I’d be unemployed and in trouble, but sometimes I do wish a gigantic solar storm would cut off the internet for a year. Humanity needs the reset. Please stop shoving Wi-Fi into every device.
Things that can be wifi: my light switches and anything that might’ve had an analog timer back in the day. Anything critical? You can buy an analog sensor that will beep if it’s out of limits, like a freezer alarm.
The rest can f right off.
Light switches can also not be wifi. Hell, id personally prefer them not to
Obviously it would be a choice to have them wifi or not, opt-in, not opt-out. I wasn’t implying anything should be automatically wifi.

But not for eating. Don’t trust AI for food or other safety.
AI can eat and sleep instead of you
I’m astounded there hasn’t been a legal case already where some AI customer service bot hallucinated and promised a customer a million dollars or something and they’re trying to claim it. Set that precedent and companies would be dropping those AI clankers right quick.
there has! AI customer bot said they’d be a different price and they forced the flight company to uphold said price.
there was a case where a consumer was promised something by an AI chatbot and the company tried to renege on it
sorry I don’t really remember any details about it, although I am pretty sure that it was ruled the company had to uphold the chatbot response. Oh I think part of their defense was that the chatbot was an external company or something
edit: found it, looks like the same story the other user referenced
I’m just going to install a door knocker.
I refuse to buy “smart devices” riddled with AI, it’s just a drag and not what this tech should be used for.
true
What’s worse than that are the fully camera, gyroscope, and GPS equipped children’s toys that send all their data to an AI server.
Gyroscope, fine, I can understand them trying to understand how the toy is utilised.
GPS? Fuck off.
CAMERA?! What in the ever loving…
Yeah, so there are these kids toys at CES now that are always watching and always listening. Gyroscope if the toy is being picked up and moved, GPS to track where in the house it is, or where it’s going outside.
It’s loaded with voice and facial recognition that can track moods and environmental context. But obviously it doesn’t work offline. It has no on board AI, so all the data is sent to a service somewhere which will generate responses for the toy.
I wish it was just one such product being promoted at CES, but I’ve seen several videos now of multiple upstart toy tech brands selling similar AI plushies and such.
That is 100% going to record some kid changing, and knowing how these companies do ‘AI’ it’s probably going to be sent to some random person in India to process.
Screaming is well and good to build public opinion against this stupidity, but all the CEOs in their towers will heed is no sales.
We need to make it uncool to like or tolerate AI bullshit in consumer products.
If you have friends, and they show you their new fridge with a touch screen, don’t be polite. Tell them it’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever seen, and then mock them for choosing it every chance you get. And, no, I don’t have friends anymore (but, this is not why).
Hilarious. I bite my tongue so often around these kinds of situations it has permanent tooth imprints in it. But you’re right, someone needs to figure out how to get them to stop tolerating this horrific nonsense.
I just installed a new doorbell button, the little light burned out in my old one.

I don’t have a “security” camera. As far as I can tell, all they do is provide a memento of the crime after the fact, and prompt my neighbors to worry about “suspicious” people outside walking. They seem to do the opposite of making people feel more secure. They seem to raise anxiety.
I have a button for a doorbell at my door. Hasn’t worked since I moved in. If I wanted it to work and raise anxiety I would figure out how to make it spray water on whoever is at the door.
My dad installed cheap chinese cams all over his place and his job now is to check the footage to see if there is anything suspicious. There’s never anything suspicious and he’s just wasting his time while also getting more paranoid. The biggest issue I see is that he hoards chinesium and bloats his phone with it. It’ infuriating.
Cameras don’t stop anyone, but I still have few recording my yard. It’s more of a hobby and I’m planning to integrate person detection on those to home automation but for me it’s also a small piece of peace on my mind. Should someone steal my car trailer (or a car) I’d have some footage for the police and insurance. Also a while ago we had a decent storm around and we weren’t at home so it was nice that I could check for possible damages remotely.
But absolute majority of time I don’t even think about them. I don’t have any notifications enabled, I’m not interested about neighbors cat running across our yard or getting interruptions every time someone on the family comes or goes. And while Frigate has some AI things built in, the whole thing runs locally. There’s no way I’d install nest or some other camera which sends/stores data to anywhere which isn’t 100% in my control.
I watched a video about the worst of CES. I was kind of amused that some of the winners of worst-of weren’t even new ideas
There was a candy I remember that from a long time ago, idk 2000ish? It was a lollipop you bit down on and you could hear music played through your teeth. I never tried it but it was sold where I worked
Another idea, the worst of the worst, was the smart fridge. I remember from business classes I took many years ago used that as an example of innovation. Or a “smart” microwave. You let it know what ingredients you have, for example by scanning the barcode, so it can recommend recipes or alert you when something is running low
The rendition of those ideas at the CES were so out of touch
It was a lollipop you bit down on and you could hear music played through your teeth.
When I was about 12 I started a short lived fad in my extended friend group of wearing headphones in your nostrils instead of your ears. If you turned them up high it sorta worked.
Microsoft would like to know if a trendsetter like you is interested in an executive position. Pay is in
AI tokensdiscounts on AI tokens and stock.
I’m holding off until HD AI.
3D A.I.
A candy that plays music while you eat it
This is the sort of misapplication of technology that traumatised me as a kid, dammit
When I was in year 5 the kids in the class had been working cutting apricots and they bought tonnes of candy and these whistles they were blowing all the time.
How much did the whistles cost ? one cent.
True story.
I prefer a toothbrush that plays music while you use it
Why is that coffee machine showing me a picture of the Sydney Opera House instead of making coffee?
We are getting to the point where we are going to have a real life Talkie toaster from Red Dwarf without the comedy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HqGSioLCOQ&t=43
We’re not too far off given how many apps on my phone by default send notifications like “do you want to do this thing now?”
And so many interfaces that have been enshittified with pop ups wanting me to check out their new AI features.
A toaster constantly asking if I want toast is probably less annoying than a lot of technology now.
I just got a WiFi stove that should be marketed as one of those bad ideas.
My requirements were
- induction burners
- air fryer
The closest I could find had all this “smart” crap, and convection oven was as close as I could get to air fryer
An air fryer is literally a convection oven, so that part was accomplished. But a wifi stove is just bizarre.
Traditionally, convection ovens have a fan at the back that pushes air over the food and around the oven, while air friers have a fan on top that draws the air through the food from the bottom. But for majority of the use cases, the results are very similar and I’m sure convection ovens that work the same way also exist.
Yes and no. My understanding is an air fryer is just more convection. No actual definition but some brands have both convection and air fry. But I couldn’t find that with an induction top.
This does have “convection bake” vs “convection roast”, so I still need to understand what distinction they’re making
I’ll figure it out as I cook more. I do have a countertop air fryer that I was hoping to get rid of (I need the counter space) that I used a lot for chicken breasts and stuff. But the ultimate test is tofu. I’ve never been able to make tofu right so if I can use the convection oven to get the right consistency, I’m golden
I am in the market for one as well. I found KitchenAid makes an induction stove top with convection and Air fry oven. https://www.kitchenaid.com/major-appliances/ranges/slide-in-ranges/p.30-inch-4-element-induction-slide-in-convection-range-with-air-fry.ksis730pss.html?
I actually did see this as one of my choices - looks nice, fits my requirements better than the one I got, and is $1500 cheaper!
But that stupid horizontal display is stupid. It meant the range sticks out an extra inch or more and I really couldn’t do that in my kitchen. It also means smaller burner space than the one I got - it doesn’t need to be much but a little extra room to move pans around rather than crowd them
Food for thought: Replace Your Range With a Modular Kitchen
Interesting idea, and a great money saver! I find it strange that portable induction cooktops are so much cheaper and at least seem more technically advanced than a fill sized range.
But yeah, more clutter and probably not great for selling a house. Not for me
I won’t buy AI stuff 🤮
Now if things you could do with simple if/else algorithms are using “AI”




















