For the past month or two, my place of work (this very website) has been plagued by a relatively harmless but deeply mystifying figure: the phantom lunch thief. What’s happened since
has followed a trajectory sure to be familiar to anyone who’s ever worked in an office with more than, say, 30 employees: a menacing, all-caps Post-It note was posted, instructing the
thief: “PLEASE DO NOT TAKE FOOD THAT DOESN’T BELONG TO YOU.” The appropriate authorities were alerted. The authorities sent out slightly mean emails about how we’re all adults here,
and even those of us who didn’t do anything wrong were embarrassed. For a few days, no lunches were stolen. But then, just when you thought it was safe to leave an Amy’s frozen
burrito in the shared fridge for 12 days, the lunch thief struck again. Collectively, and publicly — all wanting to make very clear that we were innocent — my colleagues and
I wondered: who does this? What kind of person steals lunch from people they work with, and why?
To find out, I had to identify one such person. First, I offered my own office lunch thief immunity (or, well, anonymity) if they came forward to tell me their life story, but nobody
took me up on it. I asked Twitter, where many people expressed outrage over the very idea of lunch theft, but again, no actual thieves surfaced. I even made a Google Form about it,
and nobody filled out my Google Form. I was very nearly too dejected to continue my search when I remembered: Reddit. If not there, where?
On Reddit, I found a few lunch theftdiscussion threads, and messaged about 15 or 20 users who indicated that they had
stolen, or would steal, lunch from a co-worker, several of whom sounded very pleased with themselves. I told them I was a reporter, and asked if they’d be willing to
elaborate on their experiences in lunch theft. Unfortunately, most relevant postings I found were from, like, four years ago, and again it seemed no one would come forward. But then
someone wrote me back. Eventually he agreed to speak with me, and we arranged a phone call. His name is Rob, and he’s a programmer in his early 40s. Together we decided there are
probably enough programmers in their 40s named Rob that divulging this amount of personal information was okay.
…
As a non-lunch-stealer, I’ve never understood the mentality either (I’ve been the victim once or twice at work, at more-often way back when I lived in student accommodation), and this
interview really helped to humanise a perpetrator. I still can’t condone it, but at least now I’ve got a greater understanding. Yay, empathy!
Hey @aqldotcom: why must my password for your enterprise telecommunications platform be no longer than 12 characters? Are you worried my #passwordistoostrong? CC @pwtoostrong
Anna Trupiano is a first-grade teacher at a school that serves deaf, hard-of-hearing, and hearing students from birth through eighth grade.
In addition to teaching the usual subjects, Trupiano is charged with helping her students thrive in a society that doesn’t do enough to cater to the needs of the hard-of-hearing.
Recently, Trupiano had to teach her students about a rather personal topic: passing gas in public.
A six-year-old child farted so loud in class that some of their classmates began to laugh. The child was surprised by their reaction because they didn’t
know farts make a sound. This created a wonderful and funny teaching moment for Trupiano.
Jigsaw puzzle companies tend to use the same cut patterns for multiple puzzles. This makes the pieces interchangeable, and I sometimes find that I can combine portions from two or
more puzzles to make a surreal picture that the publisher never imagined. I take great pleasure in “discovering” such bizarre images lying latent, sometimes for decades, within the
pieces of ordinary mass-produced puzzles.
It’s always been a bit of an inconvenience to have to do these things, but it’s never been a terrible burden: even when I fly internationally – which is probably the hardest
part of having my name – I’ve learned the tricks I need to minimise how often I’m selected for an excessive amount of unwanted “special treatment”.
I plan to make my first trip to the USA since my name change, next year. Place bets now on how that’ll go.
This year, though, for the very first time, my (stupid bloody) unusual name paid for itself. And not just in the trivial ways I’m used to, like being able to spot my badge instantly on
the registration table at conferences I go to or being able to fill out paper forms way faster than normal people. I mean in a concrete, financially-measurable way. Wanna hear?
So: I’ve a routine of checking my credit report with the major credit reference agencies every few years. I’ve been doing so since long before doing so became free (thanks GDPR); long even before
I changed my name: it just feels like good personal data housekeeping, and it’s interesting to see what shows up.
It started out with the electoral roll. How did it end up like this? It was only the electoral roll. It was only the electoral roll.
And so I noticed that my credit report with Equifax said that I wasn’t on the electoral roll. Which I clearly am. Given that my credit report’s pretty glowing, I wasn’t too worried, but
I thought I’d drop them an email and ask them to get it fixed: after all, sometimes lenders take this kind of thing into account. I wasn’t in any hurry, but then, it seems: neither were
they –
2 February 2016 – I originally contacted them
18 February 2016 – they emailed to say that they were looking into it and that it was taking a while
22 February 2016 – they emailed to say that they were still looking into it
13 July 2016 – they emailed to say that they were still looking into it (which was a bit of a surprise, because after so long I’d almost forgotten that I’d even asked)
14 July 2016 – they marked the issue as “closed”… wait, what?
Given that all they’d done for six months was email me occasionally to say that it was taking a while, it was a little insulting to then be told they’d solved it.
I wasn’t in a hurry, and 2017 was a bit of a crazy year for me (for Equifax too, as it happens), so I ignored it for a bit, and
then picked up the trail right after the GDPR came into force. After all, they were storing personal information
about me which was demonstrably incorrect and, continued to store and process it even after they’d been told that it was incorrect (it’d have been a violation of principle 4 of the DPA 1998, too, but the GDPR‘s got bigger teeth: if you’re going to sick the law on somebody, it’s better that it has bark and bite).
Throwing the book tip-of-the-day: don’t threaten, just explain what you require and under what legal basis you’re able to do so. Let lawyers do the tough stuff.
My anticipation was that my message of 13 July 2018 would get them to sit up and fix the issue. I’d assumed that it was probably related to my unusual name and that bugs in
their software were preventing them from joining-the-dots between my credit report and the Electoral Roll. I’d also assumed that this nudge would have them either fix their software… or
failing that, manually fix my data: that can’t be too hard, can it?
Apparently it can:
You want me to make it my problem, Equifax, and you want me to change my name on the Electoral Roll to match the incorrect name you use to refer to me in your systems?
Equifax’s suggested solution to the problem on my credit report? Change my name on the Electoral Roll to match the (incorrect) name they store in their systems (to work around
a limitation that prevents them from entering single-character surnames)!
At this point, they turned my send-a-complaint-once-every-few-years project into a a full blown rage. It’s one thing if you need me to be understanding of the time it can take to fix
the problems in your computer systems – I routinely develop software for large and bureaucratic organisations, I know the drill! – but telling me that your bugs are my problems
and telling me that I should lie to the government to work around them definitely isn’t okay.
Dear Equifax: No. No no no. No. Also, no. Now try again. Love Dan.
At this point, I was still expecting them to just fix the problem: if not the underlying technical issue then instead just hack a correction into my report. But clearly they considered
this, worked out what it’d cost them to do so, and decided that it was probably cheaper to negotiate with me to pay me to go away.
Which it was.
This week, I accepted a three-figure sum from Equifax as compensation for the inconvenience of the problem with my credit report (which now also has a note of correction, not that my
alleged absence from the Electoral Roll has ever caused my otherwise-fine report any trouble in the past anyway). Curiously, they didn’t attach any strings to the deal, such as not
courting publicity, so it’s perfectly okay for me to tell you about the experience. Maybe you know somebody who’s similarly afflicted: that their “unusual” name means that a
credit reference company can’t accurately report on all of their data. If so, perhaps you’d like to suggest that they take a look at their credit report too… just saying.
You can pay for me to go away, but it takes more for me to shut up. (A lesson my parents learned early on.)
Apparently Equifax think it’s cheaper to pay each individual they annoy than it is to fix their database problems. I’ll bet that, in the long run, that isn’t true. But in the meantime,
if they want to fund my recent trip to Cornwall, that’s fine by me.
A few nights ago I saw Jack White in concert. It was a wonderful night, and a big part of that was due to a new rule he has imposed on all his tour dates: no phones.
When you arrive, you have to put your phone into a neoprene pouch, supplied by a company called Yondr, which they lock and give back to you. If you want to use your phone during the
show, you can go into the concourse and unlock it by touching it to one of several unlocking bases. The concert area itself remains screen-free.
The effect was immediately noticeable upon entering the concert bowl. Aside from the time-travel-like strangeness of seeing a crowd devoid of blue screens, there was a palpable sense
of engagement, as though—and it sounds so strange to say it—everyone came just so they could be there.
…
The most-significant observation in this article, in my mind, was that even putting a 20-second delay to people using their phones – that is, having to walk out to the concourse to
unlock their bags – was sufficient to dramatically remove the temptation for their use. That’s amazing, but unsurprising: Veritasium recently did a video about boredom and how the desire to avoid ever feeling bored (despite its
scientifically-demonstrable benefits), coupled with the easy access of instant stimulation from our smart devices, leads us into the well-known check phone, replace, check again cycle
(or else “zombie smartphoning”).
I’ve been trying to be better about paying less-attention to my phone, this year, and it’s gone well… except that (as David also observes in the linked article) I’ve become
more acutely aware of the feeling of the conversational/interpersonal “void” created when somebody else chances a “quick check” of their phone under the table. I used
to blame social media mostly for this – and I still think that it’s an issue, and it’s certainly true that my Facebook/Twitter/Reddit-heavier-using friends are the biggest culprits for
getting lost in their devices – but I’ve come to see it as a bigger, more-human issue, coupled with the availability of the new technologies around us.
Similar to how we eat too much fat, and sugar, and meat… simply because it’s available, we crave the stimulation that we can easily get from the device in our pocket to such an
extent that we’ve become unhealthy in our habits.
Possibly the most-spectacular and well-delivered magic routine I’ve ever seen. I’ve watched it about a dozen times so far, and loved it every single one of them.
Stopped on the way back from Penzance to Oxford after a weekend in geocaching and geocaching-like activities, including introducing my partner’s brother to the sport while putting him
through an adventure weekend I called Challenge Robin II. After the interminable A30 and a miserably rainy M5 I was pleased for the excuse
to stop she stretch my legs, and doubly pleased when I discovered that there was a geocache in the vicinity.
No litter on the path, which was nice. Close to the GZ I soon spotted a geotrail and quickly had the container in my hand. TFTC!
But on the second day, Sebastiaan spent a fair bit of time investigating a more complex use of service workers with the Push API.
…
While I’m very unwilling to grant permission to be interrupted by intrusive notifications, I’d be more than willing to grant permission to allow a website to silently cache timely
content in the background. It would be a more calm technology.
…
Then when I’m on a plane, or in the subway, or in any other situation without a network connection, I could still visit these websites and get content that’s fresh to me. It’s kind of
like background sync in reverse.
…
Yes, yes, yes.The Push API’s got incredible potential for precaching, or even re-caching existing content. How about if you could always instantly open my web site,
whether you were on or off-line, and know that you’d always be able to read the front page and most-recent articles. You should be able to opt-in to “hot” push notifications if that’s
what you really want, but there should be no requirement to do so.
By the time you’re using the Push API for things like this, why not go a step further? How about PWA feed readers or email clients that use web-pushes to keep your Inbox full? What
about social network clients that always load instantly with the latest content? Or even analytics packages to push your latest stats to your device? Or turn-based online games that
push the latest game state, ready for you to make your next move (which can be cached offline and pushed back when online)?
There are so many potential uses for “quiet” pushing, and now I’m itching for an opportunity to have a play with them.
Between the coordinates and the title we were very soon hunting in the right location, but it took the combination of my sharp eyes and my geobuddy Robin’s hardy fingers to extract this
cache from its tight and thorny home. Good location, and a fabulous hide.
Thanks for sharing this great series with us; we may not have done the whole thing (and didn’t do ANY of it in the approved order) but we enjoyed it very much. TFTCes!
Funny: I’ve manufactured a cache container similar to this once, too, but for a very-different (and distinctly more-urban) environment (GC54F7V): seems like a bit of a strange design for a rural setting! My geo-sense spotted the hiding place right away but Robin struggled for a bit with
this unusual container: he was determined to get “inside” it in some other way than the correct way, e.g. by poking, swinging, bashing, or blowing. It’s my fault, really: some of the
Challenge Robin puzzle boxes were pretty devious and involved exactly that kind of manipulation to get at their contents, yesterday.
Soon, I suggested the correct way to open the container and all was well. Great location; TFTC.
