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Come on over to Australia and be free! We call 'em mobile phones.
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Because I'm wasting their time! 
I've had two calls (from Sky - yeh!) today and managed to keep them on the phone for over 20 minutes. Both were trying to get me to install TeamViewer QuickSupport - which I know is used by scammers.
After about 20 minutes, the first one asked: "are you wasting my time, sir?" I replied: "yes, I am, you got me there". I was then told I was an "elephant'ing time-wasting idiot". How rude! 
I don't think the second one was ever going to cotton on, so I had to break the bad news to him!  He took it better, but still said he was disconnecting my broadband. But it still seems to be working. 
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Sorry for this, I will never call you again. BTW, maybe you are interesting in new WhatsApp buisness release? Special discount for you.
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Yeah, no one can waste another's time.
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Ahh - you missed the true scam, and they got ya' !
As it turns out, their real motive was to take up as much of your time as possible - they're paid by the minute for minutes beyond the first three. In some cases, it's has a limit so, if they get a real rube, they can't spend the entire day with them.
So they banged you for 20 minutes - maybe more.
| Ravings en masse^ |
|---|
| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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So that guy got paid, but didn't manage to extract anything of value for his employer, so his employer is out by the amount he paid the scammer and has nothing to show for it. I see this as a win.
modified 16-Jun-21 15:39pm.
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W∴ Balboos, GHB wrote: So they banged you for 20 minutes
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I didn't realize the double entendre until now.
| Ravings en masse^ |
|---|
| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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You probably didn’t realize it because using that phrase and ‘twenty minutes’ just don’t go together for you?!?!
If you can't laugh at yourself - ask me and I will do it for you.
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Well - I'll tell ya'.
If you look back to the original I used the phrase "They banged . . ." which presumes a plural. I, fortunately, don't even have nightmares about being "banged" by a group.
Perhaps your experiences (live or dreams) lead you to that interpretation immediately? I'll not be judgemental about it although it does cause certain muscle to cringe in horror and dread.
| Ravings en masse^ |
|---|
| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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Could be a terrorist attack. Distracting you from work for an hour in the hope of crippling the UK economy.
Jokes on them though... we can do that fine by ourselves 
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You could send them into outer space and then deny them re-entry. 
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Years ago my assistant and I kept a toner scammer on the line for over half an hour before he (scammer) cussed me out and hung up. The two of us (assistant and I) laughed the rest of the day.
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If you're not careful, you'll be put on their do-not-call list, and you'll miss out on all the latest and greatest scams!
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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I found this video in my recommended video feed on YouTube and I actually clicked it and was quite impressed and entertained. I have watched a few more videos by Practical Engineering channel and all were great.
As I was watching this, I could not help but draw various comparisons between Civil/Infrastructure Engineering and software engineering and program/system design and testing. Granted, most of our applications and systems to do not impact people's lives in a "life and death" situation, but crap happens when we don't plan well enough, or test well enough, and even then, with the best planning, bad things will still happen.
What Really Happened at the Oroville Dam Spillway? - YouTube[^]
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He makes great quality videos.
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Slacker007 wrote: I could not help but draw various comparisons between Civil/Infrastructure Engineering and software engineering and program/system design and testing.
Yes, indeed! "Periodic design reviews over the lifetime of the project"? "600 pages postmortem reports"? I've never seen that in our field where some people still resist informal code reviews and hate unit testing. It's true that civil engineering has had more time to develop these methods from the roman aqueducts to the Oroville Dam, but it is still sobering to see how true engineers solve serious problems.
Maybe we should just stop calling what we do "software engineering" and call it for what it is: just hacking.
Mircea
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True. But I also like to point out what would happen if a client asked that a bridge be lengthened by 20m during its next release.
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Greg Utas wrote: if a client asked that a bridge be lengthened by 20m during its next release
A civil engineer would simply answer "no" (or "hell no" or other more uncivil phrases). Both customer and engineer would learn to better respect each other for the next project.
Mircea
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Slacker007 wrote: most of our applications and systems to do not impact people's lives in a "life and death" situation
Boeing 737MAX anyone?
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..and the Airbus A320 autopilot[^].
"When you are dead, you won't even know that you are dead. It's a pain only felt by others; same thing when you are stupid."
Ignorant - An individual without knowledge, but is willing to learn.
Stupid - An individual without knowledge and is incapable of learning.
Idiot - An individual without knowledge and allows social media to do the thinking for them.
modified 19-Nov-21 21:01pm.
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Interesting thanks for the link
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Responsibility for human safety is a scary thing. In the mid-1980's I worked for a defense contractor. Our main project was building an emulation of the flight control system to be used in an experimental version of the F-16. The purpose of the emulation was to validate the design of the actual flight control system. I'll always remember something our aerospace engineer told us during one of our status reviews:
"This program is of vital importance to the safety of the pilot. The flight controls can operate the plane in an unstable state for performance. If those flight controls fail, the pilot dies 2-3 seconds later."
I could screw up a few lines of code, we would fail to find a design flaw, and someone could die. Scared the piss out of me, and was a factor in my decision to get out of defense work.
Software Zen: delete this;
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As Greg and I have been discussing Ximenes
Investigates a Ximenes cryptic (8)
"I didn't mention the bats - he'd see them soon enough" - Hunter S Thompson - RIP
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EXAMINES?
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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