I learned my lesson about “lifetime” thanks to SiriusXM.

When Howard Stern got lured to SiriusXM they offered a deal where you buy the receiver and pay $500 for a lifetime subscription with unlimited transfers to different receivers. Fat forward to 2017ish when I bought my last car that had the receiver built into the radio and tried to transfer to the new one. I was told that was the last time I would be able to do that and in the future I’d be paying a $75 transfer fee and be forced into a monthly subscription.

Lifetime is a hoax.

I don’t know if it’s necessarily a problem with AI, more of a problem with humans in general.

Hearing ONLY validation and encouragement without pushback regardless of how stupid a person’s thinking might be is most likely what creates these issues in my very uneducated mind. It forms a toxically positive echo-chamber.

The same way hearing ONLY criticism and expecting perfection 100% of the time regardless of a person’s capabilities or interests created depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation and attempts specifically for me. But I’m learning I’m not the only one with these experiences and the one thing in common is zero validation from caregivers.

I’d be ok with AI if it could be balanced and actually pushback on batshit crazy thinking instead of encouraging it while also able to validate common sense and critical thinking. Right now it’s just completely toxic for lonely humans to interact with based on my personal experience. If I wasn’t in recovery, I would have believed that AI was all I needed to make my life better because I was (and still am) in a very messed up state of mind from my caregivers, trauma, and addiction.

I’m in my 40s, so I can’t imagine younger generations being able to pull away from using it constantly if they’re constantly being validated while at the same time enduring generational trauma at the very least from their caregivers.

Yeah I have the AirPods Pro and have tried out the transparency feature, specifically because Apple has been floating the idea around that these could technically act as hearing aids and I’m looking for alternatives that might be cheaper now that I’m on disability.

It reminds me of when hearing aids first came out when I was a kid, only not quite as good. But you get the idea with the frequencies and also background noise. Go into a loud coffee shop with them on and try to carrying on a conversation with someone only using the transparency feature.

For someone with slightly declining hearing it might be ok. For me I have mild-to-moderate hearing loss and I have to use an actual hearing aid, not a hearing device which is what all these “hearing aids” that are cheap are. I have to order them through an audiologist and they are not cheap and barely covered by insurance (most of which won’t cover them if you don’t use THEIR cheaper brand). But hey, at least they’re kinda covered now. For 40 years or so of my life it was all $4,000 - $6,000 out-of-pocket every 5-7 years depending on how long they lasted and if they could be repaired.

So it’s the plague’s empty toilet paper section only store-wide? Great…

I wear hearing aids and air dryers annoy the hell out of me because they’re so loud. Almost as much as leaf blowers annoy me.

Hearing aids don’t have the ability to filter noises so it’s like plugging a microphone into headphones and trying to carry on conversations. Mine can now reduce loud noises a little bit so they don’t damage my already horrible hearing further but that wasn’t the case when I had them as a kid and air dryers started getting more popular, that shit hurt.

As someone with multiple mental illness labels and struggling to do basic levels of self-care often, I’m terrified of this. But I also unrealistically think it works make my life easier. Besides the torture.

While that sounds cool to me, it kind of defeats my main purpose of switching to an e-reader in the first place. I have trouble holding physical books for a long time due to hand pain. I had a similar issue with the e-reader, just not as bad, until I put a PopSocket on the back of it. Now I can hold it with the PopSocket resting in-between 2 fingers and can read significantly longer.

I switched from Kindle Paperwhite 1st Gen to a Kobo Clara Color a month or so ago. It was cheaper than Amazon’s color Kindle offering plus Amazon not letting readers download their books pushed me out. I did try the jailbreak for the Kindle and…I gave up on it after numerous issues that I ran into probably relating to the age of my Paperwhite.

I mostly use Overdrive (Libby) to get books from my library. The Kobo has Overdrive support…mostly due to Kobo store availability and whether or not you have multiple library cards with multiple libraries. I’m in NY state and have a library card with my city library and then one with the NY Public Library. This isn’t really a reflection on Kobo, more so Overdrive being shitty and not willing to update their Kobo app to work with how they migrated from the Overdrive app to Libby.

This is where Calibre comes in handy, I download the book to my phone from Libby, transfer it to my Mac and use Calibre to add it to it to my Kobo. It’s not pretty like Overdrive’s Kindle integration where you basically press a few buttons in the Libby app and the book is sent to your kindle.

As far as reading the book in general, I don’t really notice that huge of a difference other than better technology. I did have some slight bugginess when I first used it, but after a full charge and a few reboots it seems to be fine now. I don’t have a current gen Kindle to compare it to, so someone else can speak to that. I do wish it wasn’t such a hassle to get my library books to it, but at least I have access to all my books!

I want one too! Only because I love Lego 😆

Jokes on them, I have facial paralysis!

That’s good to hear, because back then that wasn’t the case. I know no matter what model iPhone I get, if it’s new then support is the same for every model from that year.

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2024/05/06/global-top-10-best-selling-smartphones-all-from-apple-samsung/

The only good thing about most Android phones is that you can install a different version of Android devoid of all things Google and get an interface that isn’t Samsung. That’s my plan when this subscription crap comes around or the phones are too expensive that I can’t afford them anymore. I’m too tied into Apple’s ecosystem with mail, iCloud, and Music.

Also, buy some other brand that’s cheaper because Samsung makes garbage and don’t support their hardware unless they’re flagship. Admittedly, it’s been almost a decade since I’ve had anything but an iPhone, but I had a couple Samsung Android phones were an update broke the phone and Samsung wouldn’t release a fix because it was an update from Google. One in particular was a Samsung Moment on Sprint where it would enter into airplane mode silently and still look like it was connected to services until you went to use said services. They refused to provide an update to resolve the issue.