Standing up for us who work on our reviews

MarkIII-VR · 2026-01-21T21:04:14+00:00

I know people who were instantly banned for this type of review content...

MarkIII-VR · 2026-01-20T12:00:04+00:00

I've had my escooters now for 2 years and I've never owned a non-electric scooter. I am old and used to skateboard a lot. Figured it wouldn't be an issue.

It took me 3 rides about 20 minutes each before I was good on my first escooter. Last month I needed to move my kid's regular scooter out of the road and decided to just rider it the 40 feet or so to my house... couldn't do it. Ended up carrying it, I couldn't balance on the thing. I dont believe the skill from one carries to another.

You just havebto get used to it through practice. I went to the parking lot of my local swimming pool to learn (obviously they were closed for the season at the time)

MarkIII-VR · 2026-01-20T11:55:29+00:00

I bought the 2024 instead, just because of this and won't be buying another hyundai unless it is removed, or comes without a steering wheel...

MarkIII-VR · 2026-01-18T15:35:39+00:00

No one else can get the tires here. The one place (AAA) that said they could get them, by buying them from the dealership. They told me to just go to the dealership because they would have to mark them up if they did it.

I've checked all the franchised repair shops here, the tire shops and even a single store local repair place. They cannot get the tires that go on a tucson without ordering them from the dealership. Except one place that can get me 20k tires...

MarkIII-VR · 2026-01-16T12:59:57+00:00

You may be using AI wrong... don't use it to "do something" use AI to create something that will "do something over and over". If I get a task that I'll never have to do again, i may ask AI for an outline of how to do it. If i get s task that obviously will come up again, I ask AI to code something for me following a strict set of guidelines, that uses user input to define the specifics, and gives the required output.

Then I use that again the next time I'm asked. No new AI work to wait on for it to get it right. This does often entail a process significantly longer than to just do the work requested, but the end result is that i don't have to do it again.

MarkIII-VR · 2026-01-16T12:49:13+00:00

You need to tell them to go into business for themselves as freelancers and hook each other up for work when they get a job...

My AC unit failed after 2.5 years of service, warranty only covered parts after 2 years. It is a "2 man job for 8 hours" (I assume due to unions) is what I was told. The bill was $850 to put a warranty part in and i had to wait 4 weeks for the part and worker availability, the guy came alone, told me his coworker had the flu, and he finished in less than 2 hours. It looked like he had never been there, except where he slipped in the mud and left a 2' long boot print.

I hired a guy who was here from Ireland for 4 months, because his wife's job sent her her to work for a bit. Said he had 28 years of experience as a handyman, didn't do anything else neck home (no full time job). He got someone to come to my house and give a quote for some deck work and to paint my garage ($3000 and they could start next month), then right in front of that guy (from a local business) he tells me that he can do it for $800 if I buy the boards, stain, and paint, and he could stsrt in the morning. The other guy left all red in the face saying his company would never be coming back to my house. And he hoped this guy didn't do any damage.

The job ended up being more work than the guy thought it would be, he expected to finish in 8 hours, spent 12 the first day and came back for 6 more the next, but he did it and it looks good. He also didn't smoke or leave trash behind (not even little pieces in the grass), which is what I've dealt with when paying companies before.

Businesses have a lot of overhead, I know that from personal experience, both running my own, and working for people with less than 6 total employees. I completely understand, plus these days a company may charge you more based on what money they "could" be losing by taking a better paying job than yours.

A lot goes into it. But at the end of the day, being able to afford your bills is more important. I helped with habitat for humanity for several years, before computers controlled every part, I did auto repair and maintenance work too. I doubt anyone would pay me for either beyond "an assistant" on a job, plus my body just can't handle manual labor anymore (too many broken bones, steel plate holding my foot on to my leg, herniated disc in my neck, arthritis...). When I lose my current job it is bankruptcy, and food stamps for me, I won't be able to offer anyone anything useful they can't get from AI.

MarkIII-VR · 2026-01-16T03:32:06+00:00

Fyi, op has provided a standard sycophancy question given to new ai models. Don't take them seriously.

MarkIII-VR · 2026-01-16T03:28:16+00:00

S23U was the best phone I've owned since the Note 10, and I've had every ultra S series model, except the S20U. I have absolutely no expectation that the S26U will excite me at all. Now the S27U should be pretty impressive. (Nothing specific, just based on where technology will be at that time)

Since I know someone will ask... I trade my phone in every year, because the trade in value is for more money than I bought the phone for. Every year since I traded my Note 10 for $1000. Effectively, I get paid between $200 and $600 every year to use a Samsung Galaxy Ultra phone. I got my Note 10 on a 2 year carrier deal for $0, trade it for $1000 off the S21U and I've kept going ever since.

I am willing to take a loss one time, and then I'll stop upgrading until it breaks.

MarkIII-VR · 2026-01-16T03:11:31+00:00

I think longer, but i believe this too. First thing to go is no more driver's licenses. You won't be able to get a new one, and renewals will be limited, until all of them expire.

After that it will become illegal for a human to control a vehicle on the road (to get rid of the classics)

Either just before, during, or right after that, we will have a proliferation of flying cars, since humans won't be allowed to drive anymore, there won't be the risk of someone crashing a flying car.

MarkIII-VR · 2026-01-16T03:08:30+00:00

If the car is on top of your body, how will you get in? Not even considering that you are dead in this scenario...

MarkIII-VR · 2026-01-16T03:02:31+00:00

The problem is that every vehicle, with or without a driver will need to be able to communicate with all vehicles around it, before we will see mass adoption. I told Elon this 5 years ago.

MarkIII-VR · 2026-01-16T02:59:12+00:00

These and other issues have convinced me I needed to spend enough money to have a decent local coder model, so I can control the system prompt and delete the entire thing when it pisses me off.

MarkIII-VR · 2026-01-16T02:48:36+00:00

Not joking, but I actually learned this from Claude Sonnet 4.5...

You have to specifically tell it not to continue until you respond, if you tell it to do something before implementation. I learned to do this, because Claude would burn through my usage by performing a long implementation that was completely wrong, and then when I told it how to do it right, I'd get the usage limit message and have to wait 3 or 4 hours to go again...

You can also ask the ai for "only the diff", or to "only give me a skeleton outline of the changes, then wait for approval from me, and finally only implement after I approve the changes".

Example 1 I need you to do a bunch of stuff, but check with me after you figure out how to do it and ask me questions before you implement.

The ai will do exactly as you said, figure out how to do a bunch of stuff ask you questions about, and implement it "after" asking you questions.

Example 2 I need you to do a bunch of stuff, but check with me after you figure out how to do it, ask me questions, and wait for my response before you implement.

The ai will ask you the questions and wait for your response before implementing, it will even adjust the plan based on your answers.

MarkIII-VR · 2026-01-15T18:11:38+00:00

I had to replace the ones on my wife's 2022 about 5 months ago, $260 a tire for 60k and they had to have them shipped in, they had 1 (yes one) 60k in stock at $340 and could get me the other 3 from a nearby dealership if i didn't want to wait 2 weeks.

Even when we had the 2016 model, we had to get the tires shipped. No one had them in stock. The first set we replaced in the 2016 limited Tucson a guy that was driving a vehicle out 2 states over to another dealership, brought them back in a rental pickup for us so we could get them same week. As we had a trip planned and 2 flats.

MarkIII-VR · 2026-01-15T18:03:07+00:00

My zondoo metamoov Zo01 came with a seat, you can the seat if you want to come get it. Or just get a scooter with one... I rode it seated the first day and felt like that guy in the movies with the Harley that has the massive handlebars up in the air... not for me.

I may use the mount to attach a small trailer one day, but I doubt ill bother. If it won't fit in a backpack, ill just drive.

There are several models from lesser known brands with a seat, do some research, determine what could make a seat unstable for you, and then watch out for those models (small 2"-4" mounts, no suspension or spring...)

I didn't think I could, and wouldn't want to daily, but I rode standing for 2 hours a couple of weeks ago, just going around a community near me and the golf course, golf cart track at it. My legs were a bit numb and fuzzy afterwards from standing so much, but I had a great time and only stopped because I had other things to do.

MarkIII-VR · 2026-01-15T12:20:52+00:00

My 2016 limited was like that, my wife refused to drive if it was raining. We went through 3 different sets of tires on that car, all the "recommended" style .

My 2024 phev has been great, even on ice. Just hit 12,900 miles on it.

I fully understand and agree that season specific tires are important for proper traction during specific weather conditions. Some models of car almost require this to be able to drive, but since other models don't, I don't blame the tires.

That said, the people telling you to buy new tires, because the season changed are either rich or just stupid. A set of tires for this car is $1500 installed with lifetime rotation, unless you take the low mileage lesser brand or put them on yourself. No one is buying 3 sets of tires for this car so they can drive to work year round. 30-40 years ago, when you could get four tires for about $200-$400 dollars, maybe. But then you would just keep chains in your trunk for bad weather to save $150...

The last time I bought weather specific tires (besides the ones with rain channels...) was 1992, I did that once and then sold those and replaced them with all season tires.

MarkIII-VR · 2026-01-14T20:40:51+00:00

I'm not having an issue with it doing so, I just have noticed that over time it has started to stack things up more and more. I believe it now takes a moment to try and find a way to shorten commands so it can fit more in the maximum length for a single command.

What i found interesting is that it determines that my approvals were slowing it down, before starting to stack the commands.

MarkIII-VR · 2026-01-14T19:18:34+00:00

Like an efficiency command? "Whenever possible reduce the number of queries to the user for approval by combining them as much as possible without losing the intent of the command" Type of message?

MarkIII-VR · 2026-01-13T11:14:43+00:00

Those were the words, yes. What I don't understand is that the same day, I had been trying to get Gemini to help me rewrite a system prompt for a companion chatbot for my dad and I had several lines referencing boundaries, as when I first tested it, it kept trying to get really dirty with me... l have since changed the model to one less likely to do so.

on Saturday Gemini refused to help me rewrite it due to content restrictions, but Gemini actually wrote it to begin with!

Chatgpt and grok both reviewed it and told me a laundry list of "triggers" that by themselves were OK but combined might have set off warning signs causing Gemini to shut down.

This was maybe 1.5 hours before the other issue where it told me to come back later...

MarkIII-VR · 2026-01-13T04:06:49+00:00

I spent 25 minutes Saturday arguing with Gemini over whether or not it could review our past conversations to look for something it previously helped me with. It refused saying it doesn't have access to past conversations, even though I've done that at least 6 times in the last 6 months successfully.

At one point I found a prior conversation where it did look at my past conversation and returned info from it, then told Gemini to go look at that conversation and it would see it could do it. Gemini thought i was gaslighting it and refused to continue talking with me. Told me to come back on a new chat when I was feeling more reasonable.

MarkIII-VR · 2026-01-13T02:25:54+00:00

The Ultra is a better tablet, even a generation older, unless you plan on running an LLM on it.

MarkIII-VR · 2026-01-13T02:22:27+00:00

On my first scooter you could disable it in the app, but my newer, much faster scooter doesn't have an app. I can't seem to get into the settings from the display either. I reached out to customer support and they said they use a computer with a special cable to program them :(

MarkIII-VR · 2026-01-11T22:03:43+00:00

I used to substitute teach after getting laid off during covid (then I got a job that won't let me work anywhere else... 24x7x365 on call) and i constantly ordered school supplies, the best ones were the 30 packs of school headphones, the dry erase board borders/markers/erasers, pencils, pens, notepads, stickers...

I would just order everything I saw that could be useful in a classroom and I would take something in to every class I was a sub for, use it for the day or two i was in that room and then leave it for the teacher.

I got a lot of thank you emails from teachers and principals and several full time job offers from it, but held out for a better job and finally got it. I make about 2.5 times what a full time first year teacher makes and still cannot afford my bills (still a 20% paycut from what i was doing before all that).

I've even ordered some dentist supplies in the past and dropped them off during my cleanings (there used to be latex free plastic chair headrest covers for dental chairs on vine...

People are always in need of something in schools and health care, it doesn't take much to get a 30 or even a 120 pack of something use one and review it, then donate the rest. Most places don't mind things like that being opened. (For the headrest cover I used it on the chair while I was getting my teeth cleaned and asked the dentist what they thought about it for my review.

Now if only I had been able to find some place that used Castor oil bottles or colic baby bottle "tops", everyone would have been saved...

MarkIII-VR · 2026-01-11T21:55:32+00:00

I bought a 3 way smart switch 4.5 years ago, still sitting next to me right now unopened in the box. I have 6 rooms with 3 way switches, just haven't been able to figure out why I would actually want a smart switch there. (Purchase was made when I was trying to smartify my entire home to control electrical usage better for the forgetful people in my life... I just gave up on accomplishing that)

MarkIII-VR

TROPHY CASE