Technological/practical "backward steps" we all just accept now

ok then. supermarkets have stopped putting use-by dates on tomatoes. "to reduce waste". but what has happened is that *i* am throwing them away as unusable rather than the supermarkets (and they are a lot more expensive to me than to them)

(not sure that counts as technological but...)

fresh tomatoes?

Why are you buying tomatoes and then not eating them?

yeah. cherry tomatoes. takes me 5 days to eat them. and I've no idea how long they've been on the shelf now.

I'm not eating them because they are sometimes mush by the time i get to them

xps Samsung Sound Assistant, and I'm guessing similar, has an option for allowing any apps to play sounds at the same time (and control the volume for each, like you would on a computer pretty much). Might be sort of a backwards step mess on its own, but I prefer it to interruptions.

― maf you one two (maffew12), Wednesday, 2 November 2022 16:17 (two weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

Except it doesn't work on newer Samsungs? Would love an app that could do this again. Truly a backwards step on a backwards step.

A common failing of the newer Sanyos

I moved into a new place with an LG-brand Internet of Things washer dryer combo with (*chortle*) "AI". It does decently with clothers and bedding, but it does not know how to wash a bathmat. Apprently I can't turn off the AI and just force a cycle with certain settings, instead it has to choose for you based on weight, etc.? I can't get the app to work with it, either, apparently there are more "options" throught the app

bit like the difference between my sisters microwave and mine.
mine - a manual dial for the timer, and a dial for choosing the power setting.
and that's it.
her's you need a bloody degree in computing to figure out how to heat a bowl of soup.

Every time we get service on our 20-year-old appliances, the repair guys say we should absolutely keep them, because the new appliances are computerized and locked as fuck, and cannot be repaired without

Granted, they have a vested interest, but based on my parents' experiences with computerized washer/dryer type stuff I am inclined to believe the guys

...repaired without programming and software and internet connectivity and shit, I guess is what I meant

Also there's like some potentially pretty dire security/privacy consequences for internet-of-things devices.

I have seen at least three movies/tv shows where the plot revolves around an IoT thermostat or toaster or something.

Generally I am not paranoid but I am still a little leery of having my refrigerator talking to my toothbrush, and my car knowing what music I like.

iot things do get hacked a lot because there are a lot of them and they tend to be no so secure but i think generally the hackers are using them more as botnets ie computers from which attacks are launched rather than end targets cause theres prob not much of value on your fridge

you could play some funny pranks tho

washing machine begins playing All American Rejects tunes

xp - they did that in season 3 or 4 of Silicon Valley i think?

You all just reminded me that I still can't turn on the radio in my 28-year-old car.

The battery died this winter. After recharging, turning on the radio just displays the word C•O•D•E because it still thinks it's worth being stolen. I can't even listen to the 6-CD changer I've got next to the spare tire in the trunk!

The Internet says to call the dealership. Great, I'll just look them up in the Yellow Pages, I guess.

Send them a fax

I found a couple useful tips when I searched, but I hope the one that said "hold the radio power button down for 40 to 50 minutes" meant seconds

"alright, 39 minutes and 30 seconds, almost there....shit, FIDO, who let you out!"

*flings door open, finger comes off of button*

"ahh SHIT! let's try again"

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

"hold the radio power button down for 40 to 50 minutes"

It's a Mercedes, so this may actually be the process.

I can't even listen to the 6-CD changer I've got next to the spare tire in the trunk!

Would love a 6-CD changer, preferable to trying to listen to Spotify in the car. would also love a spare tire in my trunk, tbh.

new cars with overly busy taillights! i don't need to see a fucking biryani crawl for a blinker signal on the freeway.

lol otm

every time I get a rental car, I generally spend 15-20 minutes trying to figure out where/how to open the gas cap

I hired a car a few months ago and it took me about 3 minutes to figure out how to start it. There was no key, just a Bluetooth fob, and the on/off button was hidden from my point of view by the steering wheel spoke (if that's what it's called)

It always amuses me that Alamo doesn't assign you a rental car at our airport, you go up and down the aisle of your car class, pick one, and get in!

I always wonder if the following has ever happened:

*Someone tries to get a more expensive car, is told to GTFO or pay the difference, and refuses, because they're already in their car.

*Someone driving off with someone else's stuff in the trunk cos someone put their stuff in, walked away to take a call for a sec, and came back to no car.

*Someone driving off with a baby in the car

*Someone changing their mind, forgetting to put the keys back in the original car, getting another, and driving off with those car's keys.

It's not a backward step though - you can even do the whole rental on a fucking kiosk with no humans trying to sell you unnecessary upgrades over and over.

But few of them have owners manuals inside, some don't even have a QR code that you can scan to pull a digital one up, so you gotta Google if you don't understand certain features.

Definitely rented one that I couldn't figure out how to start, but they'd brought it to me fully started, so I didn't realize I didn't know how to start it until hours later when I tried to drive back home

So this is the opposite of the things in this thread as it's mindblowing (to me) that this works - but my other half used https://pimeyes.com/en yesterday -
took a photo of himself now and it searches the web for photos of you out there. It came back with one photo (which we were both in!) from 12 years ago at an event (you have to pay to see/find it properly but used a bit of sleuthing to avoid that).

The fact it can do this accurately with no incorrect guesses, from a photo 12 years later, different type of camera, different angle, lighting etc is incredible to me. I think there are probably more it could have found so might see if it can do that.

Yeah, it's a bit scary that site

Stalking fears over PimEyes facial search engine

Yikes. It found three theater promo pics of me from years ago from a pic I just took.

But it did also pull two pics of a Saudi Arabian prince that I apparently look like

See, I'm scared to try something like that. Not because of what it would turn up, but just for the "Thanks! You have now been added to our database!" declaration I'd fear I'd get.

Neando bin Salman..

tbf youve already been added to their database xp

Yikes indeed - thanks for the link Alba. I'd not heard of this before now.

Since moving in to a fourth floor flat with no lift I think the relative difficulty of buying a matching fridge and freezer that you can stack on top of each other as opposed to a single combined unit qualifies for this thread. If you want to go the former route it feels like your choice of models is reduced by 90%. For a bit more context: I had to send back a combined unit within minutes of arrival as the guys delivering couldn't get this 180cm high 80kg beast up even two stairs in our building - two bigger burlier people could probably have done it but think I'd feel more comfortable with separate units now if I could only find ones energy efficient enough.

https://shop.royalmail.com/media/wysiwyg/738762_RM_DEFINITIVES_SHOP_BNR_Dt_HERO_1400x600_002__1.jpg

new technology means we can have invidual barcodes on every single stamp that we produce. not entirely sure why we'd want that but hey...

but my main gripe is that the perforation there, the one between the stamp and the barcode, it's fake, it's just printed

All hail King Large

it's not fake! i tore one off the other day because i just subconsciously assumed it was an extraneous bit of rubbish and then i freaked out because i was like.. if they're including a QR code now it's probably required?? so i hunted through my trash and painstakingly peeled it off the thing it had gotten stuck to and reaffixed. ffs. no idea if i actually needed to do that. wth is it even for?

Tracking … YOU

it takes you to King Large's onlyfans

I'd guess more sorting than tracking tbh

it takes you to King Large's onlyfans

― rob, Tuesday, 7 March 2023 14:51 (twenty-seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

okay i'm properly laughing at this

it can't be tracking you because you didn't give them any details when you bought them, plus they are transferable.

the only thing i can think of is either internal tracking or to stop reuse, which would need a database of all the stamps they've ever seen

and I've 4x1st sat right here and the perforations are as fake as fake can be.

Used to be they could lift your dna from where you licked the stamp.

Now they can probably link the QR code to the credit card that was used to buy it.

Eventually it will be possible to watch videos and even greetings from senders.

can you not scan the code yourself and track the letter seems like that would make sense and be nice not that the video of the sheep wasnt nice but a tracking system for watching a video for sheep isnt nescisary you can just watch one if you want

Here's a weird story:

We get mail all the time for people who used to live at our address. Two of them are dead.

One day, a letter comes addressed to a name that I hadn't seen. Didn't even come close to the others. No one on our street with that name.

In fact, I couldn't find any result on Google or spokeo or whatever of anyone with this name. (Let's say it was Jeffrey Greentoad.)

The letter was from the USPS, asking if I'd be so kind to fill out the form and give permission to have all of Mr. Greentoad's correspondence forwarded to his new address in Florida.

Because I own a car and work only 40 hours a week, I found the time on a Saturday morning to go down to the post office and deal with this bullshit. The clerk was confused. "Then just don't fill out the form?"

I talked to a supervisor in the back. His answer was along the lines, "What's it matter to you if his mail just goes past your box and on to Florida?"

My response was "What if he's receiving drugs or cp in the mail? Except the senders don't know his real address, but they do know mine?"

That clicked with him. He made a copy of the letter and gave me back the original.

I still get letters from T-Mobile, insurance companies and Capital One addressed to this guy. At least it's not drugs or cp. One letter came in from a creditor, who I called to make sure that nothing from this guy's credit report got intertwined with my credit report.

All these letters have barcodes anyway, but WHAT IF I had received a package with a handwritten address and a postage stamp with a QR code? I guarantee I could find somebody who could scan it and tell me where it came from.

presumably a lot of the address stuff is done with OCR in the early sorting phase these days and having a scannable code in the stamp means you can do that association of metadata to physical object just once while routing it through the system and just snapshot the code at each successive routing facility

yeah they do that anyway in the usa at least but were affixing their own code that long barcode sticker this way you do it for them