Unless you feed it directly into the line, screaming into the phone, playing loud tones/music, or even a smoke alarm going off right by the phone isn't likely to cause damage on the other end.

Fine, same frequency as a smoke alarm. Good luck proving you weren't near a smoke alarm that happened to go off.

In civilized places (EU), one-click cancellation is pretty much required. This is a Unistatian problem.

Once you get the actual human, 1000Hz tone at max volume. Or play a "numbers station" just to confuse the shit out of them...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

People (at least in the US) have turned into utter asozials after the Great COVwardic Freakout of 2020.

I hope this will only mean that Google AI verminator numbers are blocked, not that businesses will give up their phone lines period. I much prefer calling up and e.g. ordering food to pick up for cash, not using Grubhub or Uber Shits. God damn technology. Ludd! Dudd! Luddududd!

The post-COVwardic freakout asozial economy ... Gerd forbid that you might have to talk to another human being. So gross. Life should be lived behind a screen, interacting with actual humans is so ... cheugy.

"or", not "and"

AI vermin crashing the economy in 3...2...1...

They use air brakes operated by releasing the air from the lok end (front). The devices in question dump air from the back end of the train in an emergency (e.g. if there's a clog in the line and the rear wagons don't release pressure).

The response to the radio signal is to fail safe (stop), not fail deadly. You definitely want emergency services to be able to stop a runaway train (esp on without a driver) without much bureaucracy. The risk is a stopped train. The risk of NOT having that ability is a disaster like the Lac-Mégantic incident ~10 years ago.

It's not necessarily stupid that there's no authentication. This fails safe (train stops), not deadly ... you actually want emergency services to be able to stop any runaway train without begging for a code to do so.

Trains already have a dead-man switch, generally in the form of a Big Red Button that has to be pressed within a certain time after a buzzer sounds (called an alerter).

The way that train brakes are applied is interesting - they respond to a DROP of air pressure in the brake pipe that goes from wagon to wagon. This is a fail-safe to force the brakes to apply if the line develops a leak. But what if the line has a clog or closed valve somewhere in the train? The dead-man switch in the locomotive would only cause the brakes IN FRONT OF the clog to apply - the radio system works from the rear of the train, so will apply the brakes BEHIND the clog. In an extreme situation, both the dead-man switch and the radio system can be useful.

This was an issue in Poland a couple of years ago with a similar system called "RadioStop." I think it was even exploited by Russian hackers.

Cameras/phones? I want a micro-SD slot! Much easier to move the SD to a computer than fucking with a cable. I don't want my car to interface with a phone at all. I want an excuse to be unreachable while driving ... always-on culture is fucking killing us. People (esp in the US) need to re-learn the fine arts of waiting and patience. Voice recognition is OK, *if it's not a substitute for physical controls*. Turning a temp/air direction/fan knob is a lot more intuitive than "hey, cumpuker, turn left temp up to 75 degrees. NOW!"

The lack of features is in itself a feature. I don't want to stink my photos with the clown. I want a good 'ol SD card or USB port where I can transfer them privately, between my own devices. I don't want to go through 5 menus on a touch screen just to adjust my car HVAC. I don't want yap recognition either ... I talk to other humans, not inanimate objects like cars. Give me good 'ol knobs and buttons. Ludd!