Miklos
« Je donne mon avis non comme bon mais comme mien. » — Michel de Montaigne

Plate numbered 28 of Tim Bobbin [pseudonym of John Collier], Human Passions Delineated, 1773, with two men fighting (source).
Click to enlarge.

“In the nature of man, we find three principal causes of quarrel. First, competition; secondly, diffidence; thirdly, glory; the first makes men invade for gain; the second, for safety; and the third, for reputation… hereby, it is manifest that during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war as is of every man against every man… Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of war, where every man is enemy to every man, the same consequent to the time wherein men live without other security than what their strength and their own invention shall furnish them with. In such condition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation… no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short… To this war of every man against every man, this also is consequent; that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice, have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law; where no law, no injustice… The passions that incline men to peace are: fear of death; desire of such things as are ”neces­sary to commodious living; and a hope by their industry to obtain them.

Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, pp. 81-84. 1651.

The first Kiss this Ten Years, or, the meeting of Britannia & Citizen François, by James Gillray, 1803.
Cliquer pour agrandir.

- Comment aimait-il converser avec ses proches ?

- En bon aparté.

- Qu’a-t-on dit quand il a été couronné ?

- Ça empire…

- Où habitait-il avant de s’installer aux Tuileries ?

- Dans un bon appart.

- Pourquoi aimait-il voir le fils de Joséphine monter à cheval ?

- À cause du beau harnais.

- Dans quel hôtel a-t-il été le plus longtemps ?

- L’Hôtel des Invalides. Il y est encore.

Huascar, l’ami péruvien (et maintenant aussi français) d’Akbar, lui propose de rencontrer Atahualpa, son frère, venu en visite à Paris avec sa compagne, Doña Angelica. « Avec plaisir ! », s’écrie Akbar.

Huascar suggère alors de se réunir avec eux autour d’une table « typiquement française », sans oublier Chuqui, sa propre compagne, ainsi que Jeff. Il laisse à Akbar le choix du lieu.

Akbar propose La Fresque, restaurant qu’il a toujours apprécié. Dont acte.

Le choix était quasiment parfait : carte riche à prix très abordables (d’autant plus étonnant vu la situation du lieu, à côté des Halles), mets sa­vou­reux et copieux (non, ce n’est pas de la « nouvelle cuisine »), présentés de façon appé­tissante et esthé­tique (mais sans les chichis des lieux branchés), service sym­pa­thique et cha­leu­reux avec une pointe d’humour et sans pousser à la (sur)consom­mation, envi­ron­nement rela­ti­vement peu bruyant bien qu’il était tout à fait rempli et permettant de bavarder très agréablement.

Un seul bémol : Akbar avait commandé, comme entrée, un maquereau mariné à la provençale ; sauf erreur de sa part, le maquereau qu’on lui a servi était non pas mariné, mais cuit. Il n’y avait rien à redire quant au goût, mais ce n’était pas ce qu’il avait commandé (il l’a constaté bien trop tard).

Mais cela ne l’empêchera pas de continuer à recommander ce lieu et d’y revenir en bonne compagnie.

Jeff et Akbar sont les personnages d’une série de bandes dessinées de Matt Groening, qui est aussi le père de la fameuse – et infâme – famille Simpson.

Act I

On my laptop (Windows PC), I use the WhatsApp Desktop app for text messages. Both my PC and my smartphone are connected to the same (local) high speed WiFi LAN.

Yesterday, all the past messages except the last one stopped showing up for one profile, although they had been visible until a couple of hours earlier. Additionally, WhasApp displayed a message saying that if I wanted to see all the messages which predated the beginning of the month, I should look on my smartphone… But then what about those between the beginning of the month (3 weeks ago) and yesterday? And why did it happen?

I restarted the app, to no avail.

I rebooted the PC, to no avail.

So I uninstalled the app and reinstalled it.

All the messages of this profile reappeared, but another profile (with whom I also communicate daily) totally disappeared from the list of chats in the desktop app, while it was still displayed on my phone.

Act II

I restarted the app, to no avail.

I rebooted the PC, to no avail.

So I uninstalled the app and reinstalled it.

(Sounds like a repeat? It was.)

But this didn’t help.

I then searched for that profile in WhatsApp Desktop. Lo and behold, it displayed it with the content of my chat with him, but didn’t show it in the list of chats nor in the archived list.

I ended up sending a message to that profile (when it was displayed as the result of the search for it). That caused it to reappear in the list of chats…

My message did get to him, and he replied: his reply showed only on the smartphone, but not in the desktop app.

At that point, I dropped the whole thing.

Hours later, when I returned to my PC, everything seemed to display correctly, at least for this profile.

Act III

At this point, I tried reporting the problem to WhatsApp through its Web site contact page.

I filled the online form with the info they required, and with a full description of the problem. But when I tried sending it by clicking on “Next step”, it displayed an error message in red, stating my description had to have at least 30 characters… It was much longer, as can be seen from the screenshot on the right.

Act IV

I sent a one-line report through this form, stating that I couldn’t describe the problem due to a bug in their form.

I got back an email from their support, with irrelevant information, closing with “If you have any other questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us. We’ll be happy to help!” So I replied to this email (it had a “reply” field).

My reply bounced.

It is only today I managed to find the (apparent) reason it bounced: “POL-P6 The message either contains a URL that has been blocked by Facebook or a Sender Identity that failed to be validated via DKIM/SPF records.” The link to the page explaining the error messages was broken in their bounce message.

I replied again to their original email, removing their quoted reply (which contained links). It didn’t bounce (yet). No reply (yet).

Act V

By posting another request for help, this time through the app itself, I got a long WhatsApp message from their support (see screenshot on the right) explaining how to reinstall the app, how to restart the computer – all steps I had done (and told them about it). So when asked if their answer did help, I clicked “no”.

They resent me, word for word, that useless message about reinstallation and reboot.

When I complained again, they asked for full screenshots of the Web page. But this is irrelevant, as I was not using Whats­App Web, but Whats­App Desktop, as I had repeat­edly written.

I got again a request for « Please provide screenshots to help us better understand the issue you’re experiencing. » All my replies to that message were rejected.

Dead end.

Click to enlarge.

This is an excerpt from the full transcription of the dialogue between Kevin Roose, technology columnist for The New York Times, and Bing’s A.I. Chat (published Feb. 16, 2023).

This is what it (the chat) said its « shadow self » wants to do. Obviously, since it was led to express this probably against Microsoft’s rules of what it should be allowed to express, it will be possible to have it do all of that., and more.

This is the contemporary Golem, this is our future, Brave New World. But this was well known well before the invention of computers…