Learning – Page 3 – Chris Koerner

CFXFVWP7V1

My wife bought a pair of AirPods Pro off of someone online. They were brand new, unopened. She looked up the serial number in the listing on Apple’s website. All checked out. She went and bought them for $70.¹

When she got home the serial number on the box was different from the listing (CFXFVWP7V1). She doubled checked on Apple’s site. Purchased date of October 2023, with a Limited Warranty until October 2024. Ok, it still all checked out ok. Using Apple’s website to verify a serial number, according to the top Google search result (and common sense/logic), is the best way to check that they are legit. Until she went to use them.

They were fake.

The serial numbers on the individual AirPods are different than what Settings show. They pair up just like a real pair, but switching between the various audio modes does nothing.

Searching on Google, the serial number shows other fake listings (from random folks around the world!) with the same serial number. So I’m writing this post in hopes that I can prevent another innocent person from getting taken advantage of.

She ended up buying a real pair off of Amazon. The slightly newer version with USB-C. Can you tell the difference?

This Technology is Bad for You?

Ok, my headline is a little tongue-in-cheek. I’m a technologist and I want to believe that technology has improved our lives. From airplanes to vaccinations to smart phones to light bulbs. However, like everything in life, choices have consequences. Here’s two video essays I recently watched that discuss how the technology you’re using right now 👀 can do you harm. It’s not your fault, we’re still in the infancy of having the capabilities we now have – to broadcast and consume at a global an unending scale – and our squishy human brains are not adapted for this. At. All.

A pretty good summary of why Twitter/Facebook/etc are not “public squares” as traditionally (and in a historically socially-healthy way) conceived.

It’s not just social media that is causing fractures in society. We also don’t share the same popular culture as we once did. Remember when you had to sit down at the same time as every other person in your country to watch the latest episode of a show? And then talk about it at work the next day? That doesn’t happen as much any more. Our own world of shared culture is, well, less shared.

You Should Watch a Four Hour Video on YouTube about Plagiarism on YouTube

Wow. I watched this across multiple sessions and it was worth every minute. It’s a well-researched and engaging essay by hbomberguy, an essayist known for his really in-depth videos. This video starts talking about examples of people taking verbatim from other writers and creators with no care for proper credit or respect. Then it gets really deep into one incredibly unfortunate instance.

As an aside to the main narrative of the video, I think it also hits on the importance of digital literacy and critical thinking skills. If the average person can’t separate the cheap knock-off shit from actual work then we’re doomed. We’ll learn things that are not true by people who appear as educators but are actually charlatans. It’s hard to unlearn things and this grifter-level shit just makes it harder to have a shared understanding of a topic.

The people being called out in this video themselves don’t appear to know (or maybe they do know, which is even worse) how actual research and citation works! They just want to make a quick buck. Ugh.

I’m going to sound like an old man, but what if young, impressionable, people are watching this? Do they grow up thinking this is how it’s done? Where, like, they might think plagiarism is just how you get by and everybody does it so it’s OK. Are they even aware they’re being fed BS? I wonder if this sort of lazy work reinforces the roundabout logic of “my side can’t win so I reject reality” we see so often when folks are presented with information that contradicts their understanding.

The whole thing boils down to if you don’t understand how to cite your work, you end up making a bad book report.

A Pot Prophecy

This lecture did not age well. In fact the “bad guy” here was quite right!

Later in the episode the young man (23 and a home owner!) neglects his child (who of course dies, cause cannabis bad) for a cannabis party. Which is what happens when you use pot. Every time. /s

I read this comment when this clip was recently posted on Reddit.

Here’s a hypothetical rebuttal the 23 year old could have said if the conversation continued
“You know what your problem is? What’s the problem with all you types? You only see people at their worst. You say you’ve seen it happen before, seen people crash and burn from this or that, and I don’t doubt it, because it’s your job to go after the people who are crashing and burning. But you don’t see all the people keeping it together, because they don’t make any fuss to be seen. I guarantee you there’s countless people out there doing “this and that” which you subjectively think is immoral, and they’re fine. I guarantee you there’s old men who smoked weed every week of their life and died happy men with big loving families. I even guarantee you there some other officers in your precinct who you respect and maybe even admire who are doing marijuana or something more, and you can’t tell. Your perspective is warped because it’s your job to fixate on the 1% worst of society, but there’s nothing obligating you to balance that out by spending the rest of your time with people who have it together. You’re never called to the scene of a family having a nice picnic, so do you assume nice picnics never happen? And anyone who’s had decades of a good life with family and friends, yet they’ve also smoked marjiuana, aren’t going to tell you about it to let you in on the more tame reality of things, because the moment you knew, you would try to destroy their lives, make them crash and burn so your prophecies would become self fulfilling.”
Bezbozny on Reddit

Delayed thoughts from Wikimania 2023

I had this bit saved in my drafts for a while now. Getting it out there even if unfinished.

—

I’m currently sitting in a gigantic convention center. It’s part of a larger multi-block series of interconnected hotels and shopping malls. It’s in Singapore, which is 9,545 miles from my home. The furthest distance I’ve ever been from home, my family.

It isn’t the first time I’ve traveled since Covid. But it is the first time being around this many people and having to be “on” for long periods of time.

Im surrounded by happy people who are excited to be with one another.

It’s overwhelming, in what is quickly becoming “in a good way”.