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Calling Their Bluff

anguscheng.com

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Re: Calling Their Bluff

#41

Post by AnthonyMouse »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #12
neom wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear about this repeatedly with South Korea - just googled and sure enough the first result is a sponsored scam site.

I'm not sure how Google can't be held responsible for this. They're literally advertising scams. They're taking money for putting up an ad for a scam site. I don't know how there is an excuse for this that's acceptable to any authority. It's their own platform that they seem unable to control. Take some responsibility Google, you are profiting by facilitating evil (even moreso than by regular advertising).

> I'm not sure how Google can't be held responsible for this. They're literally advertising scams. They're taking money for putting up an ad for a scam site.

The thing I don't understand is why people keep expecting them to. Who even wants Google to be the police? To actually act as a deterrent you need the ability to impose penalties, and for that you need the actual police.

All Google can do is close their account, and then there are no real penalties so they just make new ones until they figure out how to beat the fraud detection system.

And if you try to impose penalties on third parties for not being able to solve a problem they're structurally unable to solve, all they can do is crank up the false positive rate and mess things up for innocent people.

Stop even asking for this. It's a dystopia. Put the actual scammers in prison instead.

Re: Calling Their Bluff

#42

Post by wtmt »

spauldo wrote: post #33
ricudis wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never driven a car outside of my own country, and I always wondered how they even allow you to drive a car without getting re-trained in a country where the driving system is so different than where you obtained your license (I'm looking at you, Commonwealth countries). Isn't it difficult to adapt to left-side driving while having used to right-side? It surely needs a little bit of adapting as a pedestrian.

The hardest part of learning to drive on the left is not turning on your windshield wipers every time you turn a corner. Really though, the actual driving part is pretty easy to pick up. You get accustommed to it quickly. You're more likely to have problems crossing the street on foot (you'll look the wrong way for traffic) than driving.

> The hardest part of learning to drive on the left is not turning on your windshield wipers every time you turn a corner.

This is something to learn the very first time when getting into a (new/unfamiliar) car before getting the vehicle moving.

Come to India and drive a few cars from different brands. [1] The rule is to drive on the left side of the road (so the driver is on the right side of the vehicle). But the sticks/levers to turn on the windshield wiper may be on the right side of the steering wheel or on the left side (and vice versa for the turn indicator sticks/levers), depending on the manufacturer. If you don’t check it in advance, you may end up wiping the windshield when you want to signal a turn or end up signaling a turn when you want to get water off the windshield.

[1]: Actually, it’s not recommended for foreigners to attempt to drive in India. The traffic is chaotic and one needs a different way of thinking to drive.

Re: Calling Their Bluff

#43

Post by blitzar »

BlindEyeHalo wrote: post #40

Do people not use their own government as the entry point for visa applications? I just go to the website of the foreign office of my government which has a list of the requirements to enter every country in the world and what needs to be done and how. I have never started with a google search.

Scam sites for visas rank higher on a google search than the legit ones.

Re: Calling Their Bluff

#44

Post by gambiting »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #41
BLKNSLVR wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how Google can't be held responsible for this. They're literally advertising scams. They're taking money for putting up an ad for a scam site. I don't know how there is an excuse for this that's acceptable to any authority. It's their own platform that they seem unable to control. Take some responsibility Google, you are profiting by facilitating evil (even moreso than by regular advertising).

> I'm not sure how Google can't be held responsible for this. They're literally advertising scams. They're taking money for putting up an ad for a scam site. The thing I don't understand is why people keep expecting them to. Who even wants Google to be the police? To actually act as a deterrent you need the ability to impose penalties, and for that you need the actual police. All Google can do is close their account,…

I don't want them to be the police. I want them to give me the thing that I'm searching for first, not whoever outspent everyone else on SEO this year. If I'm searching for "Canadian visa application" then the first result must be the official government website for this. No policing involved - just good old accurate search, like Google used to be known for.

Re: Calling Their Bluff

#45

Post by gambiting »

microtonal wrote: post #37
ricudis wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Greece, traditionally, we tend to consider Germany as the almost ultimate place in regards to reliability, efficiency, etc. It's a bit soothing to discover that almost everywhere everybody has the same issues (the difference in magnitude matters, of course)

efficiency Having lived in Germany for five years, this is a total myth. The German administration is a tire fire, I mean a filing cabinet fire. First lesson is: learn to wait. Have to do things at the municipality or the Finanzamt? Prepare to reserve 1-2 hours of your day, because you will have to wait a lot. And then the administration is pretty chaotic because (for historical reasons) they do not want to link admi…

My favourite anecdote regarding German EV chargers - I was trying to charge at a motorway stop couple years back, and the stupid charger needs an app, ok, got the app. And it's even in English, success! But.....when I try to add a payment card it says the billing address has to be in Germany. Ok, I'm determined so I ring their helpline.....only to be told it's open Monday to Saturday 9am till 4pm(it was Sunday).

Honestly never seen this issue in any other EU country.

Re: Calling Their Bluff

#46

Post by fallpeak »

gambiting wrote: post #44
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not sure how Google can't be held responsible for this. They're literally advertising scams. They're taking money for putting up an ad for a scam site. The thing I don't understand is why people keep expecting them to. Who even wants Google to be the police? To actually act as a deterrent you need the ability to impose penalties, and for that you need the actual police. All Google can do is close their account,…

I don't want them to be the police. I want them to give me the thing that I'm searching for first, not whoever outspent everyone else on SEO this year. If I'm searching for "Canadian visa application" then the first result must be the official government website for this. No policing involved - just good old accurate search, like Google used to be known for.

You're in luck! If you search for "canadian visa application" the first two results are "Visit Canada" and "How to apply for a visitor visa" on https://www.canada.ca/

Re: Calling Their Bluff

#47

Post by gambiting »

henry2023 wrote: post #15
delusional wrote: post #10

Isn't this abuse of the chargeback system? I was under the impression that chargebacks were for resolving otherwise unresolvable conflicts between the buyer and seller. Here the buyer didn't even attempt to get a refund from the seller before the chargeback.

In principle yeah, it’s an abuse of charge back. In practice, Visa, MC, and Amex will just refund you without even asking any question.

I wonder if that's an American thing, every time I tried to do a chargeback here in the UK on a credit card my bank said they have to investigate first, give the seller an opportunity to respond, and only if that fails they will refund me after 60 days. While everything I see online suggests that Americans can pretty much do an at-will chargeback for any reason with instantaneous effect?

Re: Calling Their Bluff

#48

Post by marcus_holmes »

microtonal wrote: post #37
ricudis wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Greece, traditionally, we tend to consider Germany as the almost ultimate place in regards to reliability, efficiency, etc. It's a bit soothing to discover that almost everywhere everybody has the same issues (the difference in magnitude matters, of course)

efficiency Having lived in Germany for five years, this is a total myth. The German administration is a tire fire, I mean a filing cabinet fire. First lesson is: learn to wait. Have to do things at the municipality or the Finanzamt? Prepare to reserve 1-2 hours of your day, because you will have to wait a lot. And then the administration is pretty chaotic because (for historical reasons) they do not want to link admi…

This. German bureaucracy is a nightmare, especially if German is not your first language.

German health system is a mess, but mainly because Germans are (probably rightly) suspicious of having electronic health records.

Re: Calling Their Bluff

#49

Post by [deleted] »

magnetometer wrote: post #30
nicbou wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Germany there is also a strange zone where people bring sanity to government processes that have no business being this complicated.

I've never experienced any government process where paying a third party would have simplified things. I've also never heard of any third party offerings for that purpose. Could you share some examples?

[deleted]

Re: Calling Their Bluff

#50

Post by vtbassmatt »

spauldo wrote: post #33
ricudis wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never driven a car outside of my own country, and I always wondered how they even allow you to drive a car without getting re-trained in a country where the driving system is so different than where you obtained your license (I'm looking at you, Commonwealth countries). Isn't it difficult to adapt to left-side driving while having used to right-side? It surely needs a little bit of adapting as a pedestrian.

The hardest part of learning to drive on the left is not turning on your windshield wipers every time you turn a corner. Really though, the actual driving part is pretty easy to pick up. You get accustommed to it quickly. You're more likely to have problems crossing the street on foot (you'll look the wrong way for traffic) than driving.

Accidentally turning on the wipers was definitely #1 for me. A close second was nearly turning the wrong way in roundabouts. I’m not sure why regular box turns were easy to mentally flip but roundabouts just broke my brain instead.
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