211–220 of 254 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
At least it doesn't run windows
It wasn't that long ago I tried to use an ATM only to find a WinCE error screen displayed on it. Scary stuff.
Why does a bed need to run Linux? Why? Of all the possible timelines, we live in the dumbest. What was wrong with a plain old bed without 1GB of RAM and a full OS running on it?! It is the same everywhere. Finding a washing machine that was not WiFi-connected was a chore and I dread doing it again in ten years. As a person who's broken into O(1000) "smart" devices (for fun and for profit both), I do not want them in…
>Why does a bed need to run Linux? Why? We're in the era of measuring yourself for better outcomes. A century ago we figured out antibiotics. Big gains. Then we figured out a lot of other pretty obvious diseases with pretty obvious cures. Now we're down to the complicated subtle things. This bed is running Linux so it can tell you how you slept. If you're sleeping poorly it has all sorts of mostly mild negative effec…
Totally false. Any gains from micro optimizing people's sleep are wiped out by the constant mind pollution of social media. We are in an era of constant distraction.
Best add 'solder' to your shopping list unless you already have some, or the new iron you buy comes with a starter amount.
Pretty wild. I used to have one of these beds, but it was before everything got "smart". It had two corded controller's hooked up to the pump. The controller displays the number and had up/down arrow buttons to adjust. No internet required. No Linux powered microcontroller required. My bed couldn't get hacked. I slept in comfort.
What I’m trying to teach myself to do whenever I think “this is ridiculous overcomplexity” is to imagine whose life it might make simpler. Let’s assume I have some sort of motor disability: it could be anything from Parkinsons to quadraplegia. Having a bridge out to a common controller that maybe works on speech or some other standardised input method that works for your disability is a massive benefit. And avoids ha…
Unless these devices respect their users, they're simply profiteering off of the disadvantaged, which in my mind should be just as rage inducing.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What I’m trying to teach myself to do whenever I think “this is ridiculous overcomplexity” is to imagine whose life it might make simpler. Let’s assume I have some sort of motor disability: it could be anything from Parkinsons to quadraplegia. Having a bridge out to a common controller that maybe works on speech or some other standardised input method that works for your disability is a massive benefit. And avoids ha…
You certainly don't need a cloud defaulted device in order to do what you describe. There are plenty of assistants, Google and Alexa being two, that can talk to things on your local network with a REST API. That controller also has a gig of memory, plenty enough to run a little API. What manufacturers like about cloud enabled devices is that they can automatically upgrade the firmware and they can get semi-accurate c…
Here are some facts for you * sleep number beds have sensors in them that detect heart rate * they do this by detecting pressure differences in the air mattress * these are effectively microphones, right? and quite sensitive
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What I’m trying to teach myself to do whenever I think “this is ridiculous overcomplexity” is to imagine whose life it might make simpler. Let’s assume I have some sort of motor disability: it could be anything from Parkinsons to quadraplegia. Having a bridge out to a common controller that maybe works on speech or some other standardised input method that works for your disability is a massive benefit. And avoids ha…
Have you considered talking to people instead of imagining their response? Because regular people seem kind of fed up, and we're still over here cramming insecure computers into everything.
They may care in a passive sense -- the same way that most people care about social causes. They (myself included) agree that some situation is bad, but they don't inconvenience themselves improve the situation.
As an example, many people have some story about creepily being shown ads after talking about something with a friend. It's concerning to them, but no action is taken.
Here are some facts for you * sleep number beds have sensors in them that detect heart rate * they do this by detecting pressure differences in the air mattress * these are effectively microphones, right? and quite sensitive
Do they really detect heart rate through pressure sensors? That seems like it'd have so much noise the data would be unusable. Edit: Looks like they couple it with some fancy statistical analysis to get accurate enough data. Interesting
Funny part to me is that I fully assumed that this was a post about hacking Eight Sleep beds by someone who didn't want to explicitly name the company, presumably for vague legal reasons. Then I got to a picture of an apparently real "Number Sleep Hub" and my mind was blown. WTF are we in a timeline so weird that there are two companies making water cooled beds, one is called Eight Sleep and the other is Sleep Number…
Nah, Sleep Number beds are basically just an "air bladder" (aka a giant vaguely mattress-shaped rectangular bag) that sit in a tomb of foam. https://i.ytimg.com/vi/pMiTq6YkJ2c/maxresdefault.jpg People are literally paying a couple grand for a fancy adjustable airbed with some foam on top of it.