The people calling me on the phone must be who they say they are
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Some people...
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But what’s happening lately is Google has become aware of its business mortality and the limits of free sushi and dry cleaning. The company is trying to cut costs and raise revenue and that means — shudder — actually reaching out to real people like me.
http://img.4plebs.org/boards/pol/image/1387/19/1387196569054.jpg
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From comments:
<fuck you discourse>Are you sure it’s Google calling? It sounds like it’s some boilerroom operation pretending to be Google.
You are probably correct that this is a scam on Google as well as me. But if that’s the case shame on Google. They have infinite money and infinite computing power to deal with this, so why does it persist?
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infinite money and infinite computing power
He's using this word. I don't think it means what he thinks it means.
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I'm afraid he does.
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?
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Fucking grammar. I meant, he does realize what infinite means, and when he says infinite, he really means it.
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Ah.
Yeah I figured something was lost in the translation
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Wait until the thick Indian accent fake Microsoft support guys call him.
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Wait until the thick Indian accent fake Microsoft support guys call him.
Problem is that the official MS tech drones who call us back at work have the exact same accent. Except for the sales drones, those have a heavy Dutch accent.
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But I'll bet they don't ask you if you can find the C-T-R-L key on your keyboard.
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Hmm I wonder how much of the satire I've read over the years was actually just incredibly dumb people's misconceptions of how the world is supposed to work...
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They generally start by trying to pronounce the name of the person who created the ticket.
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I had a friend who pronounced the name of that key as /‘su.trl/.
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Hmm I wonder how much of the satire I've read over the years was actually just incredibly dumb people's misconceptions of how the world is supposed to work...
Most of it, judging by 78.9776% of stand-up comedy routines.
Filed under: Did you ever notice some highway embankments have "DO NOT MOW" signs? Lol, like someone's really going to drive around and say "WOW, I have this lawnmower in my car, I feel like mowing some grass!"
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I might need an explanation of the do not mow part..
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@Lorne_Kates said:
"WOW, I have this lawnmower in my car, I feel like mowing some grass!"
Yeah, I've seen some people do that.I might need an explanation of the do not mow part..
Well you see, there might be some homeless entity occupying the grass (probably a Wild $[Pokemon]), and if you attempt to mow it, it will have... consequences.
Additionally, most people who would attempt to mow the grass without authorization are also probable to not have their associated mowers calibrated correctly, and potential rocks inside the grass may be projected out of an active mower into traffic, which will also have.... consequences.
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people who would attempt to mow the grass
You've got to be shitting me. That's ridiculous...
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we are actually being trolled now...
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Be aware that Bob has been in this industry for decades now and has friends and contacts everywhere – no doubt many within Google itself. If he hasn’t made an “Oops, I was wrong!” mea culpa statement on this by now, then that strongly implies to me that he has inside information on what is really going down here, and just isn’t ready to make all of that public yet.
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This may very well be a scam, that’s true, but not necessarily the type of scam that everyone seems to think it is. Google’s hands may not be as clean here as everyone seems to think they are, either. We probably shouldn’t just automatically be giving them the benefit of the doubt, in other words.No you see, he's so great he has INSIDER CONTACTS AT GOOGLE. It's not possible he is a moron who made an idiotic mistake!
He hasn't posted a correction yet, therefore this titan among tech pundits could not possible be wrong in any way!
He also doubles-down in a later comment:
I agree it sounds like a boiler room operation but THEY SAY THEY ARE FROM GOOGLE.
You can almost hear the indignant whining through the text.
EDIT: oh and even further down I found this gem:
you notice a lack of skepticism? well, that’s because giggle is (or are it “are”?) unethical assholes whose biz model is to steal, typically information. Something like farcebarf…
Only a fool trusts them
now whether it is actually giggle or not, I don’t know; BUT they have a lot of resources and I bet they could stop it.
but induced fear helps their other products…"Hmm, I really hate Facebook but I can't think of an insulting name for it. How about... Face... puke? Face... hurl? No wait! FACEBARF! BRILLIANT! 'Book' starts with a B and so does 'barf'!"
EDIT EDIT: OH MAN more whining from Cringely:
Nobody makes you read my work. Feel free to protest my idiocy by leaving and not coming back.
Haha, this is a gem.
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He hasn't posted a correction yet
As you've probably read, he actually posted google should use their infinite computing power to mind control spammers. Soooo i'm betting more on shoulder aliens than on insider contacts. Google are unlikely to be complete idiots and suing the SEO/wankers:
Google sues SEO company over harassing calls selling “Front Page Domination”
SEO sales agents allegedly lied, said they were "Google subcontractors."
Suing their own subsidiaries is something sony and oracle are wont to do as far as i remember.
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Heh I think I got call from same scum, I used them to try some of my latest insults I had learned, and filed complaint with FTC after got a second call in spite of being on do-not-call list. I think it happens if you register a domain without hosting, they get the info from there I guess.
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Heh, doof couldn't say kataral..
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I might need an explanation of the do not mow part..
In Dallas there are a bunch of islands in divided thoroughfares where they plant wildflowers in the middle. It might be ten feet wide, with a three-foot strip of grass on either side and the middle having flowers. They only want the grass mowed in that case.
Although it's not quite the same, because they have different signage.
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But who the hell does the mowing ?! Is it not obvious for the people who do the gardening (planting and mowing, right ?) that they've planted wild flowers in that area ?!
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But who the hell does the mowing ?!
City employees, or, more likely, city-hired contractors.
Is it not obvious for the people who do the gardening (planting and mowing, right ?) that they've planted wild flowers in that area ?!
They're not the same people, so the mowers wouldn't know unless they were told.
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pronounce the name
Yeah, I went by Max almost everywhere in London because of that. Turns out, having your name include a sound that doesn't exist in English can pose problems...
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>Feel free to protest my idiocy by leaving ...
I did, and ...
@blakeyrat said:>... and not coming back.
... I probably won't.
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But who the hell does the mowing ?! Is it not obvious
I don't remember for certain, but I vaguely think I've seen such signs in places where there might be burrowing owl, or some such, burrows. If my fuzzy memory is correct, though, the signs stated the reason for not mowing the area.
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That does make sense. I just presumed that the people in charge of gardening would know which areas would be likely to contain wild animals and not mow them.
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Around here, those jobs are likely to be outsourced to low-paid workers of questionable documentation who know English barely well enough to read a "do not mow" sign, or performed by overpaid, unionized state employees who aren't paid to think.
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I think it happens if you register a domain without hosting, they get the info from there I guess.
I get physical mail spam occasionally at my home address. It's made to look like a warning notice that my domain is expiring, and has an invoice for renewal. Until you read the fine print and realize it's some shitty domain registrar "offering" to transfer your host to them. They obviously get the information trolling through the public whois databases. And it is unquestionably a scam because of how much pains they took to make it look like a scary overdue invoice. I'm sure enough larger companies pass the invoice "to accounting" enough times that a percentage of them get paid.
Next time I get one I might black out and personally identifying information, wipe my ass with it, and mail it back.
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And re: do not mow. Yes, it's because there will be large swaths of grass. Some of it gets mowed. Some of it doesn't for various reasons (burrowing animals, wildflowers, protected land, hidden marsh, etc).
The people doing the mowing usually are doing so on large, riding mowers. They'll do acres of this stuff in a day, stretched out across dozens of miles. There are different people who decide what should be mowed and what shouldn't-- and who actually do the mowing. They might be different departments. They might be different companies. It's entirely realistic there is no communication between these entities at all. Except for this sign.
And the person actually doing the mowing is just some low-paid employee wearing headphones and ear protectors rocking area to area. That sign is for them.
The sign means "Hey city employee, who is mowing, don't mow this one area. The rest of the grass? Fuck that grass. Fuck it with a spinning blade!". Not "Random person, don't break out a lawn mower and start to mow here."
But please, comedians, please continue to "not understand" this for hilarious lolz.
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@Lorne_Kates said:
Next time I get one I might black out and personally identifying information, wipe my ass with it, and mail it back.
I've had those too.
I figure if they mailed it to me they already have any personal information that might be on it. Wiping my arse with their crackly shiny paper sounds hazardous. But I have recently been wondering what best to do with all that chook shit that's piling up under the roosting bars in the shed. Leaving their form under there for a few nights could be just the ticket.
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The point of removing it is that the recipient will not know which person shit in the mail and sent it back.
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Oh, but I want them to know.
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@Lorne_Kates said:
But please, comedians, please continue to "not understand" this for hilarious lolz.
Half the stand-up comics in the world, including Blakey, just started crying.
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Oh, but I want them to know.
Needing a reason to get sent to jail by trying to mail hazardous materials? Wouldn't it be simpler to just shank a bitch?
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I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.
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I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.
Pfft. Are you forgetting what country you're from and what country I'm from? Good luck. I can see no fewer than four sticks of dynamite just in this room.
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Don't make me swim over there.
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Don't make me swim over there.
I would LOVE to watch you try to swim to Dallas[1]. Or anyone else, really.
[1]From almost anywhere, but I'll spot you the Pacific.
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Heh. She called me yesterday. I talked swedish at her until she hung up.
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Heh. She called me yesterday. I talked swedish at her until she hung up.
Did you use your Swedish Chef voice?
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I love how the second comment on the article is from Matt Cutts, the man who was hired by Google to explain how the search engine works and detect spam, and the third comment is from the blog's owner saying that Google should explain how the search engine works and detect spam.
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It was difficult to tell over the crappy phone line she was using, but she may have tried that on me.
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Wait until the thick Indian accent fake Microsoft support guys call him.
"Hello this is Microsoft support-"
"Yes, I'd like to complain about Google."
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I can see no fewer than four sticks of dynamite just in this room.
Didn't your SO tell you not to interwebs in the armoury?
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Then at least we might have understood what he meant without needing to ask for clarification. As it was, he said “sutrl alt del”. Me and the other guy there looked at each other slightly puzzled and had to ask if he maybe meant CtrlAltDelete.
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Overestimate the amount of instruction someone else may have received, and the degree to which they’ll pay attention to said instruction, at your own peril.
Evil Google waiting on line one | I, Cringely
