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A Mythbuster's Biggest Tech Headaches (and Solutions)
An anonymous reader writes "The Mythbusters' Jamie Hyneman shares his top tech annoyances. Hyneman runs down the little things that bug him about everything from tools (exotic chargers) to cars (useless features). He also notes that there's a lot of room for improvement on PC desktops: 'In addition to being buggy ... extra features tend to bog down your system by demanding more processing power and memory. Computer-makers: Don't load up operating systems with features and then make us sweat to figure out how to get rid of the fat ... There's another solution available to consumers: Switch to a Linux-based OS such as Ubuntu. Since most Linux OSs are free, there's no business reason to bloat up the system with feature frills.'"
But it seems like this is just a fairly famous person telling us what we already know. Nothing new or insightful here IMHO.
..share it on his TV show, where it might have mattered. Posting it here is just preaching to the choir, so to speak.
Mythbusters and Linux? What a Slashdot combo!
Jamie's the one who tries NOT to get hurt on the show, of course.
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
Since most Linux OSs are free, there's no business reason to bloat up the system with feature frills.
But Mandriva have never let a little thing like that stand in their way.
I though for sure his top tech annoyance would have been Adam Savage. :-)
Kari's hot.
I don't care how badly her hair is cut nor how fugly red she has it, she's still hot.
I know this isn't Fark, but it has to be said.
All browsers' default homepage should read: Don't Panic...
How about web articles that have more words than ads. Come on. This paragraph-at-a-time stuff is more annoying than even Vista.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
...and Adam seems to like Apple, who gets Microsoft?
My guess is Buster.
If you think Mandriva is bloated, then use a different distro. Goddess knows there's only a few hundred to choose from.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
All my phones in recent years use a USB port to charge. My new iMate Ultimate 6150 does, my previous HTC Trinity did, my wife's Motorola phones do. I won't buy a phone without a USB port to charge with. We carry around a small AA charger that has a USB port on it to charge devices on the go, it works great for long flights or any sort of travel away from a USB port.
In my car I tossed the 12V "cigarette lighter" from the dash to the truck. I also increased its power from a small 5A fuse to a 10A fuse, so I can run a reasonably sized 120V inverter (also in the trunk) to power a few devices on-the-go.
In the place of the dash 12V adapter, I installed a nice custom panel with 3 USB ports. They're high power ports, so I can charge a phone, a GPS receiver, and a plethora of other devices that use USB to charge. In the future I'd like to connect one port to a radio so I can play music on-the-go without my iPod.
In the past, I've had relatively complicated small PCs to run my music system, but I'm seeing more and more options for in-vehicle PCs running Linux. Eventually I think we'll see a system that works well and is cheap. Since we only buy used cars, tossing the radio is one of the first things we do, and it's at most a loss of maybe $25 worth of electronics.
There are many things I wish were modernized, standardized, and more open. First, vehicle information is very proprietary. Why is it that cars can't report status information via a simple USB connection? All the information is either there, or could be generated VERY cheaply. I ran out of wiper fluid two days ago (lots of snow in Chicago lately), and I sat there thinking how lame it is that the wiper fluid reservoir doesn't have a simple sensor to detect low fluid (it's a 2001 vehicle, not THAT old). Even that could be transported across a USB chain with regular updates. Heck, a $2 sensor could even sense fluid at 3 levels. Simple enough.
At home, we have a DC run throughout the house wherever we upgraded our power, and I'm seriously thinking of changing it to USB charging. AC in the home is useful, but so many devices use DC (and the dreaded overheating wall-warts!) that I'm shocked that more devices aren't standardizing on DC. 18V, 5A+, not a big deal -- but so many devices could use it (charging tools, video games, cell phones, even some computer monitors). Simple, without needed ANOTHER heat-generating and wasting transformer. My laptop is DC, too, yet I need the darned transformer throughout the house.
But I still see more and more devices standardizing in many ways. Over time, manufacturers are seeing that power is a commodity, not a profit maker. I tell my friends and family to stop buying products that use proprietary charging hardware. With tools, the battery situation is frustrating, but I think we'll see some changes there. I like the idea of having a standard 6V pack, and just adding more if you need 12V or 18V. Even better would be a "serial/parallel" switch so you could go from 6V 1A to 6V 2A or 12V 1A with the flip of a switch. Ahh, to dream.
Beetle B.
http://icanhascheezburger.com/2008/01/15/funny-pictures-welkum-to-mythbusters/ :D
The reason is that they get paid to install crap software on your computer!
Remember when the promise of cable TV was that you wouldn't have to watch commercials because you were already paying for TV? That didn't last long... the promise was broken and now you pay for TV service *AND* you have to watch commercials.
You pay for magazines and news papers and with the exception of consumer reports (at least that was the case in the past) you get commercial ads in there too!
It seems no business can resist the temptation to sell their customer's eyes to advertisers and other parties. It's a very bad business practice and one that eats at the trust that customers have with their vendors and service providers. But it's so common place these days that to do otherwise would be an exception rather than the rule. It's not an excuse for bad behavior, it's just a fact.
Dell does a lot less of that than others and you can certainly request that anything be loaded or not loaded as well. But the average consumer doesn't know this and so they are victimized by having their computers compromised right out of the box.
But there is a business reason for the extra crap-ware to be installed... they get money when they do it.
Since most Linux OSs are free, there's no business reason to bloat up the system with feature frills.
Since most proprietary OS vendors try to make a profit, there is no business reason to spend development time and money bloating up the system with feature frills.
Not specifically a tech issue, but affects numerous tech products as well.
What really drives me nuts is non standard screws intended to prevent you from opening your device.
(Unless of course you have the special magic screw driver.)
I really hate these. I love opening things, to fix them or just for the fun of seeing how they're made.
I bought it, it belongs to me, don't prevent me from trying to have a look inside if I want to.
...because we're on Slashdot. We all know what Jamie is saying is true.
But he's near-famous. He has a show that millions of people watch. And he's saying that Vista blows, and why it blows, and that Ubuntu kicks its ass.
And he's saying it in Popular Mechanics. You see those everywhere. My barber has a rack of them by his waiting bench. So does my doctor. You see PM magazines all over a doctor's waiting area.
It's called getting the word out.
A lot of us here on /. complain about how Joe Sixpack has no clue about computer issues. Well - now Joe Sixpack has an opportunity to be sitting in a dentist's office, and see a PM magazine with Jamie on the cover and think "Hey cool - think I'll read that. That's the show where they blow stuff up. It'll be interesting to hear what he has to say."
And suddenly he's exposed to the problems with Vista, and the joys of Ubuntu by a person he respects and likes. Maybe he'll call up his geeky cousin later on in the day on Jamie's recommendation and ask him what this Ubuntu thingy is.
This is how mindshare happens. A war is a million little battles, and we just won one.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
With very few exceptions, these aren't factors that make it onto the feature list.
So far, this hasn't mattered too much as the performance of new PCs rises rapidly - what was a slow program on last year's box is fine on this year's. Great if you're buying new - no so great if your machine is a couple of years old.
The ony solution I can think of would be to force developers to use less than bleeding edge hardware - but then development would slow down.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Why do websites have to paginate stories? The scroll bar is there for a reason, why not let it do its thing? It is really annoying when I can read the sentence or paragraph you put on each page faster than it can load.
I think a story or article should only be split into different pages when it is big enough to have different chapters. Since almost all news articles are way to short to have chapters, why try to split them up in an annoying way?
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
PC manafacturers are PAID to put that bloatware on the computers. They would do the same thing to Linux too. They would be just as fine with selling the hardware at a higher price and nothing else on it. Dell and HP and the like only pay around $30 for windows
Not only do you get locked in automatically, but the other weird thing that they did was the "only unlock the driver door" feature. Now I always have to hit the button 3 times to make sure I have unlocked the tailgate. Once should open all of the doors by default. If I want the new, magic driver-door-only feature it should be a configuration option someplace.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
I liked his Idea of tools using 6V battery packs. I got several tools out in the shop, a few 18V, a few 12V, one or two 7.2v, etc. Even the 3 18V tools have different battery packs, with different chargers. A huge portion of the back of my workbench (near the wall) is nothing but chargers. I would love to have a standardized version of the battery packs.
Half the time, I don't even need the power of the 18V drill, I just need a bit of Juice to turn a bunch of screws. Wouldn't it be slick to pop in 3 6v Batteries, and be able to toggle a switch to choose between connecting them in serial or parallel? IE, more power, or longer lasting battery?
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
Most of these annoyances are very deliberate. HDMI is intended to be non-interoperable and failure-prone. OEM Windows preloads contain extra bloatware because bloatware makers paid to have their crap installed. Tools use nonstandard battery packs, in order to sell proprietary replacement packs.
These aren't engineering failures. They are just examples of products that are made to serve interests other than the user's.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Cars are a PITA to maintain these days because, to increase efficiency and meet emissions regulations, they have to be lighter and have tightly controlled combustion. The lighter bit means smaller, meaning smaller engine compartments, meaning more difficult to access and repair engines. The tightly controlled combustion means computer controlled fuel injection, and sensors everywhere for feedback.
I don't care much about fixing engines - they are so complex these days you're SOL if you don't have an ODBCII kit (or, heaven forbid, a CAN or MOST bus analyzer - $$$$!!!) My pet peeve is the loss of real, honest-to-god bumpers. Nowadays if you tap a cement parking block going more than a couple miles per hour, you crack your front fascia, and get to spend $600 buying a new one. Ugh.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
I hope you upgraded the wiring. I have scars (well, one) from a wire that was undersized for the load. It started to melt. Across the fuel line...
Best Slashdot Co
What's the point of Ubuntu again? Is it to be super-power user now? And here I was thinking it was supposed to be linux that your grandma could use. It's not quite there yet, but that's the point of Ubuntu, and it's getting pretty close.
I can only imagine what that'd bring on eBay.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
I read this in the actual print magazine, some time ago. Besides being old, it's not really "news" anyway.
If the carmakers can install all those oh-so-convenient comfort controls, do they really need to make me do gymnastics to change the oil?
Yes - because they don't want you to change the oil.
What they want you to do is to go to the dealer to change the oil, or the battery, or do maintainance. Basically, for anything other than filling up the tank and emptying the cup holders, they want you to go to the dealer or "authorized service center" (which paid big bucks for the authorization), so they can supplement their revenue stream. As an added benefit, the harder it is to do service on the car, the longer it takes, and the more they can charge for labor costs.
And if the car is off warranty or you bought the car used? Well, you should just buy a new car then, shouldn't you?
This is actually a good question with a number of good answers:
1) If the ignorant masses complain in the wrong places, they'll get flamed.
2) More exposure to the ignorant masses might actually IMPROVE Ubuntu. Once we see what people actually want, someone can adapt the OS so that they can HAVE what they want (even if it is a point and click interface to 10 apps). With Windows, they just keep complaining and people make money charging them $5/minute to tell them to go buy a new computer to upgrade to the latest version of Windows.
Sure, you may think you want it to notify you of this now, but try driving an Alero around. Anything that might be a problem, it notifies me. Every time I start the car, there is a bell and a light that doesn't turn off until the problem is corrected. Is it useful? Slightly. Does it need to blink and ring every time I turn the key? Definitely not.
It's like sex, except I'm having it!
Since most Linux OSs are free, there's no business reason to bloat up the system with feature frills.'"
Since most Linux OSes are free, there's no business reason for them to deliver features people want (and hence are prepared to pay for).
To show their gratitude to Jamie for all the free publicity, Ubuntu has announced that their next version will be "Mythical Mongoose!"
Sendou Wave Kick!!
No, but wheels are almost unique to each model — replacing Geo Prizm with a Honda Fit, for example, forced us to replace our set of winter wheels/tires recently... While we have some decent standards already — the AC current, the bed-sizes, for example, too many things remain non-standardized. DC power is the most obvious example. Although Research-in-Motion and Nokia should be praised for trying to cut down on the number of different adapters, that is still not enough:
Woo-hoo! If that reduces the number of "bricks" around, great. But I look forward to just having standard DC-outlets next to the AC ones...
Strangely enough, the MythBusters folks don't mention the maddening diversity of screws and bolts. Even inside a computer there are several different size. Oh, and they sometimes differ in the shape of the required driver too, not just length and diameter...
I doubt this is done on purpose, in order to secure future income for the company by producing the parts — computer-makers neither make nor sell the screws, for example. It is just a designer creating, what they think is ideal for the task, instead of picking up what's good enough and already available...
Computer-software vendors, BTW, suffer from the same problem — how many application-specific programming languages were created even after John Ousterhout's famous lamentation?... Even if there are some of them, which are better than Ousterhout's TCL (or Perl, or Python, or JavaScript, or whatever general purpose language you prefer), are they so much better as to justify forcing users to learn yet another language?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
And I see that Mr Hyneman has a point here. Jamie and Adam seems to be two guys that just happened to get well-known. They didn't really plan on being world famous and I doubt that they make a lot of dough off their persons (with exception for the occasional exploding dough-can).
What we all know, but is pointed out by the article is that it's often not the engineers that does the stupid things it's the economy bean-counters that thinks that a saved cent there can make the car no different from before but cheaper. (OK, there are engineer screwups too, so they aren't entirely blameless). Maybe there are at least a few persons that actually reads the article since it's written by a well-known dude.
And I really understand the point behind a 'nag' button. Who wouldn't wanted one one time or another? (but I understand that a seatbelt warning for the driver may be permitted to nag.) And the need for removal of a wheel just to replace the battery seems to be one of those moments... It's almost worth an episode of it's own! And there are a few other problems aside the battery and it's changing bulbs and filling oil on the car. Whenever you try to fill up the oil you will invariably drool it on every other part of the engine too, just because you have a distance between the bottle opening and the engine opening of maybe half a foot, and when you need it most you don't have a funnel...
Operating systems are all bug-filled and bloated over the edge, which we all know by now so nothing new. The cordless tool and phone charger issue is right on the spot! There are far too many variations of batteries and chargers, but when you open up the inside you will find that they actually pack the same Sony Cells or whatever electronics and that it's just the packaging and contacts that are different.
And it's always funny to see all the variations of specifications of batteries and things too. There is an international standard that specifies penlight batteries (LR03, LR6, LR14, LR20 etc, but often the more illogical AA, AAA etc. is used, which for the untrained gives a complete loss of information.)
Even worse is the gauge of wires where a higher number means a thinner wire, which is extremely illogical. Measure the area instead, 1.5 mm2, 2.5 mm2.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
If you want something *nix-based that's compliant with grandma standards, use OS X.
Ubuntu/Linux in general is not ready for the home desktop. The problem isn't necessarily with the distro, but the userbase. Ubuntu attracts all the Windows users who ruin everything. Linux is pretty damn easy to use, even something CLI-based like Arch, after some research - the problem is, nobody wants to do that anymore.
Put simply, the majority of ubuntu users are those who want to be spoonfed while they thump their chests for being so awesome because they have a Linux box.
I am with him on car maintenance. There is no reason I should have to remove my tire to get to my oil filter (anyone else owned an accord in the past 15 years? You'd think they would have fixed this by now).
Filters, fuses, spark plugs, brakes, and rotors at the bare minimum should be EASILY accessible and replaceable.
And what about diagnostics computers? Why do I need a seperate component to read the error code? I owned a '95 maxima that allowed you to hold the computer's button for a few seconds and, after doing so, the engine light would give you a sequence of long-short pulses. You could look this sequence up in a manual to determine what the error code meant. All car diagnostic computers should have features like this.
In my car I tossed the 12V "cigarette lighter" from the dash to the truck. I also increased its power from a small 5A fuse to a 10A fuse, so I can run a reasonably sized 120V inverter (also in the trunk) to power a few devices on-the-go.
.00297 ohms / foot". Doing the math, a 100 foot 14 gauge extension cord is 200 feet of wire with a resistance of .00297 ohms per foot. 0.00297 X 200 = 0.594 ohms. To get 100 Watts at the far end of the wire at 12 volts, you need to deliver 8 and 1/3 amps. That amprage going on that almost .6 ohm wire will have a voltage loss of 0.594 X 8.3333 or 4.9499 volts. To get 12 volts out, you need to put in 12 + 4.9499 volts. Volts X Amps in the wire is the power lost.. Let's see, lost 4.94 volts along 200 feet while carying 8.3333 amps. That's 41 Watts. In short to drive a 100 watt load, you toss out almost 1/3rd of your power in the wire.
Drawing twice the power than the wire was fused for is a good way to need another car soon. Unless you also upgraded the wire, I wouldn't recommend changing the fuse size.
I have a reasonably sized inverter in my trunk also, next to the battery. 1KW will power most anything except hair dryers you care to bring along.
At home, we have a DC run throughout the house wherever we upgraded our power,
This is not a good idea. Volts X Amps = Watts in DC circuits. To run a 100 watt laptop cross the house on 12 volts with less than 10% voltage drop requires a huge wire. Do the math.
http://www.otherpower.com/cgi-bin/webbbs/webbbs_config.pl?noframes;read=6346
Don't forget a 50 foot cord is a 100 foot DC path.
To cut your loss in the wire by 100 as in a 10$ loss is now a 0.1% loss, go from 12 volts to 120 volts. That is the simple reason for the big inverter in the trunk. I can run a 100 foot 14 AWG extension cord and have less than 1% voltage drop in the cord to a 100 Watt laptop.
From the page "14AWG =
Now using the same cord and laptop but now using 120 volts. Instead of needing 8.3333 amps for the 100 watts, we now need 1/10 of that or 0.8333 amps. Our voltage loss is now 1/10th what it was or 0.49499 volts at 1/10th the current. We now lose 1/100th the power in the wire we were before while still delivering 100 watts to the laptop. Now the wire has a loss of 0.41 Watts. I don't need to boost anything to make up for it.
I'm shocked that more devices aren't standardizing on DC. 18V, 5A+, not a big deal -- but so many devices could use it (charging tools, video games, cell phones, even some computer monitors). Simple, without needed ANOTHER heat-generating and wasting transformer. My laptop is DC, too, yet I need the darned transformer throughout the house.
Do the math and you won't be shocked at all. I would rather lose 5 watts in a laptop power supply than 40 watts in the 50 foot wire from the battery fuse box to the laptop.
I've standardized on 120 VAC for almost everything. As a bonus, I don't have to buy special 12 volt CF bulbs at $15 each. I can use the buck a bulb ones instead. It's all about saving money. A 1 KW inverter is chaep and can be located very close to the battery to keep loss minimum in the low voltage wire.
http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11234952&search=inverter&Mo=13&cm_re=1_en-_-Top_Left_Nav-_-Top_search&lang=en-US&Nr=P_CatalogName:BC&Sp=S&N=5000043&whse=BC&Dx=mode+matchallpartial&Ntk=Text_Search&Dr=P_CatalogNam
The truth shall set you free!
>First, vehicle information is very proprietary. Why is it that cars can't report status information via a simple USB connection?
Build yourself one of these. It's an OBDII-to-USB converter. It still requires *extensive* software on the computer side, but you're already talking about having that. On-board vehicle diagnostics are fairly complicated, but there are plenty of programs that handle it, many for free.
I agree it'd be nice to have sensors to detect fluid levels... but until sensors are more reliable, you might start relying on something that has broken and end up in trouble. In my car, the wiper washers are plumbed such that when you're just about out of washer fluid, the rear window pump stops working, which is clever and avoids having to add an extra sensor.
It would be nice to see more electronics that used USB connectors to get power, if they can stay under half an amp. It'd also be nice to see more wall-warts with some sort of load-detection circuitry and a solid-state relay so if they're not being used, they disconnect the transformer/switching PS from the AC so it doesn't sit there sucking up power.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
1. Cordless tools and equipment--all with different kinds of battery packs and chargers.
2. Flashlights and other small electrical devices that run on exotic batteries.
3. Cellphones that all come with different chargers and power-supply units.
4. AV equipment that has different types of hookups and remote-control protocols.
And his other three points are all about bloat and poor design choices:
5. Computer operating systems loaded with stuff I don't want and will never use.
6. Automobiles with obnoxious electronics.
7. Cars designed to make it tough to do maintenance.
Overall he makes some pretty good points.
In response to his first three complaints, I don't think companies will ever give up their non-standard battery packs... they make too much money on replacement batteries.
As for complaint #4, I thought AV equipment was pretty well standardized already. All of my TV and AV equipment accept the same types of audio cables. I'd agree with his point about remotes though. I've never owned a "universal remote" that "just worked".
In complaint #5, Jamie is mainly complaining about the bloat in Windows (more specifically Vista). I think the problem is that Operating Systems like Windows have to be designed with a wide user base in mind, so they have to have features that only 10% of the users would use. It would be nice if Microsoft actually made a modular OS where I could uninstall everything that I don't use (Outlook and IE for example). I have to give Jamie props for advocating Linux in the article.
Here's a quote from complaint #5 which I totally agree with:
His main complaint in #6 is that he doesn't like cars that beep at him to buckle his seatbelt and he doesn't like cars that auto-lock the doors. Personally, I don't mind these features, but I can understand why someone might find them annoying. As for all the other electronics going in cars nowadays, I don't mind them. If you've ever driven in a BMW, you'd probably fall in love with all of the electronics. Whenever I drive in my toyota, I'm constantly adjusting the temperature as it's always fluctuating between too hot or too cold (I can never seem to find that comfort zone). But in a Beamer, I can set the temperature to 22C and forget about it. Some electronics I can live without, like those onboard navigation screens, but others I tend to enjoy.
And finally, complaint #7 is all about poor design choices (in cars). Here's his example of a bad design: "One late-model sedan I worked on required the removal of a front wheel, plus a bunch of other stuff, just to replace the battery". I'm not a mechanic, and I have little to no experience under the hood, but are a lot of cars really designed this poorly? I can't think of any car where I actually had to remove a tire just to change the battery (Does anyone know what car Jamie was talking about?).
Honestly, what did Buster ever do to you? Leave him out of this.
testing out my trending skills
Adam isn't that technical.
"mindshare" is not a word, it's an invented marketing newspeak like comcastic or techron.
comcastic and techron are trademarked words. Mind share is a marketing concept, not newspeak... it's the concept of the share of the collective thought a given product has with regards to the overall collective thoughts of the products related to the market in question. One way of measuring mind share is the percentage of people who think of a given brand when they think of a generic term for a product. Like what brand they think of when they think of the word "cola" is the percentage of mind share that brand has of the cola market. This is distinctly different than the actual percentage a brand has in sales. Another way is how prevalent in your target demographic/market thoughts about your product are in general.
Worse, it's invented by the **AA schlubs in their attempts to pry the advertising value out of file sharing without the actual files haring itself taking place, thus the phrase "mindshare".
It has nothing to do with file sharing. That phrase was in use well before the internet moved beyond the universities and researchers, let alone the invention of file sharing.
I don't understand. I'm not an electricity expert. Why would you prefer to use USB to charge your phone? I appreciate the option, but not the requirement.
testing out my trending skills
WTF are you talking about?
I installed Ubuntu 7.10 in my home desktop a few weeks ago: put cd, boot, click install, answer 4 or so questions, wait 10 minutes and it was up an running. Anything I plug into that machine just works (portable harddrives, flash drives, card readers, DVI camcorder, digital camera, etc)
Now last weekend I decided to upgrade from AGP so I replaced with a PCI-e motherboard and video card. Didn't need to reinstall anything. The thing just booted and everything still just works. I only had to tweak screen resolution since it defaulted to a lower, safer resolution because of new video card.
HTML is obsolete. It's time for a new, simpler and richer markup language.
Use the Print button, Luke
HTML is obsolete. It's time for a new, simpler and richer markup language.
Donations
See also:
Support fees, market share
First, vehicle information is very proprietary. Why is it that cars can't report status information via a simple USB connection?
There is a standard reporting system on your car: its your OBD-II port and its been standard on cars sold in the United States since 1996. And yes there are OBD to USB adapters available as well as software to check with a computer. And the OBD-II is a bit more comprehensive than "oil level low" since it gets data from many places including the ECU. Why does it have to be USB?
I've used an OBD-II reader on a occasion. For instance, my car threw a CEL last winter and I went to Autozone, borrowed their OBD-II reader and it told me that at some point my wheels were spinning significantly faster than the vehicle was actually moving. Guess what? Earlier that morning I high-centered my car on 2 feet of snow and to get unstuck I spun the wheels and threw a CEL.
As for the washer fluid levels, yeah that sucks, my cars don't have it either. On the other hand, I can also understand the reasoning behind it. "Do we want to add X feet of wiring so we can put yet another light on the instrument panel to tell the driver?" If you've ever stripped down a vehicle you know how much wiring there is in a car and how much weight it adds.
And what is the government doing with my hard-earned tax dollars to fix all this?
New phones are all using Usb chargers because China is forcing them to.
HTML is obsolete. It's time for a new, simpler and richer markup language.
I have a Nokia phone with Verizon and recently lost my battery charger. I went to their store and saw a rack of chargers that all were exactly the same. I bought my car charger for 25 bucks and decided to compare it to a friend of mine's charger which also powers a nokia. It runs power through the rectangular port at the bottom of the phone (not the plug type unfortunately). The only difference was a slight variation in the plastic head.
Am I seeing things here, or did they really just charge me 25 bucks for a charger that's no different between its siblings than a simple plastic variation?
This whole thread is stupid. Jessica Alba is hot. Jessica Beil is hot. Scarlett Johansson is hot. Elisha Cuthbert is hot. If you want to go to mainstream TV, Evangeline Lilly from Lost is hot. Jennifer Morrison and Olivia Wilde from House are very hot. Olivia Munn from AOTS is very hot. If you want to go to the hot with a brain as well, then look no further than Kim Jagtiani (http://www.discoverychannel.ca/shows/castdetails.aspx?cid=3018&sid=5). Kerri is just average - period. Just because she is a female host on a show you happen to watch often does not make her "hot". She is intelligent yes, but quite average looking.
The trouble is, engineering isn't always straightforward. I'm wrestling with that right now with days of work on an animation helper program's interface. The job is to 'rig' a character and move it into whatever poses you want to then keyframe. This could be done in the rawest possible way, typing values in for everything, but it would be incredibly cumbersome and slow.
:)
As soon as you try to cut that down, you get into judgement calls. Suppose you're rotating the model around an axis, or you can nod its head up and down. The way it's set up, if you've rotated it sideways, if you're still 'up and downing' the same thing you were, it's now tilting side-to-side instead of nodding- you have to transition from one axis to another in order to still have 'up and down' mean something that looks natural at all, and then you ask- if I'm on the side of the model pushing up, did I actually WANT some tilting in there?
It's all "do what I mean", and the trouble with that is that your understanding of a system alters with context.
With Firefox, for a while I had the 'warn me if I'm closing lots of tabs' warning on. It was a fair point to make, I sometimes went 'oh yeah, I didn't actually mean to leave THAT page, my thought was to quit out of THIS page'. Eventually I got more blithe about ignoring open tabs, and shut off the warning- the context changed. Technically, if I was researching something important and had a lot of new, never-visited pages open, it might make sense not to quit out of them- so you could have a 'warn me if I'm closing a tab that has nothing to do with anything in my bookmarks or history', with the idea that if the page was that original it was 'special', and my usual bookmarked pages wouldn't count. "Do what I mean".
Every step that you take to model a user's mind state to 'do what he/she means' is more complication for the programmer or designer. It's this tradeoff where you can have things elegant on the inside which require learning to use, or things which are very complicated on the inside but are totally elegant to use FOR SOME USERS. Then it's just a matter of picking which users.
I'm trying to get the developer of 'Pencil' to make the default behavior of dragging selected image to be- copy, create new keyframe, move to new keyframe, paste into the new keyframe, keep selected so you can repeat the process. This would be absolutely crazy for a normal image editor, but in an animation program it enables you to create moving imagery and a sequence of animated frames by just drag-drag-drag-drag-drag... it's hard to get more elegant than that, the question is, how important is that behavior compared to working WITHIN a frame as if it was normal editing tools?
The really elegant response to a situation is very likely not the most elegant implementation as a software algorithm. It's probably all complicated with special cases and attempts to sort out what the user actually needs to happen. But in use, it's nice to have stuff that just does what you meant it to do.
Hyneman's gripe with software stems from the assumption, "What our users mean to do is have every possible option at their fingertips available to do with the very least number of steps". Hence, short-cut hell. If you assume that it's not about the number of steps, but about identifying user work states and having coherent options within those states, things can get less horrible
True on its face, but on a more subtle level:
1. It's not linux's goal to deliver features or be marketable. My dog doesn't find me the best deals on travel or rental cars, but that's not what he's here for.
2. Developers can choose to implement features interesting to them. Historically there has been significant overlap between what people in general want and what developers are willing to do for free.
3. Since linux is free as in beer, many people can live without certain features in return for the low price.
4. Many features in a commercial OS are actually misfeatures. DRM, teletubby GUI, UAC, bloatware, crapware, susceptibility to malware. I value their absence far more than the original cost of the OS.
I can't believe someone would actually be upset over winning a foothold in the desktop market, when that's what we've been trying to do for over a decade.
Whose side are you on, really?
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
The point of Ubuntu is that the user shouldn't be expected to use the terminal or man pages (or even apt-get, for that matter), to do most of the things normal users would want to do. While I'm sure you're fine with compiling a program from source, it'd probably increase exposure of the program, and reduce headaches for users, if they could just click "Install Program x" and be done with it.
How about they test the myth where slashdot has useful posts and accurate summaries?
BUSTED!
*rimshot, anybody?*
Move all sig!
Personally, I decided to forgo BIOS's and OS's altogether and just work directly in Assembly.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Odd. It seems that Webster disagrees with you. I know, I know, it's not Oxford. Oxford doesn't have a free interface, and my copy is 30 years old. Still, Webster is generally considered to be a reasonable source for the English language as spoken in the U.S.
I don't know which car he's talking about, but I know that similar things aren't uncommon... I have myself owned cars where one would, for example, have to remove the tire in order to reach the oil filter. And there are vehicles (such as the Buick Century) where the tail lights are not easily user-replaceable.
I had to purchase a special tool in order to be able to remove the oil filter in my Mini Cooper S. This same car also has an oil pan plug that is designed to be discarded and replaced rather than reused after an oil change.
The idea is that vehicle manufacturers want you to come back to the dealership as often as possible for service. If that means making normal maintenance difficult for the average Joe by putting things in hard-to-reach places, or requiring special, proprietary tools to do maintenance, so be it.
For anybody wanting to do this kind of thing, be advised. You probably need an additional deep cycle battery in the trunk. You need properly rated cabling, for no more than 3% volt drop, with suitable protection where it runs through bulkheads, you need proper crimped end connections, and you need the proper fuse type (maxi or mega fuse, not the little iso blade fuses.) What's more, you should make a record of your calculations and save them somewhere.
Because otherwise, when your car catches fire and damages someone else's property, you can get sued for negligence. You won't recover your own cost because your insurance will almost certainly be invalidated, but showing you worked according to industry practice should be enough to protect you from a judgement for negligence.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Very small wires, and the kids don't stick their fingers in wall sockets. Of course, the kids are all dead.
In addition to what Technician posted, the switching supplies used by modern devices are almost 100% efficient, maybe 90% for a cheap one. Every small chargeable device we've bought in the last 2 years charges over USB 2.0, works on 90-240VAC 50/60Hz, and when the EnergyStar IV spec is mandatory real soon now the wall warts will essentially turn themselves off when not under load. Even at EnergyStar III (the one currently mandated in California) consumption is limited to 1/2W when not under load.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
That explains why you're not running 12V through the house, but it doesn't explain why your devices aren't standardizing on DC -- standard connectors, standard pinouts, standard power ratings. Like USB without the data pins.
My telephone, DSL modem, two external hard disk enclosures, laptop, and router each have a transformer, and each has a different voltage connector (a couple use the same mini-din, but with different pinouts). Wouldn't one or two transformers with several standardized DC-out jacks be at least as efficient than 6 separate transformers? It sure would save plastic casing and cables and a lot of frustration on my part.
I see little tidbits about annoyances but the "How to fix them" parts are missing.
And speaking of tech annoyances, why is it that everyone seems to be writing short articles but finds the need to spread them across three or more pages with each page containing only 5 or 6 small paragraphs? It should be full article then comments. Not 4 paragraphs, 1000 comments, 5 paragraphs, more comments, last 5 paragraphs, even more comments.
His chief complaints are:
1. Electric mustache trimmers far more newfangled than the reliable steam-powered models.
2. Local beret dealer insists on selling them in outlandish, inefficient colors such as "blue" and "red" instead of the more streamlined "black" model.
3. Technological advances in promulgating human rights laws make it no longer possible to keep hyperactive co-host safely chained to a radiator in the basement between tapings.
One good thing about European markets is that the government does make attempts to standardize things like connectors and batteries and enforce them. Leaving it "to the market" like in the US means that individuals keep reinventing the same purchasing mistakes over and over rather than factor in collective experience and wisdom into product design.
Table-ized A.I.
That find the Mythbusters annoying? I mean, the blow stuff up and then try to make it sound as if the demonstration had a point. The reality is that they use very little, if any, scientific method in the process. Besides, the one without the baret is just downright obnoxious.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
Come on most linux distro's include more already installled programs then windows does so how is it that vista has blaot but linux doesn't?
Oddly enough I just had to 'sweat' to get rid of some useless bloat in a system I installed with ubuntu only a couple of days ago.
Getting rid of GDM/gnome desktop/'tracker' before the system became only half as responsive as my old redhat 9 system used to be (on slower hardware).
So don't worry - everyone's 'doing it'.
_
\\/ are accustomed' - First Lensman
The summary is a bit misleading. What is weighting down most Windows systems today ist Adware. Some would consider this malware.
Since a lot of the software for Linux is free and a distro tries to "sell" more units (have more downloads or be more popular) by having loads and loads of software Linux distros usually also come with tons of software installed the the user may never use.
There is also tons of quality freeware available for Windows (I only buy games or tax software, since everything else is for free, even if I work on a Windows box). If Microsoft would allow the sale of derivative works of Windows as "distros" with an easy installer there would also be many distributors selling custom versions of Windows with extra software installed that wouldn't be malware, but quality freeware (or software they bought cheaper in bulk quantities).
Nice simple no-frills phone that's also designed to be incredibly tough.
It's not so much the AC->DC conversion that's inefficient and making your wall warts warm, it's the cheap linear regulators.
Many modern wall warts use much more efficient switching power supplies - and these would not be any more efficient if you supplied them with DC from the wall instead of 120VAC. The transformer itself is probably the most efficient component in any power supply - it's the filtering and DC regulation that tend to waste power.
Running low voltage DC isn't really going to help you out much since different electronic devices need different voltages due to technical reasons (type of semiconductors used, LCD/VFD/LED displays, peripherals, etc). If you really wanted to eliminate voltage conversions at the wall, you'd have to provide a large range of voltages...for example, 3.0, 4.5, 6.0, 7.5, 9.0, 12.0, 19.5, and 24V would be a good start, but there would still be devices that aren't included.
If you want manufacturers to standardize on one voltage, then that means that every device is going to have to have a built-in dc-dc converter to convert from the standard voltage to the one it wants (or use inefficient linear regulators to step down voltage when the standard voltage is higher than it wants).
Running low voltage DC to power everything means running larger wires through the walls since a 70 watt laptop that needs about half an amp of current at 120VAC to run will need over 5 amps at 12VDC.
So, running DC through the walls isn't going to help efficiency, and may even lower efficiency due to increased line loss because of higher currents at low voltage.
It's called OBDII: On Board Diagnostics II
Look it up and see what interesting gagdets you can find.
(They even have TFT 'virtual consoles')
"I was in love with a beautiful blonde once, dear. She drove me to drink. It's the one thing I am indebted to her for."
Id like to see Kari Byron's adapter . . .
"""
Since most Linux OSs are free, there's no business reason to bloat up the system with feature frills.
"""
But, there's lots and lots of other reasons why there's tonnes of fat in the Linux world. Namely, because "we" can and without it, Linux won't compete with the other OS's out there.
Perhaps this guy should work more on developing experiments that actually work the way he thinks they do, instead of fussing with this stuff.
the site has been /.ed, how could that now have been in his list!
Feature bloating can happen anywhere. But with most Linux systems, you have to do it yourself. It doesn't come pre-bloated. But yeah, file this news under O for Obvious. We already knew this.
"Teach a man to build a fire, and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life."
I disagree. And I pine for the Firefly that could have been.
Check her out for her last 10 seconds on-screen in Serenity. For a season of episodes and 99% of the movie, she was a tortured, often dysfunctional character because of what was in her head. At the end of the movie, though, she had fulfilled her destiny (well, at least the short-term one) and all her demons were excised from her. She was now free to be the genius little girl we had seen in flashbacks, only all grown up. Just her expressions and the way she launched that ship let you know this was now someone reaching for the full flower of her existence.
And her brother was getting laid.
And tragedy had left another potential couple in the offing.
Hell, man, if there were another season of Firefly, *all* the characters would have been very different and I think Summer Glau would have done wonderful things with River. She gave us such a tantalizing glimpse.
We'll never know for sure, I guess. Phooey, phooey, phooey!
I bet it's more something along the lines of the manufacturers being afraid of getting sued by someone that used too small of a charger and burning themselves.
They ARE out to get you simply because They are in it for themselves and they don't care about you.
Can hardly agree with the idea that Linux hasn't become bloated. Corporate love and CEO worship is programmed into all of us, whether or not we're paid to do it. Linux peaked in 1997. Since then, it's become more and more about cloning Windows and earning the love from your favorite executive idol.
you ran 12 volt dc in a house FFS are you not aware of ohms law let alone the wireing regs where you live.
are you aiming for a darwin award ?
You will never get to heaven with an Ak 47... But A Zu 30 is good for Low Flying Cherubim
I don't think having a low windshield wiper fluid sensor would be that hard - had a friend with a Dodge Dakota (99ish) that had the feature. Also, we've got sensors for:
1. Low fuel
2. Low oil (pressure based?)
3. Low Radiator fluid
4. Low transmission fluid
5. Low brake fluid
All of these are on my 99 Grand Marquis.
I'm guessing it wouldn't be that hard to put a float in for the windshield washer fluid. Could look similar to the float in the brake reservoir (perhaps a little longer..)
Karnal
Wouldn't one or two transformers with several standardized DC-out jacks be at least as efficient than 6 separate transformers? It sure would save plastic casing and cables and a lot of frustration on my part.
The short answer is yes. The music industry has already taken that path. The computer industry is kind of taking that path by combining a router with a network switch with a cable/DSL modem.
The music industry has powered backplanes for guitar stompboxes which tosses out the tangle of wall warts.
Here is an example. A pedal board with 8 DC jacks for effects boxes.
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/SKB-PS45-Professional-Pedalboard?sku=544735
and an example of modem combined with switch, router and wireless;
http://www.superwarehouse.com/D-Link_Wireless_G_ADSL_Router_Modem/DSL-G604T/p/1488204
The truth shall set you free!
If you use Aardvark, you can isolate and dewidthify the center text column and read only the story.
You must be new here.
There are many things I wish were modernized, standardized, and more open. First, vehicle information is very proprietary. Why is it that cars can't report status information via a simple USB connection? All the information is either there, or could be generated VERY cheaply. I ran out of wiper fluid two days ago (lots of snow in Chicago lately), and I sat there thinking how lame it is that the wiper fluid reservoir doesn't have a simple sensor to detect low fluid (it's a 2001 vehicle, not THAT old). Even that could be transported across a USB chain with regular updates. Heck, a $2 sensor could even sense fluid at 3 levels. Simple enough.
The answer to your question is that it would cost money to add those features, and the company does not want to spend $2 x 1,000,000 cars in order to implement it. It is only through massive corner cutting and penny pinching that your average car is made affordable to the average person. For the maximum benefit, it would also require coupling powertrain control systems and other non-essential systems together on the same network, which is a bad idea for a number of safety-related reasons. Even if this feature was offered, the average person would not use it. (This may change in the future as "tech-savvy" youngsters grow up and become a larger and larger percentage of the car-buying market.)
Basically, if you want lots of fancy features like washer-fluid level monitoring, etc, I recommend buying a Cadillac. If you can't afford it or don't want to spend that kind of money, then you'll have to stick with cheaper cars that have fewer bells and whistles. You could also implement those features on your current vehicles as an interesting project.
You will find that the current rating for 14 AWG cables (you probably wouldn't use anything smaller) is typically 18A. Granted there are some derating factors, but you'd be unlucky to have thermal overload on a 14AWG cable from a 10A fuse.
You forget that Detroit at least has the bad habit of wiring up almost everything with the same wire gauge. The 15A fuse connected to the fuel pump, the 10A fuse that runs the signals, and the 5A fuse for the radio are probably all connected to the same wire gauge.
.sig: Now legally binding!
I just installed Ubuntu coming from XP. I guess my motivation was to put my money where my mouth was...again. I've flip-flopped back and forth semi-anually for a while- usually over counterstrike addiction, yes it works in wine but with a crap framerate as of last summer at least (yes I reniced).
/boot mount point 256MB, swap partition 2GB, / partition 30GB, and remainder as large /home partition all of them ext3 except swap of course. It died in the "Detecting Hardware phase 90%". I'm Not sure why it died. It wasn't completely frozen and CTRL+ALT+F1 to first TTY of the liveCD showed a few "cramfs: wrong magic" errors in dmesg. I didn't dig any deeper and that was apparently unrelated. Started over, chose "Guided" partitioning of entire SDA (SATA1). That went off without a hitch.
/boot/grub/device.map, grub-install --recheck /dev/sda. changed menu.lst (the commented part) update-grub, rebooted. All is fine in the world, brown is everywhere.
So I got my 7.10 CD and tore into it after backing up the vital stuff.
Initial problems:
I've got 3 drives 2 SATA and 1 IDE. The BIOS orders them SATA1, SATA2, IDE. SATA1 is the first boot device.
Told Ubuntu installer to leave SATA2 and IDE alone. Install to SATA1, create
Rebooted. Grub error 15. Used live CD, discovered it called IDE drive hd(0,x) and SATA1 hd(1,x), renumbered
Downloaded 250+MB patches/etc. Rebooted. Drums...Brown..yay! Yes I want the restricted nvidia drivers you hippie bastard, rebooted (restart gdm would've worked I guess).
Now I'm home free...wait no flashplugin-nonfree, better grab that. Oh, sorry, we can't bother to update a package's MD5 hash after months of complaints for some weird reason. So I followed a hack post on a forum for the postinstall script to ignore the hashes. Danced around a broken install to tweak said script without it vanishing after removal, because it wasn't cached once the "successful" install actually failed and flagged the packages as present.
Now I'm happy. I'm sure they didn't gear their install for a combo of IDE/SATA with probably ambiguously reported boot order from the BIOS. However, they totally need to get flash 9 cooking with a good MD5 hash...it's just too easily fixed to tolerate. The install was seamless right up to the point of not really installing it and failing silently while reporting success (from apt/firefox). Trying the command from the shell or viewing shell details would indicate ~MD5SUM failure Flash NOT installed~ or something like that. It took an hour to research and fix as I'm not versed in postinstall scripts, just like 99.999% of the world...could be more 9s, I made that number up.
But if the automakers standardized on USB (Or anything else, for that matter), they couldn't smack you with a "computer diagnostic" fee to hook up a small computer to your car at the dealership, just to tell you what's wrong (And of course, using the computer still isn't nearly as good as having a good mechanic look at it). While it's a great idea, the automakers are going to make money every way they possibly can, and charging a fee for running a computer diagnostic is just one of many to help supplement their bottom line.
Until ubuntu reaches a point where everything can be done without the terminal or a knowledge of Linux, people should stop pimping it like it's hot shit in a champagne glass.
All these carbon copy Justin Long wanna-be geeks burning ubuntu ISOs like nobody's business should just die off. Joe Sixpack doesn't care about Linux being more secure if he has to mess around in the terminal. Guess what? He's going to hate Linux when he can't get his wireless card up to check his e-mail, and what happens when Linux is finally technophobe-friendly? Joe will spout anti-Linux propaganda and tell everyone about his bad experience, putting people off Linux.
This strategy doesn't work. Once there is a distro that is what ubuntu wants to be, then it can be a good contender in the desktop market. Releasing a half-assed incomplete distro and expecting it to kick ass isn't going to work.
I don't know about his phones, but my HTC phones use standard USB on both sides of the cable. I can use the same cable to connect a flash memory card reader or an external hard drive enclosure to my PC.
USB mini-B is found on most newer Motorola phones, HTC phones, and BlackBerrys. It's also on my digital camera, my Nokia 770 tablet, and my Creative Zen media player.
Unfortunately, some idiot at the USB-IF decided that we needed ANOTHER connector. Now there are micro-B connectors, which are used on the newest Motorola phones and on the Nokia N810. Shame on whoever thought that up.
Here's a hint to manufacturers of digital cameras, MP3 players, phones, portable hard drives, and most other USB devices: PUT A MINI B PORT ON YOUR DEVICE. I'm not buying your device if it doesn't have one, because I'm not going to bring 5 proprietary cables with me. I have like 8 mini-USB cables and numerous chargers. I have cables/chargers at my office, in multiple places at home, in the car, in my backpack, and spares in my luggage. Chances are that wherever I am I will be able to find one.
Electronics is cheap nowadays and it could make it even better. Over time, a lot of useful circuitry has been invented but they are usually not embedded into battery packs but instead replicated in each (or at least in some, high-end ones) battery-powered device.
Ideally, universal battery packs should have embedded switch mode "juice squeezer" (programmable current source) and two feedback (error) inputs meaning "give more voltage" and "give more current", so that powered device can demand what it needs more at the moment.
Oh, and an embedded charging controller with outputs compatible with those inputs, so that you can strap two battery packs to share and equalize total charge (sibling mode), or to transfer all of it from one into another pack (cannibal mode), all of it selectable with simple wiring on a standardized connector(s).
If all of this wasn't asking too much, stackability would be nice, especially if "juice squeezers" would enable combining battery packs with different levels of charge. OTOH, leaving excess space in battery compartments for additional battery packs would enlarge devices' volumes too much, so it probably won't happen.
e-paper indicator of total charge level would be a nice touch as well!
Now that I think about it, this "power brick" thingy should actually have simple cell sockets inside... why toss the electronics and plastic casing once the cells eventually fail?
You must not be new here...
Experience teaches only the teachable. -AH
My collegue's USB charged phone slowly killed all usb ports on his laptop to the extent that his motherboard (it was a top-of-the-line ibm thinkpad..) had to be replaced.
Maybe it was drawing too much current and it fried stuff. Still, it was a scary experience.
Fine, cheerlead linux all you like, but do a fair comparison. A consumer OEM Windows Vista vs a "clean" Ubuntu download? Well DUH, I wonder which one has more crap on it.
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
He's saying this to PopMech readers... not us.
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
I always thought the reason MS sent out only scrap grade basics with their OS is so as not to compete with their own trash and most particularly Word. If WordPad was perked up just a bit no one would bother with Word. we could dispense with .doc and use .rtf instead. it's always been my impression that's why ms disposed of Write ( Win 3.11 ) and replaced it with the clunky wordpad.
From the article, in reference to car design:
Batteries, filters, fuses and other parts that wear out or need to be serviced should be easily accessible. If the carmakers can install all those oh-so-convenient comfort controls, do they really need to make me do gymnastics to change the oil? I could go on, but you get the point. We all know companies are in a race to find smarter, faster, slicker technology, but do they really want to pursue that goal at the expense of consumers? Can't we all just be friends and play nice? To my mind, engineering is a high art, and it brings tears to my eyes to see it so disrespected at times by the marketing and legal departments of corporations. Ideally, form is supposed to follow function, and designing and manufacturing consumer products should be a collaborative process. Companies, it's time to wake up and pay attention to your engineers--and to your customers.
Alright, I've known engineers, and I know engineers will never be convinced that any engineer anywhere ever made a bad decision, but this is just going to absurd lengths. Does he really contend that there's some marketing executive somewhere designing an engine schematic? Or that someone from Ford's legal department called down to the engineers and insisted that the battery be hard to reach?
For the same reason that mechanics have jobs, the IT support industry exists. I pay someone to change my oil. I pay someone to repair or replace my roof. Does this mean I should be subject to ridicule, for not knowing (or caring, for that matter) which end of a spark plug goes into the engine block? Where do you get off with this elitist bullshit about users having to have a clue?
Do you know the internal combustion engine inside and out? No? Don't drive or ride in vehicles that use them, then. Hope you like to walk.
Can you build a telephone from scratch? No? Then take that plastic tumor off your ear, you're not qualified to operate it. I won't bother to go into the radio frequencies and energy storage mediums involved in producing that cellphone you won't let go of.
Do you know how a microwave works? No? How dare you nuke that hot-pocket for lunch, then?
If you think these questions (and their corresponding answers) are ridiculous, then you obviously haven't thought through the fecal matter you're spewing. Here's a clue. The glory of having specialization in the workforce is that users don't have to know how something works to be able to make it perform its function.
In my experience, users who call for support want their hands held. Sometimes you have to help them use their mouse (yes, over the phone). I lose count on a daily basis of the users who ask me, every time I tell them to click, whether that's a right-click or a left-click. I've done my share of joking about users who broke their cup-holders, put white-out on the screen, etc. I've even, all joking aside, had to help an 80-year-old woman find the power button on her pc. Yes, really. I wish I were kidding.
I don't know what magical world you live in where users don't do things that techs consider ridiculous, but if you've found that place, do everything you can to stay there. Users tend to be clueless, they tend to do silly things, and they tend to get upset when things don't flow perfectly in their boxed-in little worlds wherein they use a checklist-style instruction sheet to check their email. I wish I were kidding about that one.
If you have issues with handling calls from panicked, clueless users who don't read manuals and don't care *how* their computer works, people who want it fixed " yesterday, dammit ", then maybe you're in the wrong field. Sorry, I only meant to cast aspersions on your linux-loving credibility. I didn't intend to call you out on your interpersonal abilities and job-related skills, as well.
You must be absolutely *thrilled* to have posted as AC instead of your actual identity, now. Keep up the good work! If you have the kind of interpersonal skills that your posts show, you'll be flipping burgers in no time. Mmmmm... minimum wage.
--
I am an IT professional in a Microsoft-friendly office. Take any of my advice or comments about Linux with as large a chunk of sodium chloride as you feel that information dictates.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Actually, there ARE automotive standard buses. There are different from the PC standards however, and not as widely known. The auto garages already used them when you go in for car inspections or engine diagnostics. If we the consumer demand more information, the interface devices will become cheaper over time.
My Motorolla RAZR V3m has a mini usb port on it.
When I plugged it into a Windows XP machine with a standard mini USB to USB2 cable, it did almost nothing, would not even charge. I found that there was a driver I needed to install just to get the thing to charge properly.
It worked just fine plugged into my ubuntu laptop, but I guess it came with a driver that does the same thing, I just didn't have to download it from Motorolla first.
I can't see where they haven't done exactly that with each and every release, and not just operating systems. Jokes abound about people paying to be beta-testers, there is mass confusion over whether or not $newest_MS_OS is going to get off the ground, people complaining constantly about driver issues, software incompatibilities, and systems simply not functioning "out of the box". The biggest reason for Microsoft's success is marketing. Well, and throwing chairs.
Then there's the "other" other OS... Mac OS X was absolutely horrible, up until 10.2 - and this gem comes from the mouths of raving Apple fanboys. Steve Jobs seems to have done alright with his marketing team, Apple products are now seen as "elite".
For that matter, Steve Case didn't do too badly, either. AOL is globally recognized as a truly terrible example of providing internet service to the masses. On the other hand, AOL is globally recognized.
I'm sorry, maybe I'm missing something, but I fail to see how releasing a "half-assed" distro is any different from anyone else in the market. Come to think of it, I fail to see how Ubuntu is "half-assed". It works in most hardware configurations "out of the box", with a few exceptions (wireless networking being one glaring example, I admit). Ubuntu is (currently) our best shot at the desktop market; let's work to make it a shining example of what it *should* be, not beat each other over the head with its shortcomings.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
"I can't think of any car where I actually had to remove a tire just to change the battery (Does anyone know what car Jamie was talking about?)."
Ran into this awhile back. Chrysler Sebring convertible. And no Autozone didn't offer to change it out for free either.
70's corvette battery is in a weird place too. But difficult to remove.
...it'd probably increase exposure of the program, and reduce headaches for users, if they could just click "Install Program x" and be done with it. Actually, they can. There's an "Add/Remove..." button in the "start menu" of Ubuntu.The problem here is that Microsoft has turned the "Add/Remove Programs" button into an uninstallation interface. In Windows, there is no "Give me software" option in the dialog that it brings up. Well, ok, there's an option to add stuff from the Windows OS disk, if you happen to have missed it the first time 'round (assuming you installed Windows yourself), but for the most part, a user's only interaction with "Add/Remove Programs" is when they want to uninstall that horrific piece of shareware they picked up... which brings me to the other issue we're fighting against in the battle for the desktop...
My employer told me the other day that "Free software is not acceptable for our business purposes. We're going to pay for our software."
I was flabbergasted. How do you answer that?
The average person perceives "free stuff" as "crap that isn't worth paying for". We'll have to change that perception, if we want to have any serious mainstream market penetration.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
mindshare is indeed listed in the online OED. Sometimes working at an academic institution has its advantages.
Music is everybody's possession.
It's only publishers who think that people own it.
Fuck Beta
~John Lenno
You want a tiny bit of play because if you just crank it down blindly, there are circumstances where non-equilibrium heating means you have negative clearance and things either bend or one valve doesn't close/seat fully -- both of which are *bad*. That's why they spec valve clearance as a range, with a non-zero least-clearance, on every valve train I've ever worked on.
On the Ford, I was disinclined to do anything but follow the directions carefully, since the exhaust valves were tubular and filled with liquid sodium metal (well, liquid once the engine was hot, at least), and any sort of mistake could lead to serious excitement, like, say, a sodium fire in the engine compartment. On the '71 Datsun, however, I couldn't care less, because I bought it for $200, so I did the valve lash hot once, let the car cool down, wrote down all the clearances when it was cold, and from then on just relashed it to those numbers rather than the quoted hot numbers.
(Why non-fully-seated valves are *bad* -- if it's the intake valve that sticks down, combustion leaks into the intake manifold and carburetor, which eats all the fuel/air mixture for the whole engine and is rough on the air filter, and for either valve but particularly the exhaust valve, the valve seat wicks away a lot of the heat the valve's picked up so you risk burning the valve edges. And lemme tell you what, a burnt valve that ends up fracturing does really rotten things to an engine.)
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
The cordless battery issue he mentions is one of my pet peeves too. However, it seems to stem from a misguided attempt by the manufacturers to capture an extra part of the "razors and razor blade" market. (Sell the razor for below cost and clean up on the repeat sales of above cost blades.) We see (or suspect) this is happening in ink-jet printers.
I find it funny (and hence am not 100% convinced) that this is happening in the cordless battery realm because the cost of a replacement battery is something like 80% of the cost of the original tool. At least from a recent experience I had when one of my batteries died. At that price level it may just be enough for me to buy a new one from a diff manufacturer and hence break the razor-and-blade scheme.
However it may be interesting to consider situations where IMPROVEMENTS have been made for no obvious market benefit. For example, most modern remote controls are ergonomically styled so as to feel comfortable in your hand. Earlier styles of remote controls were simple rectangular boxes. The question is WHY did the manufacturers switch to these ergonomically designed units? It seems to me that on the list of "must have" features on a new TV or stereo an ergonomically designed remote should be so low that it would never get addressed.
I feel the same way about the car unlock complaint as well as the passenger seatbelt complaint Jamie made. But... when I'm looking for horsepower, gas mileage and reliability, door unlock feature just doesn't measure up to be a "no-buy" decision. Yet, like the remote control example above... something may yet force these designers to put these features in.
You forget that Detroit at least has the bad habit of wiring up almost everything with the same wire gauge. The 15A fuse connected to the fuel pump, the 10A fuse that runs the signals, and the 5A fuse for the radio are probably all connected to the same wire gauge.
Don't make safety assumptions. The price of copper is way up. It may be cost effective to stock more than one wire size. It's not a gamble I want to do with a new car. I'll check first.
The truth shall set you free!
This paragraph-at-a-time stuff is more annoying than even Vista.
...or *with* images http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:WwHXJYk9x0sJ:www.popularmechanics.com/technology/upgrade/4243994.html
Here ya go
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:WwHXJYk9x0sJ:www.popularmechanics.com/technology/upgrade/4243994.html&strip=1
If it's 'new' I wouldn't take the gamble at all. Make the dealer do it, warranties suck.
Older car? Wire size has no match on reality.
Speaking as the owner or mechanic of (over my life, by starting year) of a 1959-1961 MG, 1961-1964 Triumph, 1968-1975 and 1977 Mercedes Benz, 1969-1974 Opel, 1972-1974 AMC Eagle, a 1977 AMC Jeep Cherokee, 1977 and 1979 Chevrolet Camaro, 1980-1985 and 1989 Ford truck, 1991-1993 and 1996 Ford sedan, 1992-1996 Volkswagen, and 1998 GMC truck:
Fuse rating has zero match with wire gauge and expected circuit load. I have never seen a 5A fuse I could not replace with a 10A fuse, even if it ran around, next to, and then wrapped around the weakest rubber line in my fuel system five times.
Anything rated for less than 15A is probably the same wire in my experience, model to model, unless:
1: It's the ignition line on any car with a Bosch or Lucas ignition system, which may have resistive wire of smaller gauge than would be expected. If it has a normal wire, it has a huge ceramic resistor on the coil most of the time. If you have a Bosch distributor with points, go see a Volkswagen mechanic for extra horsepower and mileage switching to a full voltage coil, Pertronix system to replace the points, and a Porsche 914/6 rotor to keep you from too much fun.
Lucas owners, you're lucky it still starts. Repeat after me: 'Exhalted is thee, Lucas, Prince of Darkness. For thee hast given me the two position switch with three settings, they be off, on, and smoking. Let my bulbs last longer than a thousand miles, and let my generator always furnish nine to fifteen of the required volts. In your name, God Lucas, Amen.'
2: It belongs to the computer or airbag on a Ford, GM or Chrysler post 1987/1988, in which case it will be too large for the fuse by one gauge.
3: It powers the lighting, auxiliary or AC on a Mercedes before 1982-ish. Daimler Benz sold so many different light configurations, power interior packages, and AC packages all over the world that they planned for the worst gauge required in the harness and shrunk the fuse rating. In many of the 1960's models the AC fuse was reused for other things.
4: It is the optional fuse of any American Motors or Jeep product made in their name. They came with no fuse installed in the box, and wire runs through the firewall to the bumper would support a 20A load for the dealer installed lighting packages easily.
5: Power seat fuses on the Ford Escort/Mercury Topaz and Ford full-size sedans were always too large for their wiring.
.sig: Now legally binding!
Take a carving knife and cut off 5-10lbs of your own flesh.
Trivial?
..Jamie Hyman?
Libertas in infinitum