45 Comments
User's avatar
Speed's avatar

boy that sure does sound like a really swell piece of new and useful tech mr farago

i want every example melted into a puddle immediately

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Tom Klockau's avatar

Joke's on them. I don't want anything new.

Except food.

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Robert Farago's avatar

Luddite. And I mean that in the nicest possible way.

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Ice Age's avatar

I get the Amish at this point. They're not Luddites, they just don't want machines interfering with their chosen lifestyle.

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John Van Stry's avatar

And you had better believe that Amazon will hire a boat load of Psychologists to figure out how to make BEE users 100 percent dependent on BEE. Just like Zuckerberg did with Facebook (got caught, got fined, but notice that didn't stop him).

They'll slowly take over all of the user's lives and who knows? Maybe they'll start using them to 'Karen' everyone else into behaving?

I have honestly been debating putting a phone charging box outside the house and just leaving mine out there from now on when I'm home. I know far more about the surveillance state than I am comfortable with, but back when it was the government doing it, you knew there were at least SOME rules - though yes, they don't often follow them.

Now we have private industry engaging in even worse abuses with these things and laws are quietly changed to let them just keep going on with it. I have no idea where it will all end, or what it will lead to...

But I'm sure if we're all still alive we won't care very much for it.

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Robert Farago's avatar

Amabee doesn’t need a boat load of psychologists. AI’s already on it, fully capable of tweaking interactions to achieve psychological dependency.

As frightening as this development is, the current situation is beyond dire:

https://substack.com/@roybentzvi/note/c-138963709?r=1gwqjv&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action

Best case: an AI brainwashing free market, like the choose-your-church diversity found in The Land of the Free.

That said, do children choose their church? If you’ve spent your entire childhood with a particular parent-approved app, why would you change? “Please don’t go! We love you so!”

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Ronnie Schreiber's avatar

"That said, do children choose their church?"

I'm still not thrilled that my son, my only son, Moshe, whom I love dearly, decided to have my grandson celebrate becoming a Bar Mitzvah at the early morning minyan, because that's where he and Aryeh go every week. Asking guests to attend a religious service at 5:30 AM isn't my idea of hospitable, but it was my son and grandson's call.

In general, I think children should feel at home at their family's house of worship and have a bit of a proprietary attitude towards their congregation.

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John Van Stry's avatar

AI is not that developed. It needs someone to tell it what to do, and how.

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Ice Age's avatar

One wonders how one would go about crashing the internet without taking out the world's electrical grid in the process.

If one were so inclined...

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sgeffe's avatar

Asking for a friend…!

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Robert Farago's avatar

With friend like that who needs enemies?

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Sean's avatar

Hamsters on wheels to feed the machine.

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anatoly arutunoff's avatar

hideous.

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Steve Ward's avatar

“back ordered due to incredibly high demand”

Insane, just insane.

Wonder what it would do if one kept saying “F*** you Amazon”?

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Robert Farago's avatar

Not to mix metaphors, my Bee flew the coop just before writing this. Can’t find it anywhere. The question is, can it find me?

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Ronnie Schreiber's avatar

I prefer "sport" style ear buds that have a hook that holds them in place on your ears. Somehow, I've managed to lose 1.5 pairs and I almost never wear them outside the house.

I buy 2.5mm Allen drivers and those 9mm retractable snap off knives in quantity. I'll set my flush cutters down on my work bench and 5 seconds later they are shielded in a cloak of invisibility.

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John Van Stry's avatar

I feel your pain.

I buy 50 USB cables every year.

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Ronnie Schreiber's avatar

I use forehead mounted "headlamps" when doing close work. Recently, I decided to replace the Eveready units I was using because they go through batteries pretty quickly, with rechargeable lights. I have to use the cables they supplied, though, because the charging jack on the lights won't connect reliably with the USB-C cable supplied with my Samsung quick charger. I thought the purpose of using USB is that it's universal.

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John Van Stry's avatar

The USB Spec is more of a guideline or a suggestion. The only standard about it is the shape.

Power? It's ALL over the board. Up to 19 volts.

Odds are your samsung charger is restricted to only charging samsung devices. Go buy charging brick on Amazon, like an Anchor.

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Rick T.'s avatar

When I put things down carelessly, I forget where I put them. When I put things down in a special place, I forget where the special place is.

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countymountie's avatar

If only it gave audible facts so the people in your immediate vicinity would know. "Mr. X is a pedophile", "Mrs. X willingly listens to Barry Manilow" and other useful bits of knowledge would be awesome.

Can one still get a rotary phone and printed books these days? Sounds like tech that's ripe for a comeback...

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Sobro's avatar

I asked Alexa if rotary phones can still be used and she told me I already asked ChatGPT and should abide by their conclusion.

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Ronnie Schreiber's avatar

If you still have a POTS line, a rotary (or vintage push-tone) phone should still work. When I still had a POTS line here, I'd sometimes hook up my late father's Western Electric Model 302 desk phone. The audio quality of the handset was better than any of the cellphones that I've owned.

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Sobro's avatar

POTS has a minimum standard for audio quality unlike cellular. What I read was that all of the POTS switchgear has been updated to 100% digital so you have to have a tone generator for your pulse dialing rotary phone to work call someone. Just the opposite of yesteryear.

For the younglings, back in the day you could opt for digital dialing or keep your pulse dialing service for a small monthly fee. I had to show my Dad (who wouldn't pay for newfangled touch tone service) how to move the switch from Pulse to Tone on his newer dual-use push button handset to be able to press 1 for English. Rotary phones of that time couldn't do that.

My extensive research also revealed that you can still receive calls on an old rotary phone without a tone interface. And that some people are hooking up Bluetooth to old phones so they can use the handset instead of their smartphone to talk. And apparently it will make the rotary phone ring with an incoming cell call.

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Jack Baruth's avatar

'For the younglings, back in the day you could opt for digital dialing or keep your pulse dialing service for a small monthly fee.'

On the East Coast, it was the other way around. Pulse dialing was free. If you wanted to use the touch-tone phone, it cost extra.

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Ronnie Schreiber's avatar

I remember when Touch-Tone phones came out. My parents build a new house in 1965-66 and we got our first Touch-Tone phones. My older sister, who was a teen then, got a Princess model phone for her room. I remember standing in line at the New York World's Fair to see the first "Picturephones", and the fair was also the introduction of the Bell system's first Speakerphones.

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Sobro's avatar

My comment was poorly phrased. Yes, tone dialing in the 70's was an extra couple of bucks per month to Southern Bell.

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Hex168's avatar

What's the recommended way to hook an old phone to Bluetooth? Does a phone jack to Bluetooth connector exist?

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Sobro's avatar

From a quick search: To use a rotary phone with a cell phone, you'll need a Bluetooth gateway or adapter that connects to your cell phone and provides a standard phone jack for the rotary phone. Devices like Cell2Jack or XLink Bluetooth gateway allow you to pair your cell phone via Bluetooth, then plug the rotary phone into the device's phone jack. This enables you to make and receive calls on your cell phone using the rotary phone.

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John Van Stry's avatar

Printed books, yes. Rotary phones? Those need an adapter because the new switches can't handle that.

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Walter Sobchak, Esq.'s avatar

It's good to know that Mr. Farago is alive and well. Maybe we can get the band back together again.

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Lynn W Gardner's avatar

Well come back Robert….

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Rick T.'s avatar

“Bee does the Chat GPT thing, answering any and all your questions with politically correct aplomb.”

I may trust AI to correctly read my X-ray one day. I will never trust it to give me the “correct” answer to almost anything else.

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Rick T.'s avatar

“The app does store data that the AI learns about the user…”

Pull the other finger. It plays Jingle Bells.

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AK47isthetool's avatar

On a scale of Jehovah's Witness to Lizard Person I would sooner die because I forgot to take some lifesaving medication at its appointed time than voluntarily use a computer assistant.

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Robert Farago's avatar

As Kurt Vonnegut reminded us, be careful what you wish for.

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Ronnie Schreiber's avatar

You should ask Grok or ChatGPT to write an essay "in the style of Robert Farago." I did that with my name, and I hope the real me is not as shallow as the AI version.

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Robert Farago's avatar

I asked Chat to do just that. If you’d told me I’d written it after taking Ambien I would have believed you.

The deed was done based on the greatest theft in human history, which included the million or so words I posted online.

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Ice Age's avatar

At this point, the only real questions are, "How big is that second shoe? And what does it look like?"

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Ice Age's avatar

I've been Googling questions just to see what the AI makes of them.

Half the time, the system tells me I'm making "harmful generalizations."

Three or four times, the AI's just flat-out refused to answer my question.

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Henry C.'s avatar

Uncle Ted is laughing at us.

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Speed's avatar

uncle ted did nothing wrong

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linearphase's avatar

Why would I want an eavesdropping Jiminy Cricket bastard spouting inane platitudes and dipshit observations at me and pay for the abuse? They'll sell a million of 'em and with a discount on Prime day.

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sgeffe's avatar

This is as dystopian as it gets!

Good God Almighty!

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redlineblue's avatar

acf Group buy!

I’m strapping mine to stray dog, what’ll you do with yours?

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