I get lots of stuff intended for other people (including a mildly famous person with my name whose actual email address is last.first@gmail.com).

A few years ago, someone set up a shopify account with my email address. Overnight while I slept, the shopify account was created, did some bad stuff, and got suspended for fraudulent activity. The whole story was told through the series of emails coming in over a couple of hours. Shopify did not required the fraudster to confirm the email address to activate the account.

When I asked shopify to unlink my email address from this fraudster account, they instructed me to click on the "forgot my password" link on their login page, click on the "change password" link in the resulting email, and then login and remove my email from the account. This was my only option, they claimed. Obviously, I was never going to connect my IP address with some fraudster's Shopify account, so I just left it as-is.

I guess services feel it adds too much "friction" to force a user to verify the specified email account before allowing them to use the service.

'the Pentagon said that the document, titled “Clinical Guidance for Health and Human Performance Optimization,” had been temporarily rescinded on September 3 to allow for updates.'

"The counter-trade is Taiwan. Beijing has wanted a public American recalibration on Taiwan for two decades. "

I guess this went over my head.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49402817

Points: 5

# Comments: 0

Unlike the author, I kept the ad in a box for 35 years, at which point I scanned it and threw out the hard copy.

Edit: Also, the resume I mailed to them was printed by a print shop.

About 15 years ago, I decided to know as little as possible about the musicians/artists/writers whose work I was consuming, because I didn't want my enjoyment of their work to be influenced or spoiled by what I knew about them (even superficial things, e.g., how they looked).

I remember mentioning that to a co-worker, when discussing a band I had just learned about and enjoyed, and he pointed out that by insisting on maintaining ignorance, I could be funding a very bad person. I figured if the person was bad enough, the information would get to me somehow.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49149429

Points: 15

# Comments: 6

I never received the formal job offer. I called after a month and was told not to worry, it was still happening. I think I called again after 3 months, but stopped thinking about it after that.

Eventually I went to work for an internet company (which also delayed the formal job offer for several months. Deja Vu! But only because the background checking firm was having trouble completing the background check).

This was in the mid-aughts.

Oh, I'd love to know why this is a thing.

I did work for a mutual fund company for 18 months, one of those companies where the title Vice President simply meant nothing more than "employee" (although it was fun showing my business card to my friends and family, who were impressed by the title even though it had no meaning), but I didn't notice anything special about employee retention, probably because I was in a tech team.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49000630

Points: 3

# Comments: 1

At that time, I was on an opioid pain killer for an abscess. The next time I was on an opioid pain killer, years later, I also had an afib episode. So I wonder if maybe I have some sensitivity to opioids.

One the other hand, I find that dark chocolate has more negative heart effects: I associate dark chocolate, maybe unfairly, with premature beats (several 1000s per day). For that reason, I've avoided dark chocolate, which I love, for almost 25 years.

Also, is one watching "The Real Housewives of " on Bravo or an author interview on CSPAN.

There's more variety of content on youtube, whereas I think TV sometimes caters to lowest common denominator (although that's less the case in the era of streaming: TV is much higher quality than it was when this study started in 1987).

On youtube, you could watch lots of silly dancing videos, car crashes, etc., possibly rotting your brain. Or you could watch history lectures, book reviews, documentaries, etc.

I've seen lot of bizarre, hard to understand or weirdly formulaic writing pre-2023, so I guess that's why I don't assume anything is AI generated.

[1] BTW, I am not.