But you know they are spam, so it’s something you can avoid. But what if the majority (over 80%) of the calls you receive can’t be identified as spam. At some point, you may be wasting far more time than it’s worth to keep using a phone without some major whitelist/blacklist system.

Also, what happens when the outbound calls you make are answered by AI, and you don’t know? If this AI is giving you replies that are word salad, how long are you willing to tolerate it?

I’ve been getting text messages now from companies that I actually do business with, but they are spam. Calls from companies that I have accounts with, and they are scams. At some point, SMS and phone calls will be more trouble than its worth.

And the thought of either having to go without it, the pain of replacing it, or the frustration of being strung along in a scam are not thoughts I want to have.

There will always be a large number of sites that are not capitalist hellholes that only exist to steal user’s data or scam users or do other malicious things. This may be down to things like credit unions, federated social media, and non-profits that exist to make the world better, but there will always be something that is out there that keeps it from being useless.

No doubt that there will be people who still have morals and will run sites and services that don’t completely screw people.

But at some point, you won’t be able to tell which are legit, and which aren’t. AI generated websites can make any scam site look completely legitimate, fake thousands of testimonials, have bots post about it on every major website (Reddit, YouTube, etc.) without being caught, etc.

The currency of the internet is no longer about what’s valuable to users, but what’s valuable to bad actors, data thieves, and marketers.

There will be a tipping point when the bad far, far outweighs the good, and I’m curious to know when society decides that the internet isn’t worth using anymore.

Let me ask you this: assuming you use the internet for information rather than entertainment, would the internet be useful if the majority of content ends up being AI generated (not fact checked, not accurate, and not original)?

What if the overwhelming content you come across could neither be verified as true, and the majority of comments (including here on Lemmy) were bots? Would you still use it?

For me, it would stop being useful. Almost like a library only carrying fiction, when I’m trying to research a topic.

For entertainment, sure, it’ll be great for sucking the attention from people without having to invest in skill to be good at something. Hell, if you currently find YouTube shorts and Tiktok to be “good content”, then it’ll be around forever. Corporations and advertisers love this technology.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the state of things, and where we are heading.

At what point do we consider the internet “useless”? It must be coming very soon (less than 2 years), since the majority of content will be AI generated and targeted, which drives down the value for users even further.

Once original ideas vanish, and you can’t trust any text/audio/video/photo you see, what will be the point? It’s like the internet will simply be a video game world with next to no value.

And I can’t see how society can possibly reverse this.

Ask AI to translate that and see what it comes up with. LOL

I’m lucky to live in a country where sleeping outside is easily possible, safe, and legal

Unfortunately, this is not the case for Ontario, Canada, unless I wanted to go WAAAAAAY up North to extremly wild Crown Land (where the bears are).

This is probably the biggest barrier, because standard campsites charge as much as a hotel, even if you are camping without a large vehicle.

Even without much training, it’s easily possible to cover 100km / 60 miles in a day on flat ground, if your bike fits you. Cycling clothes also help a lot.

Yeah, 100km is very doable. I’ve been aiming for 200km+ lately, but even then, it sucks that these are out-and-back rides. Still, I come back wanting to ride more :)

It doesn’t even need to be an epic month-long adventure.

I try to regularly spend the entire day on my bike when I have the chance. I’ve yet to do an overnighter, but just being on my bike brings joy to my life.

There isn’t a single person on the planet who can tell me that running an errand by car brings them happiness and peace, but I get to experience that every. single. time.

To tour by bike would be an absolute dream!

I’m happy to read about areas that are actually accessible. I don’t use a wheelchair or walker, but I’m very aware of the need to have accessible infrastructure. I can say without a shadow of a doubt that my municipality, and the several nearby, do NOT have accessible trails for people to enjoy the outdoors.

We’re talking complete design failure, from tall curbs at entrances/exits of trails, to dangerous slopes on the trails themselves.

Then you have sections that are intentionally narrowed to prevent cars and motorcycles from entering, but they are designed in a way where someone in a wheelchair couldn’t possibly fit through them, or manoeuvre through them without getting tangled.

These same deficiencies are experienced by able-bodied people who might be using a trike or child trailer with their bike, so it affects a large number of users along these trail systems.

Even worse are trails where there appear to be SPEED BUMPS, intentionally set, but for whom?? To slow down a speeding person in a wheelchair? To trip up someone using a walker? To slow down cyclists instead of cars?

Jesus Christ, design infrastructure for humans, not machines.

Mike Darmon said that with issues like city budget shortages, it will be a while before the proper infrastructure is built for those participating in active transportation.

Inexcusable.

How can municipalities manage to always find tens of millions of dollars to make driving more convenient, but there’s always no money to make walking or cycling safer?

HINT: It’s because they are wasting tens of millions of dollars to make driving more convenient.

And these hit-and-runs are out of control. Mandatory sentencing of at least 15 years needs to be considered for someone like that. Coward.

Yes, very useful on rural roads and quieter suburban streets. It also works well on trails where e-scooters/e-bikes might ride up behind you without warning (to pass).

But in a city, the radar just goes off constantly, so it’s less useful if you only ride in busy city streets.

Adguard can work with adguard VPN to provide adblocking through the VPN. This applies to Android and Windows, and maybe even iOS versions.

With other VPNs, I’ve used some with their own adblocker, but they aren’t nearly as good at filtering.

One thing about the varia that really helps make you more visible is that it will flash faster as a vehicle approaches.

I understand the optimisation. The hospitals must be happy, but if I were a nurse (or doctor), this would make me nervous.

Any good healthcare professional would still want to look over the results, even if an obvious flag wasn’t raised.

To me, it’s just good practice (as a patient).

Or maybe they still do, and this system is simply a reducency safety check.

I think it can be useful in predicting a diagnosis months/years before a doctor would be able to, since it can analyze data and look for patterns across millions of cases. This would be especially useful in rare diseases, or even something like dementia.

But using it to tell a nurse or doctor that their patient’s white blood counts are “really, really high” after being bitten by an animal is borderline insulting to healthcare professionals.

but a tool that takes away the toil of monitoring

Ok, so Lifelabs posts patient lab results online for them to see. They CLEARLY mark “high” and “low” for items that are out of range (of the norm).

A nurse would quite literally crosscheck 50 blood markers in a matter of seconds, without the need for expensive AI or at a risk of them losing their job/qualifications.

In this specific case, the fever + high WBC would be more than enough for a nurse to know that something was up. It makes me think that adding AI just adds another step.

I’m not saying that the application of AI to detect abnormalities is wasteful, but I do think it’s unnecessary and possibly a negative in the context of basic lab work.

That warning showed the patient’s white blood cell count was “really, really high,” recalled Bell, the clinical nurse educator for the hospital’s general medicine program.

I’m not a doctor, but even an idiot would know when a WBC is “really, really high” and assume infection. I mean, shit, "suffering from a cat bite and a fever, but otherwise appeared fine "… um, a cat bite AND A FEVER… red flag!

“It’s not replacing the nurse at the bedside; it’s actually enhancing your nursing care.”

I would argue that this would make nurses less important, and would make them “lazy” by not giving them opportunities to identify these simple things on a regular basis.

Would a nurse who doesn’t know what a very high WBC entails be paid less? I would think so.

I can see AI/machine learning used in very complex cases where a human HCP would simply not have the number-crunching capability to find a diagnosis, but this was not that case.

I appreciate the math! But yes, for a crime this significant, and one that affects 1 billion (!!!) people, the equivalent of $467 to the average American is peanuts.

But I’d also argue that a $467 fine to the average American hurts more than the equivalent to a company that amasses so much wealth. There are so many hundreds of billions of dollars in excess profit being funnelled into Meta. For a fine to sting, it would need to be at least $100 billion or more, but even that could be made up very quickly…

We’re just talking wishful thinking at this point. None of these mega corporations were ever “hurt” by a fine, so they factor it into their business costs when they plan to commit these crimes.

Are you saying that to diminish her crime, or to highlight the violations against her by the guards?

Both are still separate issues and should be treated as such.

but what alternatives? I’d like to check them out.

There are a ton, but you can get more specific depending on your needs.

I ride with a Varia radar, which has a light built in. That can be mounted on a seat post, under the saddle, on the back of a bag/trailer, and it spreads light REALLY well.

On the front, I’d say it depends a lot on your use. Someone who is touring will want/need something different vs someone who’s commuting.

I like Olight headlights (also Magicshine, which have the same models). They use a garmin mount, so really easy to place them anywhere.

I recently got a Lumintop B01, which is a “flashlight style”, but very specific beam pattern for cyclists. It uses removable batteries, lasts hours and hours, and can also be mounted just about anywhere.

I also love the Nitecore BR25 (discontinued), which is also a flashlight style but has a really nice, beam cutoff and shines onto the bike/ground for max visibility.

But all my options need to have very long run times. Someone who only needs a light for an hour can get away with something much smaller. I have several other lights that can be used quickly with no special mounts. And a clip on rear light for my trailer(s), which is also highly visible and can turn brighter when I’m slowing down or stopping (like a car’s rear lights).

Just to give you an example of an Olight RN1500 headlight (at low brightness) and the Varia RT515 (default mode). Both lights can easily be seen from the side, in addition to any reflective elements on my bike/bags/clothing/helmet:

A driver would need to be blind to “not see” me.

I bet you could fit a cup holder and pouch behind the curves.

I can’t imagine reaching over my bars (or stretching my arm out under them) to grab a bottle from there.

This would make using a front rack with a basket on it, or even just a basket, or even just a handlebar bag, impossible.

Even the rear one is so massive that you wouldn’t be able to use a saddle bag or a rear basket on some bikes.

I just personally think there are much better options that accomplish the same, but with more mounting options and a much lower price tag.