I really really REALLY hope this is phrased well. Otherwise it is impossible to implement. People don’t know what an algorithm is.
Sorting by date uses an algorithm. Filtering by tag uses an algorithm. Even counting out a number of posts uses an algorithm. An algorithm is not some magic oracle but just a list of instructions like a cooking recipe.
Somehow I doubt that a few thousand consumer grade machines used by startups will make much of a difference compared to millions of specialized servers ordered by the big players.
Even if the AI bubble burst today and we canceled all data center plans, it would take a while to pivot production back to something useable for consumers instead of highly specialized servers. Not four years but at least a couple of months.
Sounds like a bunch of good ideas. Have you considered proposing those to the people who can actually implement them?
Some of us are activists. It is our duty expose incompetence.
It is nobody’s duty to expose anything for the sake of exposing it. It is our duty to expose things for the sake of solving them. If you have a better solution, we’re ready to hear it.
The question is, why would have it covered up?
I don’t see anything being covered up. You have linked an official government website that tells you how to perform the test. Looks like you have found it. Doesn’t seem like much of a secret. Where else should they put it?
Of course the reason I was looking into how to test 911 is because I actually fucking need to test it
Then do what they tell you to do: contact them beforehand (borrow a phone from a neighbor or send them an email) and ask if they have free capacity for a test call and what you should do if you don’t know which 911 call center your VOIP setup will reach.
you asshole!
Reported.
Well, go ask the non-emergency line if it’s okay. That’s what is recommended. Looks like you have access to the internet. What keeps you from writing an email to your local police station and just asking what you should do? I can’t know where you live. I can only tell you that in my 38 years of life, these things have been solved by actually talking to people or trying things. Certainly not by complaining on the internet to people who can’t do anything about it and then not even suggesting a better solution.
Sorry, but you don’t seem like you want a solution. You want something to complain about.
You’re constructing an argument that’s so specific, you’re basically begging to be the victim.
If you a) have a device that can’t make regular calls b) have no way to contact a non-emergency number through a different device to ask if it’s okay to make a test call and c) absolutely need to test this right now, then you’re about one in a million. Just make that call, answer the “what’s your emergency?” question with “No emergency right now, I need to test that my device that can’t make regular calls will work in a real emergency. Sorry, I couldn’t reach your non-emergency number.” and it will be fine.
It’s only an illegit 911 call if you call them for fun or if you test so often it can no longer be considered necessary.
To be sure that your (possibly rather unusual) phone or connection will work. Maybe you have an automated home security system, an emergency call button or your own GSM antenna that gives you access in a very remote area. That’s totally legit and many emergency hotlines have scheduled times when you can do that. They make sure they have additional staff during those times so test calls don’t interrupt regular operations. If you need to do a test outside those scheduled times, it’s polite to call a non-emergency line first to make sure they have the capacity to handle your test call. You wouldn’t want to bother them when they’re already understaffed or some large event causes a high call volume.
In the end, an unannounced test call isn’t a big deal either. Just let them know right away what’s happening and they should be fine with it. Just make sure to stick to what you actually need to test. Calling once a week or “testing” a phone that could also make regular calls could be considered disruption of emergency services.
Disclaimer: I’m not professionally affiliated with any emergency service operator, just speaking from personal experience. I’ve had a couple of situations where I wasn’t sure if calling 112 (the European 911) was the right thing, always politely explained the situation and was always told that I had done the right thing. Operators would rather have you call than not call when you’re not sure.
Well, I don’t think you need to make that first call from the same phone so it should be fine. How often have you had to test a 911 call with absolutely no other phones available that you can borrow for a moment?
I said he can keep it. No promises about it staying attached.
The smartest thing my monitors ever need to do is to automatically select the active input.
Okay, here‘s a compromise for him: he shuts down his company and refunds everything that was paid with tax money (with interest) and he can keep his head.
It (usually) does not, at least not for websites. Reading the screen would require a lot of computing power and be prone to mistakes, especially with unusual fonts and noisy backgrounds.
Instead, screen readers read a website‘s HTML source code which also gives the developer the chance to annotate how certain elements should be read. Accessibility on the web has been a huge topic for years and serving obfuscated HTML that only works for seeing users goes against everything we have been fighting for.
Yeah, because fuck accessibility, right?
Even a person should not be able to delete critical backups without jumping through a couple of hoops.
Not even that. Calculators have their own limitations related to rounding errors and big numbers. Their results may be deterministic but they are not always accurate.
They‘re not supposed to make money. They are a non-profit foundation that takes donations to develop an open source project and I expect them to spend those donations on exactly that project and not much else.
Pretty much the two groups that I had in mind but I wanted to generalize a bit.
And the other 80% only stayed because they were either not confident enough in their technical abilities to switch or had no choice (environment would need to be re-certified, software doesn’t work well with wine, boss said no).
Which makes “opt out of algorithms” even more wrong.
I’m not a fan of specifying too much here. Many platforms don’t track location while other fields that we can’t think of in advance might be useful. Finding a more general rule that still gets the intent across might be hard but I’d rather have it a bit under-specified than suddenly requiring a social media site to track my location every time I post because someone wasn’t careful enough when writing the text of a law.
Other than that, I agree 100%.