Took the car in for its maintenance, and they found a nest. had to get that cleaned up. We have a detached garage built in 1930, so it isn't animal-proof by any stretch. The service guy suggested Bounce dryer sheets, but the internet says that doesn't last, and suggests peppermint oil on cotton balls...refreshed daily.
Any other suggestions, apart from moving a cat into the car?
I'm not a big fan of large-language model (LLM) AI systems, but I thought I'd give the Gemini assistant a try in our Equinox EV to see what it was like.
It is very impressive in the character of the voice. However, to change the voice in the car, you have to install Gemini and Google Assistant on your phone (I have an iPhone) and change the voices there; it will propagate to the car eventually. As smooth as the voices are, you will still notice some repetitive stresses and verbal mannerisms, and a lack of variation in the tonal range. (That is, it varies as it speaks, but you get the same variations all the time.)
The beta feature when you directly launch the Gemini app in the infotainment system, where you press the button so it is in continuous conversation mode, it entertaining. I could see it being a fun way to pass the time on longer trips, if you are a chatty person. It seems like it will talk about anything you bring up.
However, there were a couple of obvious issues.
One was the fact that the Gemini app on the EV doesn't "know" it is on an EV. If I was talking about a setting issue, it would offer to give me the steps to change it on my phone, or tell me to do something on my phone right then, while I was driving. It seems like the system prompt should include something to the effect of "never suggest using the smartphone to change things while driving."
The other was the disconnect from infotainment. The beta mode can't interface with Google Maps, for instance. Your normal "Hey, Google" will let you demand routing to destinations, but even then you get errors. I was within a block of an EV charger, and when I asked for directions to the nearest charger, it suggested a destination miles away for no apparent reason.
Another instance was when Gemini offered to set a reminder for me in five minutes to do something. Maybe this feature works on a phone, where it will set a normal alarm. But I was driving for 15 minutes, and never got any reminder.
This is, of course, typical of LLMs. They will often generate content that isn't correct, or even truthful. When I told Gemini it hadn't given me a reminder that it said it could provide, its response included a phrase about "I may have implied that I could set a reminder..." when it said so explicitly. This is more of a general LLM issue: They have no concept of accuracy, and that's probably a great arena for research right now. But it is why I have little faith in them in actual use.
So, I'd suggest considering Gemini to be more of the entertainment side of infotainment. It can be fun, but resist the feeling that it is as trustworthy as the tone of the voices suggest.
Just had someone attempt the !steam or discord scam, where they claim to have accidentally reported my account for doing something nefarious. Once they claimed that and sent a screenshot of the message, it was clear what was going on, so I reported it and blocked the account.
For those who don't know it, the user involved asked if I was spamming links, then said they couldn't identify who had taken over their account, so they claimed to have reported mine (why pick any account if you can't identify the account that did it?). Next up is usually some process to login and get your account cleared, but that compromises your credentials.
I didn't wait for that bit, once it was clear with the user was going with it.
I generally allow chat message requests as I write comments in advice subreddits and get people who want to ask me a question directly. But you do have to pay attention to these kinds of attempts.
Went to get a burger with my daughter and she hadn’t been here. Tables were full upstairs and I’d never been in the basement before.
Did a top-off charge before a trip, and there are signs at the IONNA charger in Oakdale, by the Hy-Vee, for each parking spot, indicating that EV parking is preferred, but all are welcome to park there.
Claiming that "Miss Liberty should be welcoming Americans to America," President Donald Trump said in his Independence-Day speech at the National State Fair in Washington, DC, that he had detailed the National Park Service to start a project to figure out how to rotate the landmark to face in the direction of the mainland, instead of the open Atlantic ocean.
This is part of a sweeping set of changes to national parks and landmarks begun by the Trump administration, which includes the removal of historical plaques talking about slavery, and plans to add Trump's likeness to Mt. Rushmore. A new "Patriot" passport book, where Trump's image says "Welcome, but be good," is also considered part of this plan.
A source inside the National Park Service, speaking on condition of anonymity as they aren't allowed to brief the press on this project, said that the plan is to point the statue to face Trump Tower in Manhattan.
The Statue of Liberty was a gift to the USA from the people of France in the late 19th century.
I had heard about the "retro" Pizza Hut locations, and thought it would be worth a try for Father's Day. We went to the one in Hastings, Minnesota, but it didn't live up to the hype:
They did have the lights. (If anyone knows a location that really is more like it was thirty years ago, please let me know.)
Because of the disappointment, we decided to go elsewhere after eating. We next went to Whirlyball by the Mall of America; never really knew what it was. We did lasertag (they have a nice, two-level arena, very dark and with distracting light effects) and an escape room, but we found ourselves in the mood for more video arcade stuff.
So, we went to Can Can Wonderland. Important thing we discovered if you don't like stairs: There's another entrance at what looks like 755 Prior, under the light blue water tower. There's a ramp there, and a guard's desk; you can take the elevator down to the basement, where you go down a long hallway to get to the entrance of Can Can Wonderland.
i'd never been there before, and we had a blast. You pay an entrance fee, but all the games are free play; you may pay extra for minigolf (we didn't do it), and you can buy food and drinks, including cereal and special ice cream treats. They had fairly recent video games, and some classics (original Pac Man! Space Invaders! Vector-based Asteroids!). They also had a bunch of electromechanical arcade games, some going back to the early 20th century, it seemed. It is a very nifty experience, and I wish we'd gone there earlier.
A couple unusual things: There's a room where you can break glass for a fee. And, there's a pneumatic golf-ball gun range, where you try to hit pipes and bells in an enclosed space, while sitting safely outside.
An excellent Father's Day.
I’ve had this problem for weeks. I have an iPhone 16 Pro with iOS 26.5, and when I turn on screen sharing on my iPhone, what’s shared isn’t what is on my phone, but something that looks like a desktop web feed image. It never shows anything I’ve seen in my feed. The app behavior is fine, and the sound goes to Apple TV just fine, but the image is wrong.
I see posts that are days old with hundreds of comments. new seems to work fine with the "For You" category, but not the "Following" Category.
Just started happening a minute ago. It seems to have started the same time that the "For You" and "Following" options showed up...I haven't found out how to make it default to "Following" yet, but it doesn't matter which one I'm in. Clicking a post takes over the screen I'm on instead of opening a new tab.
I'm still sick, and it doesn't look like I'll recover before Saturday. 😞
If anyone was looking for a spot in Camden State Park, the Redwood lodge has AC, three bedrooms, and two bathrooms.
Let’s have it - show me those Reddit gold REAL photos. This is from back around 2019 ish
I'm at update V654.50. I've noticed this behavior with my iPhone, which is set up as a trusted device, sharing contacts and messages.
For example, yesterday I was listening to music from my iPhone as I drove an errand. When I got back in the car after my errand, my iPhone wouldn't connect. The iPhone's Bluetooth settings showed the car listed, but the car said it wasn't connected. When I tried to get the car to connect, it just spun without result.
I ended up needing to reboot the infotainment system to get out of that, removed the car from the iPhone and the iPhone from the car, and re-added it. While that worked for music and phone, none of the contacts or favorites came across for the telephone functions.
I've had variations of this for a week or two. Usually it recovers, but I've had to remove and re-add at least one other time. The most common behavior is music not playing through, sometimes suddenly.
Called in to schedule my first schedule maintenance for 7,500 miles. Got told of a recall that came out May 4th (just now!) on the braking system, and they'll need to hold the car all day to do a reload of the software.
It didn't show in the app yet as a recall, so this is brand-spanking new.