Five minutes of hate news

Jormungandr

The Midgard Wyrm
Founder
So getting away from political stuff, this seems pretty hateful.


Didn't make your payment on time? Your airbag won't inflate if you get in a wreck. I cannot see myself ever using this product, way too possible for a malicious hacker (or maliciously stupid programming glitch) to turn your protection off at a critical time, perhaps even trigger the vest and cause a wreck if their stupid wi-fi vest has too many functions hooked up to the wi-fi feature.
...I'm pretty sure that's illegal in even the (increasingly) dystopian path the US is on. Over here in the UK, the first time this would happen, if by some miracle on the company's part it's allowed in the first place, the company would be sued into oblivion.
 

BlackDragon98

Freikorps Kommandant
Banned - Politics
There were no kids, just a miscarriage along the way; I did not get to keep any of the pets. They are all dead now anyway. At least I did not let it all drive me to ending myself and I have been much better for years now that I am no longer living with her drunken abusive ass.
I guess your case only proves one thing, marriage is a losing game for men, from the first step.
Hell, even Mr. Moneybags, Bill Gates, is inclined to agree with us.
The only way to win is to not play.

I warms my heart to hear that you've been doing better since you got rid of her.
May Aphrodite curse her with ugliness and foul luck in the dating market for the next 42 years!
 

Bear Ribs

Well-known member
...I'm pretty sure that's illegal in even the (increasingly) dystopian path the US is on. Over here in the UK, the first time this would happen, if by some miracle on the company's part it's allowed in the first place, the company would be sued into oblivion.
I can't imagine the company didn't ask its legal department, though I'm equally sure they didn't ask their PR division because I can only imagine the hit they're going to take the first time a 16-year old dies because they shut his airbag off for non-payment the day before.

This will be matched only by the first time somebody dies even though he paid his bill, because of a security hole that meant the airbag had been hacked and it was mining bitcoin during the wreck instead of deploying.

I can kinda see where the company was coming from, these airbag vests normally run about a thousand dollars and they're offering it for 400 + subscription fees. It's a business model that works... most of the time... but the company doesn't seem to get how different the reaction is going to be between "Guy didn't get to watch Game of Thrones because he didn't pay his bill" and "Guy's safety device shut off and he died because he didn't pay his bill."
 

Terthna

Professional Lurker
I can't imagine the company didn't ask its legal department, though I'm equally sure they didn't ask their PR division because I can only imagine the hit they're going to take the first time a 16-year old dies because they shut his airbag off for non-payment the day before.

This will be matched only by the first time somebody dies even though he paid his bill, because of a security hole that meant the airbag had been hacked and it was mining bitcoin during the wreck instead of deploying.

I can kinda see where the company was coming from, these airbag vests normally run about a thousand dollars and they're offering it for 400 + subscription fees. It's a business model that works... most of the time... but the company doesn't seem to get how different the reaction is going to be between "Guy didn't get to watch Game of Thrones because he didn't pay his bill" and "Guy's safety device shut off and he died because he didn't pay his bill."
Thing is, it's also a terrible business model to apply to something that people rarely think about, such as safety, except on the rare occasion that they need it and it's not there. I mean with Game of Thrones, there's always the next episode; but safety? Nobody is going to feel the need to pay those subscription fees; not until it's far too late.
 

Captain X

Well-known member
Osaul
It kind of bothers me that "sustainability" is such a buzz word now. It used to be you expanded your market by getting a good reputation through good products and services, but now it's all about making things to fail predictably, and banning self-repair so you can force customers to buy an entirely new product every time instead of just parts.
 

Bear Ribs

Well-known member
It kind of bothers me that "sustainability" is such a buzz word now. It used to be you expanded your market by getting a good reputation through good products and services, but now it's all about making things to fail predictably, and banning self-repair so you can force customers to buy an entirely new product every time instead of just parts.
And quite ironically, it's terrible for the environment. Having to replace a broken refrigerator every 3-5 years instead of one that lasts 50 is quite... unsustainable.
 

Captain X

Well-known member
Osaul
I think stuff like that shows what they really think of the environmentalism they preach. Kind of like no one cares that the fiberglass blades used on windmills can't be recycled and can only be used to so many hours, so they end up getting buried in a landfill, or that producing solar panels is toxic, and that mining the materials for them is very harmful to the environment, as is the disposal of old, unusable panels. Stuff like this should be brought up whenever someone pushes climate sin taxes, or in this specific instance when someone pushes against right to repair.
 

BlackDragon98

Freikorps Kommandant
Banned - Politics
I think stuff like that shows what they really think of the environmentalism they preach. Kind of like no one cares that the fiberglass blades used on windmills can't be recycled and can only be used to so many hours, so they end up getting buried in a landfill, or that producing solar panels is toxic, and that mining the materials for them is very harmful to the environment, as is the disposal of old, unusable panels. Stuff like this should be brought up whenever someone pushes climate sin taxes, or in this specific instance when someone pushes against right to repair.
Ironically, the pipeline Puppet Biden cancelled is more environmentally friendly than it's alternative.
Zero carbon emission if you transport oil via a pipeline, beyond the emission needed to build it.
Still a better deal in the long run.
 

Robovski

Well-known member
They proclaim we must change our ways and save the Earth from catastrophic climate change* that is just around the corner and yet oppose any real solutions like nuclear power. Because they are not after solutions, they are after control and good feelings. Windmills and solar panels are about feelings, not effective location-specific solutions.

*During my lifetime oil was going to run out in like 10-20 years, that didn't happen. More relevant is the Ice Age I guess we successfully avoided everyone used to be worried about. Go Humanity!
 
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Urabrask Revealed

Let them go.
Founder
This whole airbag-hubbub reminds me of the dilemma of the self-driving car. For context, should a self-driving car prioritize its driver/owner or whoever is outside the car? I don't know about you all, but I would rather buy the car that decides "Fuck dem kids!" and drives over whoever is in the way rather than the car that decides that its owner is an acceptable casualty.

No one except the truly desperate is even going to consider buying this kind of idiocy.
 

BlackDragon98

Freikorps Kommandant
Banned - Politics
This whole airbag-hubbub reminds me of the dilemma of the self-driving car. For context, should a self-driving car prioritize its driver/owner or whoever is outside the car? I don't know about you all, but I would rather buy the car that decides "Fuck dem kids!" and drives over whoever is in the way rather than the car that decides that its owner is an acceptable casualty.

No one except the truly desperate is even going to consider buying this kind of idiocy.
Skynet is just around the corner by the looks.
 

Robovski

Well-known member
One use plastics (especially for scrubbing microbeads) are a huge problem. Types 1 & 2 get about 10% recycled, the rest basically are landfill or incinerator fuel. There have to be more effective ways to recover the energy embodied in plastic than simply burning it.
 

Wargamer08

Well-known member
One use plastics (especially for scrubbing microbeads) are a huge problem. Types 1 & 2 get about 10% recycled, the rest basically are landfill or incinerator fuel. There have to be more effective ways to recover the energy embodied in plastic than simply burning it.
It always comes back to cost. It’s rarely cost effective to recycle most goods and materials versus just getting fresh.
 

Doomsought

Well-known member
It always comes back to cost. It’s rarely cost effective to recycle most goods and materials versus just getting fresh.
The biggest cost of recycling is sorting.

There is just no easy way to sort organic materials. Just plastics alone have too many different materiel properties for you too be able to just melt down plastic and use the mixture. The only real options without an excess of manpower are to either burn it or to convert all of it into tar with a digestor. Thus, burning plastics in a very large and efficient steam engine actually is the best way to recover the energy costs in plastics.

For metals, you can use magnetism and different melting points to help sort things out, but it is still mostly reliant on unskilled labor. Basically, we don't recycle metals as much as we could because of minimum wage.
 

Bear Ribs

Well-known member
Indeed, back in the day the catchphrase was "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" with Reduce meaning not to ever make something in the first place, and those were considered the order of desirability for the environment.

We had some fine reuse systems in place too, f'rex the milkman brought milk to every home first thing in the morning in glass bottles, and collected the empties from yesterday to be sanitized and reused the next day. Outside of rare breakages, nothing entered landfills. Today that system's gone in favor of tons of plastic jugs.

The problem is that recycling is a more dynamic process and generates more funding and attention. It's much harder to get the public excited about how you aren't making something, and reusing usually means the customer is the one doing the reusing and they aren't going to give you money for it, hence recycling is the big funding-generator even though it's the least useful option for actually saving the environment.

Usually it's completely meaningless feelgood anyway. I worked for about ten years in a mall where we had clearly labelled recycling bins but at the end of the day all we actually did was dump the recycle bins into the normal trash dumpster. It was pure PR but we couldn't actually recycle anything.
 

BlackDragon98

Freikorps Kommandant
Banned - Politics
Indeed, back in the day the catchphrase was "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" with Reduce meaning not to ever make something in the first place, and those were considered the order of desirability for the environment.

We had some fine reuse systems in place too, f'rex the milkman brought milk to every home first thing in the morning in glass bottles, and collected the empties from yesterday to be sanitized and reused the next day. Outside of rare breakages, nothing entered landfills. Today that system's gone in favor of tons of plastic jugs.

The problem is that recycling is a more dynamic process and generates more funding and attention. It's much harder to get the public excited about how you aren't making something, and reusing usually means the customer is the one doing the reusing and they aren't going to give you money for it, hence recycling is the big funding-generator even though it's the least useful option for actually saving the environment.

Usually it's completely meaningless feelgood anyway. I worked for about ten years in a mall where we had clearly labelled recycling bins but at the end of the day all we actually did was dump the recycle bins into the normal trash dumpster. It was pure PR but we couldn't actually recycle anything.
You know . . .
I kinda want to take a bunch of ocean waste, reprocess it, and then use it make AR-15 receivers and parts.
The perfect fish slap in the face against those annoying liberal environmentalists.
 

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