benfell

joined 1 year ago
[–] benfell 2 points 2 months ago

You confuse the economic (neoliberalism) with a broader tendency of conservatism (neoconservatism), for which neoliberalism is a moral imperative. Neoconservatism holds that the U.S. political and economic system is the best system for all humans, regardless of history, regardless of culture, and demands that this system be "defended" at any cost, hence a muscular and imperialist foreign policy. Conservatism was the subject of my dissertation, so I do know something of which I speak.

[–] benfell 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I think, at best, it can only help with certain types of potential suicides. Some suicides occur due to apparently hopeless life situations. For instance, I haven't been able to get a real job in 23 years despite, in that time, finishing a B.A., an M.A., and a Ph.D. Nothing that everybody says to do works for me and I'm frankly tired of hearing it. I'm stuck DoorDashing (Uber was way too abusive) and that I'm stuck doing that is intensely depressing.

Psychology can't help with this. The only thing that can help is a real job. And that's what a lot of the babble about suicide prevention seems to miss.

[–] benfell 2 points 2 months ago

This appears to work. Thanks!

 

Has anyone figured out how to add a search engine option to the list Apple offers?

DuckDuckGo prioritizes MSN's lifted pages. I need original pages. This MSN crap is unacceptable.

[–] benfell 1 points 4 months ago

It's been a few weeks now and I think I understand the problem better. It's not solved.

First, it appears to really be that they mean it when they say to disconnect all connections when connecting the phone to the adapter. In my case, this is impractical: I have a smart watch, a smart ring, and smart glasses, and I have them for reasons. And I am frequently stopping and restarting the engine, which of course restarts the adapter (and I wondered if the power cycling was inducing premature failure).

What I'm seeing now is that the problem is occasional and unpredictable. This misled me as to the source of the problem. I thought it was the adapter. But it turns out that if I just wait five minutes, the longest five minutes ever, after getting the message, the adapter will try again to connect to the phone and probably succeed.

It happens I wound up renting a 2022 Jeep Compass for a couple of weeks. The head unit in this car, though clearly not top of the line, was capable of CarPlay over bluetooth. This seemed more robust, more reliable, but not entirely so. I don't have any idea how to account for this difference. Glitches still happened.

What I notice is that whether it's the head unit or an adapter, wifi is unavailable while connected. I infer that this connection uses both bluetooth and wifi and that part of what the initialization process involves is handshaking to establish both connections. I suspect that it's the wifi that's problematic, but I often start my car at home, where there are multiple wifi signals, including more than one that my phone knows about, without incident. So it's not just that my phone is already connected to wifi. There's more to it but I don't know what.

In the long term, I'll probably give in and upgrade the head unit. The display on the Jeep Compass was much improved over the one in my (one year older) RAV4. I noticed it was much easier to navigate with this display and that's important. But the mounting bracket that should (and probably does) work with my car has not been confirmed to fit. So it seems I have to wait.

[–] benfell 2 points 5 months ago

I'm not proud of it by any stretch but I do shop Amazon. There's a lot to say about that but the bottom line for me is that I simply don't have time to do anything else.

I've tried units from Amazon, Best Buy, and now, a fourth, CPLAY2Air.

[–] benfell 1 points 5 months ago

Ottocast is one of the ones that died. It's actually the first one I bought because it is highly rated.

[–] benfell 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

This isn't about playing music. This is mainly about CarPlay for navigation, dealing with text messages, etc. I am extremely reluctant to replace the head unit: First, it would be expensive--a problem with what these gig companies pay. Second, I would lose some of the interface to the car itself.

[–] benfell 3 points 5 months ago (6 children)

This isn't about playing music. This is mainly about CarPlay for navigation, dealing with text messages, etc. I am extremely reluctant to replace the head unit: First, it would be expensive--a problem with what these gig companies pay. Second, I would lose some of the interface to the car itself.

 

I have the misfortune of being stuck doing DoorDash. It means I'm constantly plugging in and unplugging my phone from my car, at least once at the beginning and and again at the end of each and every delivery. Even with USB-C (it's an iPhone 15 Pro Max), that makes me nervous. It's also inefficient, having to fumble with the cord and the plug and the phone each and every time. And of course it's a problem when it's pouring down rain and the USB outlet gets wet.

So I've been trying bluetooth adapters for my 2021 Toyota RAV4 XLE Premium Hybrid. I've gone through three of them, now. They each worked great for the first day or so, then died. A message appears on the screen that the device could not be started in "advanced mode" and "normal mode" means the device doesn't work.

The dealer informs me that the head units which support CarPlay over bluetooth are only available in model years 2023 and newer and cannot be retrofitted to a 2021.

I'm not even seeing the problem acknowledge in a web search. But for me, it's consistent.

Does anyone know a solution?

[–] benfell 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Might be the worst take ever, but do you suppose the Republicans are afraid of running against Kamala Harris?

[–] benfell 16 points 9 months ago (1 children)

You'll want a bucket and probably a mop.

When I first moved back east I was reveling in a thunderstorm, left the window open to hear the rain and the thunder. Did that a few times actually.

But yours is bigger.

[–] benfell 1 points 1 year ago

No, this is a 14. I never heard of "3D Touch" but it sounds like it would be completely unusable for me.

-14
I hate gestures (self.apple_enthusiast)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by benfell to c/apple_enthusiast
 

Why on God's green earth can I not have an #iPhone interface that works?

To say that Apple's "gestures" suck is entirely too kind. They are a fundamentally broken idea anyway, but that gestures have regions and therefore that a gesture may mean any of three different things, makes my phone desperate--and I do mean desperate--to do anything other than what I'm telling it to do.

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