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Our fridge just emailed us to say we opened its door too many times

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Re: Our fridge just emailed us to say we opened its door too many times

#271

Post by dylan604 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #250
dylan604 wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That you know of. All of this data is collected and made available if you are paying for things with a card. Hypothetically, insurance carriers could be seeing exactly what you buy, from where, and how often. If you have a gym membership (as shady as gyms are, it would not surprise me to learn they not only provide membership but attendance records as well), they can glean if you are active. blah blah, metadata is in…

Most people will gladly hand over this information to insurance companies in exchange for lower premiums.

Most people would ultimately be charged higher premiums if they did hand this data over.

Ins: In the last week, you've purchased 3 packages of Oreos, 2 cans of Crisco, 3lbs of 73% ground beef, no vegetables, lots of stuff with high sugar content, high salt content, and very little actual nutritional value. Therefore, we rank you in a high risk category (since you are clearly over 21 years old) based on the fact you also bought 1 carton of cigarettes and 2 cases of beer. Please enjoy your new higher insurance premium.

Re: Our fridge just emailed us to say we opened its door too many times

#272

Post by bavell »

b112 wrote: post #123
schelling42 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea is to use some peoples receptivity to religion for shifting their awareness to the risks of traveling. It can also help to center thoughts, calm down, and increase mindfulness while steering the motorized vehicle, therefore decreasing traffic accidents. (I wonder whether there are studies on if this actually helps.)

[flagged]

Most [literally any group of humans] are good folk, but unfortunately there is a small radical subset which are not.

FTFY.

Re: Our fridge just emailed us to say we opened its door too many times

#273

Post by AnimalMuppet »

horsawlarway wrote: post #181
caymanjim wrote: post #140

I have a semi-related anecdote about surprises from devices. I use a CPAP. After a year, I went back to the doctor for a followup, and was asked to bring the SD card so they could review the data it collects. The device records the times and duration of use, various settings, and some metrics on breathing (apnea events, etc). I knew it recorded this stuff on an SD card. I brought the card to the appointment, but the…

I agree that this is both invasive and a huge violation. My wife had pretty severe sleep apnea in the third trimester of her pregnancy, two experiences that make me think this practice needs to be nuked from orbit. 1. We properly read the manual for the device and adjusted the pressure so that it didn't cause problems with burping/ingesting air during sleep. Tissue gets softer in women as they near birth and the body…

That sounds suspicious. By any chance, were they making ongoing revenue from you using the device?

I am not justifying that kind of harassment. It's out of line, whether they're making money from you using it or not. But it's more understandable if they want you to keep using it so that they keep getting paid.

Re: Our fridge just emailed us to say we opened its door too many times

#274

Post by increscent »

unethical_ban wrote: post #258
xaedes wrote: post #67

In Battlestar Galactica humanity's last defense was this big "dumb" battlestar spaceship with sparsly connected systems. Sometimes it feels like the internet (of things) is the breeding ground of the Cylons in our world.

I resent that consumer IoT is almost always required to connect to a cloud service. I love the idea of an IoT house - smart lamps, smart locks, cameras, climate conrtol, etc. I only want them connected to my LAN. If I want to access any of their controls remotely, I will set up a VPN or otherwise they should provide a jump service locally, not require cloud connectivity.

Check out this project!

https://trmm.net/Ikea/

Apparently, the firmware on some IKEA smart home devices can be easily flashed.

Re: Our fridge just emailed us to say we opened its door too many times

#275

Post by tzs »

dTal wrote: post #53

The problem here isn't that the fridge is tracking door opens. That seems like a good application for a "smart" appliance - tracking how usage patterns affect its internal state and holding a dialogue with the user. The problem is that it used email , which comes across as passive aggressive in the same way it would if a human did it. If it just showed a notification on a screen, I don't think we'd be having this dis…

If I want usage data for an appliance I'm probably going to want to look at how usage is changing over time. If it is just on a screen on the appliance I'm going to have to manual record it to keep for such analysis which can get tedious.

With email I've got a record of it. Ideally they would include an attachment with the email that has the data in some well known documented format, like CSV, to make it easy to work with programatically.

I probably wouldn't want an appliance to have an internet connection just to support this logging. If it doesn't otherwise need an internet connection I'd be fine with it if it logged to an SD card or thumb drive.

Re: Our fridge just emailed us to say we opened its door too many times

#276

Post by danShumway »

globular-toast wrote: post #256
djrogers wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> so you know what they're up to and can stop them? Lol, sure - go ahead and stop a 5 year old from checking the fridge a few times a day when here hungry. See how much better that makes your life. Again - when you have kids, you will understand...

Just don't keep ready-to-eat food in the house. I'm sure he won't be raiding the fridge to munch on a raw cauliflower.

:) Fridge opening intensifies:

"Ugh, we still only have cauliflower? I'm going to check again in 5 minutes for some bizarre reason, even though all science indicates that my brain should be developed enough by now to understand object permanence."

Half a day later: "Okay, but what if Hume was right? Can I really know that the fridge is still empty just because it was empty the last 10 times I looked? If I lived in a universe where the fridge stayed empty until this second, would the observable history of that universe look any different than this one? And I've known my parents for half a decade, that's realistically a small amount of time for me to start extrapolating about their behavior. Might they have bought Twinkies yesterday and then only decided to put them in the fridge halfway through today?"

Kids are weird. I remember opening the fridge over and over to check for fruit or leftovers growing up, and I genuinely don't remember why I did. I don't know if I actually thought something was going to change or not.

Maybe the reason I stopped as I got older was because as an adult I buy my own groceries, so now if something shows up in my fridge and I didn't put it there my reaction is going to be more likely to call the police and look for an intruder?

Re: Our fridge just emailed us to say we opened its door too many times

#277

Post by AnimalMuppet »

xenocyon wrote: post #264
caymanjim wrote: post #140

I have a semi-related anecdote about surprises from devices. I use a CPAP. After a year, I went back to the doctor for a followup, and was asked to bring the SD card so they could review the data it collects. The device records the times and duration of use, various settings, and some metrics on breathing (apnea events, etc). I knew it recorded this stuff on an SD card. I brought the card to the appointment, but the…

I have a CPAP machine. Your doctor is telling the truth. If insurance is involved (even if it's a high-deductible plan and you haven't hit the deductible), they typically require the data verifying usage. You're directing blame at the doctor, but it's the insurance company making the rules, not the doctor.

Doesn't matter. It's not OK for the doctor to do this, and it's not OK for the insurance company either.

Re: Our fridge just emailed us to say we opened its door too many times

#278

Post by djbebs »

mcguire wrote: post #266
horsawlarway wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that this is both invasive and a huge violation. My wife had pretty severe sleep apnea in the third trimester of her pregnancy, two experiences that make me think this practice needs to be nuked from orbit. 1. We properly read the manual for the device and adjusted the pressure so that it didn't cause problems with burping/ingesting air during sleep. Tissue gets softer in women as they near birth and the body…

What are your qualifications for fiddling with medical equipment?

Their device, their business. People don't need to justify what they do with their things.

Re: Our fridge just emailed us to say we opened its door too many times

#279

Post by bavell »

moftz wrote: post #205
SkeuomorphicBee wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That reminded of my father-in-law's Chevrolet, every time you turn off the car it very loudly announces for you to "please check if you haven't left any belongings in the back seat" (or some nonsense like that). So every time he drops us off late at night the car screaming wakes the baby when we arrive.

There is usually a setting for the rear seat reminder. It's to remind people to not leave their babies in the car. Maybe the volume is purposefully set a little high to wake the kid up just in case you forget.

Do people really need a reminder to not forget their babies? From a car? What?
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