nicerdicer

I wouldn’t want to know that. Imagine even if you get to know only a part of that knowledge, for instance, you get to know that you will die on a Tuesday or within a specific month. With that information in mind you would dread every upcoming Tuesday (or a specific month) and in the end it all may lead up to a self fulfilling prophecy.

The last time I bought a map was around the early 2000’s. I drove to another city and bought a city plan along with a newspaper. I used both to search for appartements to visit and rent while being there for the whole day.

The last time a physical map got handed to me was when I registered as a citizen in yet another city I went to study for. Students who moved there were handed a shoulder bag filled with some brochures along with a map of the city and a book with the timetables for all public transport routes as a welcoming gift. That was in 2007.

Perhaps there will be a time in the future when we look back to when everything was “just” flat design. Meanwhile the UI will adapt the aesthetics of AI generated imagery which will be the new design thing then. Everything will look overly saturated but also a bit blurry, like AI generated landscapes. .

Or not. It depends on what data an AI will be fed with. Maybe it goes Frutiger Aero all over again (at least what the AI interpretation of Frutiger will be) since AI generators could be fed with the existing examples of such an era. We would have gone full circle.

As it has been pointed out by others, research data shows that plastic bottle caps are a significant part of trash that is washed onto beaches. In order to prevent that bottles now come with tethered caps. From this point of view this measurement might be understandable. But does one really lose the caps of these bottles that often? Is this really the problem?

Where I live these kind of bottles are part of a deposit system. When you return them at a supermarket you get your deposit (25 Cent) back. This alone ensures that these bottles barely end up anywhere in the enviroment in the first place. When these bottles are returned at the supermarket, all of the bottles do have their respective caps screwed on. This method is practical, as you can collect these bottles wtihout having to deal with leakages of excess liquids.

I never had any issues regarding that the cap is still attached to the bottle, which could be an issue when it comes to recycling these bottles. One major problem when it comes to recycling of plastics is that it is crucial that these plastics are separated by the material they are made of. That is why it is impossible to recycle compound materials, as they can’t be separated from each other (i.e. tetra pak, tetra bric). The most common way of getting rid of these kind of packings is to burn them and use their heat for generating electricity.

These plastic bottles on the other hand can be recycled easily, as they consist of only one material (PET) - given, that the label is made of the same kind of plastic like the bottle itself.

I don’t know if the bottle cap is made of the same material (PET) or if this is another kind of plastic (ABS, PS, …). Making these bottle caps from the same material as the bottle itself would impose a greater impact than tethering them onto the bottle.

At first glance this measurement sounds like a low-hanging-fruit-greenwashing-attempt that hurts nobody. Very similar to the ban of disposable plastic cutlery or the ban of plastic straws. Don’t get me wrong - I think that these things are an important step towards reducing pollution and garbage overall, but did you ever ask yourself: “How does the garbage get into the ocean in the first place?”

There is an eerie resemblence between the smallest neuron and the largest structure in the universe - Galaxy Filament

Distraction is just one click away.

Bad Wolves - Zombie

“House of the Rising Sun” has been covered numerous times. The most known version is from The Animals. I was today years old when I learned that this is the original version of the song. However, my personal favourite cover version is from BTO.

Another well-executed cover version is of the song “Johnny B. Goode”, covered by Peter Tosh, beause it is tranferred into a different music genre.

Correct. The said vending machine was collecting data without users consent. And because it was facial recognition data it means that the collected data can be tied to an individual.

It would have been different if the collected data was just a counter which indcated the number of users of that machine. These kind of data could not have been tied to a specific individual.

That is correct. Switzerland is not a part of the European Union. The manufacturer, Invenda, is located in Switzerland. That is where their headquarters are. It might be possible that their vending machines are produced within the EU (another country where production costs are lower). It might be possible that these specific models (those who offer data collection) are designed for markets outside of EU.

They advertise their product as “Made in EU” (see brochure). This could be made on purpose to implicate that their data collection meets GDPR requirements, leading to believe that everything is compliant with the law.

Bad news, the manufacturer is located in Switzerland and, as stated in the brochure, they advertise their product as “Made in EU”. Probably to implicate that any data which will be collected and processed will be under the terms of GDPR.

I haven’t looked up the terms regarding GDPR, but I assume that their data collection is somewhat “compliant” with GDPR, which does not necessaryly mean anything. It can just mean that data is not stored locally, albeit it will be send to the manufacturer (but probably entcrypted). However, under GDPR you can enforce your right of deletion of the collected data - that is, if you know that data about you has been collected.

What makes this issue so severe is that it would have never been detected that data has been collected and processed, if it weren’t for a malfunction.

Edit: grammar, spelling

The worst part of all is that no one would think of the fact that a vending machine is performing facial recognition techniques, because in general it is assumed that a vending machine is a mechanical device, as it has been in the past. There is not any user benefit in that.

I researched the manufacuter and in their brochure (see page 6) of a similar vending machine it is revealed what data can be processed:

Among the worst data sets are:

• product demographics
• measuring of foot traffic
• gender/ age/ etc.

Bonus: on page 7 of the product brochure they introduce an app which allows the customer to make purchases directly from their smatphone, with features like

• consumer engagement through gamification, interactive marketing, gifting, scratch-and-win receipts, product sampling and cross selling

“What do customers get?”

• a fun and engaging payment process

Finally! I always thought that payment is not fun enough. What a time to be alive.

As for an addition to the topic I leave this link to a study which gives some insight to consuming behavior:

Signaling Status with Luxury Goods: The Role of Brand Prominence

I agree with you - they do look great indeed. Regarding survivor bias: those cars you see around probably are maintained well. With a sufficient level of maintenance, even a Yugo can be kept in pristine condition (given the supply of spare parts in this particular example).

When it comes to Tesla in general, many people complain about insufficient panel alignment, although it its barely noticeable. But given the pice range (this is a upper class car) one needs to pay to afford such a car this issue shouldn’t be present. On the other hand: when I look at my car (Mitsubishi Mirage) closely, the panel alignment ist’t done well either. But considering the price range that car has been sold, I can live with that.

It is woth mentioning that Friedrich Merz made up accusations against refugees recieving free dental work in the past. He said: “Die sitzen beim Arzt und lassen sich die Zähne neu machen, und die deutschen Bürger nebendran kriegen keine Termine.” which translates to: “These [refugees] are sitting at the doctor and get their teeth done, and the German citizen does not get an appointment” This is grade-A-populism.

Also, the CDU, the party Friedrich Merz is a member of, refused to participate in the protests against the raise of the Nazis with the reasoning, that the left party (die Linke) is participating as well, and that the CDU wouldn’t support anything the left party stands for.

It it safe to say, that our democracy is theratened by the CDU as well. Also, because members of the CDU took part in a meeting which discussed the mass deportation of foreign people. The CDU party is quite hesitant to distance themselves from it. This meeting sparked the ongoing protests, where - as of today over 300,000 people participated in.

Edit: spelling

If executed well enough, it an look pretty good: https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/international-automotive-scene/71202-rat-rod-bmw-e28.html

Although this is not COR-TEN steel. The original body parts, which are made from “normal” metal have been altered chemically in their surface. This kind of appearence is called “Rat Style”.

Well, of course most of it is attributed to the (lack of) craftmanship. I’ve seen videos of Teslas that are falling apart, because of sloppy assembly.

I have read somewhere else that stainless steel sheet metal has different properties than the regular metal cars are usually made of, which makes it harder to process. I can imagine that it is harder to align such material in general.

Or Tesla could offer a different material choice, like COR-TEN steel. Its rusty surface will hide all the bugs and dirt and one does not need to wash the car immediately after exposure. Also, this choice of material comes with the same disadvantages stainless steel has to offer: e.g. no proper alignment of the body panels. This means that Tesla doesn’t have to change their way of assembly.

They did. Amongst other issues.

DeLoreans, early-production models in particular, suffered from poor build quality as well as mechanical issues.

This quote ist taken from the English Wikipeda Article. In the German Wikipeda Article quality issues are described more detailed: many issues involved the gull-wing doors, which had a complicated opening mechanism that often jammed. Also one could injure their hand by closing the door, as it was too heavy. The German Wikipeda Article also mentioned, that, due to the choice of material for the body work, a proper alignment of the stainless steel panels was not to be expected.

Edit: to reference to the original question: I haven’t found any statements regarding to the pollution of the stainless steel body, but I can imagine that this car had the same issues the Cyber Truck is having.

This is a good example for bad design. Apart from the odd shape (this is debateable - perhaps some people like the design) the choice of the exterior material is not to be considered a good one, concidering the vehicle’s exposure to the elements (dead bugs, tree sap, salt, dust, dirt, etc.) is nothing out of the ordinary. These are normal things an ordinary vehicle is exposed to.

Maybe Tesla could sell accessories like some kind of panel covers to protect the body of the car, in a similar way phone covers are being sold to protect phones. Which in itself is also the result of bad design: not only a phone cover hides the original design of the phone, the necessity to use a cover on a phone shows that the phone probalby is not built strong enough to withstand daily usage, like falling on the ground or being carried in a pocket.