techdmn

I taped over all my Tesla cameras (except the backup camera). The real issue was that the person I'm teaching to drive kept checking the screen for things like where to stop at a stop sign, or to see if the car thought they were too close to the curb. Couldn't have that.

Responses are typical: "That's so unsafe!" Imagine the response if they ever learned I routinely ride a motorcycle that doesn't even have ABS!

Then we get to the security aspect. I'm supposed to trust cameras, connected to the internet, on closed-source hardware, run by a vendor that has a history of misusing the data? No thanks.

Similar to the OP, I buy discs, rip them, then store the physical copy for recovery purposes. I keep them in a box in the basement, the vast majority are still in working order. (Including discs purchased or burned 35 years ago.)

Like any other media, frequent use and handling will degrade discs, and sunlight is the natural enemy of anything plastic. The interior of a car will also get ridiculously hot on a sunny day, I have seen vinyl literally melt. (And crayons!) Actually I've lost more discs to theft than anything else, by a large margin.

> people taking the AI overview answers as truth

One of the most disappointing things to me is people I previously respected appealing to the authority of LLMs.

That doesn't necessarily mean recipients are unemployed. It could mean taxpayers are subsidizing low-wage employers through public assistance to their employees, with a minimum wage that hasn't increased since 2009.

It's bad because you already paid for the hardware, any additional charge is just a money grab.

I've been hesitant to talk about this too much, because it's such a bad joke, but personally I'm waging a War On Acronyms (WOA). They really don't save much time or effort, but make communication much more opaque. They can be a way of in-group signaling, which just makes it harder for newcomers / outsiders to come up to speed. And so many collisions.

I remember reading a comment here a while back about merchants being offered a discount on the processing fee if they also transmitted detailed data about the purchase (essentially the data that would be on the receipt). That data could then be resold on to advertisers. Does anyone remember this or have links to more data? (Not having much luck with search, maybe I'm hallucinating the whole thing.)

Interesting question. I'm not sure yet. Insane? The woods? Time may tell.

Any business that puts an ALPR in their parking lot is a business I do not visit.

Having been on the stage a few times, I have heard that as explicit advice for actors and musicians: Look at the audience, but DO NOT make eye contact with anyone! You risk losing concentration.

I also read something once that resonated, though I can't speak to how accurate it is. The idea is that when people are more introverted or discussing a technical topic, they tend to look away while speaking, then make eye contact to signal that it is the listener's turn to talk. Me staring at my shoes while I concentrate on conveying accurate information, then looking at the listener to see if my words made any sense at all. :-)

When people are more extroverted or on a less technical topic, there is a tendency to make eye contact while speaking, then look away when it is the listeners turn to respond. Perhaps to judge how things are landing as they are speaking?

If this is true one can see how it would lead to misunderstandings. An introvert thinking "This salesperson is making eye contact, but they just keep talking. Why are they so overbearing?" Or an extrovert thinking "This person is telling me terrorists are going to strike the World Trade Center, but they won't even make eye contact. Why do they have so little confidence?"

Anyway, like many signalling mechanisms, I'm sure there is variety across people and cultures.

I would avoid phrasing it as "better". Less wealthy parents are likely working more hours, have to spend more time on household maintenance (don't have a cleaner, can't afford grocery delivery), not to mention the overwhelming stress of struggling to make ends meet. It's not exactly a level playing field.

Yes and no. It's hard to escape ads even by paying for things, with cable TV being a common (though increasingly outdated) example.

To answer my own question: Yes, police in France also under scrutiny: https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/france-once-again-critici...

I admit I haven't followed the French protests as closely as I should have. Do they shoot protestors in the face with teargas canisters there too? Maybe they do. Do those protestors face the real possibility of medical bankruptcy if they need extensive care? Does France enforce laws that protect striking workers?

Yes. If costs are up AND profits are up or steady, it implies that the squeeze is being felt by consumers rather than by the large companies seeing profits. To me that implies the issue is a lack of competition, itself largely due to failure to enforce existing antitrust laws. It's hard to fix monopolization with interest rates.

Never been happier that I've turned into a retro-gamer. This is more the result of being old than a principled stance, but never the less. Increasingly I don't view myself as actually owning anything that connects to the internet. Minecraft is delightful on my disconnected Xbox-360, thanks. Nobody can break it by forcing an update or shutting down a server.

This is actually very difficult for a significant number of people. Some people really struggle with saying "no" or enforcing boundaries, some people are very wary of negative interactions with strangers. If you are relying on people to explicitly push back on you, rather than reading more subtle queues, you are quite likely adding stress to someone's day.

My car won't let me flick the windshield wipers while the car is parked. I don't know why, maybe they think I'm throwing rain onto... already wet pedestrians? Similar problem with auto-folding mirrors. My mirror was frozen shut one day, and I didn't notice until I'd been driving for a few blocks (which is on me). Figured I'd just cycle the fold-unfold a few times to pop it free, but the button is disabled when the car is in motion.

Increasingly my vision of retirement is a life of luxury surrounded by hardware from before the internet era, things that do what I tell them, rather than telling me what I am and am not allowed to do.

Another way of thinking about this, is by thinking about who defines what is productive or what produces value. I tend to be a little old fashioned, I think that doing the right thing for customers produces value. (That's what my self-worth is based on anyway.) For other people, it's doing the thing that gets them the next raise or promotion.

Your management team is literally telling you what they value, by rewarding it. You might wonder why they value vibes over results. Look way way up the org tree. How is your CEO compensated? Mostly in stock? Who are they trying to impress? Shareholders? Are those shareholders concerned about delivering for customers, or short-term gains? Is the short-term price based on long-term customer value, or what's in the business news this week? What is productive again?

> overregulate, overtax and raise barriers

Also known as labor and environmental protections. I am in favor of labor and environmental protections, but when producers are allowed to avoid them simply by moving production abroad, well, the incentives are clear.

Parts availability can be a problem, but especially if you drive a once popular model and are willing to do work yourself, the mileage you can get out of junkyard parts is significant.

For the last few years I've been working on a project, before I buy anything online I try to find it at a local retailer (ideally locally owned). If I do find it, I pay cash. I treat it like a game, it's a scavenger hunt. I'm putting money back into the local economy, helping local shops stay open. Makes it significantly more difficult for pervasive modern surveillance to track which items I look at or purchase. I don't get any emails about it later.

This is both one of my pet peeves and a thing that legislators seem to love: Somebody does a thing that is already illegal, but in a slightly novel way. Perfectly valid statute exists to prosecute, but legislators want to be seen as doing something, so they pass another law to make the already criminal action more specifically criminal.

Arguably bans on cellphone use while driving are a good example. It's not that it isn't bad, it's that distracted driving already carries a hefty fine without being specific as to the mode of distraction. So does causing an accident, which presumably is the harm we're actually trying to avoid.

Increasingly headed in this direction. Already have the old Toyota and use cash. I've been saying for years that advertising ruined the internet, we're getting to the point where surveillance is ruining computing.

You are punching down instead of up. The problem is not children, or parents, but the state trying to enforce restrictions.

As an old man yelling at clouds, I've been hanging onto a car from the 80s. Not only does it have physical controls, the controls are directly attached to the mechanical systems they operate. Currently the door locks are a little sticky (I need to pull the skins and lubricate everything). The electric solenoids can't quite overcome the friction, but with a little extra pressure I can muscle the lock to open or closed.

If the controls were a touchscreen, OR an physical switch that operated the locks electronically, the locks simply wouldn't work at all. I hate all the latency and ignored commands from physical buttons that work through software almost as much as I hate touchscreens.

The empowerment and psychological difference between a world where I /make/ things happen and a world where I /request/ things that may or may not happen feels like it is often overlooked.

I'm not a gambler, but when I consider it I think the worst thing that could happen to me would be to win a substantial but not life-changing amount of money. I think that's where most people get hooked. They get lucky once (or a few times), then get completely sucked in trying to replicate that success.

I would argue the opposite, that having members of government who CANNOT be prosecuted like normal citizens is not compatible with democracy. I would think arguments to the contrary would have to assume other impediments to a properly functioning justice system, such as politically motivated prosecutions, widespread selective enforcement, etc.

They say the fish rots from the head. I think the U.S. has been rewarding lawlessness at the top for quite a while now.

I concur on missing the turn of the century optimism that tech could make a brighter future.

Carriers have also sold customer location data, no search warrant required. Though we can rest assured that the FCC has slapped the carriers' wrists with the utmost seriousness.