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Ask HN: What are unintended consequences of new tech you've noticed?

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Ask HN: What are unintended consequences of new tech you've noticed?

#1
3 times in SF this week, a Cruise AV has driven past my car and triggered my automatic windshield wipers, even though it was totally dry out. (probably the LIDAR interacting with wipers' infrared sensors).

Got me thinking about what unintended consequences can spring up because of new technologies. Anyone have other examples, current or historic?

Re: Ask HN: What are unintended consequences of new tech you've noticed?

#2
Their security posture is immature, from an enterprise perspective. Many enterprises use slack. Developers love slack. Want to build a slackbot? Build it with ngrok.

https://api.slack.com/tutorials/tunneling-with-ngrok

The free version is easy to install, has no enterprise oversight controls and can be pretty dangerous when you are trying to secure a network.

Re: Ask HN: What are unintended consequences of new tech you've noticed?

#3
Semi-related to the Cruise AV, but should we be worried about a sudden increase in LIDAR everywhere from the perspective of protecting eyesight? I understand there are regulations and such to limit the "power" of the light, so just looking for more info.

Re: Ask HN: What are unintended consequences of new tech you've noticed?

#5
Something I've noticed a huge amount over the last couple of years in particular - no one has any change for the homeless / those on the streets / those collecting for charity. Contactless has been a 'thing' for a while now, but it really seemed to kick up a gear when phones and watches had wallets and the buses and a decent amount of restaurants went 'card only'.

Re: Ask HN: What are unintended consequences of new tech you've noticed?

#7
post #5

Something I've noticed a huge amount over the last couple of years in particular - no one has any change for the homeless / those on the streets / those collecting for charity. Contactless has been a 'thing' for a while now, but it really seemed to kick up a gear when phones and watches had wallets and the buses and a decent amount of restaurants went 'card only'.

The charity people here border on harassment, have card readers, physically try to stop you or block you, and apparently none of what you donate actually goes to the charity, it's mostly paid out in commissions to rent seekers.

Re: Ask HN: What are unintended consequences of new tech you've noticed?

#9
post #7
post #5

Something I've noticed a huge amount over the last couple of years in particular - no one has any change for the homeless / those on the streets / those collecting for charity. Contactless has been a 'thing' for a while now, but it really seemed to kick up a gear when phones and watches had wallets and the buses and a decent amount of restaurants went 'card only'.

The charity people here border on harassment, have card readers, physically try to stop you or block you, and apparently none of what you donate actually goes to the charity, it's mostly paid out in commissions to rent seekers.

This is how I imagined the situation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4CizzE-zZo

Re: Ask HN: What are unintended consequences of new tech you've noticed?

#10

Semi-related to the Cruise AV, but should we be worried about a sudden increase in LIDAR everywhere from the perspective of protecting eyesight? I understand there are regulations and such to limit the "power" of the light, so just looking for more info.

If the vendors are complying with known safe-power limits (sub mW laser power), it should be fine.

One should primarily be concerned with laser powers that unintentionally exceed design power, or if they're ultra-fast lasers, with the peak power.

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