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27 August 2018

How do YOU answer a question in the negative?

As a native English-speaker living in a country with a tonal language, there are innumerable opportunities for misunderstanding, even with locals who speak pretty good English.

Small mistakes like, "We came here on a car" are easy to correctly understand. This does bring up, at least to me, the question of why is it we travel "in" a car, but "on" a bus when we are actually inside (in most cases) both of them?

One of the great opportunities I have for misunderstanding with many Vietnamese who speak English presents when I ask them a question in the negative. For example, "Are you sure you don't want to go?" Most Westerners answer "Yes" (I'm sure).

Every English-speaking Vietnamese I know answers, "No" (I don't want to go).

After almost four years here, I still have to pause after asking such a question to think about how their "yes" is my "no" and respond correctly. Most often, I immediately ask the question again in a different way: "You don't want to go?" which gives me a "Yes" (I don't want to go) and frequently a look questioning why I asked again. Somehow, this makes more sense to me: "Yes, I don't want to go." We westerners, would of course, answer, "No, I don't want to go."

Re-wiring my brain to "get it" on the first try is going to take a bit longer.

09 August 2018

Twitter is run by twits

Forget about the fact that Twitter is allowing Alex Jones to continue spewing his hatred, lies, and ridiculous conspiracy theories while Google, YouTube, iTunes, and Facebook have banned him...

Apparently CEO @Jack has also hired a bunch of twits to run his support department, too!

Tired of the BULLSHIT that is most of Facebook, I recently switched to using Twitter for my political opining and for some basic information. More detailed information is gleaned from a number of non-social media platforms.

I never actually sign out of Twitter, I just close the browser window. Yes, my laptop cameras are all covered with black electrical tape so if any of the sites I visit try to turn on the camera, they'll only see a black screen.

This morning, when I opened Safari (default browser for Macs), Twitter wanted me to sign in. Okay, no problem.

Uh, yes it is.

After putting in my email address and password, I get this screen:


WTF??? I did NOT sign up for secondary verification! Oh, well... once I sign in I can remove it.

So I waited...

And waited...

And waited...

So far, 10 hours later, no SMS with a six-digit code. No SMS messages AT ALL from Twitter. And yes, my phone number ends in 67. I even tried to log in with my phone number, but still got the same promise of a six-digit code.

Those who read this and know me are, most likely, thinking, "There's NO WAY he waited 10 hours before contacting Twitter Support!"

And you would be right. I waited all of 4 minutes before going to the "Support" page.


Scanning EVERYTHING, I found that the only real "support" you can get is IF YOU ARE ALREADY LOGGED IN. The only option open to me was to "Submit A Ticket" to "Report A Problem".


After completing the form and playing the Captcha game, I submitted the ticket.

Within 20 seconds, I got the following email. There's no need to read the whole thing, it's just more of the BS that's on the so-called "Support" page and of no use to someone who's NOT already logged in. Note the last paragraph; the one beginning with, "If you've tried the above options and still need help..."


YES, I STILL NEED HELP! So I "reply to this email for further assistance... from the email address associated with ... (my) Twitter account. Almost immediately, I get this:

I'm stuck in a flippin' loop!!!

Now I'm looking for the cameras from "Candid Camera". Then I remember that Alan Funt's been dead for decades and realize that I've been punked by an auto-responder and now one's even watching. F*CK!

What's worse, no actual person will ever see my dilemma.

This is VERY frustrating, BUT not enough to get me to create a new account and start over.

Screw Twitter! I'm gonna go out and play.


Note: After 3 days, I finally got the six-digit code and was able to log in to my account. No explanation as to why things suddenly changed, though.