Yeah, I don't know what the hell is going with definitions either.
All the cell phones I've ever owned had internet capability, and all but one have had application installation, via Java apps. All of them could do email, although one was restricted to specific services. (OTOH, I could install a third party java program for email.)
I mean, I now own an iPhone, but at this point, it seem we're calling 'everything but the last generation' a dumbphone. When did my old Samsung A727 stop being a smartphone?
If the requirement for 'smartphone' is 'all the newest stuff', of course 'dumbphones' will always dominate.
I have no idea what sort of point they're trying to make with this article. It's like saying 'despite impressive automobile advances, old cars still dominate', where 'old cars' is defined as 'cars made more than 4 years ago'. Well, yeah. Most cars on the road will always be older than 4 years old.
A much better survey would be 'How many phones have touch screen' and 'How many phones have wifi', which are actually somewhat meaningful changes over the last few years.
Along with 'How many people have data plans' and 'How many people have installed programs on their phone' and 'How many people use their phone as their primary mp3 player', which I don't think have changes meaningfully in the last few years, but could be wrong.
You apparently don't understand that a) we do have literally exactly the same restrictions on video games as movies (a voluntary rating program, which b) has nothing to do with legality at all..you can legally take your 2 year old to an NC-17 movie. The law has no problem with it, assuming you aren't violating some other law, but that has nothing to do with the rating per se.
Like I said, do some research before commenting. The movie rating system and the video game rating system are essentially operated in exactly the same way (An industry association that publishers submit stuff to and get a rating back.) and have exactly the same legal force behind them. (None at all.)
Yeah, an actual 'set the temperature to what you want' is probably ideal. So that's not a great example anymore.
But cruise control is still fucked, where they insist on reusing buttons. Why? No one knows.
The joke is that for CC they actually could have had less controls than what they had, with one function per control, and it would have made more sense. An on/off button with a light on it, and a faster/slower knob (Which grabs the current speed on a push and uses that.)
Instead, there's a 'suspend' and 'resume' concept, that somehow isn't the same as it being 'off' and 'on'. No. I set the speed, it drives at that speed. I brake, it turns off, I push the button to turn it back on. A damn light is on when it's on, and flashes once and cuts off when I break. That's it.
That was my idea when I first realized how CC was supposed to operate. Now in modern cars with an LED display, there should be a second speedometer with the CC speed, and a 'CC on' signal. (Perhaps the CC speedometer could change color. Grey is off, green is on.)
Much, much saner.
As someone who's had a class in user interface design in college, it really is abysmal in cars, and the really really stupid part is that they could have just exposed the inner workings and had a more understandable interface.
Indeed. Greenwald is the guy who, when Obama was elected, immediately started criticizing Obama for continuing all the stuff that he (And Obama) used to criticize Bush for. Unlike 75% of the other people, who figured it was okay if a Democrats was doing it. Which made it clear he actually thinks those thing are wrong, and isn't some sort of partisan looking for some cushy political job.
At this point, he's probably unemployable in any political job or on any news network. He's what happens when you group all the legit criticism of all political figures (Not just one party or another as a news networks do.) up into one giant ball of research, and then keep harping on it, repeatedly. (He's one of the few journalists who remember that we, you know, tortured people.)
I'm sure he's made mistakes, and even said incorrect things, I'm not some sort of 'He can do no wrong' guy, and I personally find some of his writing to be, well, repetitive. Still read him, though, because I know he's not 'forgetting' to mention facts that make 'his side' look bad, like most political blogs.
But the idea he'd 'run' is literally insane. Glenn Greenwald is the sort of guy who'd respond to a gun wielding lunatic who murders someone in front of him and then say 'You didn't see nothing', by pulling out his camera phone and posting a picture on twitter as he got shot in the head.
We have R and NC-17 movies that as a society we have agreed that minors should not be allowed to see. Why is it different with interactive media.
It's not different, I suggest you do a bit of research.
The ESRB rates all games, and video game stores epically outperform other stores when carding people.
It is twice as easy for a 16 year old to buy an R-rated DVD than a M rated video games. It's almost twice as easy for them to get into an R-rated movie.
just the concept of govt beuracracy determining when enough health care is enough instead of doctors or patients deciding.
Which was a LIE, you idiot, just like the poster said. No such system was ever even proposed to exist in any form whatsoever.
The actual thing they were asserting was that was the government paying for 'end of life' consoling, which is an optional thing where you decide, basically, how to do die in comfort where you want and writing up DNR orders and stuff.
You do realize that no one made that argument, right?
People simply pointed out that the right uses a lot of violent rhetoric, and, look, an example of it. Where others might simply used a checkbox or something, Palin decided to use a gun crosshair, because she's all 'gunny', don't cha know.
Although I personally find her 'reload' comment to be a lot more crazy.
I know you won't believe it, but the right uses much much more of 'shooting things' rhetoric than the left.
And, yes, I'm sure there's some examples of the left using violent-originating figures of speech, but the right isn't using metaphors. 'Targets' are metaphors. 'Bullseyes' are metaphors. 'War' is a metaphor. Even saying 'in our crosshairs' might be.
If some on the left have cherry picked those terms out and complained about them, they're wrong, just like they were wrong to complain about the 'Repeal the job killing health care reform' bill's name. (Well, they should have just complained it was dishonest.)
But actually drawing crosshairs on a map...that's not a metaphor. I've certainly never seen crosshairs used to identify locations or people outside the context of shooting at that location. A bullseyes, an X, okay, I can accept those and not read 'shooting' into them, despite the origin, but a crosshairs, no.
Talking about 'ballot, soap, jury, ammo', is not a metaphor. Talking about 'using second amendment rights' is not a metaphor.
No it's not. Other cars have equally stupid designs. The 'max ac' thing to mean 'recirculate' is nearly universal, and I'll bet that 50% of people use it exactly backwards, using it when they first get in their car and it's hot, and then turning it 'down' to normal once it cools down.
About all that's 'better' in other designs is that there actually is a Compressor button, which is not something that really makes sense. That should just be on if you select air colder than outside. (There's also a 'defrost' button, which also turns it on, and _does_ make sense, because under some circumstances you want just normal hot air, and sometimes you want conditioned hot air to clear off the window.)
My father has a recent car with an output knob, but it's a spectacularly goofy one. It lets you mix some outputs, which is a pretty useless feature, and still doesn't just let you select them outright, so you can't, for example, send to the front and top, as those things aren't next to each other. But that part is saner than what I have. The rest of it is weird, though.
We have ignition keys to recover from error, of whatever kind.
A goddamn grease fire on a stove is operator error, but that doesn't mean we don't need fucking circuit breakers so we can't cut power when it happens.
Feel free to get pissed at people who don't know how to recover from error, but cables do stick, mats do get wedged, cruise control does come on without anyone doing it, so we have a fucking system to recover from those problems by turning off the engine.
Putting the car into neutral is already disabled while it's moving. The computer ignores presses to change gears.
The ignition button is already disabled when the car is not in park. The computer ignores presses to turn it off. (Unless you know the secret to hold it down four seconds, which no one does.)
Neither of those are 'errors'. That is how the system is designed, by utterly insane people who are sure the computer knows better than you.
The brakes presumably do work, but actually braking a car that's accelerating is fairly tricky. You have to be very forceful and sure of what's going on, and slam them down, and hold them down. If you're at all hesitant, you will likely burn up your brakes before you stop.
And, of course, that leaves you with an out of control car you've got to stand on the brakes of to keep it from getting away again. I guess you could set the e-brake, but I'm not sure what the solution is there except to run out of gas.
I have no idea if it's actual electrical error or not. Considering that just one system has to fail, it's entirely possible the accelerator cable got stuck or something. That sort of thing is not uncommon in cars, which is why we have a standard way to cut off the engine by turning the key. Except not anymore.
Oh, and as for time, I don't know about you, but I can flip the ignition off about half a second without looking. (Getting the key out is sometimes a hassle, but just turning it off is not.)
Whereas finding a button on the dash, and holding it down? While steering through traffic or trying to slow the car by driving off the road?
Priuses can go 0-60 in ten seconds. Assuming three second response time to discover the car is actually out of control, that means you could be going roughly 40 mph faster than everyone else by the end of holding that button down. they'll be going 35 and you 75, or they 60 and you...whatever the top speed is, 90 or so. That is not going to be a fun trip.
The gear shift is apparently entirely computer controlled also. Pushing neutral won't do anything if the computer doesn't want it to...like if you're driving down the road.
The real problem here isn't the cars, it's that slashdot, the all-might-dancing-and-singing technical site, apparently doesn't bother to actually make any sort of primer on this so everyone in this discussion is uninformed, or the editors are so ignorant of technology that they are not utterly horrified by the idea of a car that cannot be disable without permission of the computer. (Like anyone who knew the slightest bit about computers would be.)
They had keys and it sure as hell didn't prevent people from pressing on the gas thinking it was the brake.
Cars will always go out of control. Usually it is people, sometimes it's mechanical failure.
It's absurd that people don't apply historical knowledge to proposed solutions.
Yeah, like cutting power to the engine, like they were taught in school. Oh, FUCK, pushing the power button doesn't work. They pushed it and the car doesn't turn off. Maybe push neutral...nope, the computer won't let it switch.
You're insane if you think the solution to 'people do not know how to cope with emergencies' is 'everyone should read the entire manual of every car they ever drive'. That is utter nonsense. There's a reason we standardize car controls.
You're right in that idiots do not know how to stop normal cars that are out of control, and those people should rightly be called idiots and indicates we probably should have tighter driver licensing. Anyone who's ever had an 'out of control' car with standard ignition, and weren't going down a 40 degree slope with no tires, should lose their license, they are not knowledgeable enough to drive.
But, you see, there are plenty of people who do know how to stop an out of control car. They know exactly how. They were taught in school, and they listened. And that way is to 'cut the ignition, and if that doesn't work, shift to neutral'. That is the actual stated manner, it's in the fucking driver's manual.
That is how you are supposed to be able to stop a runaway car, and anyone who doesn't know to do that is a fucking moron who shouldn't be on the road.
But anyone who designed a car where you can't do that is also a fucking moron who shouldn't be allowed near auto design. You do not get to build 1 ton 70 MPH machinery and require people to read the fucking manual to figure out how to disable it when it goes out of control. You either follow the standard design or you have a fucking big red switch.
I mean, hell, why are we assuming that only 'drivers' turn off cars? Maybe there was an accident, the driver is dead, and the EMT needs to turn it off because it's attempting to drive through another car they need to get into. Or maybe the driver passed out and has their foot on the gas and the passenger needs to turn it off.
Maybe everyone should read and memorize how to cut off every single damn car...or, and I'm just throwing this crazy idea out there, we could have a standard way to cut off a car engine, like we used to.
That is essentially what I'm talking about, along with a standard location.
But having a 'button' is a good way to have it pushed by accident, having a rotating switch is saner, and as we're already used to having one to cut power in a car, I say we just mandate it in the same location.
The same push buttons that start the car also turn them off.
Me: 'People here are idiots because they don't understand the problem is that X is true'
You: 'X isn't true'
As X is true, so thank you for proving my point. The button does not turn off the car.
If you hold them for four seconds (and there is absolutely no indication that this is what to do), they will send a signal to the computer to cut off.
That is not the same as turning off the car (If the computer is ignoring the throttle, it could just as easily ignore the off button.), and it is not how you normally turn that car off in the first place, which normally requires a single press.
The way my car controls are designed, it's not actually obvious you can do this. 'Defrost' is under the 'heat' part of the slider...but, of course, what the slider actually controls is 'where the air comes from and goes', and the compressor is mostly controlled by another slider, and other options under 'heat' force the compressor off.
I guess, in theory, it's technically four controls: How much air from inside, how much air from outside, how much air from the engine, and how much air from the compressor. Those could all be sliders, but I didn't mean to imply they couldn't simply it a little.
But I have some absurd slider with random positions that functionally is input and out and some compressor controls...and yet doesn't actually let me do things like direct air out the upper vents and the floor, because they didn't see fit to give that a position. Or direct air in from the floor vents and out the front and upper. OTOH, I have two ways to direct outside air through the front and floor vents...one that forces the compressor off, and one that turns it on. (Despite where I set the actual temp slider.)
This is not an idea that is especially complicated to present to people. You would not even need words, just a left-to-right diagram: select a single air in location - temp slider - select all air out locations - speed slider.
What did the cop NOT do? He didn't shift into neutral. He didn't turn the key off. He didn't downshift, which would have made the top speed of the vehicle much lower.
Jesus Fucking Christ.
He didn't turn the key because the car doesn't have a key.
He didn't shift into neutral or another gear because, apparently, the 'shift into neutral' button is a damn electronic button that didn't work.
You goddamn morons aren't listening to a word of this, are you? Goddamn slashdot doesn't even see fit to fucking explain the actual damn problem with these cars, in that is is no manual off.
(There actually is a manual off...hold the 'start' button down and it cuts off, but he didn't know how to do it in his rented car, and neither did the highway patrol.)
The lack of mechanical off is why people are getting killed. Any car can go out of control, it's not worth trying to stop that, because people 'can always just turn the car off'...except, now, they can't.
He did not try driving into something less lethal than oncoming traffic, such as a pond, a field, a ditch, or even some undergrowth among some trees.
Yeah, all those ponds laying around freeways.
And, incidentally, he did run into something less lethal than oncoming traffic...he drove down the exit-ramp wall, and made it off the highway...at which point he crashed into a car sitting at the stop light at the end of the exit ramp, still going about 70.
Digital computers, when applied correctly, are just as reliable as plain-old electromechanical logic.
We don't use any sort of 'logic' to turn off a car.
There's all sorts of relays and whatnot that operate the car, but rotating the ignition switch physically disconnects the power to the fuel pump, so gasoline is not longer supplied to the engine. In cars that have ignition switches, that is.
All cars should have a switch that physically cuts power to the motor(s), just like all computers, in addition to the soft power switches, have one at the back of the case that actually physically cuts power.
I was just sorta assuming that it would cut power to the central computer, which would obviously result in the computer unable to do anything at all. But maybe that's not a good idea, as that controls things like braking and anti-lock and stuff too.
But, yes, however it does it, it should not be possible to accelerate the car forward or backwards with that switch off.
Some part of the electricity of all (Hybrids have two) motive systems should run through there, and turning it should result in a physical disconnect of the power to them.
And, while we're at it, it can turn on your hazard lights too.;)
Yeah, sorry I went off on you, it's just astonishing that companies are allowed to sell cars like this, even after these problems, whether or not they actually exist or not.
It's a blatantly obvious solution. It's is literally so obvious that it pissed me the hell off when I discovered they didn't do this and were allowed not to do this.
It is literally the most important fact about this, and the fact that every single damn newspaper and the entire fucking Congress weren't leaping in and saying 'Hey, wait, why were you allowed to make a car without an actual off switch, and can we change that law by, oh, eight o'clock tonight?' makes me insane with rage. The fact that this place isn't screaming that question makes me insane with rage.
But instead we get idiotic committees attempting to find out what the problem is. Hey, morons, we know what the problem is: It's that people can't turn their car off when random unpredictable shit happens, like it always does.
It's always the rule, though, isn't it? People who know about computers know they fuck up, and you need a goddamn mechanical control on them if they control something 'real'. It's true with automobiles, it's true with electronic voting, it's true with radiation machines.
The fact this isn't instantly obvious to the editors or the vast majority of posters here rather demonstrates how technically illiterate this place is, how full of wannabes is it. That really should have been the entire thrust of the article, so I understand that a lot of people didn't realize how goddamn stupid the cars were, because the assumption is that the editors would tell us about the stupid shit.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, I don't know what the hell is going with definitions either.
All the cell phones I've ever owned had internet capability, and all but one have had application installation, via Java apps. All of them could do email, although one was restricted to specific services. (OTOH, I could install a third party java program for email.)
I mean, I now own an iPhone, but at this point, it seem we're calling 'everything but the last generation' a dumbphone. When did my old Samsung A727 stop being a smartphone?
If the requirement for 'smartphone' is 'all the newest stuff', of course 'dumbphones' will always dominate.
I have no idea what sort of point they're trying to make with this article. It's like saying 'despite impressive automobile advances, old cars still dominate', where 'old cars' is defined as 'cars made more than 4 years ago'. Well, yeah. Most cars on the road will always be older than 4 years old.
A much better survey would be 'How many phones have touch screen' and 'How many phones have wifi', which are actually somewhat meaningful changes over the last few years.
Along with 'How many people have data plans' and 'How many people have installed programs on their phone' and 'How many people use their phone as their primary mp3 player', which I don't think have changes meaningfully in the last few years, but could be wrong.
You apparently don't understand that a) we do have literally exactly the same restrictions on video games as movies (a voluntary rating program, which b) has nothing to do with legality at all..you can legally take your 2 year old to an NC-17 movie. The law has no problem with it, assuming you aren't violating some other law, but that has nothing to do with the rating per se.
Like I said, do some research before commenting. The movie rating system and the video game rating system are essentially operated in exactly the same way (An industry association that publishers submit stuff to and get a rating back.) and have exactly the same legal force behind them. (None at all.)
Yeah, an actual 'set the temperature to what you want' is probably ideal. So that's not a great example anymore.
But cruise control is still fucked, where they insist on reusing buttons. Why? No one knows.
The joke is that for CC they actually could have had less controls than what they had, with one function per control, and it would have made more sense. An on/off button with a light on it, and a faster/slower knob (Which grabs the current speed on a push and uses that.)
Instead, there's a 'suspend' and 'resume' concept, that somehow isn't the same as it being 'off' and 'on'. No. I set the speed, it drives at that speed. I brake, it turns off, I push the button to turn it back on. A damn light is on when it's on, and flashes once and cuts off when I break. That's it.
That was my idea when I first realized how CC was supposed to operate. Now in modern cars with an LED display, there should be a second speedometer with the CC speed, and a 'CC on' signal. (Perhaps the CC speedometer could change color. Grey is off, green is on.)
Much, much saner.
As someone who's had a class in user interface design in college, it really is abysmal in cars, and the really really stupid part is that they could have just exposed the inner workings and had a more understandable interface.
Indeed. Greenwald is the guy who, when Obama was elected, immediately started criticizing Obama for continuing all the stuff that he (And Obama) used to criticize Bush for. Unlike 75% of the other people, who figured it was okay if a Democrats was doing it. Which made it clear he actually thinks those thing are wrong, and isn't some sort of partisan looking for some cushy political job.
At this point, he's probably unemployable in any political job or on any news network. He's what happens when you group all the legit criticism of all political figures (Not just one party or another as a news networks do.) up into one giant ball of research, and then keep harping on it, repeatedly. (He's one of the few journalists who remember that we, you know, tortured people.)
I'm sure he's made mistakes, and even said incorrect things, I'm not some sort of 'He can do no wrong' guy, and I personally find some of his writing to be, well, repetitive. Still read him, though, because I know he's not 'forgetting' to mention facts that make 'his side' look bad, like most political blogs.
But the idea he'd 'run' is literally insane. Glenn Greenwald is the sort of guy who'd respond to a gun wielding lunatic who murders someone in front of him and then say 'You didn't see nothing', by pulling out his camera phone and posting a picture on twitter as he got shot in the head.
I've never been a believer in Godwin's Law, so the most obvious example I can point out is Hitler.
You don't believe that every thread on the internet eventually devolves into talking about Hitler, so you'll...talk about Hitler?
We have R and NC-17 movies that as a society we have agreed that minors should not be allowed to see. Why is it different with interactive media.
It's not different, I suggest you do a bit of research.
The ESRB rates all games, and video game stores epically outperform other stores when carding people.
It is twice as easy for a 16 year old to buy an R-rated DVD than a M rated video games. It's almost twice as easy for them to get into an R-rated movie.
Well, for one, that 'rapes have increased', when they manifestly have not.
But the government is the problem, don't you know that? Spending money on solving rapes would require paying taxes.
It is at the least your duty to not buy them M rated video games.
just the concept of govt beuracracy determining when enough health care is enough instead of doctors or patients deciding.
Which was a LIE, you idiot, just like the poster said. No such system was ever even proposed to exist in any form whatsoever.
The actual thing they were asserting was that was the government paying for 'end of life' consoling, which is an optional thing where you decide, basically, how to do die in comfort where you want and writing up DNR orders and stuff.
And the line you replied to was hyperbole.
And many experts are saying that Glenn Beck's rape and murder of a young girl in 1990 was caused by video games.
(In the same way that 'the non-existent rise in rapes' were caused by them.)
You do realize that no one made that argument, right?
People simply pointed out that the right uses a lot of violent rhetoric, and, look, an example of it. Where others might simply used a checkbox or something, Palin decided to use a gun crosshair, because she's all 'gunny', don't cha know.
Although I personally find her 'reload' comment to be a lot more crazy.
I know you won't believe it, but the right uses much much more of 'shooting things' rhetoric than the left.
And, yes, I'm sure there's some examples of the left using violent-originating figures of speech, but the right isn't using metaphors. 'Targets' are metaphors. 'Bullseyes' are metaphors. 'War' is a metaphor. Even saying 'in our crosshairs' might be.
If some on the left have cherry picked those terms out and complained about them, they're wrong, just like they were wrong to complain about the 'Repeal the job killing health care reform' bill's name. (Well, they should have just complained it was dishonest.)
But actually drawing crosshairs on a map...that's not a metaphor. I've certainly never seen crosshairs used to identify locations or people outside the context of shooting at that location. A bullseyes, an X, okay, I can accept those and not read 'shooting' into them, despite the origin, but a crosshairs, no.
Talking about 'ballot, soap, jury, ammo', is not a metaphor. Talking about 'using second amendment rights' is not a metaphor.
No it's not. Other cars have equally stupid designs. The 'max ac' thing to mean 'recirculate' is nearly universal, and I'll bet that 50% of people use it exactly backwards, using it when they first get in their car and it's hot, and then turning it 'down' to normal once it cools down.
About all that's 'better' in other designs is that there actually is a Compressor button, which is not something that really makes sense. That should just be on if you select air colder than outside. (There's also a 'defrost' button, which also turns it on, and _does_ make sense, because under some circumstances you want just normal hot air, and sometimes you want conditioned hot air to clear off the window.)
My father has a recent car with an output knob, but it's a spectacularly goofy one. It lets you mix some outputs, which is a pretty useless feature, and still doesn't just let you select them outright, so you can't, for example, send to the front and top, as those things aren't next to each other. But that part is saner than what I have. The rest of it is weird, though.
I understand they've fucking driver error.
We have ignition keys to recover from error, of whatever kind.
A goddamn grease fire on a stove is operator error, but that doesn't mean we don't need fucking circuit breakers so we can't cut power when it happens.
Feel free to get pissed at people who don't know how to recover from error, but cables do stick, mats do get wedged, cruise control does come on without anyone doing it, so we have a fucking system to recover from those problems by turning off the engine.
Putting the car into neutral is already disabled while it's moving. The computer ignores presses to change gears.
The ignition button is already disabled when the car is not in park. The computer ignores presses to turn it off. (Unless you know the secret to hold it down four seconds, which no one does.)
Neither of those are 'errors'. That is how the system is designed, by utterly insane people who are sure the computer knows better than you.
The brakes presumably do work, but actually braking a car that's accelerating is fairly tricky. You have to be very forceful and sure of what's going on, and slam them down, and hold them down. If you're at all hesitant, you will likely burn up your brakes before you stop.
And, of course, that leaves you with an out of control car you've got to stand on the brakes of to keep it from getting away again. I guess you could set the e-brake, but I'm not sure what the solution is there except to run out of gas.
I have no idea if it's actual electrical error or not. Considering that just one system has to fail, it's entirely possible the accelerator cable got stuck or something. That sort of thing is not uncommon in cars, which is why we have a standard way to cut off the engine by turning the key. Except not anymore.
Oh, and as for time, I don't know about you, but I can flip the ignition off about half a second without looking. (Getting the key out is sometimes a hassle, but just turning it off is not.)
Whereas finding a button on the dash, and holding it down? While steering through traffic or trying to slow the car by driving off the road?
Priuses can go 0-60 in ten seconds. Assuming three second response time to discover the car is actually out of control, that means you could be going roughly 40 mph faster than everyone else by the end of holding that button down. they'll be going 35 and you 75, or they 60 and you...whatever the top speed is, 90 or so. That is not going to be a fun trip.
The gear shift is apparently entirely computer controlled also. Pushing neutral won't do anything if the computer doesn't want it to...like if you're driving down the road.
The real problem here isn't the cars, it's that slashdot, the all-might-dancing-and-singing technical site, apparently doesn't bother to actually make any sort of primer on this so everyone in this discussion is uninformed, or the editors are so ignorant of technology that they are not utterly horrified by the idea of a car that cannot be disable without permission of the computer. (Like anyone who knew the slightest bit about computers would be.)
They had keys and it sure as hell didn't prevent people from pressing on the gas thinking it was the brake.
Cars will always go out of control. Usually it is people, sometimes it's mechanical failure.
It's absurd that people don't apply historical knowledge to proposed solutions.
Yeah, like cutting power to the engine, like they were taught in school. Oh, FUCK, pushing the power button doesn't work. They pushed it and the car doesn't turn off. Maybe push neutral...nope, the computer won't let it switch.
You're insane if you think the solution to 'people do not know how to cope with emergencies' is 'everyone should read the entire manual of every car they ever drive'. That is utter nonsense. There's a reason we standardize car controls.
You're right in that idiots do not know how to stop normal cars that are out of control, and those people should rightly be called idiots and indicates we probably should have tighter driver licensing. Anyone who's ever had an 'out of control' car with standard ignition, and weren't going down a 40 degree slope with no tires, should lose their license, they are not knowledgeable enough to drive.
But, you see, there are plenty of people who do know how to stop an out of control car. They know exactly how. They were taught in school, and they listened. And that way is to 'cut the ignition, and if that doesn't work, shift to neutral'. That is the actual stated manner, it's in the fucking driver's manual.
That is how you are supposed to be able to stop a runaway car, and anyone who doesn't know to do that is a fucking moron who shouldn't be on the road.
But anyone who designed a car where you can't do that is also a fucking moron who shouldn't be allowed near auto design. You do not get to build 1 ton 70 MPH machinery and require people to read the fucking manual to figure out how to disable it when it goes out of control. You either follow the standard design or you have a fucking big red switch.
I mean, hell, why are we assuming that only 'drivers' turn off cars? Maybe there was an accident, the driver is dead, and the EMT needs to turn it off because it's attempting to drive through another car they need to get into. Or maybe the driver passed out and has their foot on the gas and the passenger needs to turn it off.
Maybe everyone should read and memorize how to cut off every single damn car...or, and I'm just throwing this crazy idea out there, we could have a standard way to cut off a car engine, like we used to.
That is essentially what I'm talking about, along with a standard location.
But having a 'button' is a good way to have it pushed by accident, having a rotating switch is saner, and as we're already used to having one to cut power in a car, I say we just mandate it in the same location.
The same push buttons that start the car also turn them off.
Me: 'People here are idiots because they don't understand the problem is that X is true'
You: 'X isn't true'
As X is true, so thank you for proving my point. The button does not turn off the car.
If you hold them for four seconds (and there is absolutely no indication that this is what to do), they will send a signal to the computer to cut off.
That is not the same as turning off the car (If the computer is ignoring the throttle, it could just as easily ignore the off button.), and it is not how you normally turn that car off in the first place, which normally requires a single press.
Huh? That's what I just said.
The way my car controls are designed, it's not actually obvious you can do this. 'Defrost' is under the 'heat' part of the slider...but, of course, what the slider actually controls is 'where the air comes from and goes', and the compressor is mostly controlled by another slider, and other options under 'heat' force the compressor off.
I guess, in theory, it's technically four controls: How much air from inside, how much air from outside, how much air from the engine, and how much air from the compressor. Those could all be sliders, but I didn't mean to imply they couldn't simply it a little.
But I have some absurd slider with random positions that functionally is input and out and some compressor controls...and yet doesn't actually let me do things like direct air out the upper vents and the floor, because they didn't see fit to give that a position. Or direct air in from the floor vents and out the front and upper. OTOH, I have two ways to direct outside air through the front and floor vents...one that forces the compressor off, and one that turns it on. (Despite where I set the actual temp slider.)
This is not an idea that is especially complicated to present to people. You would not even need words, just a left-to-right diagram: select a single air in location - temp slider - select all air out locations - speed slider.
What did the cop NOT do? He didn't shift into neutral. He didn't turn the key off. He didn't downshift, which would have made the top speed of the vehicle much lower.
Jesus Fucking Christ.
He didn't turn the key because the car doesn't have a key.
He didn't shift into neutral or another gear because, apparently, the 'shift into neutral' button is a damn electronic button that didn't work.
You goddamn morons aren't listening to a word of this, are you? Goddamn slashdot doesn't even see fit to fucking explain the actual damn problem with these cars, in that is is no manual off.
(There actually is a manual off...hold the 'start' button down and it cuts off, but he didn't know how to do it in his rented car, and neither did the highway patrol.)
The lack of mechanical off is why people are getting killed. Any car can go out of control, it's not worth trying to stop that, because people 'can always just turn the car off'...except, now, they can't.
He did not try driving into something less lethal than oncoming traffic, such as a pond, a field, a ditch, or even some undergrowth among some trees.
Yeah, all those ponds laying around freeways.
And, incidentally, he did run into something less lethal than oncoming traffic...he drove down the exit-ramp wall, and made it off the highway...at which point he crashed into a car sitting at the stop light at the end of the exit ramp, still going about 70.
Digital computers, when applied correctly, are just as reliable as plain-old electromechanical logic.
We don't use any sort of 'logic' to turn off a car.
There's all sorts of relays and whatnot that operate the car, but rotating the ignition switch physically disconnects the power to the fuel pump, so gasoline is not longer supplied to the engine. In cars that have ignition switches, that is.
All cars should have a switch that physically cuts power to the motor(s), just like all computers, in addition to the soft power switches, have one at the back of the case that actually physically cuts power.
I was just sorta assuming that it would cut power to the central computer, which would obviously result in the computer unable to do anything at all. But maybe that's not a good idea, as that controls things like braking and anti-lock and stuff too.
But, yes, however it does it, it should not be possible to accelerate the car forward or backwards with that switch off.
Some part of the electricity of all (Hybrids have two) motive systems should run through there, and turning it should result in a physical disconnect of the power to them.
And, while we're at it, it can turn on your hazard lights too. ;)
Yeah, sorry I went off on you, it's just astonishing that companies are allowed to sell cars like this, even after these problems, whether or not they actually exist or not.
It's a blatantly obvious solution. It's is literally so obvious that it pissed me the hell off when I discovered they didn't do this and were allowed not to do this.
It is literally the most important fact about this, and the fact that every single damn newspaper and the entire fucking Congress weren't leaping in and saying 'Hey, wait, why were you allowed to make a car without an actual off switch, and can we change that law by, oh, eight o'clock tonight?' makes me insane with rage. The fact that this place isn't screaming that question makes me insane with rage.
But instead we get idiotic committees attempting to find out what the problem is. Hey, morons, we know what the problem is: It's that people can't turn their car off when random unpredictable shit happens, like it always does.
It's always the rule, though, isn't it? People who know about computers know they fuck up, and you need a goddamn mechanical control on them if they control something 'real'. It's true with automobiles, it's true with electronic voting, it's true with radiation machines.
The fact this isn't instantly obvious to the editors or the vast majority of posters here rather demonstrates how technically illiterate this place is, how full of wannabes is it. That really should have been the entire thrust of the article, so I understand that a lot of people didn't realize how goddamn stupid the cars were, because the assumption is that the editors would tell us about the stupid shit.