This scam has been around since long before AI voice was a thing. You say something scary enough, and people will subconsciously attribute anything off about the voice to a bad connection and the severe stress the person is presumably under and genuinely think the voice sounds exactly like their loved one. AI voice makes it easier to fool more people, but I bet most of these types of scammers are not putting in the time to research every target to build a voice profile and instead focus on calling as many people as possible. Of course, these days anyone taken by this scam will assume it must have been AI voice, because otherwise how did they sound so convincing.

I had a housemate who fried sausage patties and eggs in my cast iron skillet every morning for a couple of years. Gave it a good wipe and that’s it. I’d cook other things in it sometimes and wash it up if needed. The seasoning on that thing developed into a deep black that was so smooth you see your reflection in it and you could fry an egg without oil and it came off clean with just a nudge from the spatula. It was beautiful.

We went our separate ways and it quickly degraded back to a more normal “good enough” level of seasoning. It was great, but I’m not frying up a fancy breakfast every morning for it.

Nothing you couldn’t recover from unless he managed to crack it. I’d wipe it down, and hit it with brake parts cleaner. If I was still nervous about contamination, I’d put it in an oven with the self cleaning function and run it. That should burn it back down to bare metal. Then, s good scrub with dish soap to remove any residue and a good seasoning, and you’re back in business. I don’t know if I’d personally skip the heat clean step or not, but I’d definitely put it back in usage.

Oh yes, I was cheekily agreeing with that. It’s always good to spread the information that the end result of a person who isn’t specifically trained in rescue swimming attempting to swim out and rescue a drowning person is almost always just the two drowning together, even if the would-be rescuer is an otherwise strong swimmer.

I realize that other comments have already explained the law better than I could. I still wanted to say that fortunately, jumping in to drown alongside them doesn’t legally count as “helping,” so there is no expectations for anyone to do so.

“A towel, [The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy] says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-boggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.” ― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

They’re just running in reverse and don’t know how all the other boats got ahead of them.

The board’s job is to hire the CEO and demand good value for shareholders. The CEO’s job is to make the big decisions to achieve that goal quickly and then usually leave before their short term thinking falls apart. The manager’s job is to enforce whatever decisions the CEO makes, even if it is stupid or cruel. And the employee’s job is to suffer so that each layer above can look good to the layer above them.

Not to say there’s no good people in the system. My manager for most of my time there was actually a good manager who felt that his primary job was to deflect away the shit that rolled down from above so we could focus on our work, but then he got laid off along with half my coworkers.

I do miss writing software, but I really don’t miss working in the corporate world.

Pidgeon -> Parrot -> Turkey

I think it would be Pigeon -> Parrot -> Pheasant -> Peacock, but then I don’t know a lot about Pokemon.