limelight79
@limelight79@lemm.ee
- Comment on Galaxy S10 til the wheels come off 5 days ago:
I have an old S9 right here on my desk. I cracked the screen, and took it to one of those screen replacement places, and he asked if I had insurance. I told him I didn’t, and he said, wellllllll it’s going to be a lot more expensive than you think to replace this screen.
That wraparound screen they had was basically also the frame of the phone - you’re not so much replacing the screen as you are moving the rest of the components to a new phone body. I wasn’t sold on value of that wraparound screen in the first place; this didn’t improve my opinion of it.
We put a plastic screen protector on it and a new case, and I used it for a few months until we were ready to upgrade phones.
- Comment on Anon gets calls from scammers 6 days ago:
Unlike reddit, there’s no “default subs” on Lemmy. It’s either “all” or “subscribed”. All literally means all communities, so yes, objectionable stuff will show up in your feed. The solution is to block them, then they won’t show in All any more.
- Comment on Anon gets calls from scammers 6 days ago:
Unlike reddit, there’s no “default subs” on Lemmy. It’s either “all” or “subscribed”. All literally means all communities, so yes, objectionable stuff will show up in your feed. The solution is to block them, then they won’t show in All any more.
- Comment on Anon wants to ride a zeppelin 1 month ago:
I thought I read that the helium used in party balloons was a grade that wasn’t useful for medical devices. For example, this link. They of course are a company that is selling party balloon helium, so… This link might be more reliable.
- Comment on 2x2 lumber at Home Depot is now 1.28x1.28. Nominal size is supposed to be 1.5 1 month ago:
I’ve had better luck at a real lumber yard, instead of the big box stores.
- Comment on Live Nation/Ticket Master won't give you your tickets unless you install their app 2 months ago:
Hell I have the app on my phone, but yesterday, I received a ticket for an event, accepted it, and downloaded it to my phone without using that app at all.
I think OP is misunderstanding what is happening. The code changes every so often, probably to prevent people from passing around a screen shot and trying to get in that way. You can get the ticket without the app.
- Comment on Thousands of years ago *smoke machine activates* 2 months ago:
I recall being told that CDs were bad to keep in cars because of the heat.
I always kept my CD wallet (a small one with 10 discs that I’d switch out every now and then) under the seat and never had a problem. Before I had that, I had a CD case that kept maybe 20 discs in their jewel cases that I kept behind the driver’s seat, and no issues there either (though that was MUCH harder to swap discs while on the road). I also had a visor holder that I later used in the motorhome with MP3 CDs (now I could take my whole collection!).
In the early 90s, I paid $300 for a very basic in dash Sony CD player with output for only two speakers. Somewhat early adopter tax.
- Comment on Don't call before 9, my minutes aren't free 2 months ago:
Don’t forget ringback tones.
- Comment on Don't call before 9, my minutes aren't free 2 months ago:
You just unlocked a memory for me, and this happened from about 2008-2010 (not cell related, but it is phone related).
One day we got home and there was a message on the machine from someone asking us to remember to bring something when we visited him. Unfortunately, we had no idea who it was, so we just wrote it off as a wrong number. It happened a few more times after that, and we were getting curious.
I’d moved into the house in 2006 and received that phone number at that time. We often got calls from bill collectors looking for the previous residents, so we generally let everything go to the machine.
One evening we got a call, and I think I recognized that the number was this person’s, so I answered it. I told him he had the wrong number, and he said he’d had that same number for years and read back my number, the one he’d just called. I was like, “Uh, I don’t know what to tell you, but I’ve had this number since 2006.” He tried a few more times, and it was sometimes late in the evening.
At some point I looked up the number he was calling from and found it was a nursing home, and the pieces started to fall into place. My wife and I talked about it a few times, and we decided that if our relative was doing that, we’d want to know. We weren’t upset, but it felt like information the family should have. Who knows who else he might be calling, or getting calls from. So, we decided that when he called again, we’d call the nursing home and let them know it was happening.
But, we never got the chance. He never called again.
- Comment on Homer 2 months ago:
LOL good reference there.
- Comment on The four houses dads belong to. 5 months ago:
I have a Wen metal shear tool…it’s AMAZING. Slices through sheet aluminum and steel like they’re butter.
- Comment on The four houses dads belong to. 5 months ago:
My experience with Harbor Freight power tools is a (corded) circular saw that works extremely well. I put in a better blade, and it rocks. I’ve had it for years and it shows no signs of slowing down. I’m not a heavy user but I’ve used it for quite a few projects over the years, including an RV renovation I’m working on now.
- Comment on The four houses dads belong to. 5 months ago:
DeWalt for drills, etc… I used to work in a hardware store (a small town store, not a Lowes/HD big box place) and sold DeWalt, so that’s what I gravitated toward when I was buying tools for myself.
But for yard tools, 40v Ryobi.
- Comment on The way this is spelled out really irks me. 5 months ago:
I am often amazed by the aggressively-driven minivans I see. It’s like they’re upset they’re driving a minivan, and taking it out on the rest of us, or something. I don’t know.
I mean, I see plenty of other aggressively-driven vehicles as well, but the minivans always stand out because they seem like pretty much the antithesis of a vehicle you would expect to be driven aggressively. No one is buying a minivan for the performance, handling, or cool factor.
I don’t have anything against minivans - they’re extremely useful vehicles for hauling people or things and reasonably fuel-efficient while doing it.
- Comment on This person's rejection reason 6 months ago:
4:20 p.m., known as 1620 in much of the world.
- Comment on This person's rejection reason 6 months ago:
4:20 is the traditional time to smoke marijuana.
- Comment on Current state of Reddit 6 months ago:
The smaller subs (such as for specific hobbies) do not have the same momentum here on Lemmy. That’s probably why.
- Comment on You guys need to stop 7 months ago:
I was starting to wonder what kind of cars you guys have that get such incredible fuel economy. :)
- Comment on You guys need to stop 7 months ago:
Maybe. But I just think about the myriad of driving situations I regularly encounter, and the sheer amount of logic required to deal with it. Construction. Debris in the road. Cyclists. Deer. Snow. Rain. Road closures.
Malfunctioning traffic lights - just yesterday we got caught by a traffic light that wasn’t giving the left-turn arrow, backing up traffic quite a bit. We were able to change course and work around it and still make our appointment on time, but how long would an autonomous vehicle sit and wait that situation out? Will an autonomous vehicle be able to safely make a left turn against traffic with only a standard green signal (no arrow)? Or would it be stuck waiting for an arrow that never comes? In theory, it could do it, but the reality seems a very long way off.
I can see it possibly working on highways, and certainly that is the primary focus now, but even then there are weird things that happen, like crashes, construction, and debris on the road.
If the roads were rebuilt with some sort of “track” (an electronic track, I mean, not a railroad track) that the cars could use, then the problem becomes much easier for the car (though you still have random variables). Of course, the problem with that is rebuilding the roads to have that track. That alone would take decades of work.
I suspect human driving is going to be around for a very long time, even if, say, highways can be handled autonomously.
I could be wrong, and if it does happen, then I’ll be wrong. But I also recall being told when I was 8 or 10 that by the time I turned 16, I’d just tell the car where to go and it would do it. Now I’m closing in on 50 and it’s STILL a long way off.
- Comment on You guys need to stop 7 months ago:
You might be right about the sensors. All I know was that we were in an extremely heavy rainstorm - a time when it would have been nice to have the lane assist - and the system was like, “Ha. I’m useless here and shutting down. You’re on your own!” I was assuming some sensors in the bumper or whatever were overwhelmed, but a camera-based system might explain that, too.
- Comment on You guys need to stop 7 months ago:
Yeah. I’m reminded of a story out of Reagan National Airport 10-15 years ago, when the single controller in the tower fell asleep overnight. Sounds bad, right? Except that they cannot take a book or music or anything else. They’re alone at night because traffic is so light. Basically, they’re supposed to sit there all night, alone, on alert, doing nothing other than waiting for an occasional plane to arrive. It’s insane to think anyone could be able to do that without falling asleep sooner or later.
For cars, yeah - when I’m driving, my attention is fully on the car and my environment. If the car is driving, my attention is going to wander, and if it needs me to pop back into driving mode, that switch is going to take a moment or two. This is just human nature.
Oh and you know what’s even better? Because we’re all relying on our cars to do the driving most of the time, we’ll all get worse at actually driving, so when we are called upon in that emergency…it might not go very well, even if we do mode switch successfully instantly.
Driving a modern car has opened my eyes to how far off truly autonomous cars really are.
- Comment on You guys need to stop 7 months ago:
It’s extremely irritating. I didn’t get into the frustration with the adaptive cruise (at least they fixed the nauseating issues it had originally) and other irritations I have with that car.
But, I will say: When I turn things off in the Mazda, like the thing that steers the car back toward the center of the lane, it fucking stays off. I’ve heard a lot of other vehicles turn that shit back on every time you start the car. Christ.
- Comment on You guys need to stop 7 months ago:
I don’t mind the alarms for things that are actually issues - open the door and the keys are in the ignition, or I left the lights on, or even the seat belt reminder when I start the car. But when I’m rolling along and everything is fine, a loud screeching alarm out of nowhere is extremely disturbing…and doubly so when I realize that there was actually nothing I was doing wrong. It really is like having a backseat driver screaming at me, and it pisses me off. I have screamed at the car to shut the fuck up on a few occasions. God I hate it.
And, I promise, I’m not driving aggressively or anything like that to trigger this shit. I’m really not. I’m a pretty careful driver; our other car is from 1999 - I bought it new and still own it and drive it, so I must be doing something correctly. I’m not saying I never make mistakes, either. I just try to keep them small enough to not have huge consequences.
Yes, one time I did get a little close to the vehicle in front of me that was turning and triggered the BRAKE alarm (not the actual brakes, just the alarm)…okay, I don’t do that any more. But I think that might be the ONLY time it has actually alerted me somewhat correctly…and even then things were well under control and I wasn’t going to hit them; it was just closer than it liked. The rest of the time…it’s like “I know more than you.”
I understand some people are busy doing other things instead of driving and need that stuff. Fine, they can have it. But why do I have to pay to have it in my car? And any minor crash is going to cost that much more to repair, too.
- Comment on You guys need to stop 7 months ago:
I’m getting 6.7l/100 km using Google. Not sure what math you’re doing. But keep in mind there are two different gallons, US and Imperial or something. 35 mpg is pretty normal for a gasoline-only car these days (hybrids can do better depending on driving conditions - if they can spend most of their time on battery, for example). Diesel cars aren’t much of a thing in the US, again, especially after the whole Volkswagen cheating thing.
I know there used to be diesel cars in the 80s that would get crazy numbers like 50 mpg (4.7l/100km), and gas-powered cars probably could now, too, but emissions and safety requirements have pretty much killed that.
- Comment on You guys need to stop 7 months ago:
I’m so glad to see I’m not the only one with issues with those “driver nanny” systems, as I call them. The one in our Mazda regularly false alarms in left turn lanes, and occasionally triggers on signposts and shit while turning right. I had to turn off the lane assist; the damn thing kept steering me back toward obstacles I was actively trying to avoid (I guess I’m “supposed” to swerve to avoid them, but that was not how I learned to drive - swerving is something that should be done only in an emergency, and an obstacle I can see well ahead isn’t an emergency). The emergency braking alarm is occasionally triggered by cars parked along the road on a curve.
It doesn’t help that the alarm in that car is like nails on a chalkboard to me - it just instantly pisses me off. Why can’t it just be a nice little chime or something? Unfortunately, we didn’t hear the alarm until we were getting the overview from the salesman during delivery - during the test drive, the salesman had started it without us there and drove it to the door, and we just hopped in, then we didn’t trigger it during the test drive. The first time I heard it was when I started the car during delivery - “WHAT IS THAT NOISE?” Salesman: “Oh it’s just the driver seat belt alarm.” “Oh.” Then a few days later, on our way to work, it gave us its first false alarm, and I almost hit the brakes because I thought there was something seriously wrong with the car and I should stop driving it. Nope, it was just misinterpreting the situation.
It’s to the point where I will only drive the car on local trips - if we’re going out of town, I will take the pickup. It’s more expensive to drive, but so much more comfortable, and it doesn’t have blaring alarms screeching at me.
Unfortunately I think practically all cars these days have that shit, so I won’t have any options when my wife finally lets me get rid of the Mazda. In my ideal world, we’d buy a 2016 Honda Accord V6 (the last year they made them with V6 engines) and just keep that running forever. However, I doubt my wife would agree to that plan.
I would REALLY like to see the crash statistics for those cars. Theoretically the frequency and/or severity of crashes should be reduced, right? But road fatalities are up the last few years…which may indicate those safety features aren’t helping, or maybe they’re making people too confident, or maybe they are helping and the situation would be even worse without them. But no one seems to have that info.
- Comment on Neighbour deliberately blocking OP 7 months ago:
I agree.
We have a 3/4 ton Ram 2500 with the diesel for the aforementioned towing and hauling, and there’s no question it’s a luxury vehicle. I recognize that. I also don’t daily drive it - it’s 9 years old and still has less than 60k miles on it and my plan is to keep it as close to forever as possible.
If we weren’t towing the trailer and hauling those pellets with it, an old beater half ton would still be a pretty handy vehicle to have around. I occasionally need lumber for various projects around the house; I have to run things to the dump sometimes; I sometimes need to get propane (which shouldn’t be carried in an enclosed vehicle for obvious reasons, though I did it many times before we had a pickup); sometimes I’m working on a car and need to carry a greasy or oily part; sometimes I move heavy arcade games; and so on.
Maybe a kei truck would work for those latter tasks, I don’t know…since they aren’t available here, the whole argument is kind of moot. If the manufacturers thought there was a reasonable market and profit for them, they’d be doing it. My understanding (which may be incorrect) is that the kei trucks do not meet US crash standards, and modifying them to meet that standard would kill the utility they have now.
- Comment on Neighbour deliberately blocking OP 7 months ago:
And let’s face it, there are quite a few pickups around that have never hauled anything. But to claim they can’t haul anything is just bizarre.
- Comment on Neighbour deliberately blocking OP 7 months ago:
Yeah, that’s an insane comment. I regularly tow an 8,500 lbs trailer with my pickup and regularly haul 2,000 lbs of pellets for our stove in it. Sometimes I tow the trailer with an additional 500 lbs of stuff in the bed of the pickup. I seriously doubt a kei truck - which aren’t even available here in the US - could handle either of those tasks.
- Comment on EBAY Prices 9 months ago:
Oh I know, we had an Accord that went 7 years before it needed anything other that regular maintenance (and even then it was just that airbag recall). It was great!
For all of its faults, though, the Cougar is a lot of fun to drive.
- Comment on EBAY Prices 9 months ago:
I, uh, still have my '99 Cougar. :) Bought it new. I don’t drive it on a daily basis, though, and haven’t for a long time. But it runs well!