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Cake day: July 22nd, 2023

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  • A fridge keeping track of inventory is a massive PITA until all food has NFC chips in it and that raises further concerns.

    I’d rather have a barcode scanner over the trash can if I’m gonna connect that much. Or even better, a full on camera. Then I can use it to scan barcodes on stuff as I throw it in the trash, plus semi-important mail and receipts.


  • That’s actually a cool little gimmick of some of the smart features. Downloading extra finish jingles.

    Of course these are only a few bytes (or so I’d hope). And limited to what they do. Still sometimes they have seasonal selections. It’s cute and gimmicky and totally unnecessary, sure. But that’s the charm.


  • Push notifications are nice. Especially when the washer is uneven. But especially nice just to get a notification when it’s done.

    Maintenance reminders too.

    Best is when you leave the house with a blanket and a hoodie in the dryer on “remote start” mode. Turn it on when your 10-15 minutes from home and have a hot blanket and hoodie to snuggle up in as soon as you walk in the door.


  • NFTs are supposed to be cryptographically secure and blockchain-tracked certificates of authenticity for digital goods. “This is a unique original work by so-and-so”. Any duplication wouldn’t have the same hash and thus is not legitimate.

    There are plenty of good uses for this if you are of the mindset that digital goods need to be protected and proven as unique and original works. In a proper setup, it would negate the need for DRM and enable the legal sale and trade of digital media/games in the secondary market, by preventing unlawful duplication (piracy). This is beneficial because piracy, as GabeN prophesized, is an issue of service, not price. Consumers are typically willing to pay good money for good entertainment. They do not want to pay good money and find that a game is incomplete or poorly optimized, or to have less product (digital good) for the same price (physical good) (i.e., not being able to re-download after an arbitrary date, not be able to resell, lack of boxart, bonus content, etc).








  • 40% renewables for electricity.

    Not to make perfect be the enemy of good, or to poo-poo that progress…but electricity is only 1/3 of GHG. And demand for electricity goes up with the move towards EVs, so while we take the energy out of the “transportation” column, we put it into the “electricity” column, at a 60% discount.

    Thats…good. It’s progress. But it’s honestly such a baby-step in the grand scheme. We should be using green energy and EVs exclusively by now, and significantly cut down on meat and dairy consumption. We should be a lot further by now.

    I blame Nader, the hanging chads, and Bush v. Gore…but mostly Nader. Had he not run in 2000, the majority of his voters, particularly in FL, would’ve voted for Gore. Nader got 97,488 votes in FL. Bush won by five hundred and thirty seven votes. That…the spoiler effect that resulted from an idealist candidate (and the shortfalls of FPTP, not to mention electoral college), is making perfect the enemy of good.

    The same could also have been said of NH, by the way. 22,198 votes for Nader, Bush won by a margin of a third of that. Either FLs 25 or NHs 4 EC votes would’ve flipped the election and the course of history.





  • Bluetooth does, legitimately, suck, for gaming though.

    The only official two-way audio profile (that is, mic and speaker working simultaneously) mandates a low bitrate mono audio.

    Stereo audio itself has a slight latency which may be fine for music or even movies (especially with lip sync adjustments), but for gaming it can be a problem when your audio is a big part of your situational awareness.

    I don’t mind not supporting Bluetooth for games, at least for multiplayer. 3.5mm to controller and a proprietary protocol for the audio is the perfect compromise. For single player or media, though, I’d agree it’s dumb.


  • jasondj@ttrpg.networkto196@lemmy.blahaj.zoneRule
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    10 months ago

    This is a beautiful analysis. They can make perfect people, or plants, or whatever, and they know what we would identify as “perfect”…but by being perfect, they can’t be real, and our brains recognize that. So the art has to be intentionally made imperfect. But intentionally making an imperfection that seems real is actually a lot more difficult than it sounds.

    This is like how I feel when I see amazing vocalists intentionally sing way off-key. Like, you can tell they are singing badly on purpose.


  • Wait, what do you think is happening? Do you think the car just wants to see a tow truck driver and is acting out to get its way?

    The vehicle is immobile. There is more to do to prep it for towing than simple shift-to-neutral. The message explains how to do that. What the fuck about the message is keeping it from functioning?


  • jasondj@ttrpg.networkto196@lemmy.blahaj.zoneCyberpunk Rule
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    10 months ago

    That message is for the tow truck operator pulling out the car.

    Believe it or not, sometimes the tow truck operator sees something for the first time. Sometimes, even, the savvy car owner sees things for the first time.

    I had an 86 Cougar that got struck in the rear quarter panel and wouldn’t start. While I was waiting for a tow, as luck would have it, my regular tow truck driver lived right in front of where I broke down (I’d crossed paths with this guy a lot of times because my dad was restoring a car and had bought a couple donor cars to pull parts from). He showed me that there’s a safety switch in the trunk that turns off power to the fuel pump. He reset it and it started right up.

    Now, guaranteed, at one point in time this guy had never seen a post-Pinto Ford that wouldn’t start after a collision. I’m sure a screen that told him (or the owner) that there’s a safety switch would’ve helped him that day.

    Now, when my jeep radiator hose cracked and I didn’t want to risk driving it home overheating, the tow truck driver (AAA) saved me a tow by cutting back a bit of the hose and reattaching it with the good part in tact. That’s the type of trick that a good driver knows and can share. But you can’t expect them to know of the safeties and bypasses of dozens of different configurations that come out every year, off-hand, potentially somewhere without internet access.


  • Modern cars have some stupid functions in the form of nicities.

    How are you going to put a car in neutral if it’s a push-button shift that’s unresponsive because the infotainment system has to boot for the transmission control module (probably for some stupid reason like being able to display errors like this).

    My wife’s minivan has a push button shift. And automatic headlights. You want to go to the drive-in? Gotta hit the (pushbutton) park-brake to disable the auto headlights. And the radio will turn off every 30 minutes during the movie to save battery.