gftsantana

My first job was at the anti-fraud department at a telecom company in the early 00s. Our job was basically to determine whether a new landline or mobile contract was fraudulent or not. Some requests would be flagged by an automated piece of software that was basically a black box to most employees, myself included. We would basically look at the documents sent by the clients and, sometimes, ask a few questions via phone.

I was very young at the time, but I remember basically deriving Goodhart's law after a few months in the job. I don't remember clearly most of the things that led me to that conclusion, but I do remember the most extreme: at some point, management started requiring us to block clearly non-fraudulent phones because the directors decided to increase the blocked installations target. It would include even old contracts by good paying customers that happened to be flagged.

I remember trying to talk to people about this, but the idea that trying to reach a target by any means necessary is usually not a good idea was incomprehensible to most people. Years later, I realized that others knew exactly what was going on; they just didn't care, and I was naive for not seeing that.

It was a few years later when I learned about perverse incentives, Goodhart's law, the cobra effect, etc., and it allowed me to have more productive conversations with people about targets and incentives.

I think the brand name says "quality product" more than "asbestos". We installed corrugated roof panels from Eternit and another cheaper, generic brand. The Eternit panels felt more sturdy and were easier to handle. One thing I don't see anymore though is those Eternit water tanks.

I know this feeling all too well. I find that the internet in my own language is very low quality compared to online content in English. If I go to a bookstore, probably 70% or more is translations of books originally written in English. So I prefer to just buy the original on Amazon. There are entire subjects I only "know" in English. Every once in a while, when having a conversation about one of those subjects, I just can't find the right words in my language. I think it happens to a lot of people here and everywhere in the world.

Is it this one? https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=t1K6SsJ3UaQ

I've been wanting for something like this ever since we by accident looked at our 9 year old daughter's screen. She likes to draw characters from her favorite cartoon and searches for images on the web. Apparently there's a porn actress with the same name as one of the characters... DDG was set to "strict", so no full nudity or any explicit act, but still very NSFW.

C'est cool ! J'étudie le français et ce site est exactement ce que je voulais pour trouver des bonnes choses pour lire en français.

I guess they mean power cable. The literal translation for power cable is "alimentation cable" in my native language. It's probably something like that for the article's author too.

It's called Lux Auto Brightness (I've no relation whatsoever with the developer). I prefer it to other options because with it the brightness is always very comfortable to me. Just checked the battery usage by apps, and it doesn't even appear in the list.

I never carry a charger for my phone or laptop unless I plan to spend more than a day out (I had to with my old laptop, though). I actually feel a little frustrated when my phone's battery lasts less than 48 hours, because it means I'm using my smartphone much more than necessary. I don't try to limit my phone use, but I do take some measures that probably help to save battery: screen rotation and bluetooth are always off and I use an app that automatically adjusts screen brightness much more efficiently than the stock android setting does.

> Recently I discovered the AT&T history channel, with this gem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tc4ROCJYbm0

I go back to this video every once in a while ever since I discovered it a few years ago. I just think it is super relaxing. When I first watched it, I was beginning to use Linux and, when I opened my terminal emulator, I was like: "It's a Unix system, I know this!" The pipelines explanation was incredibly clear.

I also love the Computerphile episodes with professor Kernighan.

I'm intrigued by this. Most of my mobile typing is done with the Google keyboard swipe gesture thing. Is there a way to identify a user by this, since the words are entered in the form field one at a time? Also, accelerometer data as in the way the use holds the phone? I find it interesting because for the past week or so I've been trying to fix my bad posture, and as a result the way I hold my phone has changed drastically. I wonder how this type of system deals with situations like that.