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!!!sHinY nEw MegaRant!!!
 

offline EpicMegatrax from Greatest Hits on 2022-01-06 07:13 [#02615487]
Points: 23981 Status: Addict



here is my new pet peeve: people with badly-calibrated
motion-sensor lites

when properly employed, the motion-sensor lite is a solid
piece of house-hold equipment, terrifying skunks and
discouraging cat-burglars.

however, people around here have some really darn obnoxious
ones. one around the corner with a ginourmous halogen
floodlight you can see -- i noticed one day -- from three
blocks away. what a dick! so i try to walk away from it.
fully on the other side of the street, not only not on his
property, but across the street. the light goes off.

i notice the house across the street from this one has one
as well. i notice i am also unable to avoid triggering it.
weeks, i watch, and i see cars trigger them. or apparently
nothing at all. what jerks

tonight, tho, the one that takes the cake. i am walking on
the street, as it's icy and the road is less dangerous than
the sidewalk. this house, i can never figure it out. the
light is often on as i approach, even goes off right after i
pass. or off, then on again. i can't figure it out

i'm around the corner of the house from the light, no line
of clear sight, and i realize: they have an external sensor
on the front of the house, triggering the light on the sight
of the house, that can be triggered by a guy walking not
only not on the sidewalk, but the street. and cars. and an
ant farting

it annoyed me, but after noticing that, well... i'm even
more annoyed. annoyed! darn it


 

offline EpicMegatrax from Greatest Hits on 2022-01-06 07:14 [#02615488]
Points: 23981 Status: Addict



...but across the street. the light goes off.

and by that i mean it caught me trying to sneak by on the
far side of the street and made me visible from space.


 

offline ijonspeches from 109P/Swift-Tuttle on 2022-01-06 13:59 [#02615497]
Points: 7624 Status: Lurker | Show recordbag



i feel you.

gf´s former flat is flash flooding the neighbourhood yard
with a timer until 1 am. so every time we went to bed it was
so bright you had to close curtains to barely shut an eye.
we slept in the 4th! floor mind you.

one day when someone left that house i asked if they could
mabe find another way for whatever it is they think they´re
achieving by this kind of insane light pollution. (i
actually asked very politely)

when i asked if they would just consider installing a motion
sensor then, he said that it would go off when there is no
intruder at all and we all know what happens then. panic.
PANIC! >>><<>>>>


 

offline ijonspeches from 109P/Swift-Tuttle on 2022-01-06 14:13 [#02615499]
Points: 7624 Status: Lurker | Show recordbag



love strolling in the dark too btw. it´s pure bliss. while
sadly you barely see the stars in my town mostly because we
have 260 days of rain a year so cloudy smog feels almost
like a daily given, but i really would love to see the city
put up motion sensors and cleverly angled soft light for
traffic and safety. luckily it´s always mostly dark by the
river.


 

offline dariusgriffin from cool on 2022-01-06 16:09 [#02615502]
Points: 12134 Status: Lurker



imagine if a pet peeve was an actual pet


 

offline Wolfslice from Bay Area, CA (United States) on 2022-01-07 01:03 [#02615504]
Points: 4693 Status: Regular



Another point for the "EpicMegatrax is a rapist murderer"
crowd?

A lot of people sweating the odds in Vegas right now..


 

offline Wolfslice from Bay Area, CA (United States) on 2022-01-07 01:07 [#02615505]
Points: 4693 Status: Regular



next pet peeves
car alarms
footprint forensics
pedestrian witnesses
belts (too restrictive)
the advent of DNA testing



 

offline EpicMegatrax from Greatest Hits on 2022-01-07 06:47 [#02615506]
Points: 23981 Status: Addict



no, here's the next one:

the internet fucking sucks now. i used to be able to google
quotes, now i just get news articles about facebook
metaverse and shit -- because, like, i was trying to find
the very beautiful neal stephenson passage [from
cryptonomicon] about car alarms in manilla setting each
other off in an unending cascading feedback loop. something
like, "...one of those snowballing post-technological
fuck-ups..."

they never particularly bothered me, myself. but then, i
never lived in dense city areas... i've heard people at
wit's end from car alarms all night outside their shit NYC
apt


 

offline EpicMegatrax from Greatest Hits on 2022-01-07 06:49 [#02615507]
Points: 23981 Status: Addict



Emergent Feminisms: Complicating a Postfeminist Media
Culture


i hate google so much. and i'm starting to dislike feminists
too


 

offline EpicMegatrax from Greatest Hits on 2022-01-07 07:03 [#02615508]
Points: 23981 Status: Addict | Followup to ijonspeches: #02615497



when i asked if they would just consider installing a
motion sensor then, he said that it would go off when there
is no intruder at all and we all know what happens then.
panic. PANIC! [lots of bitwise operators]


ok? ok?!
can we all agree how infuriating it is when people are
unflinchingly committed to utterly absurd logic, and then
get annoyed when you bring the matter up in casual
discussion? ...like, not even pressing? can you imagine how
he'd be if you'd put up a fuss. he'd think you were such a
moron. you're nuts. what are you thinking?! a motion-sensor
lite? why don't i just get vaccinated too

a previous rant thred was the absurd nonsensical decisions
of people alternately crossing the street six times or
trying to run me off the sidewalk with a baby carriage. and
i'll step aside if i can but if it's between your child
being exposed to my [covid-negative] body odor vs. being hit
by a car, i obviously choose the former. and once you do
this to me a few times, why yes, i have begun to delight in
your karen rage

i'll be over in a corner screaming, "logic?! logic? anyone?
does anyone see that i'm a strange nutter and y'all have
become worse than me over the last year or two?"


 

offline Wolfslice from Bay Area, CA (United States) on 2022-01-07 07:07 [#02615509]
Points: 4693 Status: Regular



The whole city is a cauldron of internal combustion. Manila
seems to have more pistons and exhaust pipes than the rest
of the world combined. Even at two in the morning the
hotel’s seemingly unshakable mass hums and rattles from
the seismic energy pouring from all of those motors. The
noise detonates car alarms down in the hotel’s lot. The
noise of one alarm triggers others, and so on. It is not the
noise that keeps Randy awake so much as the insane stupidity
of this chain reaction. It is an object lesson: the kind of
nightmarish, snowballing technological fuck-up that keeps
hackers awake at night even when they can’t hear the
results.

- Cryptonomicon (Neal Stephenson)


 

offline Wolfslice from Bay Area, CA (United States) on 2022-01-07 07:08 [#02615510]
Points: 4693 Status: Regular



3rd link down when I googled neal stephenson quote car
alarm.


 

offline EpicMegatrax from Greatest Hits on 2022-01-07 07:10 [#02615511]
Points: 23981 Status: Addict | Followup to ijonspeches: #02615499



love strolling in the dark too btw. it´s pure bliss.
while sadly you barely see the stars in my town mostly
because we have 260 days of rain a year so cloudy smog feels
almost like a daily given, but i really would love to see
the city put up motion sensors and cleverly angled soft
light for traffic and safety. luckily it´s always mostly
dark by the river.


a few months back, i was having a zig on the bridge over the
trax, looking at the sky. i'm thinking: ok, that's a
helicopter hovering over the highway, likely a cop traffic
helicopter. ok, that's a medivac helicopter heading over to,
probably, the hospital i was born in. but what the fuck is
that? and that? are those fucking drones? is that a
satellite?

and this actually upset me quite much. the sky is full of
surveillance machinery now. i can't even tell it apart from
the stars

i prefer strolling in daytime, really. i don't even care for
the dark itself; just deep night, when i can finally walk
and not be bothered by anyone

it's not hate for the peeps. it's like the tron reboot
movie, with jeff bridges chewing out shea daboof: you're
fucking with my harmony, man



 

offline EpicMegatrax from Greatest Hits on 2022-01-07 07:13 [#02615512]
Points: 23981 Status: Addict | Followup to Wolfslice: #02615510



beautiful quote innit. was, like, sixteen when i read it,
and i just kind of knew immediately that, like, that's one
of those

also don't miss the ramble within the same novel about the
packing efficiency of captain crunch cereal -- which i've
cited in my bullshit thred


 

offline Wolfslice from Bay Area, CA (United States) on 2022-01-07 07:21 [#02615513]
Points: 4693 Status: Regular



I've only read snow crash, but I love his subtle snark.

It seems like you got a lot of thoughts bouncing around in
that noggin of yours. Have you ever tried psilocybin? Taken
in the right setting it kinda shuts all that off for a few
hours, rewired all your inputs and plays a more mellow,
earthy tune.


 

offline EpicMegatrax from Greatest Hits on 2022-01-07 07:26 [#02615514]
Points: 23981 Status: Addict



when i walk into a bar, i can generally presume i've tried
more than everyone there put together


 

offline EpicMegatrax from Greatest Hits on 2022-01-07 07:28 [#02615515]
Points: 23981 Status: Addict



not specifically psilocybin, tho. it's a bit too pushy
unless you need some psychotherapy sometimes


 

offline Wolfslice from Bay Area, CA (United States) on 2022-01-07 07:35 [#02615516]
Points: 4693 Status: Regular



It certainly is pushy. If you've been lazy about anything
important it lets you know. Weed does too though, way more
aggressively. Psilocybin (for me) is just like "come on bro
you got this." Then it fades and I get lazy again.

If you get tired of your street wizard over analysis of
motion sensor lights and stroller karens though, it really
should quell the momentum there.


 

offline EpicMegatrax from Greatest Hits on 2022-01-07 08:04 [#02615518]
Points: 23981 Status: Addict



no it's more shit like: oh wow my first grade teacher was
mildly emotionally abusive, i haven't ever even processed
this as an adult, nothing too horrible she was just a mean
cunt and it left an impression, then you think ~ what did
someone do to her to make her that mean? and have a cry for
her too, after yourself, and then something you didn't even
know was broken, is fixed

trying to quell over-analysis, not really, too busy cupping
my balls and letting the pen move by itself over the paper


 

offline EpicMegatrax from Greatest Hits on 2022-01-07 08:19 [#02615521]
Points: 23981 Status: Addict



i mean, i guess. to get back to the stroller karens...
there's a difference between having a healing cry for
someone who hurt you, because they were clearly hurt
themselves.... and spoiled people using covid to be bullies.
kids as an excuse; old as the hills that. we have to
backdoor all encryption on the internet because what
about the children


i do like children, but this is about where i start quoting
george carlin simply to watch people turn purple.


 

offline EpicMegatrax from Greatest Hits on 2022-01-07 08:37 [#02615522]
Points: 23981 Status: Addict



there's a motion-censor lite out back of me house; properly
calibrated. my landlords run a tight ship. you can't get
into my backdoor without setting off not only my lite, but
theirs. however... if you live there.. if you practice... if
you have good timing; sense of physical presence.... the
turning on of my lite momentarily blinds their lite; think
of a TV show when a flashbang grenade temporarily blinds the
surveillance camera and the picture gradually fades back
into focus.

that's what my lite does to their lite's censor; flashbangs
it. i'd peg it at a hair under two seconds, but not all of
the available time is equal. you can be running full tilt
the first second and it'd miss you, but past that,
diminishing. last half a second, it'll get you unless you're
slow as glass.

i know where the cenzor zone is; corner by my stairs. ages
of trial and error, honed down a routine: approach my lite's
trigger slowly, so i don't waste any of the window. then,
once it hits, jump up most the stairs at once. then do an
almost mime thing and slow down as the cenzor is regaining
its marbles by then

i can nail it like 3/4 of the time, at this point, after
months of living here. i'm not even sure most people could
manage that, let alone bother to study it so thoroughly. so
i can get through, essentially, but no one else.

now that's what i call calibration (tm)


 

offline EpicMegatrax from Greatest Hits on 2022-01-07 09:33 [#02615523]
Points: 23981 Status: Addict



upon further reflection, mushroom reaction to the Bully
Stroller Karens would likely be hilarious laughter. you
can't get covid like that. your delusions are strange and
quaint. all these people and their pretensions! cracks me
the fuck up. why does anyone wear clothes anyways. who are
they kidding

or maybe that was acid. i always preferred acid


 

offline Wolfslice from Bay Area, CA (United States) on 2022-01-07 10:02 [#02615525]
Points: 4693 Status: Regular | Followup to EpicMegatrax: #02615523



I actually prefer it as well. Turns me into some elf
grinning like the RDJ album cover, and everyone else just
seems so full of shit about everything. It can be
pushy as well though when it comes to your own business.

Well anyway no need to find that moment of tranquility
really, if the pace of your thoughts isn't bothering you.
Seemed like you were getting a touch frustrated with that
simple google search and small human interactions though ;p
But nothing wrong with that, Larry David made a brilliant
career out similar neurosis.

All in all I'm most curious about your mid post shift from
the correct "censor," to the oddly futuristic sounding
"cenzor."



 

offline EpicMegatrax from Greatest Hits on 2022-01-07 11:26 [#02615526]
Points: 23981 Status: Addict



i took 4 hits and everything looked like a van gogh
painting... but, moving, a van gogh movie. i put on sony
mdr-v6 with original 4G click-wheel ipod (20gb) and went out
onto the porch balcony. i put on "4" and on 4 hits watched
the snow swirl around in van gogh movies as i listened. top
ten experience


 

offline EpicMegatrax from Greatest Hits on 2022-01-07 11:30 [#02615527]
Points: 23981 Status: Addict



there's "set and setting" but i'd like to propose some more
thorough safety backstop rules

1. set and setting
2. if it's "not doing anything" don't redose until next day
at least
3. treat combinations with the utmost caution. in fact, give
a few days in between different fings


 

offline EpicMegatrax from Greatest Hits on 2022-01-07 11:31 [#02615528]
Points: 23981 Status: Addict



4. no high dose shit


 

offline EpicMegatrax from Greatest Hits on 2022-01-07 11:32 [#02615529]
Points: 23981 Status: Addict



for real, the people that don't come back, they took 15 hits
at once or something insane. slow down, let that shit
breathe


 

offline mermaidman on 2022-01-08 10:17 [#02615540]
Points: 7991 Status: Lurker | Followup to EpicMegatrax: #02615526



are you sure the headphones were sony mdr-v6 though?


 

offline belb from mmmmmmhhhhzzzz!!! on 2022-01-08 12:57 [#02615541]
Points: 6238 Status: Regular



acid will make you jump down the toilet if you don't respect
it. no regrets tho


 

offline EpicMegatrax from Greatest Hits on 2022-01-11 00:01 [#02615594]
Points: 23981 Status: Addict | Followup to mermaidman: #02615540



certain. i still have them


 

offline EpicMegatrax from Greatest Hits on 2022-01-11 00:02 [#02615595]
Points: 23981 Status: Addict | Followup to belb: #02615541



despite what acid would seem to think, that is physically
impossible, and i've never worried about it.


 

offline Hyperflake from Wirral (United Kingdom) on 2022-01-12 10:04 [#02615616]
Points: 30707 Status: Regular



oh fuck yeah I've had this one for a few years, finally i
think they go rid of it, was like living in stalag 17 having
a search light shone on your face every 15 mins when your
trying to sleep


 

offline kei9 from Argentina on 2022-01-19 16:27 [#02615733]
Points: 410 Status: Lurker



motion sensors triggering when there's no one there trigger
me too. I had an idea to end that technology for ever, but I
dont know enough programming to materialize it :(


 

offline EpicMegatrax from Greatest Hits on 2022-01-19 21:11 [#02615740]
Points: 23981 Status: Addict



most remote-controlled garage doors have a little code you
set with dip-switches, so your remote doesn't open your
neighbor's garage, should you have compatible brands. from
there it's clearly possible to build a little circuit to
step through every one of the codes one by one, and then go
atop a hill with a massive transmitter and open everyone's
garage doors at once for miles. no such hack exists for
motion sensors. best you could do is probably set up some
infrared laser not visible to humans, but visible to the
sensor, to turn it on over and over and over until the
light's proprietors figure it's broke and shut it off


 

offline EpicMegatrax from Greatest Hits on 2022-01-21 23:12 [#02615832]
Points: 23981 Status: Addict



the physical and psychological landscape of emotion
censor
motion-sensor mania is always evolving.

to wit, there's a new one that appeared. walking the other
night, one's newly nestled right next to the white picket
fence. it's clearly new. i stop and inspect it. some little
LED job, jabbed into the lawn. probably a self-contained
solar job. i still need to have a look at it in daytime

tonight, though, someone else got one. shit, i thot.
shit. someone else saw the new lite and said,
"hey, that's nice and irritating, i think i could use me one
of those," and then there are two. next, more people will
become aware this product exists, and from there it will
follow the dynamics of an invasive species

if i were still in my early 20's and drinking heavily, a
whole load of these might go mysteriously missing one night


 

offline EpicMegatrax from Greatest Hits on 2022-01-22 06:17 [#02615856]
Points: 23981 Status: Addict



a third one just appeared at a house nearby; didn't even
take 24 hours!

i mean, i enjoy figuring stuff out. observing and dredging
up latent patterns; then using that as leverage to hack
them. fuck, that's what i get paid for. it's the reason i'm
not going mental in a dustbin like poor wMw likely is; it's
actually a marketable skill. but now i'm approaching
middle-age and it's become this terrifying machine that
takes apart absolutely any system i encounter like a
wood-chipper. so, yes, there's a distant, nostalgic part of
me that is deeply chuffed i've called this pattern so
correctly, right when it actually seems to be starting to
matter. but then there's also the feeling of knowing a
trainwreck is imminent and i'm developing some fucking
cassandra syndrome here


 

offline EpicMegatrax from Greatest Hits on 2022-01-22 07:13 [#02615857]
Points: 23981 Status: Addict



continuing on the tip, a fourth has appeared. this time,
within visual range of my house. can you take a regular red
laser and run it through the IR plastic transparent lid
stolen from a VCR remote and get IR laser? physics, i am
less good

i do know cameras can see IR, as can the motion sensors.
could be risky; don't want a crisp video frame of a laser
from my window to the motion sensor across the street. i
have some dream of a firmly-mounted, aimed system that lets
me poke a web API to turn on their stupid fucking LED jerk
lamp from my phone, whenever the mood hits. but,
realistically, i will be chuffed if i can trigger it from my
house, across the street, in a way not visible to the human
eye. but again, physics, not my thing. i do have multiple
scavenged laser diodes tho


 

offline EpicMegatrax from Greatest Hits on 2022-01-22 07:35 [#02615858]
Points: 23981 Status: Addict



no, no. too impatient. what i should do is order one myself
and mess with it before trying lasers out the window

(as well as resist the urge to just yank the one out of the
lawn down the street and smugly tell myself it's faster than
amazon could ship it).

it's actually good i have a job, because otherwise i'd spend
a lot of time on this


 

offline EpicMegatrax from Greatest Hits on 2022-01-23 21:56 [#02615900]
Points: 23981 Status: Addict | Followup to Wolfslice: #02615516



If you get tired of your street wizard over analysis of
motion sensor lights and stroller karens though


...then there is so, so much else to over-analyze. today,
out for a wok, nice sunday, kinda busy out. i see two women
approach. even here, i have just cause for over-analysis:
one acquires certain archetypes with life experience, and
these chicks are... well, fat, but also the sort of fat
chicks that are walking pitbulls and a little loud and rude
and generally from a blue-collar background. generic terms
like "hosebeast" cover it, but i was trying to come up with
something more specific; less derogatory. ah well

one is on the sidewalk with huge dog and other is in the
street with huge dog. i look around. there are cars going
by. there are multiple people walking at different speeds on
the other side of the street. after thinking a moment it
dawns on me that, to optimally solve this scenario, you
would need differential equations

then i had a giggle and decided it was simply too hard.
let's just keep walking and see how it goes.

sidewalk hosebeast clearly expected me to get the fuck out
of her way. she seemed furious when i did not, and there
seemed to be some sort of indignant hnrnrnr being said but i
had hedfones on and tragically i could not hear any of it.


 

offline EpicMegatrax from Greatest Hits on 2022-01-23 21:58 [#02615902]
Points: 23981 Status: Addict



this is all helping me quit zigs, i have to say.


 

offline EpicMegatrax from Greatest Hits on 2022-01-23 22:18 [#02615904]
Points: 23981 Status: Addict | Followup to EpicMegatrax: #02615900



LAZY_TITLE


 

offline EpicMegatrax from Greatest Hits on 2022-01-23 23:24 [#02615909]
Points: 23981 Status: Addict



oh, heck, i missed the aftermath. the bit where, like...
they have a little bonus bit of the movie after the credits

a few minutes later i'd looped around a few blocks and i see
Them off in the distance. Two Other People approach them at
an intersection, and... are cut off, ignored. Two Other
People politely wait for Them to walk by; casually start
walking behind Them. but the whole party is right into a
giant hill and They are not moving up terribly quickly. Two
Other People start gesturing, talking. i am way too far to
hear anything, but it's clear the sort of things being said:
"oh, come on. for real?" "what the hell" and after a bit of
this gesticulation while being stuck behind Them for a bit
Two Other People cross back to the other side of the street
again, defeated

i think: that makes me feel a bit better; it's clear no one
else likes Them either


 


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