I’ve ridden in a few Waymo’s before, in SF they can be more dependable or easier to get than other ride options. I never felt like I was ever in danger in one.

Within my handful of experiences with them I’ve never had to use the help button or features to request assistance from a tele-operator but it was clear that they weren’t trying to hide the function from the passengers as the feature was explained and clearly labeled.

A friend who uses them often told me of the one time he needed to ask for assistance when their Waymo was stuck behind a doordash scooter with its hazard lights on that was either delivering or picking up and blocking a turn lane in downtown SF. The Waymo didn’t know what to do to get around it, my friend hit the button for assistance, a voice came over the speakers asking how they could help, my friend explained the situation and the tele-operator drove the car to safely navigate the situation. He said it was probably 1.5-2mins of tota inconvenience with 75% of that time was him wondering if he should hit the help button or not.

I understand a lot of AI implementation, such as Amazon Fresh or other business models have been hiding offshored human assistance within their “AI” features, which I do agree with you is deceitful but my experience with Waymo was not that. They did not hide or obfuscate that function and feature of the service but actively informed the passenger of its existence.

Granted, I haven’t ridden in one for almost a year at this point and I only did so in the SF market so things may have changed since or are different elsewhere.

Also, I can’t say that I follow the news intently about Waymo, I know they have run over a couple cats but I hadn’t heard anything about them killing people. Has that happened?

I think it is possible but just not probable.

I’d like to believe that at least.

Brown noise helps me stop random intrusions and provides calm and focus. I use the Star Trek TNG Enterprise D engine noise piped into my earbuds, headphones or home speakers.

I go into a meditative state when it gets really bad, like pushing everything to the side and focus past it all.

I’m 47, I don’t know how old you are but I’ve struggled with this throughout my life along with the other sensory stuff I have (emotion > color, Concept > shape, perceived emotion > color, mirror touch, texture > color/shape and a few other types of synesthesia). I have found that practicing to calm my mind, mute my senses and practice holistic balance in my life has greatly improved my quality of life.

I do not know how debilitating this is for you but it greatly affected my life. Realizing that I cannot stop my mind or isolate myself and live a fulfilling life. I learned to acknowledge these things and live with them as a benefit. The best analogy is that I surf the waves of my thoughts and no longer let the waves crash over me. Or like emotional/mental aikido. Learn to turn it to your advantage and empower you instead of letting it overwhelm you. Figure out triggers, isolate them and understand them.

Anyway, if you struggle with this you are not alone. There aren’t a ton of us out there but there are others. Don’t fight against it but learn to live in balance with it. When I did my life greatly improved. I have skills that no one else has and while people do not know what it comes from they can tell that my insightfulness, pattern recognition, logical decision making, memory and creativity are very different from the usual sort.

Apologies if this comes off as preachy, you may have your thing on lock already but 7 out of 10 times the person who I am discussing this stuff with who has something similar doesn’t. I will always be learning new tricks or hidden features and I am always looking for tips from others I interact with in the wild.

DM me whenever.

I am the same way, it is a constant slideshow of vivid images, videos loops, complex shapes and colors projected into my vision. Whatever I am thinking about has these associations, like my brain works on complex hieroglyphs and not words. Which seems to be backed up by science as neurological studies into language processing show that metaphorical image/sensory association happens before language processing within our brains. Language is a translation layer after all the sensory input.

I thought everyone was like this until my preteens when I would reference some aspect of it to others and get weird looks back.

Sounds like it could be a form of ticker tape synesthesia with a less vivid variation of hyperphantasia.

Yeah, those are the things I miss too. It feels like being a bit outside of a bubble looking in sometimes.

And then those early days of Facebook, where it was actually useful and engaging, I miss those days too. But the world is a different place now and the slippery slope is too slippery for me to feel comfortable getting anywhere close to that slope.

Lemmy is the only platform I engage with. I closed down or abandoned all other platforms around the same time you did. My quality of life has greatly improved since, though I do still miss certain aspects sometimes.

You’re funny.

You pose no threat because your position is transparent. Your argument here relies on saying what isn’t ok for you without stating your what you would prefer instead which leaves you open to moving the goalposts to wherever you want them to be.

You don’t have a position in this discussion beyond Apple bad for “reasons” and puffing out your chest. It is all air, smoke and mirrors. You ask questions as your argument and when they are answered you redefine what the entire discussion is about. This is an argumentative method used by children.

Do better, because I am smarter than you; I can see that any discussion with you is a waste of time.

I guess you have your own definition of arbitrary because 7 years for in house support of their hardware isn’t decided on a whim or by chance but seems well reasoned.

But I can see by your shelf life comment that you have no intention of actually discussing anything and are just trolling so, goodbye!

Apple seems to do this with most of their new product lines when introduced.

The AppleWatch started being geared towards a health device around revision 3 or 4.

The iPhone was a camera/iPod/Phone multi device by the iPhone 4.

AppleTV was gathering market share in the tv device field for several years before Apple introduced their own streaming platform.

It took the iPad a few iterations before it settled into having drawing/art/media capabilities.

The Vision Pro is a dev kit of sorts as Apple measures an emerging market of hardware and user preferences while they figure out what Apple customers would really want out of such a device. No one is forcing anyone to buy a $3500 Vision Pro; some buyers were disappointed that the headset wasn’t as polished as they what they expect from Apple and some knew what they were buying.

I own two Vision Pros for business and personal use. I have had many VR headsets over the years, the tech has gotten much better over time. I was interested in seeing what Apple could do in the space. The hardware was slick but visionOS 1.0 was spartan and lacking. It has been fun to see how much better the software has become in each iteration. Nowadays I use my Vision Pro for at least an hour or two each day. It is incredibly useful in my daily routines.

The initial news cycles about it were negative and it is easy to see how and why, people projected onto it what they wanted it to be. The naysayers thought it was too expensive, and for them it was, the Apple zealots wanted it to be everything and more, they were disappointed, and the influencers wanted a drama. I think it was all of those things but I don’t think the product ever really flopped. There are plenty of people who own them and use them all the time. I am happy with my purchase and I don’t plan on upgrading to the latest version because the ones I have are fine.

I am interested to see where Apple takes this tech.

If we are being fair, Apple doesn’t arbitrarily decide when something becomes obsolete, it is at 7 years for them when they retire hardware from support, that covers software as well.

Also, MacBook Pros have a longer shelf life on average than PC counterparts, unless it is corporate not many Mac users are upgrading their hardware every year. I believe the average is every 3-5 years but I know people who are still using 10+ year old MacBook Airs as their daily driver for personal use.

Such a great time-travel movie. One of my favorites too!

Pushing Tin?

Tin Cup was the golf movie with Kevin Costner, right?