If I were alive in 1954, I would understand why I would need a movie to figure this “dialing” thing out.
The movie from “the telephone company” emphasizes that you MUST bring your finger all the way to the finger stop when dialing the two letters and five numbers to talk to another person on the phone.
A model showing the finger stop.
Here’s the movie.
How to dial your phone, 1954.
Was this truly an improvement over the old system, in which you simply spoke the number to your friendly operator?
With some of those 100 million users dialing phone numbers WITHOUT worrying about the finger stop, as touch tone phones were introduced in 1963, supported by a new underlying technology dual-tone multi-frequency (DTMF).
And…well, a lot of other stuff happened.
In 2026 some of us don’t dial at all. We just say “Call Mom” to our non-human “operator” on our smartphones.
A tech journalist, writing on their personal social channels, noted that they recently bought a laptop bag luggage strap…and was immediately added to the company’s mailing list.
Because when you buy one laptop bag luggage strap, you obviously need seven more.
Google Gemini.
But it’s really bad when you buy a refrigerator and the seller thinks you want more of THOSE.
The end of the old year means the beginning of a new one.
Start the year off right by acting to fill your content gaps. Click below and schedule a free meeting with Bredemarket to address your content needs, and how Bredemarket can help ensure your visibility.
Modern videoconferencing technology has its benefits. Today you can stay at home to join a 3 am meeting. 10 years ago you had to drive to work to use the professional videoconferencing equipment.
“A school in Florida was forced into shutdown after an AI-based weapon detection system mistakenly triggered an entire campus lockdown by mistaking a clarinet for a firearm.”
The software was ZeroEyes, and it allows for human review for protection against a false positive. But in this case (like the Maryland chip case) the humans failed to discern that the “gun” wasn’t a gun.
While this may be a failure of AI weapons detection software, it is also a failure of the human reviewers.
Have you ever seen that popular movie where the silent loner student suddenly stands up in the school cafeteria and threatens his classmates with a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos?
“After football practice Monday night, Taki Allen chatted with friends outside Kenwood High School while munching on Cool Ranch Doritos. When he finished his snack he put the bag in his pocket. Minutes later, several police officers pulled up, pointed their guns at him and yelled for him to get on the ground, he said.”
So why did Taki (I’ll get to his name later) receive police attention?
“The false alarm was triggered by Baltimore County Public Schools’ AI-powered gun-detection system, Omnilert.”
Yes, it…um…appears that the AI-powered system thought the Doritos bag was a gun.
“In this case, Omnilert’s monitoring team reviewed an image of “what appeared to be a firearm” on the person at Kenwood Monday night, said Blake Mitchell, a spokesperson for Omnilert.
“”Because the image closely resembled a gun being held, it was verified and forwarded to the Baltimore County Public Schools (BCPS) safety team within seconds for their assessment and decision-making,” he wrote in an email.”
Although not explicitly stated, it appears that the image was sent for human review…and the human thought it was a gun also.
So how can a Cool Ranch Doritos bag look like a gun? Let’s see the picture.
“Mitchell [noted] that their privacy policy prevents them from sharing the image.”
Bredemarket is not a B2C business, and 99% of Bredemarket’s business is already conducted online. But even I need to remind myself that my prospects and clients may not be in an office—not even a home office—when they do business with me.
While my American friends are ignoring the Bredemarket blog today to focus on personal matters, I can have a little blogging fun. Well, until they all come back to work Monday.
Did you hear about the secret recording about Campbell’s Soup?
“I don’t want to eat a…piece of chicken that came from a 3D printer, do you?”
Well, soup is good food, and Martin Bally is now unemployed.
“After a review, we believe the voice on the recording is in fact Martin Bally. The comments were vulgar, offensive and false, and we apologize for the hurt they have caused. This behavior does not reflect our values and the culture of our company, and we will not tolerate that kind of language under any circumstances. As of November 25, Mr. Bally is no longer employed by the company.“
Bredemarket 