Modern technology which is shït.

Capt'n Midnight

One eyed Jack wrote: »

Though I will say the Bose Bluetooth earphones I have are the business for about four hours music in any given day. As someone mentioned earlier though remembering even to charge them is a pain in the proverbial when I realise I’ve forgotten

I have one set that can be used as corded headphones, or used as USB, or Bluetooth and you can listen and charge at the same time.


The other set is Bluetooth only.

It's Shít technology because you can either listen OR charge. :mad:

d8491prj5boyvg

The high horse brigade wrote: »

The very device you're posting from has given up far more information on you

so far. With Alexa you're signing a blank cheque, giving them inifinte raw materials that they are in the process of developing the tools to exploit.

Sgt Hartman

Machines replacing human beings in banks and train stations, as well as automated phone services ie "press 1 for business banking, press 2 for personal banking" etc.

astrofool

Kyson Rough Train wrote: »

so far. With Alexa you're signing a blank cheque, giving them inifinte raw materials that they are in the process of developing the tools to exploit.

I always laugh at this, any phone from the last 2 decades will have multiple microphones picking up everything you say and do, and are usually much closer to a person than Alexa/Google Home ever are (and they often have multiple cameras).

Laptops and computers also usually have built in mic's, if you really wanted to spy on someone, any available speaker can be turned into a low grade mic.

I'm guessing it's the very visible nature of the smart home devices that makes people say stuff like the above, the reality is that the horse bolted many years ago, and if you're going to have hundreds of mic's lying around, might as well make them do something useful.

astrofool

Sgt Hartman wrote: »

Machines replacing human beings in banks and train stations, as well as automated phone services ie "press 1 for business banking, press 2 for personal banking" etc.

The automated phone services are designed to stall the user into giving up so that the company spends less on support. Any company with a support ethos (i.e. a growing company chasing profit) will put you straight through to a person, it's usually the monopolies, or state run companies that send you through 10 minutes of useless menus.

amacca

Modern diesel engines with ****e like egr valves on them which entirely predictably clog and cost money

Electric handbrakes which are almost entirely unnecessary and inevitably mess up and require costly repairs

In fact all planned obsolence **** especially of the electric variety they add to cars/tractors these days

**** those bastards and the horses they rode in on

I find LED lighting quite good though!

Firefox11

mrcheez wrote: »

... or control your lights
... or control your TV
... or control your central heating
... or read out latest weather forecast
... or read out news headlines
... or add reminders

****ing best invention in past 10 years imo

Jesus are we getting that sedentary and lazy that we can't flick a switch?

El_Duderino 09

amacca wrote: »

Modern diesel engines with ****e like egr valves on them which entirely predictably clog and cost money

Electric handbrakes which are almost entirely unnecessary and inevitably mess up and require costly repairs

In fact all planned obsolence **** especially of the electric variety they add to cars/tractors these days

**** those bastards and the horses they rode in on

I find LED lighting quite good though!

Planned obsolescence is a big part of it. But it's not new. In the 30s the big corporations of the day met to organise planned obsolescence.

The right to repair movement is a big one too. I found out how to change my iPhone battery and did it for some of my mates. The battery was the only reason I was going to get a new phone. Changed the battery and now I'm furious at how easy it is but they pretend it can only be done by them.

Sgt Hartman

sugarman wrote: »

Sgt Hartman wrote: »

Machines replacing human beings in banks and train stations, as well as automated phone services ie "press 1 for business banking, press 2 for personal banking" etc.

Phones, fair enough ..but give me the machines in banks, supermarket, train stations etc.. any day of the week. You don't have to deal with doddery aul people talking the ear off the staff like there's all the time in the world with a massive que building up behind them.

Well there is that I suppose. On the negative side however, you might have a ticket machine malfunction and swallow your last tenner without giving you a refund. It happened during the week in Connolly station. I was skint, the last thing I needed was to have a machine eat my €10 without giving me a ticket in return. The staff at the information desk didn't give a flying f**k. At least that wouldn't have happened if I was dealing with a human being at a ticket desk.

Paddy Cow

Tumble dryers that beep incessantly when finished. Mine beeps for about 20 secs once a minute for five minutes and then about five more times at five minute intervals. It's really annoying and means that I can't just put a load on and go to bed and wake up to dry clothes.

They are also over complicated and have inbuilt sensors that can apparently tell if the clothes are dry and shut off the cycle before the chosen time has finished. I'm calling bs on this because the amount of times the machine has declared the clothes are dry and they're no where near it is too damn high!

My tumble dryer is my one luxury but I just wish the damn thing would dry the clothes and not make any beeps when done.

kneemos

Paddy Cow wrote: »

Tumble dryers that beep incessantly when finished. Mine beeps for about 20 secs once a minute for five minutes and then about five more times at five minute intervals. It's really annoying and means that I can't just put a load on and go to bed and wake up to dry clothes.

They are also over complicated and have inbuilt sensors that can apparently tell if the clothes are dry and shut off the cycle before the chosen time has finished. I'm calling bs on this because the amount of times the machine has declared the clothes are dry and they're no where near it is too damn high!

My tumble dryer is my one luxury but I just wish the damn thing would dry the clothes and not make any beeps when done.

Had a microwave with that ailment.
Insisted on giving a few beebs before it let you open the door. Annoying as ****.

mrcheez

Firefox11 wrote: »

Jesus are we getting that sedentary and lazy that we can't flick a switch?

do you hand wash all your clothes and dishes? You can still do all the above manually, but it's great to switch on front door light from my smartwatch while cycling home on a dark evening, and have house warm and toasty with some music playing, in anticipation of my arrival. This sort of thing will be prebuilt as standard in houses in future. Just some of us have decided to take the evolutionary step now

alta stare

Firefox11 wrote: »

Jesus are we getting that sedentary and lazy that we can't flick a switch?

Yes people are. Iv been in places where we have installed access control systems. The staff would have to press a push to exit switch/button to get out of an area......nope they wouldn't do it so a proximity sensor went in.....nope they didnt like that either so a pir went in which would open the door just as they got in sight of the pir so yes people are getting lazy so lazy that they cant flick a switch or even wave their hand in front of a sensor.

Wibbs

mrcheez wrote: »

do you hand wash all your clothes and dishes?

Yep, well I don't have a dishwasher. Takes no time at all to do the dishes. I'd hand wash a couple of clothing items, but generally use the machine. Now I don't have a wife and three kids or whatever so that makes a difference.

Paddy Cow wrote: »

Tumble dryers that beep incessantly when finished. Mine beeps for about 20 secs once a minute for five minutes and then about five more times at five minute intervals. It's really annoying and means that I can't just put a load on and go to bed and wake up to dry clothes.

They are also over complicated and have inbuilt sensors that can apparently tell if the clothes are dry and shut off the cycle before the chosen time has finished. I'm calling bs on this because the amount of times the machine has declared the clothes are dry and they're no where near it is too damn high!

My tumble dryer is my one luxury but I just wish the damn thing would dry the clothes and not make any beeps when done.

+1. I have a tumble drier that my parents bought in the 70's. Well it never broke down beyond any basic if you can use a screwdriver and aren't a moron capabilities to fix it. Very simple, insert clothes, set timer, bugger off and come back to dry laundry. Had a washing machine from the same source made in the 80's. Worked until 8 years ago. Got a new one as I couldn't get the parts to fix the old. The new one lasted 5 years, just beyond the warranty(which was shite anyway, full of terms and conditions to the point of being pointless. Big effin shock). Had to replace it. Both it and my current one will throw the occasional fault and I've checked the "faults" they threw and nope, no good bloody reason for it.

Planned obsolescence and that. Now this has always been in play to some degree in the modern consumer world, but it has massively ramped up over the last couple of decades, yet at the same time we're told we need to save the planet and marketed to that [insert product here] will help. Which is a load of me bollocks. Driving an electric car or using a slightly more efficient household item will make eff all difference if we're replacing and dumping the things every five years or less. Electric cars are great, if and only if they don't go through the same consumer replacement churn as oil burners. But since our current society is so plugged into this consumer churn they'll have eff all of an effect beyond making people feel better because there's no exhaust fumes that they can see and smell.

EG I drive a 20 year old car. It gets into the mid 30 MPG and costs little in maintenence and I'm more "green" than my counterpart in another dimension that bought the first Prius and replaced it every five years with a new one and is now on a Leaf feeling even better about himself(I'm a smug enough prick in this dimension, in the other I'd be insufferable). Think on this; since my car rolled off the production line half of all plastics ever produced have been produced in that time. We're becoming more polluting while thinking we're greener than our grandparents, who were significantly more environmentally friendly.

mrcheez

you use a machine to wash your clothes?? How lazy is that! You probably also send emails than post letters due to effort. Or use a thermostat rather than turn off individual radiators. I'll wager you take shortcuts with tech without even realising it.

Stark

Yeah but in the case of machine washing and sending emails vs snail mail, you're saving a significant amount of effort. Turning off a light with a voice command vs turning it off via the switch isn't really saving effort at all. In fact, the former sounds like more of a pain in the arse as more effort involved in setting up and more to go wrong. Like here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BB6wj6RyKo

Wibbs

mrcheez wrote: »

you use a machine to wash your clothes?? How lazy is that! You probably also send emails than post letters due to effort. Or use a thermostat rather than turn off individual radiators. I'll wager you take shortcuts with tech without even realising it.

Well duuuh, of course I do. And considering I wasn't dropped on my head as a child I'm quite aware I use tech thanks very much. There's a bit of a difference between taking a "shortcut" like say driving rather than walking ten miles and using a smart watch to switch on a bloody bluetooth enabled lightbulb. That sorta thing is a major boon for people with disabilities, but for the able bodied?

astrofool wrote:

I always laugh at this, any phone from the last 2 decades will have multiple microphones picking up everything you say and do, and are usually much closer to a person than Alexa/Google Home ever are (and they often have multiple cameras).

Indeed and why from way back I have switched off location services on any device I have, don't use google(duckduckgo instead for searches), nor twitter, nor facebook(mainly because I found it personally pointless), my device cameras and microphones are off unless when actually needed(and with software to alert me if any app tries to access them, which on occasion they do) and my laptop camera is internally disconnected. And funny enough my life hasn't been affected negatively. Mad that.

mrcheez

Wibbs wrote: »

Well duuuh, of course I do. And considering I wasn't dropped on my head as a child I'm quite aware I use tech thanks very much. There's a bit of a difference between taking a "shortcut" like say driving rather than walking ten miles and using a smart watch to switch on a bloody bluetooth enabled lightbulb. That sorta thing is a major boon for people with disabilities, but for the able bodied?

Indeed and why from way back I have switched off location services on any device I have, don't use google(duckduckgo instead for searches), nor twitter, nor facebook(mainly because I found it personally pointless), my device cameras and microphones are off unless when actually needed(and with software to alert me if any app tries to access them, which on occasion they do) and my laptop camera is internally disconnected. And funny enough my life hasn't been affected negatively. Mad that.

lol get with the times grandpa.

El_Duderino 09

Wibbs wrote: »

...
Planned obsolescence and that. Now this has always been in play to some degree in the modern consumer world, but it has massively ramped up over the last couple of decades, yet at the same time we're told we need to save the planet and marketed to that [insert product here] will help. Which is a load of me bollocks. Driving an electric car or using a slightly more efficient household item will make eff all difference if we're replacing and dumping the things every five years or less....

Planned obsolescence and consumerism based on artificial need, is excellent capitalism though. Planned obsolescence was part of an economic theory that helped end the great depression in the 30s. It went hand in hand with creating artifical demand through making improvements in lots of iterations. You can create jealousy by having a slightly newer item with x feature while other people only have the one from 18 months ago. There's no point bringing out a product with all the bells and whistles right now if you could start with a basic version and release 5 more iterations over 10 years.

They also discontinue certain products when they become easy to repaint. E.g. Ford mondeo sold really well so there were loads of spare parts available to repair it. So they discontinued a good seller to create a market for new models.

It's not good for the environment, but it's great capitalism. I think it's completely wrong to ask capitalism to help solve climate change. They will market products as being environmentally friendly but it's not their job to help solve climate change. It's just their job to sell units and make profit.

Ubbquittious

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

It's not good for the environment, but it's great capitalism. I think it's completely wrong to ask capitalism to help solve climate change. They will market products as being environmentally friendly but it's not their job to help solve climate change. It's just their job to sell units and make profit.

Our overlords try to grab the best of both worlds by promoting "green jobs". They get everyone to install an ASHP and invest in all sorts of other green devices. Once the installing jobs run dry because everyone has them there will be a requirement put into law that they be blessed once a year by a qualified service man who pays a hefty insurance premium and membership fee.



So the big incumbent companies and government get to make busy fools out of all of us without using the earth's resources

coffee_cake

JohnnyFlash wrote: »

If only there was another way of doing all of the above that didn’t rely on you giving up your right to privacy in your own home. Like using a remote, or heading to the kitchen to control the heating settings. No one is so time poor they can’t get their arse out of the chair.

Phones have been listening longer again. It's funny how people are only paranoid about the alexa

coffee_cake

It's great telling the echo to turn off the lights when snug in bed. Don't wanna get back out!
100% pro automation laziness, plenty else to be doing

Wibbs

mrcheez wrote: »

lol get with the times grandpa.

Chances are pretty good I know more about "the times" than you do. I simply pick and choose which parts I want to utilise.

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

It's not good for the environment, but it's great capitalism. I think it's completely wrong to ask capitalism to help solve climate change. They will market products as being environmentally friendly but it's not their job to help solve climate change. It's just their job to sell units and make profit.

I agree 100%, it isn't the current capitalism's role to make any changes beyond the bottom line. That has to come from consumers. Though that's just as unlikely as people naturally tend to be short sighted about such things. Politicians are likely not much help. Either because they're involved within the current capitalistic system and/or they're only in power for short periods of time and only concerned about short term results that'll get them back into power. It's a knotty problem. It may organically reset itself if the rise of AI and automation comes into play the way it might. That'll be a world that will require far fewer people, but set against that is the current capitalistic system's mantra of more people, to make and buy more "stuff" to keep the system going. If and when it comes the changeover won't be pleasant, that's for sure.

Royale with Cheese

Absolutely love the electric parking brake on my golf, no way I'd ever go back.

Wibbs

Wibbs wrote: »

Well duuuh, of course I do. And considering I wasn't dropped on my head as a child I'm quite aware I use tech thanks very much. There's a bit of a difference between taking a "shortcut" like say driving rather than walking ten miles and using a smart watch to switch on a bloody bluetooth enabled lightbulb. That sorta thing is a major boon for people with disabilities, but for the able bodied?

Anyone you can’t see how brilliantly usefull smart home devices are simply haven’t used them as I’ve seen people say similar and after spending an evening in my house next thing they are looking at buying more. Even at that I don’t have the house massively automated but my own build will be automated from top to bottom.

Wibbs wrote: »

Indeed and why from way back I have switched off location services on any device I have, don't use google(duckduckgo instead for searches), nor twitter, nor facebook(mainly because I found it personally pointless), my device cameras and microphones are off unless when actually needed(and with software to alert me if any app tries to access them, which on occasion they do) and my laptop camera is internally disconnected. And funny enough my life hasn't been affected negatively. Mad that.

I would see this as paranoia on a level that would be borderline needing to talk to someone about it. If nothing else I simply couldn’t be bothered going to the effort of disabling any of this stuff but aside from that you use a lot of usefulness in many apps.

The one exception where in do hide what I do is the use of a VPN for torrenting etc but that’s from a legal perspective nothing to do with worrying about what a company will do with knowing my location.

One eyed Jack

Paddy Cow wrote: »

Tumble dryers that beep incessantly when finished. Mine beeps for about 20 secs once a minute for five minutes and then about five more times at five minute intervals. It's really annoying and means that I can't just put a load on and go to bed and wake up to dry clothes.

They are also over complicated and have inbuilt sensors that can apparently tell if the clothes are dry and shut off the cycle before the chosen time has finished. I'm calling bs on this because the amount of times the machine has declared the clothes are dry and they're no where near it is too damn high!

My tumble dryer is my one luxury but I just wish the damn thing would dry the clothes and not make any beeps when done.

Totally get where you’re coming from, recently got a new condenser tumble dryer and I thought it was because it was a condenser dryer that the clothes and sheets still came out damp. Nah, what was happening was if I put too much in, it wasn’t getting a chance to throw the stuff around a bit, or else a sheet would envelop the rest of the stuff and I’d have a dry ball on the outside, damp clothes on the inside. Now when I do sheets I just check on them every so often and give them a shakeout. Everything dries perfect.

As for the beeping, has to be a setting for that PC? Mine would do the same only there’s a button with “Buzzer” on it, switch that and head off to sleep with no beeping sounds driving you nuts (it did the first few times I ran it, no more ).

Wibbs

bluewolf wrote: »

Phones have been listening longer again. It's funny how people are only paranoid about the alexa

Yup, as astrofool noted it's likely because Alexa is straight up out there in actively listening that has some concerned, but as AF also said that horse has long bolted.

cnocbui

Wibbs wrote: »

Planned obsolescence and that. Now this has always been in play to some degree in the modern consumer world, but it has massively ramped up over the last couple of decades, yet at the same time we're told we need to save the planet and marketed to that [insert product here] will help. Which is a load of me bollocks. Driving an electric car or using a slightly more efficient household item will make eff all difference if we're replacing and dumping the things every five years or less. Electric cars are great, if and only if they don't go through the same consumer replacement churn as oil burners. But since our current society is so plugged into this consumer churn they'll have eff all of an effect beyond making people feel better because there's no exhaust fumes that they can see and smell.

EG I drive a 20 year old car. It gets into the mid 30 MPG and costs little in maintenence and I'm more "green" than my counterpart in another dimension that bought the first Prius and replaced it every five years with a new one and is now on a Leaf feeling even better about himself(I'm a smug enough prick in this dimension, in the other I'd be insufferable). Think on this; since my car rolled off the production line half of all plastics ever produced have been produced in that time. We're becoming more polluting while thinking we're greener than our grandparents, who were significantly more environmentally friendly.

Ah - another fellow admirer of the people who post in the Tesla Model 3 Thread - V2.0, I see.

My car Is 15 years old. My washing machine is still going after 24 years - a Swedish made Asko. Still can't figure why they made a washing machine with longevity as a selling point and then went and fitted a motor with brushes to it - which I have replaced the brushes for about 4-5 times. It would have been essentially maintenance free had it had a brushless motor.

Stark

Zelda Flabby Manicure wrote: »

I would see this as paranoiaon a level that would be borderline needing to talk to someone about it. If nothing else I simply couldn’t be bothered going to the effort of disabling any of this stuff but aside from that you use a lot of usefulness in many apps.

No it isn't. Have you ever looked at your history in your Google account? I've found audio recordings in there despite being careful with my permissions. Also the location history is detailed enough to be creepy. As in it records exactly what premises you've been into.

You can also disable quite a lot of it while losing very little functionality.

JohnnyFlash

The best feature of Apple devices these days is their privacy options.