Biggles @Biggles@social.cleverlibre.org

@darkuncle

Oh, no. *not* due to strikes. It is greed, pure and simple.

Seems they released some movies and found they made 15% less than projections because the stars weren't going on talk shows and radio to promote the release. So - rather than lose money, they pushed out the release until after they hope the strike is over so they can get the actors to do that promotion. The vast majority of actors won't see dime one if that extra 15% their promotion earns, and none of the crew will - but they all suffer.

The studios seriously need an attitude adjustment.

@stshank @darkuncle @dozykraut

I am not a lawyer, but - voiceprint? This was in the DOS days, in California, and it used a cassette recorder. And it really was for QC - they didn't care what the caller said, they wanted to make sure we used the call path and rising tones. IIRC, we did on rare occasion have someone ask to not be recorded, and if they asked we'd shut it off, but it rarely came up. If you sit for 40 minutes on hold with *really bad music* and a voice telling you every 2 minutes that "we are experiencing heavy call volumes, and your call may be recorded for quality control purposes" - it'd be hard to say you weren't informed.

@darkuncle @dozykraut @stshank

We pre-announce it on the recording they listen to while waiting - and just because we say we're recording doesn't mean we actually are. In reality, we recorded occasionally for quality control purposes, but we announced it every call. Never once had anyone complain - they were there for other reasons.

@stshank @darkuncle

Fwiw - my full greeting spiel, burned forever in my spine: "Hello, this is Tom on a recorded line - thank you for your patience! May I have your customer ID or serial number, please?" - in energetic, upbeat tone. We established:

1) my name, and now I'm a person, not a random voice.
2) recorded line, so people immediately tone it down or they're the hit of the next xmas party.
3) they're patient! And are being praised for that! It'd be a shame to prove that wrong.
4) I have a simple task for them to do so I can help - this is it! Its their turn, and now we're waiting on them.

That set above reduces conflict by an easy 85%.

@darkuncle @stshank

Having worked for call centers and call center providers - that's part of it. Think of it as a low-impact sort of MFA. They don't need your address - they have it. They want to make sure you know it, because call routing isn't 100% reliable - it's not unknown for that sort of thing to criss-cross. They say "for security purposes" because the implication is we're doing it to protect you. Which we are, kinda. (It also helped with piracy, assuming you registered)

But - theres a sneaky human psychology secondary reason. Sometimes, callers are *upset*. By interrupting their pent up complaints with a simple request for info, you can short circuit that response and often get them back on a productive path. I've also found that *immediately* thanking them for their patience - no matter how long they actually waited, or how impatient they seemed to be - cuts off complaints at the knees. *we know the queue was long*. Rather than talk about it and make it longer, we switch the focus to your actual reason to call. Gettin you an answer and off the phone helps you, helps the provider, and helps everyone waiting behind you.

@darkuncle

So - if you want to store heat, absolutely - there's a good reason this is popular in places that want it for heating. Steam is another variant of this form of power. If you want to convert solar energy to heat, store it, then convert it back to electricity - you end up with conversion losses, often significant. Between that and density issues - hot sand isn't a super general-purpose solution. Having said that, molten sodium is fairly efficient and shows some promise. It's all about trade-offs. The reality is that batteries today are *really good* at storing and releasing electricity, and that tends to be more useful/useable than energy in other forms.

@darkuncle

Using a new window doesn't eliminate the failure mode - you're one typo or click away from exposure. Bookmarking your tabs (i *absolutely love* the One Tab extension) and closing the window makes accidental exposure a multiple-mistake process.

The bookmark menu is an easy fix - use folders. So even if it drops down - no worries. I can open my work browser in front of you and the most sensitive bit of info you'll see is the name of my employer.

Caveat: I'm super paranoid. My focus is and has been security, for a while now, and I often have things up that would be bad for others to see - IAM and security audit findings. I look at things and say 'how does that accidentally get compromised". It drives my wife *absolute nuts*, because outside of work it's a bit of overkill. But - security is a habit or it fails.

@darkuncle

"Look at your screen". I said nothing about what you are doing, just about what is showing. The first step in ensuring nobody sees something they shouldn't see is to close the damn window - don't count on your screen sharing preferences to protect you. Defense in depth. Make is so that *if* you accidentally minimize a window or switch tabs, there isn't something there to care about. I didn't say "you should never do anything where you might potentially expose sensitive information". I said clean your room before mom gets home. Before you join that call - look at your screen and maybe close that password manager, or client list - just in case. Even if you aren't presenting, because - you might be, and accidents happen.

@darkuncle

Counterpoint: look at your screen. Is there anything there that would cause a problem if you shared? Why is it there? What if someone looked over your shoulder? What if you accidentally shared?

Develop the habit of recognizing and removing or even entirely isolating sensitive info unless it is the active subject of your attention. Your safest bet is to ensure a data leak can't happen even if people do see more than they should.

@LesterHammerer@mindly.social that was horrible and i love it.

@NatSecGeek

Surprising essentially nobody who has been paying attention to history for the last hundred years...

@darkuncle

aka "just because you recorded it on the Tivo doesn't mean you need to watch it"

@kentbrew @scalzi

He wasn't under oath, but yeah, bad form. A good prosecutor could use it to make the case he's dishonest, if that was necessary...

@darkuncle honestly - should be better in many ways. More stuff lives in a browser window. I mean - look at your mac desktop *right now* and - how much of what you use daily is a native app? As opposed to a web page in electron, or an actual browser? Right now, i am running 2 browsers, notes, multiple terminal windows, and 1password.