Technological/practical "backward steps" we all just accept now

Mo money mo problemz

totally feeling like Tuomas in the famous ppl pics thread here

was able to guess at the change that’s taken place by pp’s last post, but then I get two more mysteries out of the rest of the same post

Alice Cooper was one of the first "shock-rock" artists of the 1970s. Lady Bird Johnson was the wife of Lyndon Johnson, the 36th president.

Now what two mysteries can I help clarify.

i remain lost on this garage door thing but tbf i'm also not reading any of the posts very carefully

for the first and probably last time in my life i feel smug about having a garage door opener

most modern garage doors have sensors in them to prevent people from getting hurt so if you hit the button to start the garage going down and attempt to run out really fast to get outside before it closes, it senses you there, and the door starts going back up.

back in my day you just got crushed and died and your friends remembered you as the badass you were.

xpost

Used to be, if you needed to leave your garage on foot to the outside world, you could press the button on the wall of your garage to close the door and then run out real quick, ducking to avoid hitting your head, if you had to.

But then, America got all "politically correct" because "children" were getting "asphyxiated" by doors slamming down on them and now, we've got these little sensors on either side of the portal:

https://i.imgur.com/INwCuOi.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/U02zmqd.jpg

So if anything breaks the beam between those two sensors while the door is closing – a car, a child, a pet, Indiana Jones – the doors immediately stop closing.

xpost

thanks, both of you! still hazy on the red handle/release rope part but i can accept them as details of the process that i don't really need anyone to waste time trying to verbalize.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKWnMN85hUg

xp it just disconnects the door from the opener's motor so you can use the door manually in the event of a power outage or something. to reconnect it you just slide it back in and it kind of clicks into place, thus the model train reference.

You can't open the garage door from the outside with the red handle, obv.

Another fun fact: Sometimes the red handle attracts hummingbirds!

I had to build a little cardboard cover for one of the sensors because it was getting tripped by the sun on very sunny days, which would make it impossible to close the garage.

that sensor looks very easy to disable, and probably uninstall altogether

the risk of getting crushed by the door is the entire point of going fast to avoid it. how are your kids ever going to learn how to avoid dangers in this techno-utopian nanny state. cut the red wire.

You're absolutely right. I hadn't even thought of that.

Now, what I would need are sensors above the door, for those two days each year when I'm bringing down Christmas decorations and putting them back up from a ladder.

I haven't been on the ladder when someone's opened the garage door, but we've had some close calls.

https://i.imgur.com/JYgUeKI.jpg

Also, the red handle:

https://i.imgur.com/nYAvuoV.jpg

idk if i'm impressed or frightened by your garage nook that holds four (4) storage boxes

For $40 you can get a wireless keypad remote and stick it on the outside of the garage and have a profoundly life changing experience

Looks like a photo from the wacko real estate thread

Cats were angry when we first put the litter boxes up there, but now, it's like a fun little adventure!

for the first and probably last time in my life i feel smug about having a garage door opener

― call all destroyer, Saturday, September 18, 2021 5:41 PM (yesterday)

for the first and probably last time in my life i feel smug about not having a garage

dont even

fumbling around changing tapes or CDs while driving was messy and dangerous but still, I think, preferable to trying to get my phone to connect via bluetooth and play Spotify while driving.

Carplay and Android Auto are supposed to fix that problem but only newer cars have them

technically wrecked my car while I was changing trax on my amazon prime music but it was less the distraction and more dark roadway and truck illegally hanging over a median in my lane, obscured by the darkness of the poorly lit street

I sued Cannibal Corpse anyway

My old iPhone would automatically connect to my car's Bluetooth each time but with my current iPhone (11) I have to manually connect each time.

Look at all the fancy people in here with garages.

Ooh la la a "ga-rage"
I have a car hole.

Ours also doubles as a basement, since we don't really have basements around here.

Look at all the fancy people in here with garages.

― Jeff, Sunday, September 19, 2021 9:54 AM (fifty minutes ago)

be careful, one of the anti-car dense urbanists might be here shortly to do some major garage-shaming.

i was about to say, look at all the fancy people with cars!

And the counter-snark of "look at the fancy privileged urbanites who can afford to live in places with viable public transportation"

Plus "...and who can arrange their lives to accommodate the extra time it takes to live car-free"

can we not ruin this thread when we can all unite around shitty smart devices and the like

fumbling around changing tapes or CDs while driving was messy and dangerous but still, I think, preferable to trying to get my phone to connect via bluetooth and play Spotify while driving.

― mahb, Sunday, September 19, 2021 10:25 AM (six hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

i'm dedicated to never buying a new car because i hate the infotainment centers... to me they feel exactly the same as texting while driving

co-sign not ruining the thread! also i have been using a lot of rental cars lately for various reasons and so can actually join in on a driving issue: the bluetooth pairing thing, SO inconsistent and unreliable and just... un-smooth. like not exactly a backward step but also nowhere near the smooth seamless integration clearly imagined by the technology's developers and boosters.

also in general the menu systems on the dashboard are all garbage

Look at all the fancy people in here with garages.

Technically I have a garage (see, I'm on-topic!) but it was built for cars during the Model-A era. We've never tried to park our car in it. The garage door jumped a track long ago and we haven't been able to close it at all for the last three decades.

Nice technological advancements here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRB0gbYO3fE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGFdsE57-xw

also in general the menu systems on the dashboard are all garbage

yes. i drove a brand new Audi A4 a couple of months ago and the menus were terrible, barely usable. once i plugged my phone into the USB jack though CarPlay was there and suddenly that screen looked modern, had the relevant apps on my phone plumbed in, ran Google Maps etc

fully anticipating the revives on this thread 10 years from now when all cars use voice control for everything in an effort to reduce visual distraction but instead wind you up into apoplexy because they recognise your request for 'functions on the low' by ruff sqwad as a command to angle the side mirrors in by 20 degrees

I have a ten year old car and the bluetooth pairing has only screwed up maybe… twice?

I think I was holding my wifi devices too close together today or something, though? Streaming to a speaker got all choppy when my tablet was downloading an update to a game. What the heck, is it time to upgrade the wifi again?

Bluetooth works pretty well in my car tbh

Still wouldnt be fuckin around with it while driving if im honest but look

not convinced sound quality over bluetooth would be as good as it is over an aux cable but i have no proof of this as i don't use bluetooth and possibly never will

Aux def better, preferably plugged into an iPod classic rooted and loaded with flacs

imo the main benefit of Bluetooth over Aux in a car is that you can skip forward in your playlist with the buttons on the wheel, without looking away from the road.

Bold of you to think that all of us have a car that new.

Sigh

2004 Chevy Venture, 175,000 miles on it.