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Silicon Valley crosswalk buttons apparently hacked to imitate Musk, Zuck voices

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151–158 of 158 posts

Re: Silicon Valley crosswalk buttons apparently hacked to imitate Musk, Zuck voices

#151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are implying that people don't understand the world if their reading level is low? Maybe your literacy level is high, but perhaps your level of understanding people could be higher.

If your attitude to learning is wrong in a particular way, then reading will only make you more steadfast in your beliefs.

I know what all of these words mean, but not in this particular order.

How does reading make you more steadfast in having a "wrong" attitude toward learning?

Re: Silicon Valley crosswalk buttons apparently hacked to imitate Musk, Zuck voices

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other direction lacks sense of humor.

"Walk into traffic and be unburdened by what has been."

I guess that's funny because it's a thoughtful statement juxtaposed against the mindless, idiotic rhetoric of the other side? I'm sure she's said things that were actually dumb. it's just funny to me that something actually kind of poetic and deep gets so much hate.

Re: Silicon Valley crosswalk buttons apparently hacked to imitate Musk, Zuck voices

#153
post #20
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One does not have to be harmed by an action to be able to call out that it would have harmful impact.

As far as the messages I heard, they still announce whatever they should - just with zucks voice and sarcasticly and extra text. But I haven't listened to everything, maybe they did significantly impact someone's life. I'd prefer to hear an actual example over broad outrage tho

I don't agree that "If we could not fuck with accessibility devices which disabled people rely on, that'd be great. Thanks." can be classified as "broad outrage".

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It can be simultaneously true that "this particular incident resulted in no actual harm (because the prank messages still usefully conveyed the required information)" and "messing with accessibility devices has the potential to cause harm, and it would be preferable for well-intentioned pranksters to direct their efforts elsewhere".

In particular, I'd still push back on a claim that these messages were still useful because they conveyed the same instruction. Someone relying solely on this announcement (without the ability to visually verify the situation) might have reasonable cause to doubt whether the announcement is still trustworthy. After all, they might reason, if a prankster is able to change the message, might they also able to change the playback conditions? Or might they be able to switch the "don't walk" and "walk" announcements? Anything which causes the UX to deviate from the known, reliable, trustworthy pattern introduces significant trust-costs.

Re: Silicon Valley crosswalk buttons apparently hacked to imitate Musk, Zuck voices

#154
post #140
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok but why do they falsify all the comment timestamps?

To complete the illusion of freshness I guess. I don't see a big issue with doing that as part of the feature.

Deliberately putting bogus timestamps on user actions seems fraudulent. I do not want this website to say I did something minutes/hours ago even though I wasn't even here in a week's time. I think this should be illegal, and it probably is in parts of the world according to some GDPR statute. You can't display made-up facts about a user. It's insane in any case and it triggers unpleasant psychological effects when it happens.

Everyone here is obsessed with putting the correct year in post titles for some reason, but falsifying the timestamps of entire comment threads is okay and defensible?

Re: Silicon Valley crosswalk buttons apparently hacked to imitate Musk, Zuck voices

#155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your attitude to learning is wrong in a particular way, then reading will only make you more steadfast in your beliefs.

I know what all of these words mean, but not in this particular order. How does reading make you more steadfast in having a "wrong" attitude toward learning?

If your attitude towards learning is "learning why I'm right", rather than "learning what is true", then you will tend to discard information that conflicts with your preconceptions, and distort all other information into supporting them. Most people do this to some degree, but some people elevate it to an art form.

Re: Silicon Valley crosswalk buttons apparently hacked to imitate Musk, Zuck voices

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know what all of these words mean, but not in this particular order. How does reading make you more steadfast in having a "wrong" attitude toward learning?

If your attitude towards learning is "learning why I'm right", rather than "learning what is true", then you will tend to discard information that conflicts with your preconceptions, and distort all other information into supporting them. Most people do this to some degree, but some people elevate it to an art form.

Sure, it's easy to fall into a trap where accepting new information is hard, and I think most adults are aware that as we age it's important to try and keep an open mind. However, our society currently has an even bigger problem with people who do the opposite. People were taught to "keep an open mind", but haven't been taught what a good source is.

Like everything, you have to find a balance wherein you can accept new information but are choosy about the sources of that info. Otherwise bad data and hidden agendas will have you avoiding basic healthcare because vaccines give you autistic 5g and drinking bleach to kill the imaginary parasites makes more sense than smearing a little cortisone cream on.

A great man once said: "We do our peers, countrymen, students, and children a grave disservice by admonishing them to think for themselves without also giving them the critical thinking tools to do so, for in so doing we foster a culture where "independent thought" is equated with "contrarian thought". This gives rise to an anti-intellectual, anti-science paradigm that supports an idea not because it meets a basic standard of evidence, but rather simply because it opposes established thought. This is worse than the intellectual calcification that stagnant "herd thinking" would give rise to, because it doesn't simply halt progress — it puts it in full retreat."

Re: Silicon Valley crosswalk buttons apparently hacked to imitate Musk, Zuck voices

#157
post #28

I wonder how soon it will be before some company starts renting these out from the city for ad space.

(Just to be clear, this is sarcasm.) If you're in a city that relies significantly on parking fees for revenue, this might help subsidize a shift away from cars...

Re: Silicon Valley crosswalk buttons apparently hacked to imitate Musk, Zuck voices

#158
post #22
post #6

[flagged]

The hackers didn’t make them hackable. They were already hackable. Your issue is with the city and/or company, not with the “hackers.”

Apparently you didn’t read what I wrote. I said this person did no harm but the security vulnerability is a serious issue.
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