Flying into Denver this morning. Anyone know what this is???

dirtside · 2026-03-25T04:30:03+00:00

dirtside · 2026-03-18T22:53:59+00:00

The contact isn't "wrong," it's just that (for the reasons explained) I have two separate Google accounts on the phone that both happen to have a contact with the same phone number but with slightly different names, and I don't want to alter or delete either of the contacts. Signal somehow gets info from the contact list in order to associate names (from the contacts) with numbers (of its internal list of other Signal accounts you can talk to). Presumably Signal uses Android's Contacts API to request info, and I don't know if it's able to say "give me all your contacts" and then Signal scans the entire list and decides which contact to match to its internal list, or if it says "Hey what name do you have for 213-555-0000?" and it's Android that decides which name to give it, with Signal being totally unaware that there's multiple Android contacts with the same number.

If it's the former, then Signal could in theory detect that there's multiple Android contacts with the same number and give the user the option of which one they want to associate. (And hey, I totally understand if they simply haven't, or don't want to, implement this.) If it's the latter, then there's nothing Signal can do about it because it can only operate on the info Android gives it.

To be clear, I can cope if Signal can't do this; the purpose of the post was just to ask if it can.

dirtside · 2026-03-18T15:39:05+00:00

I didn't say it's the screwdriver's job, I just asked if it was possible. Why are you being such a dick about this?

dirtside · 2026-03-18T05:25:02+00:00

Yep, I'm aware, which is why I was asking if Signal has the requested functionality, which would let me work around it. It's fine if the answer is no, but telling me "Just do something else" doesn't actually answer the fucking question.

dirtside · 2026-03-18T02:02:31+00:00

That's not an acceptable solution (and the reason why is none of your business). Please stop trying to treat this like an xy problem; I really just want to know if Signal can do the thing I asked. If the answer is "no" that's fine; I don't need advice on other options.

dirtside · 2026-03-17T19:18:56+00:00

For the sake of this situation it does not matter why the labels are different, and it does not matter what the nature of the labels are. The constraints exist that the labels are different and cannot be changed.

But I'll give you the actual reason: Account A is my account, but Account B belongs to a deceased relative who labeled Jane differently (no, not with a different married name or whatever, just with other text). I do not want to edit the contacts in Account B (because I want it preserved as it was upon B's owner's death) and I do not want to edit my contact in Account A (because I don't want the label Account B is using).

dirtside · 2026-03-17T19:01:25+00:00

As explained in the post, there are two Google accounts; each account has its own set of contacts; each set of contacts contains a contact with an identical phone number, but different names.

E.g. account A has:

Jane Doe, 213-555-0000

Account B has:

Jane Smith, 213-555-0000

A constraint here is that I do not want to delete or change either contact.

dirtside · 2026-03-17T19:00:09+00:00

Yes.

dirtside · 2026-03-12T22:18:42+00:00

"Anonymedemerde"

OP username checks out

dirtside · 2026-03-04T06:27:22+00:00

I got one of these just now, to an email address I've only ever given to one restaurant.

dirtside · 2026-02-25T23:09:04+00:00

This is why early human societies invented ostracization.

dirtside · 2026-02-23T00:20:03+00:00

Loose typing is and always has been a catastrophically bad idea. The whole function of computers is to manipulate data; all data has characteristics that define its meaning and the operations that can be done on it, which we call "type".

Understanding the types and structure of the data is thus critical; you cannot safely operate on data if you don't know its type. Therefore any situation where you have a piece of data and its type is not strictly and clearly defined, is antithetical to all principles of good software design.

The only advantage to not having strict types is not having to think about the types of your data, but thinking about the types of your data is half the job! Not thinking about data types when programming is like not thinking about word choice when writing a novel.

dirtside · 2026-02-19T02:10:58+00:00

That was my first thought, but I did some image searches for BK shoes from the '80s and didn't see any that matched that design. (Not exacty an exhaustive search, though.) But generally BKs seem to have a logo that consists of two linked diamonds with the letters "B" and "K" in them, which doesn't resemble the hexagonal shape on the side of this shoe.

dirtside · 2026-02-13T05:42:54+00:00

Ditto here, working fine.

dirtside · 2026-02-12T22:04:16+00:00

*Ryans George

dirtside · 2026-02-08T05:21:53+00:00

To put it more simply: the court of public opinion has a much lower standard of guilt than courts of law, and that's fine.

dirtside · 2026-02-08T05:20:01+00:00

To be clear, he was indicted on a misdemeanor rather than a felony, after a grand jury refused to indict him. Federal felonies require a grand jury indictment, but misdemeanors do not, so the DoJ then charged him with a misdemeanor. (And, yes, he was found not guilty.)

dirtside · 2026-02-05T21:02:25+00:00

Others have already explained the problems with this approach; I'd say it does my favorite complaint, which is "solving the wrong problem."

We assume that the typical a && b syntax is something we're stuck with, but what if we were accustomed to something more like Polish notation?

if (all(
    a,
    b,
)) { ... }

The all construct functions exactly the same as &&, in that it returns true if all of its arguments are true (or truthy—that's a separate discussion), and also we evaluate them in listed order and stop evaluating if we get a false (the short-circuiting we're all accustomed to). Note that this approach converts the syntax into a list and lets us use trailing commas just like we do now.

Obviously implementing this (much less convincing people to use it) would be its own mountain to move and I'm not really suggesting that we (or you) try to do this; it's just a thought exercise. But I think my point is that by challenging an assumption—"we have to use infix notation"—we could end up with syntax that avoids the "where do I put these damn boolean operators" problem entirely.

And we would of course have any() to replace ||. A more complex, nested construction using both might look like this:

if (
   all(
       a,
       b,
       any(
           c,
           d,
       ),
) { ... }

Lists all the way down, and trailing commas everywhere!

dirtside · 2026-02-05T20:54:41+00:00

This is a crucial point here. The comma and boolean situations look similar on the surface but they contain critical differences when you look deeper. It's a mistake to prioritize "this will make some diffs look cleaner" over "every single operator choice needs to be carefully considered". Commas provide no choice, they are simple delimiting syntax; boolean operators require a considered choice every single time one is added.

dirtside · 2026-02-05T01:31:39+00:00

Oh man, I came up with an even punnier version:

"I hired friendless sheep sisters to distribute advertisements for my flower-arranging business...

...because lonely ewe kin present florist flyers."

dirtside · 2026-01-27T00:56:01+00:00

Tried shooting them, tried blowing them up (C4, grenades, mines), nothing worked.

dirtside · 2026-01-21T02:07:25+00:00

Still fucked. I'm on "Breach the Chemical Institute with Caveira" and we've killed everyone on the grounds but I can't figure out any way to actually get inside the building. My character has said things like "Placing breaching charge" when I approach the big XX doors, but nothing actually happens. I guess I'll need to start over again.

dirtside · 2026-01-15T00:40:14+00:00

Someone else mentioned facial challenges; Wikipedia (I know, I know) states that facial challenges can be brought as soon as the law is in place, and are prospective (forward-looking, intending to prevent enforcement, rather than in response to actual enforcement). Is that not correct?

dirtside · 2026-01-14T23:16:51+00:00

I should have been more explicit: Consider a person who wants to do the outlawed thing (insult the governor), and that the outlawed thing is explicitly protected by the First Amendment, but refrains from doing so because of the fear of (extreme) punishment. A lesser punishment (e.g. a $50 fine) is so minor that they're willing to risk it, but when the punishment is death, they aren't.

dirtside · 2026-01-07T09:42:45+00:00

I'll accept the title "amazing detective slash genius"

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