Nobody Cares: Technology-only Edition

[Free]

Self-driving cars honking at each other. Absurdity, thy name is Modern life.

Self-driving Waymo cars keep SF residents awake all night by honking at each other

Haunted by glitching algorithms, self-driving cars disturb the peace in San Francisco.

arstechnica.com

 

[Veritable Quandry]

For exactly a month I had an apartment directly above the last stop on a bus route. Busses idled about 15-20 minutes of every hour all night. The owners were not surprised when I told them I wasn't giving a full month notice.

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

For exactly a month I had an apartment directly above the last stop on a bus route. Busses idled about 15-20 minutes of every hour all night. The owners were not surprised when I told them I wasn't giving a full month notice.

Clearly, the take away here is to defund public transit and subsidize private for profit driverless cab companies.

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

What's the ROI on disturbing-your-sleep as a service?

 

[Free]

If everyone just started wearing noise-cancelling headphones to bed, this would not be a problem.

 

[CronoCloud Creeggan]

I still hate the fact that you just can't access the iTunes music store with just a web browser. Amazon got me by default because Apple wanted to play the "we're special and exclusive and premium" shit. The Amazon MP3 store worked in ANYTHING. Seriously, I could even buy music directly on my PSP and PS3!

Of course Amazon has to be pricks and got rid of the MP3 cart, so you can only buy songs one-at-a-time, which is fucking annoying. Just give us the damn cart back, Amazon.

 

[Free]

I'm seriously piqued by the incessant flood of "Amazon Music Unlimited" trappings when I just want to buy an mp3 song or album. I also miss the discounted music they used to have. I've discovered a lot of new (to me) artists that way. I've been quietly shifting my music purchases to Bandcamp, or if it's not available there, Qobuz.

 

[Noodles]

What's the ROI on disturbing-your-sleep as a service?

The trick is to start small.

Use electric driverless cars, where you can put custom noises for engine sounds. Then buy out all the apartments.

Start offering rooms with better sound proofing on the external areas, and slowly increase the volume your driverless cars make as they drive around. It's electric, so you can just have them cruise around all night in these residential areas because there is less demand for actual taxi services then.

More and more people will start paying for sound proofing upgrades.

 

[Essence Lumin]

I haven't set up a new computer for about 25 years. Jeez, back then you plugged in the keyboard, mouse, monitor, maybe a printer. Easy peasy. I just got a new one. No matter what I tried it said No hdmi 2 port found. OK, there around 6 display ports. Off to call tech support. I learned two of them are attached to the external display adapter which what I should have been using. One problem solved. How do I get the monitor stands on? Very, very carefully. The stand has to be lined up perfectly with four permanent screws that have to be fit perfectly. Then the the monitor still fell off. Oh there are these thumb screws underneath that need to be tightened.

Why am I getting 300 Mbps at speedtest.net on my laptop and 1 Mbps on this desktop? Off to tech support again. Oh, their is an antenna that needs to be screwed in.

I think everything is working now.

 

[Soen Eber]

I'll probably just pick up an off-lease business laptop again. Simple. Rugged. Cheap.

 

[Free]

Who would have thought that studying sharks could lead to more streamlined planes?

Lufthansa is using artificial sharkskin to streamline airplanes

Copying a trick from the animal kingdom can help cut aircraft emissions.

arstechnica.com

Companies are often caught between wanting to cut emissions but also grow profits. But for airlines, these two different imperatives actually align. Cutting carbon emissions means burning less fuel and spending less money buying fuel. This is why Lufthansa has been copying a trick from the animal kingdom: applying a special film that mimics sharkskin to parts of its aircraft.

 

[Govi]

Amazing to me, that it works. Water at 35 mph is very different from low density air at 400 mph. Still, it works and it definitely does not depend on any feeble understanding I might have. Thankfully.

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

I wonder if we should start a thread just about the latest ways that ad-driven/data-harvesting tech companies are being evil and screwing people over. It certainly would be a long-lived thread because something new happens at least once a week.

Today, the offender is Amazon. They sell something called an Echo Show, which is an Echo with a screen. The screen always mostly shows ads, but before now, if you paid extra at the time of purchase, you could upgrade to a version that instead of showing you ads, shows a slideshow of photos you foolishly uploaded to Amazon's cloud. But guess what? Amazon has announced it is discontinuing the photo slideshow server next month. After that, even though you paid extra specifically for this feature so that you didn't have to see ads, you're going to see ads. No you're not getting reimbursed. Thanks for shopping with Amazon!

Shortest Louis Rossmann video ever:

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

There's roughly a zillion slideshow apps for Android that use local files that Amazon can never take away from you, most of them free and a search for "android slideshow" on github results in over 200 open source projects. Why wasn't the only response to Amazon charging for this ever anything but pointing and laughing?

 

[CronoCloud Creeggan]

There's roughly a zillion slideshow apps for Android that use local files that Amazon can never take away from you, most of them free and a search for "android slideshow" on github results in over 200 open source projects. Why wasn't the only response to Amazon charging for this ever anything but pointing and laughing?

Not only that, but I think slideshows are built into the UI. IIRC it's one of the things you can have on your home screens.
Also the Echo Show is just an Android tablet....that stays in one spot. IIRC it DOES have larger speakers.

And you can only buy Kindle books one at a time, too! C'mon Amazon, just let us add ANYTHING to a cart.

 

[Noodles]

There's roughly a zillion slideshow apps for Android that use local files that Amazon can never take away from you, most of them free and a search for "android slideshow" on github results in over 200 open source projects. Why wasn't the only response to Amazon charging for this ever anything but pointing and laughing?

It's probably a closed system that you can't install those apps on.

Which is the real annoyance, not being able to just point it at a local network folder or SD card of photos.

 

[Isabeau]

I was thinking that maybe it was getting less popular so they might be trying to get as much $ for it before people stopped using them all together but, I just looked it up, and it says that 35% of households (I’m guessing the US) have a smart speaker. Honestly, I’m surprised. I had no idea. Not something I’m interested in.

 

[CronoCloud Creeggan]

I was thinking that maybe it was getting less popular so they might be trying to get as much $ for it before people stopped using them all together but, I just looked it up, and it says that 35% of households (I’m guessing the US) have a smart speaker. Honestly, I’m surprised. I had no idea. Not something I’m interested in.

We have 3. One in living area and one in each bedroom. Music, alarms, timers, weather, quick questions. They would be better if Amazon still had their Music Library, that you could put your own music on, but Amazon wants to sell subscriptions. You also have to hook up real speakers to the ones with jacks to get better quality out of them. They do Bluetooth....but....Bluetooth.

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

I tried a couple of smart speakers and they were totally pants. A docked Android tablet should work just as well.

 

[Noodles]

I have a couple and we mostly use them for background music and timers.

I am convinced that Amazon has been tanking the quality though to try to drive people away because they are not profitable.

It doesn't listen half the time, and often fucks it up. It did not used to be anywhere near this bad.

Also, I have a ChatGPT connected "Alexa" in my SL home too.