Locked out of 'God Mode', runners are hacking their treadmills • Hacker News Board

Re: Locked out of 'God Mode', runners are hacking their treadmills

#431

Post by NeuNeurosis » Wed, Jan 19, 2022, 3:31 PM UTC

ipaddr wrote: post #270

ljm wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with 'smart' devices I think is something akin to a conflict of interest. On the one hand you're purchasing hardware, which you expect to own and control. On the other, there is software that runs on a subscription model which 'coincidentally' restricts the functionality of the hardware, because they want to stop people from bypassing the sub. The hardware effectively becomes useless if the subscription s…

It feels like these should be rentals that require a monthly fee but no upfront cost.

This is exactly what I thought when I saw the commercial. Its incredible that so many people are willing to pay that upfront cost.

Re: Locked out of 'God Mode', runners are hacking their treadmills

#432

Post by suifbwish » Wed, Jan 19, 2022, 3:59 PM UTC

dotancohen wrote: post #389

politician wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just bought Terraria a couple days ago to see what it was all about. After 20 minutes of futzing about with it on my iPad, I deleted it because it was so terrible to control. Now to learn that the developers only recently released an update to a 9 year old game that broke once working controls. Wild!

You're not buying new games if you're enjoying nine-year-old games. Did you know that before The Phantom Menace, then-20-year-old Star Wars would compete with new movies at rental shops? I personally believe that this is why Star Wars was "updated": it was too resilient to being replaced. The rental place didn't need to buy so many new copies of new movies when they could keep making money on old Star Wars. So the st…

Of all the theories I have heard on why Star Wars was ruined (I agree) this is the first I’ve heard of this one :) . Politics aside, money does often seem to be the biggest motivator for creation and destruction of things. It is inherently not progressive to have one thing that is built perfectly and never needs to be altered or repaired. Progression often seems to be more of a quest for change for its own sake rather than improvement. Something isn’t profitable if it has no planned obsolescence.

Re: Locked out of 'God Mode', runners are hacking their treadmills

#433

Post by vlunkr » Wed, Jan 19, 2022, 4:03 PM UTC

makeitdouble wrote: post #303

vlunkr wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a tangent, but it's incredible to me that people used to ship video games and other software on physical media and it worked fine. Now you can drop a big turd on the steam store initially and it's just business as usual. Cynicism aside, I really do admire the dev and QA teams that pulled this off. It's such a different world now.

It cuts both ways, games would take half decades to get done or only cover a thousandth of the ground current games cover. Imagine what Minecraft would be, shipped on physical media. We also wouldn't get games like Goat Simulator who basically set a low expectation bar in exchange for low cost, best effort game play. I'm kind of ok with more "garbage" if we also get more weird/low budget games that wouldn't exist oth…

I agree, I'm not saying things were necessarily better then.

Re: Locked out of 'God Mode', runners are hacking their treadmills

#434

Post by vlunkr » Wed, Jan 19, 2022, 4:05 PM UTC

ipaddr wrote: post #268

Gigachad wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take a look at the games from that era and the games you get right now. Sure, more has changed than just being able to update things, but the ability to fix issues later and continually update games has lead to much much better games with way more content. And you can always chose to wait a year for everything to settle.

I'm still playing older games. What new games do you recommend?

Indie games might be a good place to start. Whatever genre of older games you are into, there are probably new indie games exploring the same ideas.

Re: Locked out of 'God Mode', runners are hacking their treadmills

#435

Post by CountDrewku » Wed, Jan 19, 2022, 4:10 PM UTC

CoastalCoder wrote: post #35

CountDrewku wrote: post #29

I don't understand this obsession with electronic exercise devices. The peloton, that stupid thing that mounts to the wall, treadmills etc. Outside is so much better than all of those. I will 100% run in single digit temperatures with snow on the ground before I touch a treadmill. If I have to be inside it's weight lifting.

Here's why I prefer electronic exercise devices: - When my kids were younger, I was always nearby during a workout. - I can comfortably work out regardless of the season, weather, or time of day. - I can easily take a bathroom break mid-workout. - I can do much longer workouts without getting bored, because I can watch movies or play video games during the workout. (E.g., using an exercise bike + my own computer.) Th…

You can go outside and workout just fine, you're just choosing not to. Everything about doing exercise on machines is worse for you. It's better than nothing.

Re: Locked out of 'God Mode', runners are hacking their treadmills

#436

Post by CountDrewku » Wed, Jan 19, 2022, 4:12 PM UTC

mikestew wrote: post #136

CountDrewku wrote: post #29

I don't understand this obsession with electronic exercise devices. The peloton, that stupid thing that mounts to the wall, treadmills etc. Outside is so much better than all of those. I will 100% run in single digit temperatures with snow on the ground before I touch a treadmill. If I have to be inside it's weight lifting.

I don't understand this obsession with electronic exercise devices. Then you need to make an effort, because it's really not hard to understand if one has even just a bit of life experience as an adult. But it sounds like an excuse to brag about the harsh weather one runs in, and those damned kids and their video games or something. Here, I'll one-up you: I regularly ran in snow and sub-zero (Fahrenheit, bitches) tem…

I don't need to do anything bud. I think they're a stupid waste of money. I have no problem without them. They're a marketing scam, have fun wasting money for a worse exercise experience.

Is there a reason it upsets you that I don't like them? I have no problem making time because exercise is a priority for me. For you, it's an after thought that you need to cram into your terrible lifestyle and that's the entire problem.

Re: Locked out of 'God Mode', runners are hacking their treadmills

#437

Post by baq » Wed, Jan 19, 2022, 4:12 PM UTC

Tor3 wrote: post #412

baq wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the problem is, non-smart-TVs are twice as expensive. you can buy a smart tv and never connect it to the internet, though.

That may be changing, but when I bought my 49" non-smart TV a few years back it was quite a bit cheaper than the same-size smart TVs. It wasn't that long ago, but a quick check at the same shop shows only "smart" (read: stupid) TVs. Unfortunately. As the price for the non-smart TV I bought was lower than the equivalent "smart" version I believe we'll be paying for a feature we don't need.

you're looking for 'digital signage displays' (expensive) or a 'video monitor' (seriously expensive for anything tv-sized, if it exists at all).

Re: Locked out of 'God Mode', runners are hacking their treadmills

#438

Post by CountDrewku » Wed, Jan 19, 2022, 4:12 PM UTC

technothrasher wrote: post #88

CountDrewku wrote: post #29

I don't understand this obsession with electronic exercise devices. The peloton, that stupid thing that mounts to the wall, treadmills etc. Outside is so much better than all of those. I will 100% run in single digit temperatures with snow on the ground before I touch a treadmill. If I have to be inside it's weight lifting.

You prefer to exercise outside, others of us prefer to exercise on a machine. So what? I'm not sure what the point of your comment is.

My point is I don't like them. Why do you get to have an opinion and I don't?

Re: Locked out of 'God Mode', runners are hacking their treadmills

#439

Post by CountDrewku » Wed, Jan 19, 2022, 4:14 PM UTC

jasonlotito wrote: post #42

CountDrewku wrote: post #29

I don't understand this obsession with electronic exercise devices. The peloton, that stupid thing that mounts to the wall, treadmills etc. Outside is so much better than all of those. I will 100% run in single digit temperatures with snow on the ground before I touch a treadmill. If I have to be inside it's weight lifting.

Kids, safety, convenience, positive encouragement, all these things help. Not everyone is as privileged as you where you can easily just go outside and leave your home without a care in the world.

You can't go outside where you live but you can afford expensive electronic exercise machines? Sounds like you need to change your priorities.

Re: Locked out of 'God Mode', runners are hacking their treadmills

#440

Post by scrubs » Wed, Jan 19, 2022, 4:41 PM UTC

gorjusborg wrote: post #17

This type of 'update' is one reason I tend to stay away from so-called 'smart' devices. If part of the product I've paid for is software, and the company can update it without customer consent at any time, then I can't rely on the product's features. Period. I experienced this myself on the PS4 version of Terraria. I bought a hard-copy of the game. I mastered the controls, and loved them. Terraria was updated one day…

For those of us are were of age when the internet and (later) big-data became a thing, we can only applaud the work of so many smart people. We see engineering plus entrepreneurship at its best. The varied inversion, however, of who has the majority control of an object or service post-purchase has lately gone to the provider not customer. Folks, that's a problem. We've seen this,

- here

- John Deer self-fix stories

- Apple store stories (and Android/Google variations)

- Several flavors of techs at places like best buy quivering in their boots at an Apple fix. Techs keep blabbering on about Apple repair policy and what they cannot do. I finally had to tell the guy: Start telling me what you can do, or I'll talk to somebody else. All I asked for was if they have a screw driver to take the bottom plate off, which I later got off Amazon.

- General issues of privacy

We gotta get back to customer satisfaction. Eventually --- not as quick as we might prefer --- customers will realize they have the stronger position and use it. Indeed, if I plunk down money for an object, my assessment counts. I do not accept some paper pusher a large-corp-America gainsaying that.