blargh513

I’m not sure where you live, but where I live, there is no such thing as a right to privacy.

I think there should be, but I don’t see that happening anytime soon. So many people are willingly give up anything that resembled privacy for a little convenience and novelty.

If you’re using any google or apple product, you’re part of the problem. Smartwatch, yes that too. Social media, take everything.

Until people actually start paying attention and actively refusing to take the bait on these modern conveniences (it just works!!!) this will just get worse.

I’m not listening to any of those. They’re bad.

I guess podcasts do.

I cannot think of a single good podcast. I say that, then someone recommends six. I listen to a few, each just as insufferable as the next. Same shit each and every one. Some twatwaffle just blathering about nonsense.

I don’t know a single intelligent person who listens to them.

If you get blasted with boner pill ads during a podcast, you deserve it.

I wish Spotify would make the default view music and not books and podcasts.

We’ve had internet connected cars for while now.

Self driving cars

Shipped without connectivity

Weird

Also, can I buy a new car without telemetry? I guess I know the answer to that already.

“Well, we just bought this new monitoring platform from my cousin’s company and they need access to it. No, their platform doesn’t support any real secure protocols and won’t route over a VPN, it needs to be on the same subnet as the devices. Ok, then just open all ports to the network so they can connect. No, they don’t know what port or protocol, it also runs out of my cousin’s house so it’s on a dynamic IP so you can’t create some type of access rule for it. Just put an any/any rule in and it’s good. What do you mean we already have a monitoring platform? Well, this one is better!”

I hold out the thin hope that manufacturers will not want to split their product lines any more than they have to and will make these devices available globally.

It’s possible that they want to hang on to the revenue streams that making irreparable garbage generates, but it would have to be greater than the cost of designing and manufacturing a second product line for most of their stuff.

Kind of how like when dumbass apple was forced into USB-C in the EU and they finally gave up on their own charge cables globally.

Are we talking about the same apple that invented a new type of screw to keep people from taking their phones apart? The same apple that once people could get a trilobe driver, then made it so that generic replacement screens would not work because of some protection from non-apple hardware? Then went on to make sure that you can’t use non-apple parts in a laptop?

Ooh I do security stuff.

I’m willing to bet that there are a core of talented systems engineers that built out the control systems for water plants. They are smart people that care deeply about what they do.

Their “leadership” however is usually made up of a loose group of interchangeable clowns that cycle in and out based on connections, nepotism and financial incentives. Their job is to do stuff to impress other important people and that usually means cutting costs. Sometimes it means getting into bed with a vendor or other company so they can profit from the relationship.

They will direct the engineers to use stupid shit, turn off controls, use platforms that are wholly inappropriate.

They will make a mess out of a system that was designed well to the point where fixing all the problems is impossibly expensive. They will declare that its good enough and then take their next job.

I have watched this cycle happen over and over. Current company has about 10+ years of problems stacked up and it would cost more to fix them than the company makes in revenue for a few years. They won’t be fixed.

No. The software is deeply embedded and locked down tight. There is no reliable means of interfacing with it beyond what is exposed in the touchscreen interface. Only BMW dealers using their proprietary software can do anything and even they are limited to what is exposed to them. This is the same with all modern cars. Sorry.

If you have the mobile app installed, it’s running GPS in the background anway. High accuracy mode just ups the frequency of checkin to your liking. Besides, you only need to have it on for a minute or so to determine vector. You probably already have it, but if there is any question, going high accuracy for a moment will answer it.

I don’t find that high accuracy does much to battery life as long as you’re smart with it. There are may ways to configure it so it won’t eat your battery.

You can just remotely enable high accuracy mode for a minute and it will trace their path on a map cleanly.

_action: notify.mobile_app_your_fone metadata: {} data: message: device_high_accuracy_mode data: silent: true high_accuracy_mode: turn_on channel: loc __

I use home assistant and have a dashboard button that triggers an automation.

Using the notification action, I turn off do-not-disturb, turn off Bluetooth (so it doesn’t pipe sound to earbuds or remote audio), set notification mode to on (not vibrate) and set the notification volume to max. I used to loop the default notification sound, but then switched so that the notification uses a new channel entirely and set each phone with a song so it will play for a while. You can silence it with the volume key.

Took a little tinkering to get it right, but works really well.