Just to add a bit: in my country blinking your emergency lights (when all of your turn signals are going) for 2-3 times as a thank you is very common. It’s even considered rude not to use them e.g. after you were let in.
I don’t know if that is something in other countries. I live in Hungary.
It’s not exactly universal. In Germany, this can be interpreted as you warning of a pending emergency and trigger slowdown; they’d do thanks by signalling left-right-left-right rapidly.
Wtf this is like dark souls pantomime shit. You drivers really need a better way to communicate
blinking your emergency lights
In the US, truck drivers sometimes do this as a “thank you” if you flash your brights to them to let them know they can safely change lanes to the right after they’ve passed you (which is a nice thing to do for them since they can’t really see shit behind on their right).
I learned that this is a common practice in Japan, from a Youtube video I watched years ago. I adopted it after watching it. I live in the US.
More complicated extension to this. I want a collection of standard of messages that I can send to other drivers while driving (like 6 buttons max). Some standard low distance wireless (probably based on or just Bluetooth)
Like:
- “Hey check your car its got something wrong with it”
- “Hey you’re in my lane”
- “Hey slow down it’s dangerous here”
- “Hey watch out road hazard ahead”
- “Go ahead”
- “I’m going now”
- etc
Just flashing lights, horns, hand gestures, and yelling out my window is a freaking game of charades man!
Like the Chevy Volt? (No, not my video. I don’t condone the filming while driving but it’s the best demo I could find.)
I’ve always wanted car to car commutation not through horns but radios or loudspeakers.
You thought internet trolls were a nuance… Just wait till they can bother you while driving.
This. I’d only accept this if everyone, and then I mean EVERYONE on the road has the patience of a saint and the radio discipline of an airline pilot at all times. I’d be fine if the most threatening you could ever expect is a “four six golf victor delta niner, your blinker is still live and your tail light is out, be advised, over” but you just KNOW there’s gonna be someone who’ll go “HEY YOU removed IN A WHITE VAN! STAY OUT OF MY FUCKING LANE OR I’LL END YOU AND YOUR MOTHER!”
Flash of high beams do work in some cases, but require that they are in front of you
Few taps on break lights is actually similar signal backwards than high beams forward.
Hearing aids that don’t auto connect to whatever my neighbors are playing on Bluetooth. Also hearing aids with a Bluetooth block list
Seriously I’m fucking losing my mind over this. 3 times in under 10 minutes last night my hearing aids stopped playing the tv I was listening to to play the Bluetooth that my neighbors or their kids were listening to. Suddenly mid conversation with my wife about it, bam, music.
If you live in the US that sounds like something the FDA should be notified about. It’s probably not legal to sell a hearing aid that can so easily be hijacked by another party, or if it is, it really shouldn’t be. Either way, FDA regulates hearing aids so they are the ones to complain to.
The problem is inherent to Bluetooth, The only way to make it not be like this would be to make things dramatically more difficult to connect to things over Bluetooth.
That’s horrible!
Do you have a tv connector for your hearing aides to connect to or is it connecting straight to the television?
Work in retirement home where lots of people use hearing aides with their televisions. Have not come across this issue.
Most connect via an external device paired to their hearing aide specifically.
Bluetooth connectivity is a feature. And tbh I love it, it’s headphones specifically set to compensate for my hearing loss, that I can connect to my phone and theoretically my computer. I can listen to audiobooks without taking out my hearing aids (though switching to dome molds means earbuds fit in without taking them out) and I can make phone calls beam into my ears. Even beyond that, it connects to my phone via Bluetooth and gives me the ability to control settings on them. These settings include different sound settings for situations like meetings as well as muting which I need sometimes because of things like loud coworkers and the stress of always hearing.
Until this inconvenience it managed to take an assistive device from “ugh I have to wear these even though they’re uncomfortable (the discomfort isn’t just the fit, it’s also being able to hear everything) to having enough convenient features that I sometimes wear them at home.
And yeah these nice features do matter because one of the most difficult things about hearing aids is getting people to power through the initial discomfort when they first get them. Also there’s just the nice to have factor. Why shouldn’t medical devices have nice features that can be easily implemented. Like transition lenses or putting a cup holder on a wheelchair.
As someone who works in live entertainment, Bluetooth is the bane of my existence. Every single show, I get multiple people asking if they can connect their hearing aids to my system via Bluetooth. The issue is that this question comes from a fundamental misunderstanding of how Bluetooth works.
Hearing Assist Systems have a variety of methods. All have their benefits and drawbacks. But notably, the requirement for HAS is that they provide an identical experience to the user as someone who isn’t hard of hearing. And that’s one of the big drawbacks of Bluetooth. Bluetooth introduces lag. HAS typically works either via radio, infrared light, EM loop, or wifi. And only the first three are acceptable for live events, while wifi is more popular for gyms.
The first three HAS all send an audio signal to the user without lag. Radio is a good example because most people understand how they work. The venue has a low power radio broadcaster (because FCC limits how powerful your radio broadcasts can be without an extremely expensive license) in the room, then each user can dial a receiver to that specific band. Then they’re able to plug headphones or a neck loop into the receiver. And boom, you have a distributed HAS with very little effort. Infrared does the same basic thing, with a light transponder instead of a radio antenna. The receivers watch for that light, and send the signal to the headphones. Lastly, EM coil. Many hearing aids have the ability to listen for EM broadcasts. The venue can install a loop around the room, which acts as a giant electromagnet. The hearing aid user switches to that EM mode, and they can pick up that magnetic signal. This is particularly popular in schools, where radio would have a lot of interference from rooms being so close together; The hearing aid user only hears the signal when they’re inside of the loop.
But all three of these have one thing in common: They have zero latency. The hardware to take an analog audio signal, convert it to radio/infrared/EM, and broadcast it, is faster than the time it takes for the audio signal to move from a singer’s mouth to the microphone. It’s nearly instant, because it’s all analog. There is no digitization that needs to take place; Ir’s just converting one type of energy (electrical energy from the audio signal) into other types of energy. And that is easy and cheap to do.
WiFi is popular for gyms, because it introduces a delay in the audio signal. WiFi requires packets, which requires a digital conversion. And that packetization takes time. It’s a processor calculating 1’s and 0’s. But it’s acceptable for gyms, where you’re only listening to a TV mounted on the wall. They can delay the video signal by the same amount, and you’re golden. Now the delayed video signal and the delayed wifi audio are arriving at the same time, so the experience is identical regardless of how you’re listening. But you can’t delay a live event. Shit on stage happens in real time. So WiFi isn’t an acceptable medium for live events.
And Bluetooth is even worse than wifi, because it requires pairing. The Bluetooth protocol requires a handshake between the broadcaster and the receiver, which means it can’t be scaled to larger crowds. Even with the issues of wifi, you can at least broadcast it to an entire room. But for Bluetooth, you would need an individual broadcaster for every single person who wants to connect. It doesn’t scale. It would be like needing to install a new radio antenna for every single person who wants to listen to the radio broadcast. It simply isn’t scalable.
Plus there’s the fact that Bluetooth is a digital system that requires packets just like wifi, which introduces that latency. Even the best Bluetooth systems designed for specific brands (like AirPods being designed specifically for iPhones) have latency. And that’s under ideal conditions. A potential bluetooth system meant for hearing aids wouldn’t be operating under ideal conditions; It would be designed to be compatible with as many different devices as possible, which means you can’t use bespoke programming to reduce latency. And in a venue where you’re hearing both the room noise and the hearing aid, any amount of latency will cause an “echo” effect that makes it completely unusable.
But none of that matters, because I still get annoyed Karens going “but I can connect to my phone, so why can’t I connect to your system?” And even if I bothered explaining all of this, the most I’d get is an entitled scoff.
Yeah that’s terrible. I mentioned elsewhere that my tv uses a different system and it’s actually what they should be hoping you have available. My audiologist said it’s an evolution of the old inductive loops (ah back in the day I almost got one of those designed for personal headphone use). I can’t confirm it is because I’m not taking it apart while trying to remember how the fuck electromagnetic communication works.
Also depending on the performance I’m amazed that people can hook it up. I still turn mine off for concerts, though that may be more the music I like is the sort to make me go deafer than my genes.
Are these OTC hearing aids? Or prescription ones from a reputable audiologist and brand? Every brand I have worked with require the devices to be in pairing mode to do that (the first 30 to 60 seconds of when the devices turn on)
They’re unitron, and expensive enough they better not be otc, Especially since I got them with a hearing test and everything. And maybe my neighbor accidentally turned their device on as I turned my hearing aids on. I do give them and myself a little break when I get home from work many days
I have a Bluetooth speaker that I use for both my phone and wired via an aux/3.5mm cable to my PC. When hard wired the PC’s sound takes preference, which is what I want but it still connects via Bluetooth to my phone every damn time and mutes all the audio coming from my phone!
Batteries inside of stove/microwave/coffee machine/etc. with the sole purpose of keeping the time from resetting when it loses power.
You don’t even need that. My microwave is wifi connected but still can’t keep time. Instead of using NTP like any appliances or industrial control system in the last decade+, it syncs to your phone time though an app.
Wtf.
Nothing in my house is WiFi connected, other than computers and phones. It’s staying that way forever.
I’ve conditioned myself fully by this point to only use the clock on the stove as an indicator of whether my power has or has not gone out
How often does your power go out? Why can’t you be bothered to set the time every ~10 years that probably happens?
Personally, where I live now, my power has gone out in the last five years more often than the rest of my life combined. I’m in my mid 30s.
I guess you haven’t cleaned your microwave in 10 years or had to do any electrical maintenance in the kitchen.
I’ll have momentary power losses probably once or twice per quarter, depending on bad thunderstorms or nearby construction, things that happen worldwide and affect power grids indiscriminately.
I do set my stove clock, I just ironically find it more useful to not improve it in this ridiculously simple way because it’s a good indicator of whether my home has had a power outage. Lol
Computers have CMOS batteries. They are pretty cheap. I don’t know why they haven’t been added yet.
Any maps app that, when you set a route, lets you decide “don’t give me any directions until I get to X step” and/or “don’t give any directions after X step”. I dont like hearing the navigation when I don’t need it, and that would save me from having to open or close the navigation while I’m still driving.
Adding on. An option to set complicated maneuver(s) up ahead voice notification and a prep notification for said complicated maneuver. The latter gives you an end goal statement. Such as, ‘Be in the left turn lane on the ramp up ahead.’ Then if you desire to enable it in the settings, hear what step-by-step actions need to be taken.
I think this is a brilliant feature. I’ve never thought of it, but this would totally solve the issue I have with being told basically 15 times some version of “don’t get off the highway at the junction” which is really annoying so I end up muting the directions the majority of the time, and that backfires pretty consequentially on occasion.
I get it but there is an easy toggle from spoken directions to alerts which I find easy to toggle.
At least on Apple and Google maps
Warm white LEDs inside of coloured glass bulbs to make LED Christmas lights that don’t look like gamer vomit.
Technology Connections did a video about this and talked about this company https://tru-tone.com
