Absolutely random thought semi-related to the topic.
This is one of the better voice clones of Musk but it's still really bad because he never lost his whatever accent, and every voice clone I've heard (mostly the ones on fake Starship launch videos) speaks with perfect American accent.
it seems most of these crosswalks can be configured via app from https://polara.com/ . So either the authentication was leaked or got physically flashed/hacked?
> SIMPLE WIRELESS PROGRAMMING
The iNX is easily programmed using our industry-leading
Field Service App, available for iOS® & Android® – no
expensive software or proprietary devices required! The app allows technicians to configure system settings and
sounds, as well as access actionable data on button counts, flashing cycles, and more.
They said "The app allows technicians to configure system settings and sounds"; They never said the app _doesn't_ allow _non-technicians_ to do the same. What's the big deal?
Someone is either guessing the passwords, which may well be the same all over the city given the number of these devices out there, or cities could just be using the default password of 1234. Yes, really:
> PASSWORD ISSUES: The iCCU can be connected to thru Wi-Fi. The buttons can be connected to thru Bluetooth.
A. Once Wi-Fi is turned on at the iCCU, the Wi-Fi password is DEFAULT1 (ALL CAPS).
B. Following power up, each button will say “change password” every 30 seconds, until the default password is changed. There is one shared password for logging into an iCCU and all PBS connected to it. The factory default password is 1234. Using a Field Service app, use 1234 to log into the iCCU or any PBS the first time, and change the password. This changes the password for all PBS and the iCCU. See Section 5.2 in the Manual for details.
C. If the password is unknown, a Password Reset requires a call to Polara Tech Support.
I'll take garbage ads over dystopian "the city implores you to <some thing I probably would have done anyway if left to my own devices>" messages any day.
I really do not understand people complaining about PSAs. Like learn some emotional maturity? If you weren't going to do the thing they're asking you not to do, then the message wasn't directed at you and you can go about your day just fine.
I think it's because it alters the moral context of the act that you're going to take anyway. If I pick up a piece of litter on my own initiative, that's an act of virtue. If I pick it up after a petty authority tells me to, that's an act of subservience. People get upset at the existence of PSAs because (in this view) they rob them of the ability to act virtuously. Which is not at all a small thing!
Yes, emotional maturity can help, and it also depends on perspective (whether I identify with the author of the PSA). But when the situation gets more complex than picking up litter, I think people forget that this dynamic exists and is important.
Different people have different responses to condescension, perhaps? You probably never even considered that. Consider it next time and be better. Hope that helps.
Fifty four percent of Americans read below the sixth grade level. All effective PSA's must primarily target people who don't understand the world around them, and likely never will.
It's not condescending, because it's not targeted to you.
> You are implying that people don't understand the world if their reading level is low?
I'm not implying anything. I am directly stating that people who can't read well do not, and can not, understand the modern world.
For example, how would someone that reads below the sixth grade level understand the tariff situation, Artificial Intelligence, or Cryptocurrency? Can they make good healthcare decisions, or manage a 401k properly? Can they choose an elected representative who has their best interests, and the interests of our nation in mind? I think not, and furthermore, they will spend their lives as financial prey animals to those who are more capable.
Do you seriously believe something different? Maybe I'm missing something obvious.
The thing is it doesn’t get across to the bad offenders. My train has adverts imploring you to not graffiti. I bet that has swayed literally zero people to stop marking up the traincar. And yet, someone had to make the useless sign, someone had to print it, someone had to install it on all the trains, and then someone has to replace it when that sign is then defaced.
Some British right wing journalist/politician made a splash complaining about health and safety announcements and signs on the underground recently. I think the issue they have is that it's a tacit admission that we have a responsibility to other people, individually and collectively. And not just to those who pay us or who we can benefit from, but to humanity as a whole.
The “see it say it sorted” messages have been fodder for left wing comedians for years. Everyone hates them. Most people ignore them by donning headphones.
This is completely out of touch with my worldview. I've lived in and around London my whole life and, while "see it say it sorted" is a common joke, I've never once heard someone say they dislike them
I've come across several of these that if you press them enough say "Change Password". I'm guessing they've never had their passwords changed from default.
Very nice. Totally harmless prank and it clowns on jerks who deserve a good clowning! Hope the pranksters continue and keep it lowkey so they don’t get caught.
The targets of this deserve every bit of shade that can be thrown at them, but unfortunately, this fucks with crosswalk accessibility for the visually impaired.
As someone who is moderately visually impaired, I'd be very suspicious of a prompt that had obviously been tampered with. There's one post already in this submission suggesting a "prank" of sending people out into traffic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43670396
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.
"vaccines cause autism" == the other direction actual positions that lack any humour at all because they are the dumbest bunch of them all to even fathom something that could be considered humorous by any working brain and instead only positions are made by the emotional impulses given by saying "fuck the liberals" or "own the liberals" or anything close enough.
Edit: I see that I'm already in the negative numbers with this comment, I fear that entertaining the idea that the right has any positions worth entertaining its the thing that got us into this mess in the first place, and I'm sure you know exactly what "mess" means in this context.
This HN post is seven days old but displayed and ranked as if it was posted 9 hours ago, with all timestamps falsified. The déjà vu effect is disconcerting and an absolute mind fuck. Please stop doing this, ffs. The person who thought this would be a good idea is a madman.
Wild! I definitely remember commenting on this last week and sure enough my comment shows below as “8 hours ago” (while I was asleep). What kind of sorcery is going on?
HN has a "second chance queue" for posts that the powers-that-be believe could've/should've gotten more attention but didn't. Happened to one of my posts once, which was confusing as all hell at first but made sense once I learned about it.
The fact that previously undiscovered posts sometimes get upvoted and make it to the front page after getting their "second chance" demonstrates the feature's utility.
You see that all the time with social media and reposts though. Sometimes the reposts hit sometimes not. In either case falsifying the record and making it seem like there is active discussion when most of the original comments have moved on already is a bit of a stupid feature.
Second chance queue is basically dang getting unilateral authority to be an empowered reposter and probably looking at internal data when the site is most active to drop the stale post back in.
Not really. Interesting posts can get buried easily just because they were posted at a bad time and people don't delve that far into the second or further pages. It's been going for almost 9 years now. I think it's a good idea.
The big issue is you reply to a comment from an hour ago but never get a reply, because that comment was actually made two weeks ago and the original commenter is not reviewing those old posts for new replies. This leads to a silencing of discussion in the worst way where one party has no idea they aren’t getting heard and the other party has no idea they are being spoken to.
I was wondering about that not knowing exactly how age affected the ranking of comments. Does seem like it'd be way easier to just fake the whole thing. I wonder if they show up as newer in the individual users' comment views too?
Can confirm. Once dang pinged me directly by email saying that my story was re-upped. The story went again to the frontpage and the date was adapted (IIRC), but the comments were kept:
---
Hi denysvitali,
The submission "PostmarketOS-Powered Kubernetes Cluster" that you posted to Hacker News (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42352075) looks good, but hasn't had much attention so far. We put it in the second-chance pool, so it will get a random placement on the front page some time in the next day or so.
This is a way of giving good HN submissions multiple chances at the front page. If you're curious, you can read about it at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998308 and other links there. And if you don't want these emails, sorry! Let us know and we won't do it again.
Yeah except the tones and walk messages still play, it just doesn't spam wait over and over at a red. Do you think because it's playing a satirical message blind people will ignore the tones and just start running into traffic?
I don't think it even does spam "wait" over and over; I've never heard that in my life. With every such crosswalk I've encountered (in multiple cities across the US) it only says "wait" for each time you press the button.
Why don't you explain the reason and then after you've done that, I can inform you that they don't actually do that. I always mash them to DJ up a Wait-Wa-wa-wa-wai-wai-wait-wa-wa-wa-wait. But I always enjoy it when a Hacker News user provides reasons for why something is a certain way only to find that it's not actually that way.
Haha I have a pet peeve where people “explain why things are a certain way” when they are not that way. Apart from that you can argue about programmable speakers all you like.
They're annoyed at your "Have you considered that there's a reason?" for strongly implying there's an explanation for the incorrect fact. They dislike that whole type of statement. Their reading comprehension is fine and you're just nitpicking their wording.
Also, saying "Have you considered that there's a reason?" is not at all the same as "asking why it does a thing". It's a strong statement on its own. If your original comment had stopped after the first sentence then you would have gotten a very different response.
Wow, your edit of your post is completely different from your original message - "You asked why it spams wait over and over. But it doesn't. That's the incorrect claim."
Why did you edit it so drastically? Was it because of poor reading comprehension?
> They said they dislike the person that says to explain an incorrect fact.
No, they said - literally - 'I have a pet peeve where people “explain why things are a certain way” when they are not that way'. Your reading is not what they said. I'm sorry but you're batting .000 here.
> You're the one that said to explain an incorrect fact.
A person asserted something (through conversational norms), and I basically said "Isn't there a reason for that?", and now I'm the one who is being argued with as if I asserted the thing in the first place. Why aren't you responding to streetmeat, telling them that it doesn't spam "wait...wait"?
edit: Dude, you've edited your post at least 4 times in the past 12 minutes, all of your posts being drastically different points, so I'm not sure which one I should respond to. I think I've responded to your 2nd edit, which I've essentially quoted in entirety as I saw it on my screen. Your current post is equally as ridiculous, but it isn't clear to me that I should spend any time on it if you are just going to edit it to be a completely different point again.
> Why did you edit it so drastically? Was it because of poor reading comprehension?
Yes I fucked up reading at first.
It's correct now.
Appending without editing: I've had a long day, I don't usually edit nearly as much.
Appending without editing: I should have just deleted it and made a new comment, I guess? I didn't know you were trying to reply, sorry.
Appending without editing:
> A person asserted something (through conversational norms), and I basically said "Isn't there a reason for that?", and now I'm the one who is being argued with as if I asserted the thing in the first place. Why aren't you responding to streetmeat, telling them that it doesn't spam "wait...wait"?
The problem was not the first sentence where you did that. The problem was the second sentence. Don't motte and bailey this.
Appending without editing:
Also for the record I stand by the intent of the lines you quoted, though the wording is flawed in the first quote and fixed in my final version. The entirely incorrect thing I said at first is gone and you didn't respond to it so at least that worked out.
You apparently don't understand that "hacker" has multiple definitions. Sorry to hear that. The guy who named this site wrote extensively on "hackers", which you're free to read. Try "hackers and painters" first.
If you think this is a site all about people who gain illicit access to systems which they shouldn't have, then you must be very confused by the content frequently appearing here.
Now, I'm curious why you responded to me, but you didn't bother responding to OP who seemed to think that the only definition of hacker was essentially "someone who illicitly breaks into other people's systems".
Because that is not what they said. Their comment was “Apparently hacking is something the denizens of Hacker News disapprove of these days?”
Hacking, by one common definition, generally refers to a clever, benign, and "ethical" prank or practical joke, often challenging to execute and amusing to the community. This was certainly true at MIT.
This fits all of those characteristics. That it happened to involve doing something illegal was not the point.
Putting something on the MIT dome is also illegal; if you get caught, you’ll get charged with trespassing. But trespassing was never the point.
And did not do anything malicious like remove the actual accessibility tones.
My point isn’t that they are some kind of Robin Hood, but that their actions don’t warrant anger, whereas the insecurity of a public system we rely on… should.
They could just be "not thoughtful". I understand that you want to present the alternate viewpoint as absurd in order to bolster your own viewpoints, but this isn't reddit and you don't need to operate this way here
Can you look in the mirror for a second? You accuse me of a bad argument, but then this entire post is you just asserting your viewpoint as true, with basically just a "cmon, obviously!".
That is not what I did. I provided multiple examples of how they left various accessibility features intact. In fact, I have not found one they hadn’t left intact.
Have you? If so, that would be a useful argument, and I would not respond in the same way.
Thus far, I have provided some semblance of evidence, and you have provided speculation, which is a bad argument.
I’m not saying I’m right. I might not be. I am saying your argument is not.
They're not being as dismissive as "cmon, obviously!", and they're citing a pretty good piece of evidence (the tones still being there) while the other side is citing nothing.
It sounds like they still make the normal/expected sounds. So kudos to the pranksters for keeping them safe and available for the people in need of accessibility.
Deviant Ollam has a video with clips from the crosswalks. He also mentions the accessibility is not impacted. Worth a watch if you haven’t heard the AI impressions.
The expected sound is the "WAIT!" voice, which you can clearly still hear. Anything in addition to that is of zero detriment to the accessibility of the system.
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".
---
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.
is pretty clear implication. But I'll spell it out for you - people with impairment to senses (primarily vision) rely on this infrastructure to know when it's safe to cross a road.
These devices will also often indicate their location when you hold the button. That can help a visually impared person confirm that they're oriented correctly. That use case is likely why these are field programmable; factory programming would be sufficient for limited prompts (wait, begin crossing, count down, clicks and whistles, etc) but not for street names.
This is one of the better voice clones of Musk but it's still really bad because he never lost his whatever accent, and every voice clone I've heard (mostly the ones on fake Starship launch videos) speaks with perfect American accent.
Something to think about I guess :)
You will be hard pressed to find south africans with his accent.
For specifics of what I mean, the breathy “â” (as in, a posh british person saying bâth) is present, but so is the american hard-R.
He has a lot of stubbed tones in words like “heart” though which is clearly very south african.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/seattle-crosswalk-...
it seems most of these crosswalks can be configured via app from https://polara.com/ . So either the authentication was leaked or got physically flashed/hacked?
Security not included!
H/t Baggott if he’s reading. ;-)
Or it can work.
Not both
https://www.reddit.com/r/theinternetofshit/
https://www.polara.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Polara-iN2...
> PASSWORD ISSUES: The iCCU can be connected to thru Wi-Fi. The buttons can be connected to thru Bluetooth. A. Once Wi-Fi is turned on at the iCCU, the Wi-Fi password is DEFAULT1 (ALL CAPS). B. Following power up, each button will say “change password” every 30 seconds, until the default password is changed. There is one shared password for logging into an iCCU and all PBS connected to it. The factory default password is 1234. Using a Field Service app, use 1234 to log into the iCCU or any PBS the first time, and change the password. This changes the password for all PBS and the iCCU. See Section 5.2 in the Manual for details. C. If the password is unknown, a Password Reset requires a call to Polara Tech Support.
Yes, emotional maturity can help, and it also depends on perspective (whether I identify with the author of the PSA). But when the situation gets more complex than picking up litter, I think people forget that this dynamic exists and is important.
It's not condescending, because it's not targeted to you.
Maybe your literacy level is high, but perhaps your level of understanding people could be higher.
I'm not implying anything. I am directly stating that people who can't read well do not, and can not, understand the modern world.
For example, how would someone that reads below the sixth grade level understand the tariff situation, Artificial Intelligence, or Cryptocurrency? Can they make good healthcare decisions, or manage a 401k properly? Can they choose an elected representative who has their best interests, and the interests of our nation in mind? I think not, and furthermore, they will spend their lives as financial prey animals to those who are more capable.
Do you seriously believe something different? Maybe I'm missing something obvious.
How does reading make you more steadfast in having a "wrong" attitude toward learning?
Did you say thank you today? - A message from VP JD Vance
Reminder: Vandalism of Tesla vehicles or properties is an act of terrorism and is punishable by deportation
(that is a thing in at least one country close by)
• had some civic-mindedness - enough to leave in the initial 'wait!' audio
• chose messages that, while falling short of comedy genius, are amusing and above the level of an adolescent
• didn't include any extremist nonsense
Grading on a curve, that's a lot to be thankful for.
Edit: I see that I'm already in the negative numbers with this comment, I fear that entertaining the idea that the right has any positions worth entertaining its the thing that got us into this mess in the first place, and I'm sure you know exactly what "mess" means in this context.
https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Silicon%20Valley%20crosswalk%2...
Second chance queue is basically dang getting unilateral authority to be an empowered reposter and probably looking at internal data when the site is most active to drop the stale post back in.
https://news.ycombinator.com/pool (specifically, this post can be found on page 8: https://news.ycombinator.com/pool?next=43673425)
---
Hi denysvitali,
The submission "PostmarketOS-Powered Kubernetes Cluster" that you posted to Hacker News (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42352075) looks good, but hasn't had much attention so far. We put it in the second-chance pool, so it will get a random placement on the front page some time in the next day or so.
This is a way of giving good HN submissions multiple chances at the front page. If you're curious, you can read about it at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998308 and other links there. And if you don't want these emails, sorry! Let us know and we won't do it again.
Thanks for posting good things to HN!
Daniel (moderator)
pun intended.
(You don't need to answer, I know exactly why - because you agree with OPs viewpoint and disagree with mine)
Sorry, I have a pet peeve about poor reading comprehension.
Also, saying "Have you considered that there's a reason?" is not at all the same as "asking why it does a thing". It's a strong statement on its own. If your original comment had stopped after the first sentence then you would have gotten a very different response.
Why did you edit it so drastically? Was it because of poor reading comprehension?
> They said they dislike the person that says to explain an incorrect fact.
No, they said - literally - 'I have a pet peeve where people “explain why things are a certain way” when they are not that way'. Your reading is not what they said. I'm sorry but you're batting .000 here.
> You're the one that said to explain an incorrect fact.
A person asserted something (through conversational norms), and I basically said "Isn't there a reason for that?", and now I'm the one who is being argued with as if I asserted the thing in the first place. Why aren't you responding to streetmeat, telling them that it doesn't spam "wait...wait"?
edit: Dude, you've edited your post at least 4 times in the past 12 minutes, all of your posts being drastically different points, so I'm not sure which one I should respond to. I think I've responded to your 2nd edit, which I've essentially quoted in entirety as I saw it on my screen. Your current post is equally as ridiculous, but it isn't clear to me that I should spend any time on it if you are just going to edit it to be a completely different point again.
Yes I fucked up reading at first.
It's correct now.
Appending without editing: I've had a long day, I don't usually edit nearly as much.
Appending without editing: I should have just deleted it and made a new comment, I guess? I didn't know you were trying to reply, sorry.
Appending without editing:
> A person asserted something (through conversational norms), and I basically said "Isn't there a reason for that?", and now I'm the one who is being argued with as if I asserted the thing in the first place. Why aren't you responding to streetmeat, telling them that it doesn't spam "wait...wait"?
The problem was not the first sentence where you did that. The problem was the second sentence. Don't motte and bailey this.
Appending without editing:
Also for the record I stand by the intent of the lines you quoted, though the wording is flawed in the first quote and fixed in my final version. The entirely incorrect thing I said at first is gone and you didn't respond to it so at least that worked out.
If you think this is a site all about people who gain illicit access to systems which they shouldn't have, then you must be very confused by the content frequently appearing here.
Now, I'm curious why you responded to me, but you didn't bother responding to OP who seemed to think that the only definition of hacker was essentially "someone who illicitly breaks into other people's systems".
Hacking, by one common definition, generally refers to a clever, benign, and "ethical" prank or practical joke, often challenging to execute and amusing to the community. This was certainly true at MIT.
This fits all of those characteristics. That it happened to involve doing something illegal was not the point.
Putting something on the MIT dome is also illegal; if you get caught, you’ll get charged with trespassing. But trespassing was never the point.
My point isn’t that they are some kind of Robin Hood, but that their actions don’t warrant anger, whereas the insecurity of a public system we rely on… should.
I do not need a PhD in Accessibility Studies to know that the same tones and messages were played as normal, plus the message from “Elon” or “Bill”
Even the hearing aid connectivity was left intact; my dad has one.
So no, I don’t have an intimate knowledge of the field. And I don’t think you need one for this discussion.
Have you? If so, that would be a useful argument, and I would not respond in the same way.
Thus far, I have provided some semblance of evidence, and you have provided speculation, which is a bad argument.
I’m not saying I’m right. I might not be. I am saying your argument is not.
The reddit crack is worse.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=woQEJ_fY8Mw
SV road signs are constantly covered in graffiti. They don’t just take them down until a replacement arrives.
No, no kudos to anyone who fucks with safety devices to make some point of theirs.
I'd prefer to hear an actual example over broad outrage tho
---
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.
> which disabled people rely on
is pretty clear implication. But I'll spell it out for you - people with impairment to senses (primarily vision) rely on this infrastructure to know when it's safe to cross a road.