Your pet peeve, technical or otherwise.

[SiliconWizard]

One of the most concerning point, beyond the orwellian factor, is that this isn't cops behind the wheels. It's outsourced to private companies.

That's the part that I find disturbing. It's clearly a revenue machine, otherwise they'd have police out there patrolling.

I wouldn't mind police cars patrolling highways to spot risky behaviors and prevent accidents. Whatever this is, it's none of that.

[IDEngineer]

One of the most concerning point, beyond the orwellian factor, is that this isn't cops behind the wheels. It's outsourced to private companies.

That's the part that I find disturbing. It's clearly a revenue machine, otherwise they'd have police out there patrolling.

Here in the States it's common for private companies to install license-plate-reading traffic cams. They mail you the ticket and the company splits the revenue with the jurisdiction. There was a big dustup over this in Spokane recently, got a lot of local news coverage. I don't know how it turned out but folks were NOT happy that 1) a private for-profit company was in a position to accuse you of an offense, and then 2) profit from it.

[james_s]

Here in the States it's common for private companies to install license-plate-reading traffic cams. They mail you the ticket and the company splits the revenue with the jurisdiction. There was a big dustup over this in Spokane recently, got a lot of local news coverage. I don't know how it turned out but folks were NOT happy that 1) a private for-profit company was in a position to accuse you of an offense, and then 2) profit from it.

About 15 years ago people in a city nearby me tried to use a citizens initiative to abolish the red light cameras. A city official was quoted as saying "We need the revenue" and that instantly made me realize they are not about safety. Some stats that I've seen suggest that they actually cause an increase in accidents as people change their mind and slam on the brakes at the last moment.

[floobydust]

New York: "... roughly 2,200 speed cameras and about 220 red-light cameras assigned fines that brought in more than $200 million."
"But the Department of Transportation said that roughly 4 percent of its 28 million camera activations were foiled by unreadable plates". source.

Apparently the thing is putting a leaf sticker or bending your plate to thwart the cameras, and now vigilantes straightening them out lol.
But that's quite the cash cow.

[CatalinaWOW]

I have mixed feeling about the red light cameras.  In several cities I have found that people in turn lanes feel entitled to continue on the same light, long after it has turned red.  I have counted up to seven cars passing after my light has turned green.   In some cases they consumed the entire cycle of the light for my direction.  One or two might be ascribed to making a bad estimate of the time to clear the yellow, but not seven.  This can't enhance safety, and surely resulted in some road rage.   In Tucson when red light cameras were installed it largely stopped this behavior at the intersections having cameras.  But those people who got caught stretching the lights raised such a clamor that they were removed and the old and bad behavior returned.   

The problem is not fundamentally difficult.  As you approach a light you know that it may change.  When the caution arrow comes on you may have a decision to make, but in most jurisdictions (not some suburbs of Portland) there is some margin making it pretty easy to make a legal decision.  If you can't make speed/time/distance estimates at the speeds involved in turning you probably shouldn't be driving.   The only ones who are forced into dangerous behavior by trying to comply with the law are those not driving sensibly in the first place.  Particularly the one in back of the one slamming on the brakes who was definitely following too close.

It is simple on the other side too.  In the Tucson example human operators (often police) reviewed the camera data.  As was reported they were legally very strict on the definitions of clearing the intersection, etc.  If they had only ticketed the flagrant offenders, letting those who barely crossed the lines it would have resulted in far less anger, and quite possibly still ended the multiple vehicles passing a red light behavior.

[james_s]

New York: "... roughly 2,200 speed cameras and about 220 red-light cameras assigned fines that brought in more than $200 million."
"But the Department of Transportation said that roughly 4 percent of its 28 million camera activations were foiled by unreadable plates". source.

Apparently the thing is putting a leaf sticker or bending your plate to thwart the cameras, and now vigilantes straightening them out lol.
But that's quite the cash cow.

I thought about the feasibility of a bright IR license plate light to blind the camera but having never been nailed by one it has not been a big priority for me.

[james_s]

I have mixed feeling about the red light cameras.  In several cities I have found that people in turn lanes feel entitled to continue on the same light, long after it has turned red.  I have counted up to seven cars passing after my light has turned green.   In some cases they consumed the entire cycle of the light for my direction.  One or two might be ascribed to making a bad estimate of the time to clear the yellow, but not seven.  This can't enhance safety, and surely resulted in some road rage.   In Tucson when red light cameras were installed it largely stopped this behavior at the intersections having cameras.  But those people who got caught stretching the lights raised such a clamor that they were removed and the old and bad behavior returned.   

I get the problem, red light running is a big problem, the people that do that drive me nuts. The issue I have is not catching those people, but the robotic cameras that take no other factors into consideration and do not give you the opportunity to argue your case in front of a judge. They *could* be implemented in such a way as to improve safety but instead they are tuned for increased revenue. Several cities have been caught adjusting the amber light intervals on camera enforced intersections down to the bare minimum allowed time in order to increase revenue.

[paulca]

Salt is horrible, evil stuff that should be illegal to put on roads. It costs billions of dollars a year in destroyed cars and infrastructure. I'll drive in snow no problem but I won't drive in salt. I can't even comprehend how someone could be ok with such a major investment as a car only lasting 10 years.

Yea, I forgot about the road salt.  Most of this light coloured dirt is actually salt.

Snow is not the issue.  It's sheet ice is the issue.  You tend to find it in hard to see place in the middle of bends.  There are evenings when they can't salt the roads because it's raining or going to rain through the night.  If it freezes the next monrning, it's black, sheet, invisible ice everywhere.  You can't see it because it just looks like black, wet, road, but it's obviously deadly.  Snow is a known quantity and it's obvious.  Note the tyres on my car (this is my old one), are winters.  Not because of snow, but because the car came fitted with performance "Summer" tyres not rated below 10*C.  The winters aren't meant to be used above 10*C.  They provide amazing grip on ice and frost, but I have never really got to test them in snow!

[SilverSolder]

All we need now is some energy-saving activists pushing for automobile high beams to be PWM'd at about 2 to 10 Hz to save power, just like many bicyclists do.

Who cares if it makes others dizzy and vomit?  Think of the energy savings, the future of future babies and the environmental devastation averted!

 

And speaking of speed limits, over here they are deploying several hundreds of speed limit checking cars - of course with absolutely no indication of it on the cars, so you'll never know if there is one on the road - on our highways. They'll be able to fine any vehicle they detect as driving over the limit, without you knowing (until you receive the fine.) Just like radars, but moving on the road in the traffic.

Nice times I say!

Radar detector, or similar tech?

There's a driver behind the wheel and they will spot the offenders and trigger the flash. I don't know the details of the kind of radar they use as it must account for their own vehicle's speed.

One of the most concerning point, beyond the orwellian factor, is that this isn't cops behind the wheels. It's outsourced to private companies.

There are always electronic countermeasures! 

[paulca]

How the younger generation and big corporates are destroying the www... and mobile apps in general.

Everyday now I see issues.  The "Back" button becoming non-functional.  Single-page-webapps always taking you back to the home page.  In apps, right click having no effect or doing the same thing as left, because mobiles don't have 2 buttons and macs have 1.  All web functionality being reduced down to the low common demononator for mobile use.

It's even little conventions that have been completely forgotten.  Why when you go to a log in page does the login form not automatically focus?  Well, that because in mobile space you have to click it anyway to get the keyboard up.  If you attempt to "tab" your way there you'll find that convention has been forgotten or abused for ages.

Now a few weeks ago I discovered another breach into the sacred convention of the status bar showing your the ACTUAL URL you are going to.  Apparently both Chrome and Firefox now support "ad hiding" and URL masquerading of proxy/relay hosts such as "googleadservices.com".

Does nobody have any respect anymore?

Rarr,rarr,waves fists.  GET OFF MY LAWN!

[MrMobodies]

I am sorry I misread the above. It is about the status bar. So now they playing around with that.

Now a few weeks ago I discovered another breach into the sacred convention of the status bar showing your the ACTUAL URL you are going to. Apparently both Chrome and Firefox now support "ad hiding" and URL masquerading of proxy/relay hosts such as "googleadservices.com".

I thought they stopped that nonsense after giving up on hiding the https and providing an option to show it.
https://www.androidpolice.com/2021/06/10/google-ends-its-attack-on-the-url-bar-resumes-showing-full-address-in-chrome/

I haven't seen it yet as I use Vivaldi mainly (dressed up version of chrome) and some old version of Chrome launched by shortcuts to individual profiles to specific things and sites.

I just found this:
https://www.groovypost.com/howto/make-chrome-display-the-full-url-in-the-address-bar/#:~:text=If you want to force,Always Show Full URLs option.


Right click to show full urls where I believed that was to do with showing the full url including the https.
It wouldn't surprise me if they changed their minds again.

How the younger generation and big corporates are destroying the www... and mobile apps in general.

My experience has already been ruined by their massive big spammy nav/toolbars headers, that I sometimes find, excessive use of dimming overlays, spinners, page slowing animations under the name "preloaders" and other page/content interfering things where I am at the mercy of even more extensions to manage them. I only started to use adblock when I discovered that it can hide auto suggest lines on google search when they removed the option back in 2015 to hide suggestions.

[AndyBeez]

Otherwise peeve?

C o r p o r a t e  G R E E N W A S H I N G

Maybe something was lost in translation, but here HP joyously claim their TV product uses 85% recycled plastic/metal and 5% ocean bound plastic.

So is there a mountain of plastic in Korea/China that is specifically designated as dump at sea? Why not use 100% of ocean bound plastic, instead of leaving the other 95% floating in the Plastific Ocean 

Or why not make your products sustainable by making them last 

[paulca]

Plastic(s) are not the problem.  Single use plastic and the waste management of is the problem.

The knee jerk reaction against plastic is causing a massive spike is produce waste in supermarkets.  A properly protected lettuce might have a shelf life of 3-5 days.  An unprotected one, 1 maybe 2.  But because concerned customer demand they use less plastic they now charge more for lettuce and dump far, far more of it.  I believe Tesco's actually published information to say their fresh produce waste has increase 3 fold on "plastic free" packaging lines.

[paulca]

An interesting point was put to me by Sabine - YouTube scientist.

Given that plastic is mostly carbon and we are storing it in land fills and the oceans.... isn't that a good thing?  We are now trying to develop bacteria and decomposers that will attack plastic and turn it back into CO2.  <-- This could go SO, So, so badly wrong.  People in plastic hulled, lined or sealed boats and ships might have a bit to worry about.

Has anyone actually stopped and thought this through?

[james_s]

So is there a mountain of plastic in Korea/China that is specifically designated as dump at sea? Why not use 100% of ocean bound plastic, instead of leaving the other 95% floating in the Plastific Ocean 

The problem is common to most forms of recycling. Recycled material is not as pure as virgin stuff and making it adequately pure is very difficult. If you tried to make a plastic housing out of 100% ocean recovered or otherwise recycled plastic the quality and finish would not be anywhere near good enough. If you mix a small percentage as filler in virgin material the end result is nicer.

I'm assuming by "ocean bound" they mean recovered from the ocean, not headed for the ocean as the literal meaning of the phrase would imply but I really don't know about that. Maybe it's some BS where they collect types of plastic most likely to end up in the ocean and call that ocean bound.

[james_s]

Plastic(s) are not the problem.  Single use plastic and the waste management of is the problem.

The knee jerk reaction against plastic is causing a massive spike is produce waste in supermarkets.  A properly protected lettuce might have a shelf life of 3-5 days.  An unprotected one, 1 maybe 2.  But because concerned customer demand they use less plastic they now charge more for lettuce and dump far, far more of it.  I believe Tesco's actually published information to say their fresh produce waste has increase 3 fold on "plastic free" packaging lines.

On top of that, areas like my state have instituted bans on single use plastic bags. The problem with this is that a large number of "single use" bags were actually reused for things like lining waste baskets and scooping cat boxes. I used to use them for that but now I ended up buying a box of the old fashioned single use shopping bags specifically for these purposes. The plastic bags they do offer now are ostensibly reusable and are much heavier, using many times as much plastic as the old bags but few people bother to bring them back in so they end up being single use and consume more material than before. Paper bags are easily recycled but recycled paper is of limited use and making these bags results in something like 80 million trees per year being consumed just in the USA. The net result of these plastic bag bans has been an increase in plastic consumption AND an increase in tree consumption and yet people vote for them because it *feels* like they're helping. They would help "if people just did xyz", the problem is that in the real world people just *don't* do these things.

[SiliconWizard]

All we need now is some energy-saving activists pushing for automobile high beams to be PWM'd at about 2 to 10 Hz to save power, just like many bicyclists do.

Who cares if it makes others dizzy and vomit?  Think of the energy savings, the future of future babies and the environmental devastation averted!

 

And speaking of speed limits, over here they are deploying several hundreds of speed limit checking cars - of course with absolutely no indication of it on the cars, so you'll never know if there is one on the road - on our highways. They'll be able to fine any vehicle they detect as driving over the limit, without you knowing (until you receive the fine.) Just like radars, but moving on the road in the traffic.

Nice times I say!

Radar detector, or similar tech?

There's a driver behind the wheel and they will spot the offenders and trigger the flash. I don't know the details of the kind of radar they use as it must account for their own vehicle's speed.

One of the most concerning point, beyond the orwellian factor, is that this isn't cops behind the wheels. It's outsourced to private companies.

There are always electronic countermeasures! 

Well, you can install "specific" license plates for instance. This shouldn't be much risk with those private radar vehicles, as those guys have no possibility of arresting you, so if the plate number doesn't show on the pictures, they can't do anything. Problem is, if you install this kind of plates, and run into an actual cop, you are in trouble. And you never know (although you can assume that the more of those private vehicles on the road, and the fewer the cops, as this is going to be used to lower the public operational costs.)

Not that I recommend doing this at all, of course.

[Bud]

Who are those elusive "customers" who "vote" for end of plastic bags use in groccery stores? I am yet to see/know a single person. Terminating plastic bags has created nothing but inconvenience for shoppers in stores that ironically called "convenience" stores. It is all corporate driven.

[SiliconWizard]

Who are those elusive "customers" who "vote" for end of plastic bags use in groccery stores? I am yet to see/know a single person. Terminating plastic bags has created nothing but inconvenience for shoppers in stores that ironically called "convenience" stores. It is all corporate driven.

And now it's the disposable dishes thing that are being attacked. They are becoming illegal. So fast food restaurants are now getting rid of them and buying enormous amounts of non-disposable plastic dishes, which undoubtedly is a much better idea than disposable cardboard stuff.

[james_s]

Well, you can install "specific" license plates for instance. This shouldn't be much risk with those private radar vehicles, as those guys have no possibility of arresting you, so if the plate number doesn't show on the pictures, they can't do anything. Problem is, if you install this kind of plates, and run into an actual cop, you are in trouble. And you never know (although you can assume that the more of those private vehicles on the road, and the fewer the cops, as this is going to be used to lower the public operational costs.)

Not that I recommend doing this at all, of course.

Seems like I saw an article a couple years ago where someone was caught with a James Bond style rotating license plate mechanism on their car.

[IDEngineer]

Why not an LCD license plate? Scan your issued one and display the image most of the time.

[SiliconWizard]

Why not an LCD license plate? Scan your issued one and display the image most of the time.

The ones I had in mind are LCD-based, but are not displays. The LCD covers the whole plate and just hides the plate when it detects a flash. Pretty effective.

[AndyBeez]

Who are those elusive "customers" who "vote" for end of plastic bags use in groccery stores? I am yet to see/know a single person. Terminating plastic bags has created nothing but inconvenience for shoppers in stores that ironically called "convenience" stores. It is all corporate driven.

Greenwashing. Simply tell people they are being environmentally friendly by congratulating them on opting for the cheap crap option; this saves businesses money and makes vocal wokes think they are saving the planet by changing everyone else's behaviour. Meanwhile, it still takes consumers 25 minutes to find a parking space in the out of town shopping mal. Unless they are driving an EV when, they soon discover there are no charging sockets at this plastic bag free supermarket!

As for all of that plastic floating in the ocean, one could ask how my waste plastic that is dutifully collected for recycling in the UK, manages to get into the Pacific and Antarctic oceans and kill dolphins? Maybe they package my recycling into a ship, which sails to the other side of the planet, where it springs a leak and sinks. Every month.

[james_s]

The ones I had in mind are LCD-based, but are not displays. The LCD covers the whole plate and just hides the plate when it detects a flash. Pretty effective.

I wonder if a passive solution would work, something retroreflective perhaps, optimized for the upward angle where a pole mounted camera would be to overwhelm the dynamic range of the camera. The cameras they use must be pretty good, the security cameras I have at my house struggle to see a license plate in the evening when relying on the built in IR illumination.

[SilverSolder]

An interesting point was put to me by Sabine - YouTube scientist.

Given that plastic is mostly carbon and we are storing it in land fills and the oceans.... isn't that a good thing?  We are now trying to develop bacteria and decomposers that will attack plastic and turn it back into CO2.  <-- This could go SO, So, so badly wrong.  People in plastic hulled, lined or sealed boats and ships might have a bit to worry about.

Has anyone actually stopped and thought this through?

I seem to remember an old sci-fi movie, where a plastic eating virus escaped in flight on a plane...    [edit:  Andromeda Strain?]