It’s conforting that I wasn’t the only one who found this concerning. But anyways I don’t have Google (the app; I do have some other Google services installed) or Gemini installed.

Yes, haha, I saw your other comment about this off-by-one issue. Interesting that it happens at all.

Is there any specific reason to using 31 random characters instead of 32?

Thank you! I’ll try that out.

Offtopic, but do you think it’s better to use HTTPS for non-public web services that must be accessed through ssh?

I just looked it up, and apparently “impregnate” isn’t in the list either. Yes, the word isn’t offensive by itself, but I think they remove quite a lot of words that might cause problems in the what3words address. There is way more than enough words anyway.

This is from their FAQ:

How do you handle offensive words?

A what3words address is made up of 3 random words, and they are not intended to convey any meaning to a location. However, we know that the nature of using words means that unexpected interpretations can crop up.

For each new what3words language, our team consults a broad range of native speakers. We then work together to remove rude and offensive words from our word lists, navigating cultural sensitivities wherever we can.

Some users feel that certain words in our lists are unsuitable or inappropriate, so we always take feedback onboard. However, one of our key features – that our addresses are permanently fixed – means that it is not possible to update the word list. Instead, we can look for opportunities to adapt our approach when developing future languages.

Tip: if you’d rather avoid a certain what3words address because of a particular word or combination of words, we’d suggest you use the next square along.

unfortunately the people at What3Words excluded words people might find offensive from the word list, so that place does not exist

thanks now i feel more relaxed on my toilet

To people thinking of enforcing UTC around the globe:

obligatory: https://qntm.org/abolish

Before I read this article, I also thought it would be a great idea to get rid of timezones entirely and just use UTC for everything. To quote from the link,

Abolishing time zones brings many benefits, I hope. It also:

• causes the question “What time is it there?” to be useless/unanswerable
• necessitates significant changes to the way in which normal people talk about time
• convolutes timetables, where present
• means “days” (of the week) are no longer the same as “days”
• complicates both secular and religious law
• is a staggering inconvenience for a minimum of five billion people
• makes it near-impossible to reason about time in other parts of the world
• does not mean everybody gets up at the same time, goes to work at the same time, or goes to bed at the same time
• is not simpler.

As long as humans live in more than one part of the world, solar time is always going to be subjective. Abolishing time zones only exacerbates this problem.

(copied from one of my 9-month old comments)

That is nice, but I need the Google Play Services for push notifications on the messaging app that everyone in my country uses. It’s sad, I know. If it weren’t for that I wouldn’t log in to a Google account on my Android phone either.

IMO, Windows without a Microsoft account misses out on the least features, when compared to macOS without an Apple ID, iOS without an Apple ID, or Android without a Google accout. Sad that Microsoft keeps making it more and more difficult to bypass logging into a Microsoft accout during installation. But I use Linux anyways (btw)

Agree. On iOS, if you don’t login with an Apple ID, you can’t really install apps. On Android though you can just use F-Droid to install apps just fine.

Glad to know you’re doing well!

Cool you moved to Japan? How has it been?

Would my plastic water bottle (reusable) be a problem?

geese are fren

Yes, like the Vietnamese name “Nguyen”, but not like “wininks”. The best I could describe it is as a hybrid between “ninks” and “ginks”. Pronounce the first consonant with the back of your tongue while keeping the image of pronouncing an “n” sound in your head.

I like to pronounce it as nginks like fucking inks. Yes, with a ng sound in the beginning.

aww it’s not available in my region

I don’t want to sound like I’m on Discord’s side (I dislike nitro too), but that’s honestly just how a lot of paid add-on features on free apps work. They take away some functionality from the free one to incentivize people to pay.