Tag Archives: technology

Amazon in Upland: Is a Bear a Non-Person Entity?

So the day approaches, and the Upland Amazon Fresh will hold its grand opening on Thursday, May 1.

Amazon Fresh, Upland, California.

Wonder if the bear will show up.

Image from https://abc7.com/amazon-driver-bear-delivery-in-upland-caught-on-video/11503470/

What? You forgot about the bear?

“Yes, that’s an Amazon driver in the foreground, raising his hands to try to scare a bear away so he can make his delivery. He was successful. 

“The full Storyful video can be found here. (And of course it’s a Ring video. You didn’t expect a Nest video, did you?)”

I wonder if the bear’s paw will work with the palm vein reader.

Imagen 3. What’s the Amazon One error rate for THIS demographic group?

By the way, this is a reminder that Bredemarket provides its services to local Inland Empire businesses also. I can offer

  • compelling content creation
  • winning proposal development
  • actionable analysis

If Bredemarket can help your stretched staff, book a free meeting with me: https://bredemarket.com/cpa/

And one more thing…

After I wrote the main body of this post, I realized that I accidentally wrote the Bredemarket trifecta, covering all three of my concentrations:

  • Identity (Amazon)
  • Technology (Amazon)
  • Inland Empire (Amazon)

If you’re concerned about Amazon taking over everything, don’t fear. It will eventually fail.

But until it does, I’m gonna make some money!

#fakefakefake

Earthquake Phone Alerts Work

Back when AOL keywords roamed the earth, you didn’t learn about an earthquake until you felt it. Now, sensors and smartphones attempt to provide advanced notice.

A little while ago my phone started beeping loudly. By the time I figured out why, I felt a strong jolt.

Luckily it was 90 miles away from me, and it was NOT a 6.0 as initially reported. (Helpful hint: an earthquake’s magnitude is never as initially reported.)

But it appears that many of us received advance warning.

Now if everyone can agree on the magnitude…

DoorDash Gone Wild

One semi-trendy AI application is to use robots to deliver physical items from businesses to consumers…where the robot figures out the delivery route.

According to Dennis Robbins, this is happening in Arizona.

After looking at the regulations, or lack thereof, governing delivery robots in the Phoenix area, Robbins goes into investigative mode.

“After a nice breakfast at IHOP, I found myself facing off with the DoorDash Polar Labs delivery bot.”

If you are not from the U.S., the acronym IHOP stands for International House of Pancakes. (Except for that time when the marketers went crazy.) Not that they’re international, but I digress.

So the delivery bot set out to deliver packages to a hungry customer.

“Anyway … I followed my little friend after it picked up an order from IHOP. Enjoy our strange little jaunt.”

I won’t give it away, other than to comment that AI is like a drug-using teenager who only half listens to you. (I’ve said this before, stealing the idea from Steve Craig and Maxine Most.)

Read the full story here at The Righteous Cause, including commentary.

From Grok.

Why Boomers Laugh at Open-Source Libraries

The first paragraph of this description may not strike anyone as humorous.

Larch is a open-source library and set of applications for processing and analyzing X-ray absorption and fluorescence spectroscopy data and X-ray fluorescence and diffraction image data from synchrotron beamlines. Larch provides a comprehensive set fo analysis tools for X-ray absorption fine-structure spectroscopy (XAFS), including both X-ray absorption near-edge spectroscopy (XANES) and extended X-ray absorption fine-structure spectroscopy (EXAFS). Larch also provides visualization and analysis tools for X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectra and XRF and X-ray diffraction (XRD) images as collected at scanning X-ray microprobe beamlines.

But when I got to the beginning of the second paragraph, I lost it.

Larch is written in Python…

In case you missed it, this is a clear reference to a small scene from an old British television show.

Number 1…the larch.

And of course I referenced this clip myself in a February post.

(Larch image By Sciadopitys from UK – Larix decidua, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20413271)

Rippling Sues Deel in Federal Court

Defying a court order? No, not THAT; this is a private affair.

“[T]he alleged spy, when confronted last Friday at Rippling’s Dublin office with a court order to hand over his phone, fled to the bathroom and locked the door. When repeatedly warned not to delete materials from his device and that his non-compliance could result in jail time, the spy responded: ‘I’m willing to take that risk,’ and fled the premises.”

So far we have only heard one side. We will see what Deel says, and if it will claim that the honeypot email (claiming Rippling had a d-defectors (where d stands for Deel) Slack channel) was sent to more than three people.

When Remote Bar Exam Technology Failed, You Won’t Believe What Happened Next

(Imagen 3)

This is a remote education post, but not an educational identity post.

I have previously discussed online test taking, and I guess the State Bar of California reads the Bredemarket blog because it decided that an online bar exam would be a great idea, since it would reduce the costs of renting large halls for test taking purposes.

But it didn’t work.

“The online testing platforms repeatedly crashed before some applicants even started. Others struggled to finish and save essays, experienced screen lags and error messages and could not copy and paste text from test questions into the exam’s response field — a function officials had stated would be possible.”

No surprise, but the remote bar exam debacle was so bad that students are filing…lawsuits.

“Some students also filed a complaint Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, accusing Meazure Learning, the company that administered the exam, of “failing spectacularly” and causing an “unmitigated disaster.””

The Wildebeest Speaks, (Almost) March Issue: How the Secret Breaches Hurt Us All

It’s February, but I’ve already published the March issue of Bredemarket’s LinkedIn newsletter, “The Wildebeest Speaks.” I hope you forgive me.

This issue looks at the wonderful world of data breaches, including what we know and what we don’t know.

What we don’t know is that many data breaches are never reported, even though organizations are required by law to do so.

The solution is to prevent data breaches from occurring in the first place.

Read more in the latest addition to the newsletter section of Bredemarket’s LinkedIn account.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-secret-breaches-harm-us-all-bredemarket-wk9bc/

Steve Jobs Ruined “Shell Oil”

(Image from https://www.textstudio.com//logo/digital-clock-text-effect-985)

Jobs and his danged calligraphy.

Back before Jobs co-founded Apple Computer, typing “71077345” into a dedicated calculator (with an “LCD” style typeface) and flipping it upside down showed a recognizable word. Isn’t that cool?

Now, hardly anyone has dedicated calculators, and the one on my smartphone has a “normal” typeface that ruins the trick.

Not the same.

And with Adobe Firefly creating typefaces now, the “SHELLOIL” days are a distant “let’s get you home Grandpa” memory.