Damage ContrLOLz 2: LOL Harder

I can't stop thinking about map's dog post from March. It kinda makes me hate dogs.

Hey, don’t blame dogs for having fascinating anuses

Restoring factory settings on the next generation of GE smart bulbs will involve interpretive dance, Tuvan throat singing, and a reconfiguration of your home such that it resembles the nest of a bowerbird.

the sheinhardt wig company has gone too far this time

Step 34: express your dog’s anal glands for 8 seconds. Then turn on the lamp for 2 seconds.

To be fair to smart lighting, I always wanted a Clapper.

I find that the GE smart bulb reset process goes smoother if I maintain eye contact with my neighbor through the window.

lol

And it doesn't hurt to also hold the lamp under your chin while singing 'In Dreams'.

It's possible that I'll live long enough to see an instructional video from Kellogg's on the complex process of rebooting my box of Froot Loops.

zs, if you're not already making an extended remix, I'm sure someone else is

I was honestly starting to think it had to be a KM remix before I came to realize the unsettling truth.

during my unemployed days i would have been working on it already tbh

lool, the video description:

We recommend counting with Mississippi (1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi, 3 Mississippi, etc.).

Guess including an unpair option in the app was too crazy

To be fair to smart lighting, I always wanted a Clapper.

― jmm, Thursday, June 20, 2019 8:57 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

G.E. engineers would've been all, "But what if they never stop clapping? Or if they go CLAP-CLAP-PAUSE more than sixteen times?"

clap on! *clap clap*
clap off! *clap-clap-clap*
clap on, clap off, the clapper!! *clap-clap-clap, (wait 2 seconds), clap-clap, (wait 2 seconds), clap-clap-clap, (wait 2 seconds), clap-clap, (wait 8 seconds), clap-clap-clap-clap, (wait 4 seconds), clap, (wait 2 seconds), clap-clap-clap, (wait 4 seconds), clap-clap-clap-clap, (wait 8 seconds), clap-clap-clap, (wait 2 seconds), clap-clap, (wait 2 seconds), clap-clap-clap, (wait 2 seconds), clap-clap, (wait 8 seconds), clap-clap-clap-clap, (wait 4 seconds), clap, (wait 2 seconds), clap-clap-clap, (wait 4 seconds), clap-clap-clap-clap, (wait 8 seconds), repeat as necessary until light goes on, or off, or whatever*

There's a novel waiting to be written and affixed to high school freshman reading lists for decades to come about a man who spends more time turning on a light than he does actually using the light and what this state of affairs says about progress and the human condition and possibly also the eternal struggle between good and evil.

look if you're not down for inputting the konami code into your lamp before it will turn on then maybe your living room just doesn't deserve light okay

Restoring factory settings on the next generation of GE smart bulbs will involve interpretive dance, Tuvan throat singing, and a reconfiguration of your home such that it resembles the nest of a bowerbird.

The GE lightbulb was definitely designed by someone who collects fancy flashlights. It seems like almost all of them basically involve inputting programs using a series of single-button clicks to get different levels of brightness, flash patterns, etc.

There's a novel waiting to be written and affixed to high school freshman reading lists for decades to come about a man who spends more time turning on a light than he does actually using the light and what this state of affairs says about progress and the human condition and possibly also the eternal struggle between good and evil.

i have two theories on the absurd number of times that they require the customer to turn the light on and off after 2 or 8 seconds, and i have no idea what i'm talking about:

1) they were worried about a customer accidentally resetting the light, so they added more steps to make it less likely. e.g., if there were only 3 steps, then someone might accidentally reset their by turning a light on, turning it off 2 seconds later, then turning it back on 8 seconds later. so they added another step to make that more unlikely. with each additional step, a deeply paranoid project manager was still not convinced that the possibility of accidental reset was low enough. so they kept adding and adding. things got out of control.

2) they completely forgot to add a way for the customer to reset the device until the very last moment, just before shipping. some engineer realized that the whole device could be reset if a password was entered: 22822828882 (or whatever). as a bandaid fix, they decided to make the input the number of seconds between the light turning on and off. (or some other post hoc solution along these lines)

i think (1) is actually the case tbh

3) The method described at length in the instructional video doesn't actually work, but it's fun to imagine people trying to make it work.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Stairs_(Sleator_novel)
― El Tomboto

This sounds like a pretty cool YA dystopia - have you read it? Any good?

(Nothing to contribute about the video itself that hasn't already been expressed by other gobsmacked viewers)

i think (1) is actually the case tbh

same, but even then, it's like...obviously this is a wild ass guess and based on nothing, but consider the probabilities of this stuff happening on accident

0) start with the bulb off
1) turn on the bulb for 8 seconds, then off (1% chance of this happening by chance(<<this is a exceedingly generously high estimate)
2) after 2 seconds, turn the bulb back on (1% chance)
3) after 8 seconds, turn the bulb off (1% chance)

already, we are at a 1 in a 1,000,000 odds of that sequence happening, using conservative estimates (if give a 0.5% chance to the individual steps above happening, it would be a 1 in 8 million.) adding each additional step (at 1% chance of it happening accidentally) makes it 100x more unlikely:

4) after 2 seconds, turn the bulb back on (1% chance)

with this 4th step, we're already at a 1 in a 100 MILLION chance that this would happen accidentally

...but then they added maybe a dozen more steps after that? the odds of that happening are so low that i don't think numbers can express it

It's better to play it safe and add another iteration or two. Or fourteen. Or seventy-two. Because can you even imagine the resulting catastrophe if someone accidentally restored their bulb to factory settings? Can you?

These are like Anally-Retentive Chef-levels of overprecaution here.

maybe this is genius viral marketing. because now i kind of want to buy one of these bulbs just so i can show someone how to reset it

lol I thought the video was just repeating the procedure over and over so that the user would remember it.

/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Stairs_(Sleator_novel🕸)
― El Tomboto/

This sounds like a pretty cool YA dystopia - have you read it?

1) they were worried about a customer accidentally resetting the light, so they added more steps to make it less likely. e.g., if there were only 3 steps, then someone might accidentally reset their by turning a light on, turning it off 2 seconds later, then turning it back on 8 seconds later. so they added another step to make that more unlikely. with each additional step, a deeply paranoid project manager was still not convinced that the possibility of accidental reset was low enough. so they kept adding and adding. things got out of control.

You make it sound like the project manager was watching some old episode of the Bob Newhart Show where Emily's all "Goodnight, Bob," and he's all "Goodnight", turns off the light and realizes something. Turns on the light and says, "Em, but you said the garbage man –" and back and forth even though the show was set in the 1970s before they had this goddm fucking bullshit.

I mean, just think of the consequences if the light were accidentally reset. My God.

once you reset a smart bulb there's no going back to life you had

The children of tomorrow will snicker when we try to explain that we used to merely flip a switch to turn on a light, and that we certainly never needed to call in a FEMA task force to change a light bulb in the event that one blew out.

xp you can go back for eight seconds but then it's off to your new life for two seconds then back for eight seconds then off to your new life then

We're at DEFCON 1, people. Start the reset, and may God have mercy on us all.

Eight seconds...two seconds. Eight seconds...two seconds. Eight seconds...three seconds, oh god no are those Cenobites oh god help me help meeeeee

We have... such sights to show you... for eight seconds... followed by two seconds of torture...

i think my favorite part of the video is how the demo actor hightails it out of the camera frame as soon as their role in the debacle is over

'and finally, step 523: wait 8 seconds and then turn the light back on. 1...2...3...*sounds of coat being put on*...4...5...*quickly receding footstep noises*...6....7....8 *door slams*

wait...that would mean they forgot to hit the light the last time because they were already out the door

well shit, gotta start the reset process over

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fULNUr0rvEc

you need a buddy and a pound each of red beets and fresh asparagus to factory reset your GE smart toilet

This clearly should've been a HowToBasic video.

to emil.y & bizarro: yes, House of Stairs has stuck with me for ages. Not to spoil the ending but it’s basically a hybrid of Rock Band and the video we’re all discussing here

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— Unusual Videos 🤔 (@UnusualVideos) July 19, 2019

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— Drug Art (@Art_Relatable) July 31, 2019