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InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)RA
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2 yr. ago

  • I liked my recently departed 2012 chrysler infotainment system quite a bit. The sirius/xm radio kept 50 favorite artist and 50 favorite song alerts, had 300gb of storage for mp3s and the DVD system with headphones for the kiddos while we could listen to something else. No newer car I've driven, borrowed, or owned had the favorite alerts, and I'm going to miss the hell out of that feature.

    Oh, it did have an aux jack and USB input as well. It was the cat's ass. For a grocery-go-getter, it rocked

  • Just today I said goodbye to my 2012 chrysler minivan because of the "lifetime sealed transmission." Now Chrysler minivan transaxles have always been garbage, this is known. But mine said in the owner's manual, "lifetime, sealed transaxle" "no fluid fills or dipstick." I worked at a Chrysler shop and asked the service manager - "nope, don't need to do nothin'." OK, all good.

    Yeaahhh... That's not entirely true. 160k on the odo and it lost the desire to 'go' in drive (no forward progress in drive despite the little engine trying it's best), a hell of a scream coming from the engine bay and a light show of errors on the dash. Limped it home and the code reader said that gears 1 & 3 had a "ratio mismatch" which should only happen if they lost teeth, and a couple others I don't remember. Figured it was scrap. Had a mechanic friend look at it; he popped off a tube, fingered it a bit, sniffed it and said to try changing out the filter and as much fluid as I could. Did that, dropped about 5qt in (with no goddamned dipstick, how do you tell how much it needs?) and the thing ran great for another 3 months. Until today when it started making the whining noise again. Dropped it off and said goodbye.

    Fuck "sealed" transmissions. Sorry, I had to rant. I loved that van - no tracking, had a Sirius radio that has 50 song and 50 artist alerts and 300gb on board mp3 storage, and the 2 screen DVD system (great for parents that don't want their kids on tablets but still want to occupy them on long trips)

  • Coming from someone who sold cars via a dealership (sorry): leasing is a perfect way to get fucked in the ass every day of the year, and twice on renewal day. Yes, it is a titled asset. Yes, it has a depreciating value. BUT - the only way leasing makes financial sense is: 1) you can expense the lease payment to a self-owned business (and it needs to be a pretty big percentage), or 2) accept that you are paying a gobsmackingly large amount of money to eat the absolute shit out of the depreciation you're seeking to avoid, only to do it again in 3 years, for the ability to drive that new car off the lot on the regular.

  • Yeah, it was almost a rite of passage in my teen years - getting a decade-old used car and immediately replacing the crap factory system with some overmarketed, overpriced, but really cool kit. Of course nowadays the factory systems are better sounding at least, but you're spot on regarding the out dating of software and protocols.

  • I'd say a little yes and a little no. I educate every new user that comes into my company on infosec awareness, with a big segment on data footprint and information leakage. I show them where their data is, how easily and with how many 'channel partners' share social, history and other data, and where they've been exposed in real time. I've done this with a few thousand people. The overwhelming majority say: "I've got nothing to hide." Or: "if I get better deals, it's fine." not getting that by being tracked they're probably getting worse deals.

    For the "nothing to hide" folks, I ask to see their wallet or purse. They're all scoffs and brave mugs initially as they show how unafraid they are as I start rummaging through at the front of the class. Then I start pulling out cards and ID. And they're still OK as I glance around the room. Then I pull out my phone and tuem my back - then a lot of nervous shifting in seats starts happening as I look over my shoulder while taking pictures of the floor with the shutter sound turned on. That's the point where I ask if they truly have nothing worth protecting.

    And at the end of all that - after setting up and teaching them how to use the comped corporate password manager, 80% still make passwords that they've used before. THE SAME DAMN MORNING as these exercises.

    I don't think people care. And they certainly don't know. But they don't want to be bothered by the nuance of it all. It's just too much, which is why we need a congress with a goddamned backbone to pass some legislation with teeth to protect customer's data.

  • So we were told: "it may be covered by this recall, if it's the parts that are covered by the recall that are the cause of the loss of A/C. If those parts aren't the reason, it won't be covered, and the diagnostic to determine that would then be $1,000$."

    So we have to take a $1,000 gamble to see if our 2018 car is covered under a fucking recall. Fuck Honda in the ass with a rusty anchor.

  • I was going from this: (emphasis mine)

    Interestingly, Android is the only operating system that fully immunizes VPN apps from the attack because it doesn't implement option 121. For all other OSes, there are no complete fixes. When apps run on Linux there’s a setting that minimizes the effects, but even then TunnelVision can be used to exploit a side channel that can be used to de-anonymize destination traffic and perform targeted denial-of-service attacks.

  • They are as dumb as a bag of buckles and can be hunted with a hammer. I don't get the appeal of "big game" hunters making a deal out of deer - they're fucking speed bumps! And I've hunted!

    Edit: want to impress me with hunting prowess? Hunt human - the most dangerous prey... :P

  • Dude! I see you everywhere! I think you're singlehandedly feeding the fediverse content! But anyway, yes, there were nazis and trolls, but in my experience, there was a group sense of decorum that we were all in this new utopia together and those folks got flamed by the whole pretty thoroughly.

  • Like you, I was using the internet before the web. The time before monetization. IRC. USENET. GOPHER. IRC replaced my interest in ham radio - I figured: "what's the point? With a modem, I can talk around the world and don't need thousands of dollars and a tower in my back yard!" packet radio, which I used to send and receive messages to my parents, evaporated.

    Even when the web first came to being, it was special. HoTMaiL, the free html mail client, took off like wildfire. There weren't even ads, because the ad industry didn't know what to do with this new medium. Search found relevant interests, people were expressing themselves on ISP-hosted websites, and angelfire and geocities gave a more feature-rich experience.

    The initial banner ads were easy enough to ignore. The pop-ups, scareware, and security hell hole that was the early/mid-2000's was the precipice that the web stepped off and here we are.