In Praise of the Irish Goodbye.Theres no need to make a big deal about leaving every gathering you attend.Just leaveits fine.Last week, the entire Lifehacker staff convened in New York City.Our writers traveled from allRead more Read.What Is an Irish Goodbye The Irish goodbye or French exitnot be confused with ghostingis the act of leaving an event without actually telling everyone that youre leaving.Since the Echos release in 2014, millions of people have given in to Amazons nonstop advertising and welcomed Alexa into their homes.Amazons original sell.Facebook Message Hack That Sends Messages Nonstop' title='Facebook Message Hack That Sends Messages Nonstop' />You just go.Sound rude Its not.To understand the Irish goodbye, you have to understand why it came to be.As Cahir ODoherty explains at Irish Central, Irish goodbyes are simply the opposite of Irish welcomes.You see, the Irish are famous for being extremely hospitable.So hospitable, in fact, it can be a bit overwhelming.Youre offered something to drink, something to eat, and constantly being taken care of.This kind of hospitality translates to an extremely long farewell, like this example Are you leaving us Ah, youre leaving us.Theres no need to make a big deal about leaving every gathering you attend.Just leaveits fine.Last week, the entire Lifehacker staff convened in New York.We would like to show you a description here but the site wont allow us.Facebook announced today that it sold 100,000 worth of ads to a sketchy network of fake Russian accounts between June 2015 to May 2017, a period spanning the 2016.Would you like a cup of tea Would you like a biscuit There are leftovers.I have Tupperware and tinfoil, sure well put it in that.Its no trouble. And a custard cream.Well put it in the bag, sure.No, well put it in your pocket.Say nothing. And take this and this and this and this and this and this and this.And let me hold your coat.Is this your coatIs this or this or this or this or this or this your coat Look it, its raining.Stay until it stops raining.I am not letting you go and its raining.So, when you think about it, Irish goodbyes arent rudetheyre actually pretty considerate.Youre sparing your host the trouble of giving you a long farewell, youre not interrupting peoples conversations with an egotistical Goodbye everyoneStop what youre doing and look at me, and you avoid wasting anyones time making plans youll never follow through with.Besides, nobody cares if you leave.The party will go on without you.Making plans is hard, especially when youre making them with a chronic flaker.There are ways toRead more Read.How to Do an Irish Goodbye Properly.While Irish goodbyes arent inherently rude, you still have to do them right.Some scenarios arent meant for the Irish goodbye, for example.Theyre best used for exiting parties, and perhaps some work events, but probably not when youre visiting grandma or having an intimate dinner with friends.Heres how to do it Plan ahead, if you can If you know youll be pulling an Irish goodbye, think about your exit strategy.Dont bring anything youll need to retrieve before you leave, like coats, plates, games, etc.And make sure you pay your tab first.Dont stick anyone else with the bill.Pick an exit When youre ready to go, look for a route thats out of the way and wont draw attention.Let someone know You dont have to completely disappear for this to work.Its okay to tell a close friend youre taking off so no one starts to worry about you.A text works too.Ninja vanish Disappear into the night and make your way home or wherever it is youre headed.If that all still feels too impolite for your tastes, you can always send a thank you email or text the next day.Or make your exit, then send a text once youve gone.Theyll understand, trust me.And if someone sends you a Where r u text, be nice and respond.And thats it The Irish goodbye is easy as pie.Now, if youll excuse me.Surprise, Echo Owners, Youre Now Part of Amazons Random Social Network.Since the Echos release in 2.Amazons nonstop advertising and welcomed Alexa into their homes.Amazons original sell for the always on, voice activated device was that users could ask Echo for information, music, news, sports scores, and weather from across the room and get results or answers instantly.But in the last couple of months, it has evolved into something else the hub for Amazons new social network.In May, Amazon pushed a software update that added features called Drop in and Alexa calling and messaging, which let you connect to other peoples Echos.The communal device, used by all members of a given household, suddenly became a telephone and answering machine, much like an old school landline shared by a family, except this one emits a pulsing yellow light when you have a message.This is a unique aspect to being a consumer of the Internet of Things The things stay connected to the company you bought them from, which means the company can push down an update from afar and change them into, well, other things.Overnight, the Echo went from being a voice activated Google search to a device that could be networked to a bunch of other devices.In order to use the new feature, Echo owners have to open the Amazon Alexa app on their phones and import their contacts, after which they are stored in the Amazon cloud.Amazon then offers up a list of who among their contacts is an Echo owner, and automatically makes all of them part of their network, rather than letting them choose who they actually want to connect with as most other companies do.Amazon assumed this was the best way to organize its network, apparently not realizing most of us have tons of strangers and randos in our phonebooks.My own list included a couple of ex boyfriends, a person I stayed with once on Airbnb, current co workers, former colleagues, and a U.S. senators press secretary, who would probably be surprised to learn I knew she had an Echo because Ive never actually called or talked to her.There was not a single person on the list whose Echo I would want to call.Instead, it was an uninvited look into the consumption habits of the sundry individuals whose numbers have made their way into my phone over the last 1.When asked about the privacy context collapse involved in revealing your Echo ownership to anyone with your phone number, an Amazon spokesperson emphasized that calling and messaging via Alexa is an optional feature.To import contacts and send voice messages youll need to first set up callingmessaging if you prefer not to use the feature, simply dont set it up, the spokesperson wrote via email.Amazon is not the only company to decide that its users should be able to identify other users based solely on knowing their phone numbers.Signal, an encrypted messaging app, also discloses its users this way.Its why I had the press secretarys number in my phoneI wanted to find out which senators offices were using the secure app.It makes it easier to connect with other people using the same app, but theres a privacy trade off You only need someones phone number to figure out that theyve bought or downloaded that product.And that could potentially be used against users.A repressive government, for instance, could find out if activists were using Signal to encrypt their communications.A hacker could find out if a target was using an Echo, in the hopes of using it to invade the persons network.But Echo users had more immediate concerns when the feature came out.Amazon, new to the social networking game, didnt realize that some users in its network might not like other users.Those who first turned on Alexa calling, like Elise Oras, discovered that they couldnt block people from calling their Echo.And once they discovered that, they discovered they couldnt easily leave the social network. How To Install Thin Stone Veneer Over Brick here. There is no delete button.To exit Amazon. Echoverse, you have to call Amazon Customer Service and get a real live human being to turn off the feature.Its still the case two months after its release that you have to make an actual phone call to exit the Echo social ecosystem, but Amazon came to its senses with blocking.Last month, it gave users the ability to block contacts from calling their Echo those contacts will still see the person listed but wont be able to make a call to them or leave them a message.Amazons missteps here may not prove to be a big deal to Echo owners.After all, if theyve bought a device for their home with an always on microphone, theyre likely the type of people who arent too worried about their privacy.But its good to remember, as you ponder whether to buy an internet connected thermostat, or lamp, or refrigerator The transformation from a lowly appliance to a node in a vast privacy demolishing network is just a software update away.This post was produced by the Special Projects Desk of Gizmodo Media Group.
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