[HN Gopher] Making Quieter Technology
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Making Quieter Technology
Author : nicbou
Score : 41 points
Date : 2022-08-07 19:34 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (nicolasbouliane.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (nicolasbouliane.com)
| sumul wrote:
| I endorse getting away from as much news as possible. I made that
| choice after the 2016 US elections, and it has been a big,
| sustained improvement in my quality of life. I've found that if
| something is important, I'll hear about it from friends, family,
| or co-workers. Hearing about important things from people I trust
| is way better than hearing about them from news outlets trying
| their hardest to keep me hooked. Sometimes I get the bewildered,
| mouth-agape reaction of "you haven't heard of this???" but it
| took a surprisingly short amount of time to feel no embarrassment
| about being out of the loop and simply responding with, "nope!
| please tell me all about it."
| sneak wrote:
| > _I can 't delete social media because my job depends on it._
|
| Unless you are Mark Zuckerberg or employed by Facebook or Reddit,
| I question the veracity of this statement.
|
| Your world will not end if you delete your social media accounts.
| You probably won't even reduce your income.
|
| Social media is invested in you believing that you simply _must_
| be on it for your business to survive. This is a lie.
| nicbou wrote:
| I use it to follow people's recent experience with various
| bureaucratic processes. These discussions happen on social
| media, so it's where I look for them.
| dan-robertson wrote:
| There are two totally different kinds of technology noise I
| dislike:
|
| 1. Why do so many gadgets have to beep? Microwaves, washing
| machines, ...
|
| 2. Engine noise. Some cars/motorbikes are specifically
| designed/modified to be loud because that's what the customer
| wants. Some small/uninsulated engines (eg in a cheaper
| motorbike/scooter) are also loud.
| thfuran wrote:
| Engine noise inside the vehicle is horrible and I don't know
| why anyone would want it. Engine noise outside the vehicle
| probably reduces the rates at which collisions occur.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > Engine noise. Some cars/motorbikes are specifically
| designed/modified to be loud because that's what the customer
| wants.
|
| Then there are the cars that aren't loud, so they play
| recordings of engine noise over the audio system.
|
| BMW has apparently gone as far as making the fake engine noise
| user-configurable, except that _you can 't turn it off_.
| Because if you don't want to be forced to listen to fake engine
| noise, you're not the type of customer BMW wants, I guess. You
| probably shouldn't be allowed to vote or own property either.
| spoonjim wrote:
| Oof. Now is probably your last chance to get a decent
| naturally asprirated I6 BMW without all that nonsense.
| julik wrote:
| I think this is a case of some misguided product managers
| (and since German car companies are known to be huge
| bureacracies - no wonder). It seems like there is a great
| important safety aspect to it - that first you can hear that
| the vehicle is moving (there is an audio cue), and second is
| the affordance that you pressing on the accelerator has an
| effect (that the accelerator/electronics is not broken) -
| idem for braking.
|
| Interestingly enough, railway engines had this problem solved
| a number of decades ago when they started using mechanical
| speedometers based on a clock. When the vehicle would start
| moving, the speedometer would start ticking. The faster you
| go the faster the ticking. Seems like electric cars need
| something similar (it does seem like a very useful safety
| feature to be honest).
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > When the vehicle would start moving, the speedometer
| would start ticking. The faster you go the faster the
| ticking. Seems like electric cars need something similar
|
| This would effectively prevent many people from listening
| to music in the car. It would not be tolerated.
|
| Which brings up the point that people very frequently
| choose to drown out the engine noise. That obviously limits
| how useful the engine noise can be, though of course it
| isn't very useful anyway. You cannot fail to sense that the
| car is moving if your eyes are open. You cannot fail to
| sense whether the brakes are working even if your eyes are
| closed.
| vbezhenar wrote:
| Playing engine noise is one of the most ridiculous thing I've
| ever known. I love BMW noise. I owned old BMW and I loved its
| sound. But I loved it because it was produced by engine that
| I loved, not because it was produced by some stupid
| subwoofer. I have no idea how would anyone buy that tech and
| I lost my faith in humanity that BMW did not go bankrupt with
| this move. I know that the only BMW car I would ever buy is
| E34, it was last BMW worth those letters.
| thefz wrote:
| > A good operating system: Mac OS. Windows has become so user-
| hostile that I refuse to get near it. Linux breaks the rule
| above: a person's primary task should not be computing, but being
| human.
|
| This is where I closed the window
| JadeNB wrote:
| > This is where I closed the window
|
| Just telling us that you simply didn't read the article is
| probably a significantly less valuable contribution to HN than
| offering your own (presumably contradictory) experience,
| expertise, or opinion.
| egypturnash wrote:
| I've been taking a similar route for the past decade or so. It's
| pretty nice. I still fall into the internet hole when I'm
| slouched on the couch with the tablet, I need to ponder some ways
| to fix that.
|
| ...ooh, Apple's "Screen Time" controls on the iPad will let me
| limit my time on a website, and supposedly sync to my Mac, too.
| Sharply limiting Twitter should break the habit of getting lost
| in replies and scrolling when someone links to a good tweet.
| Nice. Thanks for giving me a reason to examine my own habits
| around the Internet, Mr. Bouliane!
| blondin wrote:
| i have made peace with the fact that technology will evolve in
| the direction the masses want it. not the way i want it. i want a
| quiet lifestyle like author, but maybe the majority does not.
|
| tiktok is proof that quiet is not what people want right now.
| nicbou wrote:
| Technology has become a sort of paperclip optimizer for
| engagement. What we want only matters so long as we engage.
|
| People probably don't want to get into internet fights, but
| it's how we're wired. The machine - its workers, managers,
| C-levels and algorithms - found that strip mining our attention
| and fuelling outrage somehow boosts its metrics. So it does
| that.
| verdverm wrote:
| One thing that has been frustrating me is how many lights, and
| bright ones, are on everything I buy these days. A single tiny
| LED is lighting up entire rooms enough to navigate without
| tripping on anything in the dark.
| JadeNB wrote:
| > One thing that has been frustrating me is how many lights,
| and bright ones, are on everything I buy these days.
|
| While I am sympathetic to this, I'm lucky enough that it
| doesn't much bother me and so I hadn't even noticed it; but I
| _really_ miss the old Powerbook G4 heartbeat.
| corytheboyd wrote:
| I cannot sleep with gadget lights on, and LEDs are the absolute
| worst. They're usually easy enough to block out as other
| commenters have said, but it's so annoying to get into bed,
| finally comfortable, and then BAM fucking LED that I have to
| now get up and deal with.
| nicbou wrote:
| Black electrical tape to the rescue
| xmddmx wrote:
| Sometimes I still want to see the LED. In this situation, I
| use blue painters tape, and keep adding layers until the LED
| is at a reasonable level. You really need to check this in a
| completely dark room to get it right.
| verdverm wrote:
| lol, I've done this a bit, but it makes everything look
| broken
| throwaheyy wrote:
| A dot of black permanent marker seems to work well. Blocks
| out enough light to remove the distraction, while still
| allowing enough to indicate something working.
| JaimeThompson wrote:
| These, sometimes, look a little better than electrical
| tape. I haven't used this brand, it was just the first one
| I found. [1]
|
| [1] https://www.amazon.com/FLANCCI-Blocking-Stickers-
| Dimming-Bla...
| wvenable wrote:
| I never thought to look for that before! Amazing. I
| currently have a lot of black electrical tape over
| everything.
| crooked-v wrote:
| That only helps when the device doesn't have an LED
| that's inside an open casing and so ends up visibly
| shining from every hole in the device and/or through the
| thin plastic itself.
| verdverm wrote:
| these are the worst, or when they are on a button like my
| monitor
| cassianoleal wrote:
| I've been sticking these things on everything. Not this
| particular brand either, but I doubt there's much
| difference between brands.
|
| It allows enoughlight through so you can see what's going
| on but not enough that will illuminate the room or
| distract you just by being there.
| egypturnash wrote:
| Black masking tape. It's not opaque enough to block the
| light entirely; this means you can do a few layers to dim
| it to taste. Once that's sorted, a quick trim with an
| x-acto blade will tidy up the edges and make it all look
| intentional from a distance.
| [deleted]
| jibbers wrote:
| I was able to read about half the article before a black box
| appeared with text saying I was an "engaged reader." After
| clicking on the question mark icon in the black box I was taken
| to a page where it was explained how the author has hidden
| "achievements" throughout their site and asks if I, the reader,
| can find them all.
|
| This feels like the exact thing the author is rallying about in
| this post -- technology designed to keep us in front of our
| screens.
| nicbou wrote:
| Haha I forgot about those entirely! It was a fun time killer
| from a few years ago, not a way to keep you hooked. I don't
| have any tracking whatsoever on this website, so I wouldn't
| notice if you engaged more.
| iasay wrote:
| That is some irony there.
|
| If you want people to be engaged, delivering content that
| respects them is the only step. Engagement measurement and
| mechanics that interfere with that only serve to reduce that
| respect.
| rahen wrote:
| > I should be the user, it should be the tool, not the other way
| around.
|
| > A good operating system: Mac OS. Windows has become so user-
| hostile that I refuse to get near it. Linux breaks the rule
| above: a person's primary task should not be computing, but being
| human.
|
| That's certainly understandable, although it can also be
| contradictory with your goal of having quiet technology that
| leaves the user alone.
|
| MacOS can be opaque and annoying at times, especially when there
| are no settings for something you want or need, but piles of
| "social" settings junk you don't need. Recently macOS wasted my
| time to find a way to map the begin and end keys of my K380
| keyboard, which wasn't even an issue with Linux. No settings for
| that, it's still getting in my way.
|
| It also takes some effort to silence it; I routinely get popups
| about my screen time, suggestions and whatsnot. All those are
| distractions and wastes of time I don't have with Linux.
|
| Otherwise I use a slim stable distribution (Debian stable) with a
| tiling WM and mate-settings-daemon: few processes running, few
| updates, and I feel in actual control of the machine. It's really
| leaving me alone, wastes little of my time and feels quieter to
| me than macOS.
|
| Anyway, you're posting this on HN so I guess you assumed that
| kind of answer.
| nicbou wrote:
| Yes, I expected it. It was offensive enough for someone else to
| quit reading. I found my OS of choice. To each their own.
| _gabe_ wrote:
| > A good operating system: Mac OS. Windows has become so user-
| hostile that I refuse to get near it.
|
| Like...? Windows annoys me at times too, but the most annoying
| thing to me is the forced updates. Other than that, I can't
| recall any time in recent memory that the OS has gotten in my way
| of doing something. I'm genuinely curious which specific pain
| points cause you to refuse to get near it.
| jbay808 wrote:
| I recently set up Windows on a bunch of new computers, and was
| reminded of how atrocious the process is. All sorts of widgets,
| telemetry, and bloatware coming along for the ride. There's a
| laundry list of config changes and uninstalls necessary before
| it quiets down and gets out of the way. Once you have it set up
| the way you like it, it's easy to forget all that.
|
| If you go through that ritual a lot, or never do the deep
| clean, or only use Windows occasionally and only see the
| default setting, it's a perfectly understandable impression.
| [deleted]
| danuker wrote:
| Windows defends me against the threat of privacy.
|
| Quite literally, a certain GPG binary triggers Microsoft
| Defender.
|
| https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/wdsi/threats/malware-encyclo...
| xmddmx wrote:
| "I made my calendar louder to check my phone less. It vibrates
| like an alarm until I get to it. "
|
| macOS and iOS user here - how do you configure that?
|
| I find that Calendar reminders are not loud enough (they give a
| single notification which is easy for me to dismiss by accident).
| When I need to really be reminded, I set an Alarm "Hey siri, set
| an alarm for 4pm titled 'check your calendar'"
|
| What's your secret?
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| Well written. I wonder if I would have enjoyed the previous
| version he mentions? Good writing comes from rewriting.
|
| I already do a few of these things and it's made a big
| difference. I should try and expand with PiHole and/or
| uBlacklist.
|
| Something I've really loved is running NoScript! in Firefox...
| but I won't pretend at all it is even remotely appropriate for
| non-programmers. You really need to understand JS and web design
| to still have functioning websites.
|
| It would be nice to get a maintained list of "you actually need
| this" scripts for websites and auto block the known bullshit.
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