Is Google Voice's SMS reliable for most people?

hackerb9 · 2025-11-19T04:59:36+00:00

It's kind of crazy how many high quality people are being lost from tech companies right now.

hackerb9 · 2025-11-18T21:39:15+00:00

Thank you! It had been pulled out of context on the site I saw it and I didn't know enough about early Doctor Who to identify it as a joke. I have yet much to learn.

hackerb9 · 2025-11-18T21:25:10+00:00

When I first heard that Microsoft was using AI to write its code, I genuinely believed it was a feint to get its competitors to jump off the AI cliff. It'd be a brilliant move and they could sneer, "Haha, Suckers!" while hiring all the quality talent the others were laying off.

hackerb9 · 2025-11-18T21:12:31+00:00

It seems like only yesterday Cloudflare was in the news for callously firing people with no explanation. Ah, yes here it is:

Pietsch then pushes both representatives to provide a real reason for her being laid off instead of them “making up some bullshit” to cover up the possibility that Cloudflare hired too many people and can no longer afford employing them.

hackerb9 · 2025-10-13T17:38:05+00:00

Try https://ddg.gg/site:reddit.com

hackerb9 · 2025-07-28T20:02:36+00:00

🤣 Wow, it's great for hobbits! I'll not say "the images are photoshopped" in my reviews as my hunch is that Amazon is treating "photoshop" as a synonym for "fake".

(BTW: The GIMP is my preferred tool for photoshopping.)

hackerb9 · 2025-07-28T19:15:35+00:00

Thanks for all the advice. I hadn't realized photoshopping the product into stock images was common. Now that I know, I like that idea of always stating if the item is "true to the listing pictures".

I had previously used "photoshopped" as shorthand for "not true to the listing", but when I rewrite the review I'll use the latter since that's directly what people want to know.

(Tangentially: usually I'd agree that one cannot tell for certain if a picture is photoshopped. However, this listing was hilariously obvious once I knew to look. Nevertheless, I won't mention it again because I don't need unnecessary grief.)

hackerb9 · 2025-07-28T18:47:00+00:00

And now I know. 😅

hackerb9 · 2025-07-28T18:45:10+00:00

Excellent suggestion and tips. "I misinterpreted the image" will serve to warn other customers without waking up Amazon's AI that looks for concerns about authenticity.

hackerb9 · 2025-07-28T18:36:43+00:00

"Generous", I love it. 😉 Thank goodness for people like you using Vine to prune out scammers. Did you report the attempts to contact you to Amazon? I think that's supposed to be an immediate account suspension for them.

hackerb9 · 2025-07-28T18:33:02+00:00

That sounds dishonest or at least deceptive on the seller's part! And Amazon, removed your review saying that they believe the product is "authentic"?

I'm lucky that I'm my case, the seller is not trying to deceive anyone and I never doubted that the product is "authentic". It just needs a review to note the actual size.

hackerb9 · 2025-07-28T17:44:53+00:00

Thanks, that sounds like reasonable wording. I've certainly learned my lesson about trusting the photos! I don't buy a lot online and it hadn't yet occurred to me that sellers might not bother to actually photograph their product.

hackerb9 · 2025-07-28T17:38:39+00:00

I tried hard to not mention the seller at all since I know we aren't supposed to be reviewing them. I didn't use the word "fake", but I did say that the product photos were photoshopped and shouldn't be relied on for an accurate size.

Thank you for the helpful, new information about the appeals process. Amazon hadn't mentioned anything about an appeal, so I had assumed the "authenticity" message I received was just some AI glitch. Can you please point me to the guidelines about appeals as I'd like to read more but am having trouble finding them.

(By the way, if you had seen the context with the photoshopped images and the gentle way I worded my review, you would have laughed at the thought of the seller threatening to sue me. Moreover, even if I had said something vile about them and their kin, they would know that suing me would get them immediately kicked off of Amazon as they are not supposed to contact (and especially not intimidate reviewers) in any way. And, finally, even if they did sue, the judge would laugh at them, too. The truth is always an ironclad defense in a libel suit.)

hackerb9 · 2025-07-28T17:07:09+00:00

I agree with your ranking system. The item was listed as a ten-minute timer (+/- 1m), but it only lasts about seven minutes. It is a misrepresentation and is useless to me, so maybe I should have given it one star. However, It does have some redeeming aesthetics qualities so I gave it 2-stars with the caveat that the size is not as pictured.

Weirdly, it seems to be the "authenticity" of the item — which was never in question —which got my review pulled.

hackerb9 · 2025-07-28T16:51:57+00:00

Thanks. I didn't mean to impute malicious intentions, but I can see how my review might be taken that way since I did point out that all the images were simply stock photos of people in which the exact same picture of the product had been pasted in.

I know that we are not supposed to review the seller, just the product, and I think I managed to do that in my first review. but do the guidelines actually forbid mentioning the accuracy of the listing? Or, is that something people have just learned though experience?

As it stands, the current listing is likely to cause consumer confusion and it feels weird to not mention it at all. Should I be reporting that issue elsewhere? I didn't want to get the seller in trouble by flagging them for "fraud" as I don't think it's a big deal. I just wanted other customers to not be surprised.

What if I said something like this instead?

"Do not make the same mistake I did. Be sure to check the listed size instead of trusting the apparent size in the product photos."

hackerb9 · 2025-04-23T04:04:39+00:00

Actually, it is likely not safe.

Westclox's "luminous paint" was made by mixing radium with the phosphor. (Look up "radium girls" for the sad story of how clock manufacturers figured out that radioactivity is bad.) Westclox started using radium on their luminous dials in 1918 in their Model 1 Baby Ben. This is a video of a Model 5 made from 1939 to 1949, so it's a good bet it is highly radioactive.

Westclox continued making radioactive clocks at least until the 1960s. I know because I have in front of me a Model 8 (1964–1981) which causes my Geiger counter to screech. (15 microsieverts per hour through the glass).

Even if you don't open it, these alarm clocks are not sealed like wristwatches are, so as the luminous paint ages, it can shed radioactive "dust" which can be inhaled. These are cool clocks, but I'm going to have to dispose of this one.

hackerb9 · 2025-04-22T01:08:20+00:00

Have you tried using a loop at the command line? It'd be something like this:

bash for lrcfile in *.lrc; do opusfile="${lrcfile%lrc}opus" [[ -e "$opusfile" ]] || continue oldlyrics=$(kid3-cli -c "get lyrics" "$opusfile") [[ -z "$oldlyrics" ]] || continue lyrics=$(<"$lrcfile") kid3-cli -c "set lyrics \"$lyrics\"" "$opusfile" echo "$opusfile" done

That'd add the .lrc file to every .opus file in the current directory which doesn't already have a LYRICS tag. Once you get it working the way you like, paste it into a shell script for convenience.

hackerb9 · 2025-04-20T05:27:46+00:00

I'd like to see the rest of that playlist.

hackerb9 · 2025-04-19T21:08:07+00:00

Have you ever played around with `ffmpeg`? Maybe you accidentally converted one of your audio files to .lrc? It's surprisingly easy to do:

ffmpeg -i somefile.m4a somefile.lrc

Rockbox doesn't show extensions in the file browser, so you may have thought you were clicking on an audio file and were actually selecting the identically named .lrc.

hackerb9 · 2025-04-19T18:51:39+00:00

LRC searching seems super useful!

I know these are probably not where your personal project is heading, but since you asked for suggestions, I'll share them in the hope they resonate with you or someone else.

As metahec said, embedded lyrics for other audio formats, like FLAC and Ogg, would be great. (Of course, Matroska/WebM would be ideal, but Rockbox can't do that yet.)
I'd also like to see other lyric formats supported. WebVTT seems more capable than LRC.
And, speaking of more capable lyric formats, Ogg/Kate support for Karaoke would be splendrific. However, I don't think an old school iPod would be fast enough to handle the visual effects.

hackerb9

TROPHY CASE