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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 29th, 2023

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  • There is currently a tiny bit of uproar over at r/irelandshittydrivers. A user took a photo of a work van that blocked two disabled spots. He sent the photo via Whatsapp to the company, which responded in a batshit crazy manner (for some reason, escalated it to praising Osama for 9/11). Naturally, the user posted the photo and the conversation to Reddit. Within a few hours, the company contacted Reddit and had the post removed. If a company with perhaps three customers per week can do it, what do you think large companies can do? Censoring user posts would be only the tip of the iceberg.


  • Posted on r/KotakuInAction by any chance? I usually run into this kind of complaints because of that sub.

    My personal take is that subs that ban people just for posting on other subs are actively perpetuating their little opinion bubbles. They are essentially creating little virtual prisons for their members, and most of them are actually happy about that, which in turn tells all I need to know about those members’ intellectual laziness. To twist around Groucho Marx’ quote, I would refuse to join a sub that rejected me for posting elsewhere.









  • A bit late to the game, but for what it’s worth, my experience with the Shockz. I run about 6-7 hours per week, and listen exclusively to audiobooks. As a result, I can’t comment on the sound quality, but I do have some other observations.

    Pros:

    • Waterproof. I’ve been running for more than a decade before I got the Shockz, and no earphones lasted more than 6 months in the local rain. No such issue with these headphones.
    • Not falling off. By their design, they would not fall off, unlike any and all earbuds I ever tried. I may have weird ears in this regard, but I had to learn to run with a hat or headband to keep earbuds in place.
    • Spatial awareness. Excellent at keeping me aware of my surroundings.
    • Good battery life. A single charge lasts me through the week, and a quick partial emergency charge can carry me over the next 2-hour run. In addition, the “battery low” status actually works well. With any other brand of earbuds, from Mpow to Anker, once I got the “battery low” warning, I had about 20 minutes of charge left. So, going for a long run at “battery medium” was always a gamble. With the Shockz, I never ran out of charge when I started at “battery medium”, even on my long runs.

    Cons:

    • Not too comfortable. I have a big head, and even so the band behind my head is standing off enough that I can’t wear my hat over it. So, in winter it’s earbuds, held in place and waterproofed by my hat.
    • A bit too quiet. Everything, including the persistent wind here, is interfering with the sound. So, for audiobooks, I have to process them in mp3gain to around 95 dB, and then play them at max. This, however, may be more related to my mp3 player; I didn’t do an analysis of it yet.
    • The controls are weird. My sense of touch is not too good, so pressing the controls while the Shockz are on my head is a futile exercise. I just can’t feel the buttons properly, so I have to take off the headphones and see which button I’m pushing.

    I didn’t test them with music or calls yet (for the latter, I’d have to pair them to my phone), so can’t comment on those features.




  • Have they? In what way?

    This is speculation by Ars Technica. Essentially, a recent firmware upgrade seems to have drastically lowered the battery life of some models. In addition, they are removing all third-party apps in the EU in response to the DMA.

    What TVs? Vizio, Hisense, the Chinese junk budget brands?

    Most recently Roku. But I used a TV only as an example. A year ago, an OTA upgrade bricked microwave ovens. Google’s history of bricking its smart home products goes back to at least 2016, companies like Wink threaten to brick your devices unless you suddenly start paying a monthly fee on top of your purchase price “for life”, there were reports of smart bulbs or thermostats ceasing working as well.

    The following is pure speculation on my part: I think we’re at the beginning of a huge wave of planned obsolescence. Everyone and their mother are now training AI’s, and they want their customers to replace older products, which don’t support AI integration, with new ones. They’ll soon stop supporting the older devices or outright bricking them, to force people to buy the new ones.



  • Just another byproduct of enshittification. Novadays, a top-end Garmin watch lasts about as long as a Chinese watch of a brand with random characters you buy off Amazon. Google is introducing planned obsolesence in Fitbit. Banking apps are beginning to require phones that are no more than 4 years old. TVs get bricked with firmware upgrades. So, consumers are trained to buy cheapest, least reliable electronics, because over time they’ll provide more value than top-end items which used to last much longer. (This was written on a 13 years old phone. I may not have access to my banking app anymore, but otherwise it works for everything I need, and I haven’t contributed to e-waste in this regard. Not that the pollution angle was my reason to keep the phone, but it’s a nice extra bonus.)