Comment by ddt_Osprey | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ddt_Osprey | Hacker News Reader

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People literally take shits in subway cars, especially at night. When people aren't taking a dump in the corner, the new subway cars have air conditioning systems that smell like stale halitosis.

But, the worst part about the new subway cars is that the robotic johnny cab voice doesn't have a weird accent. I actually enjoy the strange unintelligible squawking in a Brooklyn accent, drenched in the electromagnetic feedback of unshielded motors. Mostly because the robotic voice never has anything to useful or relevant to say, and if someone's going to say something pointless, I'd rather not understand it, and hear some kind of funny accent.

  THIS THE NEW YORK CITY SUBWAY SYSTEM WITH AN 
  IMPORTANT MESSAGE FROM THE MTA. KEEP YOUR 
  VALUABLE BELONGINGS OUT OF SIGHT. PROTECT 
  YOURSELF. STAY ALERT, BE COURTEOUS AND HAVE 
  A SAFE DAY.

Sure thing, HAL.

I consider these pointless announcements to be a form of auditory pollution, they do nothing but make you tune out all announcements, making it more likely that you'll miss the occasional useful one. I'm in the UK, rather than NYC, but our rail system is full of useful warnings such as "Don't leave your belongings unattended, they may be taken", and "It's been raining, so the floor might be slippery".

Seriously people, if you need warning of those things maybe just stay at home until you've grown up a bit.

It's not just the sound, the departure boards (which are supposed to tell you which train(s) are next) spend a lot of time with those useless warnings showing instead.

Ugh, I hate the tube for this. And I've noticed that that the 'importance' of the scrolling text has gone down over the years.

When I'm on a tube platform, if I'm looking at the upcoming trains, I don't need to be reminded that I shouldn't smoke or that there's Rugby coming up at the weekend.

Couldn't be the robotic voice more understandable for foreign people than one with a funny accent? Specially with messages like those that seem to be aimed at foreign people than native ones.

I'm sure that's what the robot voices are for.

The problem is, they only have ten or fifteen pre-sets, and all of them are useless.

> People literally take shits in subway cars, especially at night.

Yeah, boy, I sure do hate my morning commute, just ankle-deep in shit, while the Robot Overlords whip the Poles and Italian immigrants bloody.

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