Which is exactly the value offered by Android and Apple car integration. Both can offer superior mapping at lower cost than an auto maker.
Only in places where there is a cell phone signal. If you drive somewhere where cellular service is sketchy you'll need a "real" GPS system. Speaking for myself I go to places with iffy to no cell service often enough that the GPS in my cell phone is useless for long periods. Not to say a smartphone GPS isn't useful but it isn't without some very significant flaws.
All the car needs to provide is a display and audio.
What you really want is the two systems to complement each other and be more than the sum of the parts. Furthermore what if you don't have a smarphone with you? Sometimes I don't carry mine but I'd still like GPS navigation while driving. Have a "real" GPS receiver in the car but let the smarphone provide traffic, weather and location overlays. Have basic functionality built in to the car but allow the smartphone to supplement it and make it better.
I just don't see value in the satnav being built into my car.
I have both a portable Garmin GPS and have built in GPS in my daily drive car. Given the choice I almost always prefer a built in GPS. Why? Bunch of reasons including: 1) While my built in unit is older it works quite competently for 99.9% of situations and I have a smartphone for the other 0.1%. My portable Garmin is great but it adds minimal to no navigation value to me unless I'm using a car that doesn't have built in GPS. 2) No need to find a place to put the portable GPS and no need to run cords. 3) Unless someone steals the car I don't have to worry about losing the built in unit. 4) The screen in my built in GPS also serves other purposes like displaying my backup camera, etc 5) Generally easier for the passenger to enter route data on the built in unit while underway. (usually) 6) Unless I put an external antenna on my car my built in unit gets a GPS signal MUCH faster than my portable unit though both do it competently 7) The screen is bigger which can be helpful at times.
Now what do I not like about my built in GPS? 1) Goes obsolete faster than milk. The one in my car was state of the art 10+ years ago and it looks like it. 2) Minimal upgradeability. While I can get more recent maps (for $$$) no new features will be added. Ever. 3) No traffic or weather overlays, at least not with my system. Have to pull out the smartphone for this. 4) Stupidly expensive especially given that it is almost certainly not state of the art when you buy it.
I think the best solution would be to have a minimal built in GPS but allow your smart phone to integrate smoothly and take over or supplement some of the functions. Portable GPS units like a Garmin or TomTom are great for a lot of circumstances but I think a built-in GPS with good smartphone integration would be substantially better.
The latest systems can park in narrow spaces for you, too, as well as pull out of them so you can get in.
I can park in any space the automated system can most likely. I can probably do it faster too. I don't really recall ever being unable to get into my car based on where it was parked. Sounds like a solution looking for a problem to me.
People just aren't familiar with them. They don't think they want them because they've never seen one, and if they have, it was from the eighties.
Probably true though I stand by my statement that I think a LOT of people (especially older drivers) will find them irritating and/or distracting and turn them off. Someone like me might like it but I would be shocked if my parents would. My in-laws particularly are positively Luddites when it comes to anything new, novel or different even if it would actually make their life easier if they'd give it a chance. I can actually see a well designed HUD being useful but I also see lots of people not liking them at all or being unable to cope with the data and distraction.
I just don't want a car that pulls over when law enforcement (or a malicious hacker) pushes a button.
If we get truly automated self driving cars, you can bet that it will have a feature to pull over when directed by law enforcement. Absolutely guaranteed that will happen if self driving cars really become a thing. And if that feature is there then the hackers will have access to it too. I don't see one happening without the other. I think this will be true even if the controls to override the self drive system are present because the government will see an opportunity and be unable to resist.
The five features owners most commonly report that they "never use" are in-vehicle concierge (43%); mobile routers (38%); automatic parking systems (35%); heads-up display (33%); and built-in apps (32%).
Let's see: * In-vehicle concierge is generally expensive and most people have no experience using such a service and many probably don't even know their car has it. * Mobile routers are pretty much pointless if you have a data plan for your phone AND the car companies often charge a premium for it. * Automated parking systems really only do parallel parking which any competent driver can do plus many people don't really trust it yet and if it screws up the results are expensive. * Heads up displays are very new and on very few cars but I can see some people finding them annoying. * I've never seen any apps for a car that were anywhere near as competently done as those on my phone and frankly pretending a car is like a smartphone is kind of stupid. Car makers aren't really thinking through the interface here. I shouldn't be staring at a touchscreen while driving.
Additionally, there are 14 technology features that 20% or more of owners don't even want in their next vehicle. Those features include Apple CarPlay and Google Android Auto, in-vehicle concierge services and in-vehicle voice texting. When narrowed to just Gen Yers, the number of vehicle owners who don't want entertainment and connectivity systems increases to 23%.
I've never seen a car with either CarPlay or Android Auto in person so I don't know if I'd like it or not. I think smartphones could be usefully integrated with vehicles but I don't think car makers have figured out the best way to do this yet.
I'm not willing to pay a premium for concierge service so they may as well leave the electronic out if it isn't included with the vehicle. A smartphone serves roughly the same purpose and I already have one.
Voice based texting is in my experience invariably a flawed and frustrating experience. I speak with a clear and bog standard midwestern US accent and I've NEVER found a voice recognition system that gets better than about 80% of what I say. My current car has a voice recognition system and it is nearly useless for any practical purpose. Furthermore texting while driving even through a voice system would be distracting so it can just wait until I park the vehicle.
Who said anyone was? The post I responded to said I "should be grateful" to have it. I disagree. I would be grateful if it were provided gratis. But since they are charging money I have an opinion about the value for money and I'm not terribly impressed and certainly not "grateful".
I've purchased wifi service on a round trip flight with four legs, partly out of curiosity and partly because it was a long flight. It worked very slowly on two of the legs with periodic dropouts. It worked sort of ok on one leg and not at all on the last leg. Cost =$60 for approximately 3 hours of vaguely usable wifi over 14 hours of flying. I don't care if it is on a plane traveling hundreds of miles per hour, that's just terrible value for money.
What relevancy does the "rest of the airline experience" have?
I should think that would be obvious if you've been on a plane in the last 10 years. Do you enjoy sitting in a cramped seat after being fondled by TSA? Do you really think $15 for a few hours of (usually) bad laggy internet access is a good deal? I'm paying a lot of money to get on that airplane so yeah I have an opinion about what I'm getting for my money.
You aren't going to get on a flight just because your internet connection experience is sooooo wonderful, are you?
I'm not going to pretend that paying $15 for 3 hours of slow internet access is a good deal or that it makes the flight somehow into a lovely experience.
... who still thinks being able to get a wireless internet link in an aircraft doing 600mph at 35K feet is pretty fucking amazing. I can't believe people complain about the bandwidth - they should be grateful this tech exists at all.
Of course it is amazing. That doesn't mean it can't be better and we all know it can be better. I remember being amazed at how fast a 9600 baud modem was. But technology progresses and our expectations along with it. I don't doubt for a moment that they can make it faster and more reliable.
As for being "grateful", they are charging a lot of money to use this tech. If they were providing it for free you might have an argument but they aren't. Is it technically difficult? Sure but I don't really care. They want to make a business of it then my expectations are probably going to be pretty high, especially given that the rest of the "airline experience" isn't exactly amazing.
In other words, people have become disgustingly lazy.
The target demographic for these is the exact opposite of lazy. It's aimed at people who are very busy and who are willing to trade a bit of money for time. Just because someone thinks time spent shopping for and buying dish soap is wasteful does not make them lazy. It makes them prudent if anything. I buy stuff online all the time so I don't have to waste hours pointlessly driving around so I can buy things - a complete waste of my life. I'd rather spend the time doing something else. This is just a logical extension of that. Do you find the process of ordering dish soap to be a good use of your time? I sure don't.
I can never tell if Clarkson is a smart person pretending to be stupid, or a stupid person pretending to be smart.
I've heard from numerous movie directors that people who play dumb characters actually have to be quite smart. Clarkson isn't stupid (generally) and remember that Top Gear is/was a scripted show and people watch it primarily because it is funny. I think I remember Conan OBrian saying that a lot of comedy is throwing out your dignity and hoping you'll get it back.
Or did you think the evolution of subscriptions and microtransactions was to benefit you, the customer?
It HAS to benefit the customer. If it doesn't benefit the customer the customer won't buy it. It might benefit the seller more but customers don't buy anything that doesn't have a value proposition. If the customer buys it then obviously the customer found some amount of benefit in the transaction.
I've all but stopped buying at Amazon. Yeah, the free shipping for orders over $35 is nice, but at what cost?
They offer free shipping to Prime members for orders less than that. I get free shipping on things that just cost a few dollars. Sometimes they are add-on items so you have to order above a given threshold. Sometimes you can get things cheaper elsewhere but the prices at Amazon are usually competitive and the convenience is hard to beat.
Amazon sits on those orders for nearly a week before they are shipped.
Only if you explicitly select their slowest shipping methods. I have most stuff in my hands in exactly two days and even if I select their slower shipping methods it usually ships out in 2-3 business days anyway.
The "shipping cost" is built in to the price of each item. So if you buy more than one item, you are over-paying for shipping.
That's true no matter where you shop. Go to Walmart and I assure you that there is a cost of freight in the price and they don't give you a bulk discount. Same with any other vendor where there isn't an explicit freight charge.
Because the best solution to every problem isn't an app. Believe it or not there sometimes are better and more efficient ways to solve a problem.
Open the app, see a list of easy to order items, click on the items you want to order and hit send. That's it. Very simple to use, and the user knows that their order went through.
All of which is harder than just pushing a button. You just described a 4 step process than in reality has even more steps. (turn on phone, log in, find app, open app, scroll through list, select item(s), select send). Compare that with pushing a single button on a wall and it is absurdly complicated.
Look I don't have any use for these Dash buttons myself but I understand what they are trying to do. The less steps someone has to go through the more likely they are to buy. The founder of Coke basically built his business around making sure his product was "within arm's reach of desire" which is why you can easily find a coke product almost anywhere on the globe even in some of the most remote corners. They made buying their product VERY easy. Amazon is trying to do similar things. Maybe the Dash buttons won't work out but the principle of what they are doing makes sense. Sometimes a more general solution isn't the better one.
How when my dad buys something shipping is wayyyyyyyy overpriced but go to my account (one where I have cancelled orders because of overpriced shipping) and it's less than half the cost *same town*
Perhaps because you buy more from Amazon so they are willing to cut you a better deal. Very little on Amazon has wildly overpriced shipping and the minority of stuff that does have overpriced shipping is obvious and invariably from third party vendors. Most of what I buy is through Prime and has "free" shipping. If you see overpriced shipping don't buy it.
Of course I've made my living doing ecommerce in the past so I can assure you that most people have NO idea what shipping actually costs. We used to charge exactly the rate UPS charged us and people would complain that we were inflating shipping prices even though we were shipping at cheaper rates than they could get themselves.
or their bait and switch, or their sending an item entirely different from what was pictured.
Aside from one or two mistakes where the wrong item got picked I've never seen this happen and I've ordered a LOT of stuff from Amazon. The few mistakes they've made they corrected and sent the correct item or refunded me no questions asked. I've never seen Amazon "bait and switch" anything, ever. If it was a third party vendor not sending what was shown I would just immediately send it back and complain to Amazon. They'll pay the return freight and refund your money.
Yeah I know there are resellers, but Amazon fronts them so they get the blame too.
If you buy the thing with the overpriced shipping, the only party to blame is yourself. Buy somewhere else if you don't think you are getting a good deal.
Well, that's great, but...you'll only increase capacity once there's a threat?
This should not surprise you at all. If there is no competition prices will be monopoly prices. Anyone who thinks they would charge less is being very naive.
Which brings me to my point: If this rollout by Comcast is true, is someone finally getting out IN FRONT of Google Fiber, not just being a reactionary twit?
It's still just a defensive play really. I don't think Google really wants to be in the ISP business but faster internet is very valuable to them so if they can, ahem... encourage Comcast to bump their speeds by being a credible threat then Google wins without having to build a nationwide network. Companies that use a franchise model do something like this. They have a smallish number of stores that are company owned which limits the power of the franchise owners.
Maybe, just maybe, someone is learning that customers are switching not only because of your product but because you treat your customers like crap?
Very doubtful. I'd be shocked if it was anything other than a strategic response to a competitive threat.
There's no practical way to define "bad practices".
That's simply not true. We do that all the time in any number of professions. Trade groups and government agencies all the time establish what constitutes standard of care for a particular industry. It's positively routine. Accountants do it. Financial traders do it. Doctors do it. There is no reason IT security people cannot do it.
Better is to treat data theft the same as any other theft; punish the thief.
So you think that if a bank neglects to lock its vault allowing your money to be stolen that it should bear no liability for their carelessness? I could not disagree more. Sure you punish the thief but you punish the bank too to ensure that they take better care the next time. Any time an agent is trusted with your property or data they have a duty of care to ensure it is secure.
If CEOs are personally responsible for every action taken by a company, say hello to oppressive micro-management.
If CEOs are personally liable for everything a company does you have completely gutted the entire purpose of a corporation which is to insulate the owners and employees from personal liability. There is NO other purpose to a company besides this. It is 100% of the reason corporations exist. Unlimited personal liability makes corporations a completely pointless entity.
No you make the penalties to the company sufficiently draconian and if the CEO didn't do his job to ensure your data was safe then he will probably lose his job at the next board meeting.
What constitutes sufficiently strong security practices?
If companies are smart they'll form a trade group and define these themselves. Basically a set of reasonable practices that companies should be expected to follow when handling customer data. Following these practices and having them audited would provide a basis for some amount of safe harbor from government prosecution. If companies do not do this it is highly probable that the government will pass some laws defining such practices at some point and the companies probably won't like them very much.
Are there going to be standards for applying patches to vulnerable software?
There should be pursuant to my answer above
What about human error such as tricking someone to giving out data they shouldn't or losing hard drives with data?
What about it? The point is to protect customer data so if the company handles it in a sloppy manner then they should pay a penalty for that. As a customer I don't really care that they didn't mean to make a mistake. If I handled their data in a sloppy manner I'd expect to get sued so the same should be true in reverse. Look at it this way, if a bank is tricked into giving someone access to the money in your account they would be liable for your losses, correct? Why should it be any different with data? The only difference is in defining the value of the data but the principle is identical. The company has a fiduciary responsibility to safely store your data and if they are sloppy with that duty of care then they should pay a price.
It's hypocritical for the government to hold businesses accountable when they're an awful offender, too.
While you are quite correct that's not an excuse to let companies off the hook.
Can you imagine single term limits for judges? In many states judges have to run for office.
I've never really understood the point of judges running for office. Oh I get that in theory it has some virtues but in practice it is a futile and corrupted idea. Virtually no one other than a handful of lawyers has even a vague clue who these people are or whether they are qualified for their job. I have never once voted in an election when I had even heard the name of any of the people running for judge. I have no idea who they are, what their background is or whether they might conceivably do a good job. Worse, a lot of them (most) have party affiliations so they are by definition not acting as neutral arbiters of the law.
Gee, and I was thinking defining Twitter as a "critical communication tool" was the dumb decision here.
ANY communication tool is critical for a politician. The fact that most of what happens on Twitter is banal nonsense is irrelevant. The job of a politician, especially when seeking office, is communication with their electorate. If they choose to use Twitter then it is just as important as any other medium. Furthermore Twitter is hugely popular and widely used so it is a very useful too (if used well) to reach more voters. Politicians who ignore twitter and/or use it badly will find themselves at a disadvantage to those who use it well.
The NVA despite taking overwhelming losses on the battle field manage to win by destroying the will of the American homefront to prosecute the war.
The Vietnam war was, like many wars of the era, a proxy war. The NVA were backed by China and the USSR among others. The US could have but never did invade North Vietnam mostly because of the potential for direct conflict with the Chinese. The USSR provided very substantial hardware and training assistance. The NVA didn't really have to win, they just had to not lose and eventually the US had to go home. Without the backing of China and others the NVA couldn't have lasted for long. Similar situation happened in Korea and we see shades of it in the middle east today. No country that isn't backed by a major power can last long in combat with another major power. The NVA didn't really win - China and the USSR did.
Yes. In today's world Twitter is important. So is Facebook. So is email. Etc. Things said on twitter are just as important as those things said through any other medium, particularly for a politician. If they underestimate the important then that is their own stupid fault.
a lot of these are tweeted by interns because the actual politicians are working.
Handing a critical communication tool to an intern is a pretty dumb decision. But if the intern then says something stupid on the politician's behalf then the politician needs to own that because it is the actions of those who work for you are your responsibility.
no reason to jump on someone for saying the wrong thing on a slow news day
I don't care how fast or slow the news day is. If they said something or allowed it to be said on their behalf then they need to own it.
Twitter said, "'Imagine how nerve-racking – terrifying, even – tweeting would be if it was immutable and irrevocable?
And why shouldn't it be terrifying? If you don't mean it then don't say it. If you said something stupid or embarrassing then explain it but own what you said. They SHOULD be careful about what they say in public just like when they say something to a TV camera or a reporter. I've said things on the internet that in hindsight I could have said better but the fact is that I said it and I have to own it.
Fair enough but that's a pretty vague statement. HOW do you want it to work? I suspect you and I might have different definitions for how we want our cars to work.
Why an Internet connection is necessary is beyond me.
It's not strictly necessary but it can be very useful. Furthermore asking that question is a little bit like my grandmother asking why email is useful when we can just send letters.
If a small convenience can give so much trouble I'd rather update at home or the garage using a wire, thank you.
Anything can be troublesome if it is badly designed. A wired connection instead of wireless just means the attack surface is different but there still is one.
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Which is exactly the value offered by Android and Apple car integration. Both can offer superior mapping at lower cost than an auto maker.
Only in places where there is a cell phone signal. If you drive somewhere where cellular service is sketchy you'll need a "real" GPS system. Speaking for myself I go to places with iffy to no cell service often enough that the GPS in my cell phone is useless for long periods. Not to say a smartphone GPS isn't useful but it isn't without some very significant flaws.
All the car needs to provide is a display and audio.
What you really want is the two systems to complement each other and be more than the sum of the parts. Furthermore what if you don't have a smarphone with you? Sometimes I don't carry mine but I'd still like GPS navigation while driving. Have a "real" GPS receiver in the car but let the smarphone provide traffic, weather and location overlays. Have basic functionality built in to the car but allow the smartphone to supplement it and make it better.
I just don't see value in the satnav being built into my car.
I have both a portable Garmin GPS and have built in GPS in my daily drive car. Given the choice I almost always prefer a built in GPS. Why? Bunch of reasons including:
1) While my built in unit is older it works quite competently for 99.9% of situations and I have a smartphone for the other 0.1%. My portable Garmin is great but it adds minimal to no navigation value to me unless I'm using a car that doesn't have built in GPS.
2) No need to find a place to put the portable GPS and no need to run cords.
3) Unless someone steals the car I don't have to worry about losing the built in unit.
4) The screen in my built in GPS also serves other purposes like displaying my backup camera, etc
5) Generally easier for the passenger to enter route data on the built in unit while underway. (usually)
6) Unless I put an external antenna on my car my built in unit gets a GPS signal MUCH faster than my portable unit though both do it competently
7) The screen is bigger which can be helpful at times.
Now what do I not like about my built in GPS?
1) Goes obsolete faster than milk. The one in my car was state of the art 10+ years ago and it looks like it.
2) Minimal upgradeability. While I can get more recent maps (for $$$) no new features will be added. Ever.
3) No traffic or weather overlays, at least not with my system. Have to pull out the smartphone for this.
4) Stupidly expensive especially given that it is almost certainly not state of the art when you buy it.
I think the best solution would be to have a minimal built in GPS but allow your smart phone to integrate smoothly and take over or supplement some of the functions. Portable GPS units like a Garmin or TomTom are great for a lot of circumstances but I think a built-in GPS with good smartphone integration would be substantially better.
The latest systems can park in narrow spaces for you, too, as well as pull out of them so you can get in.
I can park in any space the automated system can most likely. I can probably do it faster too. I don't really recall ever being unable to get into my car based on where it was parked. Sounds like a solution looking for a problem to me.
People just aren't familiar with them. They don't think they want them because they've never seen one, and if they have, it was from the eighties.
Probably true though I stand by my statement that I think a LOT of people (especially older drivers) will find them irritating and/or distracting and turn them off. Someone like me might like it but I would be shocked if my parents would. My in-laws particularly are positively Luddites when it comes to anything new, novel or different even if it would actually make their life easier if they'd give it a chance. I can actually see a well designed HUD being useful but I also see lots of people not liking them at all or being unable to cope with the data and distraction.
I just don't want a car that pulls over when law enforcement (or a malicious hacker) pushes a button.
If we get truly automated self driving cars, you can bet that it will have a feature to pull over when directed by law enforcement. Absolutely guaranteed that will happen if self driving cars really become a thing. And if that feature is there then the hackers will have access to it too. I don't see one happening without the other. I think this will be true even if the controls to override the self drive system are present because the government will see an opportunity and be unable to resist.
The five features owners most commonly report that they "never use" are in-vehicle concierge (43%); mobile routers (38%); automatic parking systems (35%); heads-up display (33%); and built-in apps (32%).
Let's see:
* In-vehicle concierge is generally expensive and most people have no experience using such a service and many probably don't even know their car has it.
* Mobile routers are pretty much pointless if you have a data plan for your phone AND the car companies often charge a premium for it.
* Automated parking systems really only do parallel parking which any competent driver can do plus many people don't really trust it yet and if it screws up the results are expensive.
* Heads up displays are very new and on very few cars but I can see some people finding them annoying.
* I've never seen any apps for a car that were anywhere near as competently done as those on my phone and frankly pretending a car is like a smartphone is kind of stupid. Car makers aren't really thinking through the interface here. I shouldn't be staring at a touchscreen while driving.
Additionally, there are 14 technology features that 20% or more of owners don't even want in their next vehicle. Those features include Apple CarPlay and Google Android Auto, in-vehicle concierge services and in-vehicle voice texting. When narrowed to just Gen Yers, the number of vehicle owners who don't want entertainment and connectivity systems increases to 23%.
I've never seen a car with either CarPlay or Android Auto in person so I don't know if I'd like it or not. I think smartphones could be usefully integrated with vehicles but I don't think car makers have figured out the best way to do this yet.
I'm not willing to pay a premium for concierge service so they may as well leave the electronic out if it isn't included with the vehicle. A smartphone serves roughly the same purpose and I already have one.
Voice based texting is in my experience invariably a flawed and frustrating experience. I speak with a clear and bog standard midwestern US accent and I've NEVER found a voice recognition system that gets better than about 80% of what I say. My current car has a voice recognition system and it is nearly useless for any practical purpose. Furthermore texting while driving even through a voice system would be distracting so it can just wait until I park the vehicle.
No one is forcing you to pay for it.
Who said anyone was? The post I responded to said I "should be grateful" to have it. I disagree. I would be grateful if it were provided gratis. But since they are charging money I have an opinion about the value for money and I'm not terribly impressed and certainly not "grateful".
I've purchased wifi service on a round trip flight with four legs, partly out of curiosity and partly because it was a long flight. It worked very slowly on two of the legs with periodic dropouts. It worked sort of ok on one leg and not at all on the last leg. Cost =$60 for approximately 3 hours of vaguely usable wifi over 14 hours of flying. I don't care if it is on a plane traveling hundreds of miles per hour, that's just terrible value for money.
What relevancy does the "rest of the airline experience" have?
I should think that would be obvious if you've been on a plane in the last 10 years. Do you enjoy sitting in a cramped seat after being fondled by TSA? Do you really think $15 for a few hours of (usually) bad laggy internet access is a good deal? I'm paying a lot of money to get on that airplane so yeah I have an opinion about what I'm getting for my money.
You aren't going to get on a flight just because your internet connection experience is sooooo wonderful, are you?
I'm not going to pretend that paying $15 for 3 hours of slow internet access is a good deal or that it makes the flight somehow into a lovely experience.
... who still thinks being able to get a wireless internet link in an aircraft doing 600mph at 35K feet is pretty fucking amazing. I can't believe people complain about the bandwidth - they should be grateful this tech exists at all.
Of course it is amazing. That doesn't mean it can't be better and we all know it can be better. I remember being amazed at how fast a 9600 baud modem was. But technology progresses and our expectations along with it. I don't doubt for a moment that they can make it faster and more reliable.
As for being "grateful", they are charging a lot of money to use this tech. If they were providing it for free you might have an argument but they aren't. Is it technically difficult? Sure but I don't really care. They want to make a business of it then my expectations are probably going to be pretty high, especially given that the rest of the "airline experience" isn't exactly amazing.
In other words, people have become disgustingly lazy.
The target demographic for these is the exact opposite of lazy. It's aimed at people who are very busy and who are willing to trade a bit of money for time. Just because someone thinks time spent shopping for and buying dish soap is wasteful does not make them lazy. It makes them prudent if anything. I buy stuff online all the time so I don't have to waste hours pointlessly driving around so I can buy things - a complete waste of my life. I'd rather spend the time doing something else. This is just a logical extension of that. Do you find the process of ordering dish soap to be a good use of your time? I sure don't.
I can never tell if Clarkson is a smart person pretending to be stupid, or a stupid person pretending to be smart.
I've heard from numerous movie directors that people who play dumb characters actually have to be quite smart. Clarkson isn't stupid (generally) and remember that Top Gear is/was a scripted show and people watch it primarily because it is funny. I think I remember Conan OBrian saying that a lot of comedy is throwing out your dignity and hoping you'll get it back.
Or did you think the evolution of subscriptions and microtransactions was to benefit you, the customer?
It HAS to benefit the customer. If it doesn't benefit the customer the customer won't buy it. It might benefit the seller more but customers don't buy anything that doesn't have a value proposition. If the customer buys it then obviously the customer found some amount of benefit in the transaction.
I've all but stopped buying at Amazon. Yeah, the free shipping for orders over $35 is nice, but at what cost?
They offer free shipping to Prime members for orders less than that. I get free shipping on things that just cost a few dollars. Sometimes they are add-on items so you have to order above a given threshold. Sometimes you can get things cheaper elsewhere but the prices at Amazon are usually competitive and the convenience is hard to beat.
Amazon sits on those orders for nearly a week before they are shipped.
Only if you explicitly select their slowest shipping methods. I have most stuff in my hands in exactly two days and even if I select their slower shipping methods it usually ships out in 2-3 business days anyway.
The "shipping cost" is built in to the price of each item. So if you buy more than one item, you are over-paying for shipping.
That's true no matter where you shop. Go to Walmart and I assure you that there is a cost of freight in the price and they don't give you a bulk discount. Same with any other vendor where there isn't an explicit freight charge.
Why not just have a cell phone app.
Because the best solution to every problem isn't an app. Believe it or not there sometimes are better and more efficient ways to solve a problem.
Open the app, see a list of easy to order items, click on the items you want to order and hit send. That's it. Very simple to use, and the user knows that their order went through.
All of which is harder than just pushing a button. You just described a 4 step process than in reality has even more steps. (turn on phone, log in, find app, open app, scroll through list, select item(s), select send). Compare that with pushing a single button on a wall and it is absurdly complicated.
Look I don't have any use for these Dash buttons myself but I understand what they are trying to do. The less steps someone has to go through the more likely they are to buy. The founder of Coke basically built his business around making sure his product was "within arm's reach of desire" which is why you can easily find a coke product almost anywhere on the globe even in some of the most remote corners. They made buying their product VERY easy. Amazon is trying to do similar things. Maybe the Dash buttons won't work out but the principle of what they are doing makes sense. Sometimes a more general solution isn't the better one.
How when my dad buys something shipping is wayyyyyyyy overpriced but go to my account (one where I have cancelled orders because of overpriced shipping) and it's less than half the cost *same town*
Perhaps because you buy more from Amazon so they are willing to cut you a better deal. Very little on Amazon has wildly overpriced shipping and the minority of stuff that does have overpriced shipping is obvious and invariably from third party vendors. Most of what I buy is through Prime and has "free" shipping. If you see overpriced shipping don't buy it.
Of course I've made my living doing ecommerce in the past so I can assure you that most people have NO idea what shipping actually costs. We used to charge exactly the rate UPS charged us and people would complain that we were inflating shipping prices even though we were shipping at cheaper rates than they could get themselves.
or their bait and switch, or their sending an item entirely different from what was pictured.
Aside from one or two mistakes where the wrong item got picked I've never seen this happen and I've ordered a LOT of stuff from Amazon. The few mistakes they've made they corrected and sent the correct item or refunded me no questions asked. I've never seen Amazon "bait and switch" anything, ever. If it was a third party vendor not sending what was shown I would just immediately send it back and complain to Amazon. They'll pay the return freight and refund your money.
Yeah I know there are resellers, but Amazon fronts them so they get the blame too.
If you buy the thing with the overpriced shipping, the only party to blame is yourself. Buy somewhere else if you don't think you are getting a good deal.
Well, that's great, but...you'll only increase capacity once there's a threat?
This should not surprise you at all. If there is no competition prices will be monopoly prices. Anyone who thinks they would charge less is being very naive.
Which brings me to my point: If this rollout by Comcast is true, is someone finally getting out IN FRONT of Google Fiber, not just being a reactionary twit?
It's still just a defensive play really. I don't think Google really wants to be in the ISP business but faster internet is very valuable to them so if they can, ahem... encourage Comcast to bump their speeds by being a credible threat then Google wins without having to build a nationwide network. Companies that use a franchise model do something like this. They have a smallish number of stores that are company owned which limits the power of the franchise owners.
Maybe, just maybe, someone is learning that customers are switching not only because of your product but because you treat your customers like crap?
Very doubtful. I'd be shocked if it was anything other than a strategic response to a competitive threat.
There's no practical way to define "bad practices".
That's simply not true. We do that all the time in any number of professions. Trade groups and government agencies all the time establish what constitutes standard of care for a particular industry. It's positively routine. Accountants do it. Financial traders do it. Doctors do it. There is no reason IT security people cannot do it.
Better is to treat data theft the same as any other theft; punish the thief.
So you think that if a bank neglects to lock its vault allowing your money to be stolen that it should bear no liability for their carelessness? I could not disagree more. Sure you punish the thief but you punish the bank too to ensure that they take better care the next time. Any time an agent is trusted with your property or data they have a duty of care to ensure it is secure.
If CEOs are personally responsible for every action taken by a company, say hello to oppressive micro-management.
If CEOs are personally liable for everything a company does you have completely gutted the entire purpose of a corporation which is to insulate the owners and employees from personal liability. There is NO other purpose to a company besides this. It is 100% of the reason corporations exist. Unlimited personal liability makes corporations a completely pointless entity.
No you make the penalties to the company sufficiently draconian and if the CEO didn't do his job to ensure your data was safe then he will probably lose his job at the next board meeting.
What constitutes sufficiently strong security practices?
If companies are smart they'll form a trade group and define these themselves. Basically a set of reasonable practices that companies should be expected to follow when handling customer data. Following these practices and having them audited would provide a basis for some amount of safe harbor from government prosecution. If companies do not do this it is highly probable that the government will pass some laws defining such practices at some point and the companies probably won't like them very much.
Are there going to be standards for applying patches to vulnerable software?
There should be pursuant to my answer above
What about human error such as tricking someone to giving out data they shouldn't or losing hard drives with data?
What about it? The point is to protect customer data so if the company handles it in a sloppy manner then they should pay a penalty for that. As a customer I don't really care that they didn't mean to make a mistake. If I handled their data in a sloppy manner I'd expect to get sued so the same should be true in reverse. Look at it this way, if a bank is tricked into giving someone access to the money in your account they would be liable for your losses, correct? Why should it be any different with data? The only difference is in defining the value of the data but the principle is identical. The company has a fiduciary responsibility to safely store your data and if they are sloppy with that duty of care then they should pay a price.
It's hypocritical for the government to hold businesses accountable when they're an awful offender, too.
While you are quite correct that's not an excuse to let companies off the hook.
Why am I hearing Jeremy Clarkson asking "how hard can it be?" just before utterly screwing something up?
Perhaps there is just a tad more difficulty to it than you are considering?
Can you imagine single term limits for judges? In many states judges have to run for office.
I've never really understood the point of judges running for office. Oh I get that in theory it has some virtues but in practice it is a futile and corrupted idea. Virtually no one other than a handful of lawyers has even a vague clue who these people are or whether they are qualified for their job. I have never once voted in an election when I had even heard the name of any of the people running for judge. I have no idea who they are, what their background is or whether they might conceivably do a good job. Worse, a lot of them (most) have party affiliations so they are by definition not acting as neutral arbiters of the law.
Gee, and I was thinking defining Twitter as a "critical communication tool" was the dumb decision here.
ANY communication tool is critical for a politician. The fact that most of what happens on Twitter is banal nonsense is irrelevant. The job of a politician, especially when seeking office, is communication with their electorate. If they choose to use Twitter then it is just as important as any other medium. Furthermore Twitter is hugely popular and widely used so it is a very useful too (if used well) to reach more voters. Politicians who ignore twitter and/or use it badly will find themselves at a disadvantage to those who use it well.
The NVA despite taking overwhelming losses on the battle field manage to win by destroying the will of the American homefront to prosecute the war.
The Vietnam war was, like many wars of the era, a proxy war. The NVA were backed by China and the USSR among others. The US could have but never did invade North Vietnam mostly because of the potential for direct conflict with the Chinese. The USSR provided very substantial hardware and training assistance. The NVA didn't really have to win, they just had to not lose and eventually the US had to go home. Without the backing of China and others the NVA couldn't have lasted for long. Similar situation happened in Korea and we see shades of it in the middle east today. No country that isn't backed by a major power can last long in combat with another major power. The NVA didn't really win - China and the USSR did.
Twitter is critical communication tool?
Yes. In today's world Twitter is important. So is Facebook. So is email. Etc. Things said on twitter are just as important as those things said through any other medium, particularly for a politician. If they underestimate the important then that is their own stupid fault.
a lot of these are tweeted by interns because the actual politicians are working.
Handing a critical communication tool to an intern is a pretty dumb decision. But if the intern then says something stupid on the politician's behalf then the politician needs to own that because it is the actions of those who work for you are your responsibility.
no reason to jump on someone for saying the wrong thing on a slow news day
I don't care how fast or slow the news day is. If they said something or allowed it to be said on their behalf then they need to own it.
Twitter said, "'Imagine how nerve-racking – terrifying, even – tweeting would be if it was immutable and irrevocable?
And why shouldn't it be terrifying? If you don't mean it then don't say it. If you said something stupid or embarrassing then explain it but own what you said. They SHOULD be careful about what they say in public just like when they say something to a TV camera or a reporter. I've said things on the internet that in hindsight I could have said better but the fact is that I said it and I have to own it.
I just want my car to work.
Fair enough but that's a pretty vague statement. HOW do you want it to work? I suspect you and I might have different definitions for how we want our cars to work.
Why an Internet connection is necessary is beyond me.
It's not strictly necessary but it can be very useful. Furthermore asking that question is a little bit like my grandmother asking why email is useful when we can just send letters.
If a small convenience can give so much trouble I'd rather update at home or the garage using a wire, thank you.
Anything can be troublesome if it is badly designed. A wired connection instead of wireless just means the attack surface is different but there still is one.