attorneys are posting disclaimers that they are explicitly not giving legal advice.

Because principal/agent theory is covered (at least at the basic level) in 1L contract law and you'd have to know this to pass the Bar Exam.


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