It's 12 years old for crying out loud, let it die.
Why? Works fine for me. Why should I spend money "upgrading" to something that will provide me zero tangible benefits that I don't already have? The fact that it is relatively old is irrelevant and Microsoft's bottom line is something I could not be less concerned about.
7 is a nice upgrade over XP, if you don't see or understand that, I'm not sure what I can say, 5 years on, that will help you understand.
If you say so. I'm typing this on a Windows 7 machine and running my older XP machine in a virtual machine. Frankly Windows 7 does not have a single feature I need that I did not have with XP. NOT ONE. I know I am not alone either. I'm sure it's better here and there under the hood but frankly not in any way that was causing me problems. Plus it requires a much faster machine to accomplish the same tasks I already could do.
Besides proper 64 bit support, the seamless way it installs and updates drivers and software for almost anything you plug into it is vastly improved over XP.
64 bit doesn't provide me any noticeable benefit as an end user that I can discern and Windows 7 does not handle drivers any more gracefully for me than XP does. I still have to download and install a googly percentage of my drivers and software manually and it doesn't update them any more effectively either. I'm sure you can find some cases where that is not true but whatever differences there are are so small as to be trivial for most of us.
Microsoft has been really clear on their end of life policy for probably a decade if not more.
I disagree that they have been clear "for probably a decade". Most people frankly don't even know about their EOL policies at all. Microsoft may as well have posted the notice in bottom of a file cabinet in a basement restroom with a sign on the door saying beware of jaguar. (with apologies to Douglas Adams) The only person in my company who was even dimly aware of their EOL policy regarding XP was me and now I have to either pay many thousands of dollars to get new computers and software or I have to take the risk of going without security updates that Microsoft is perfectly capable of continuing to provide.
(for the record I would have no problem with Microsoft charging a *reasonable* subscription fee for those interested in continuing to receive "support" for XP - such as it is, which isn't saying much)
However with your definition of $100 USD, cost to upgrade OS from XP to Windows 7, as being "an arm and a leg" not to sure about the rest you wrote.
Forgetting a few things are we? Like the cost of the new computer required to run Windows 7. The cost of migrating all your software (that works just fine on XP thank-you-very-much) to the new computer. The cost of training people to use Windows 7. The cost of upgrading software that does not work in Windows 7. The opportunity cost of the money you will spend on "upgrades" which could have been put to other productive uses besides padding Microsoft's bottom line.
The safety standards are anything but ridiculous unless you meant that in a positive way. See below.
I don't know of a car flaw that can tank an economy, cause a nuclear disaster or cause oil to spill out into the sea.
Cars do however kill more people every year than every nuclear disaster and oil spill in history combined. I assure you that the cost of these accidents combined is in the many many billions of dollars each year. This is despite cars today being significantly safer in an accident than they were even 20 years ago. So I ask you what's worse? A steady stream of small scale disasters that kill people regularly or one really big one that kills relatively few people by comparison but pollutes a lot in the process? I'm not sure there is an easy answer to that.
Supporting consumer grade software that is sold for ~$100 a time indefinitely, including providing full internal technical details to arbitrary additional parties, is a "pretty easy barrier"? I'm sorry, but that is absurd.
Microsoft does NOT have to support it indefinitely for free. However there is precisely zero obstacle to them supporting XP on an ongoing basis for a reasonable sum for those interested in paying for such support. Something like $50/year (times a few million users) should more than adequately cover the cost and provide Microsoft a reasonable profit. Microsoft could provide paid support AND make the upgrade path easier by doing so. However Microsoft has chosen to burn that bridge instead in an effort to force people to "upgrade" to software that they clearly are not interested in buying. Since they have elected to go down that route instead of providing paid support, it is reasonable that people are calling for alternatives including open sourcing it. I think a more pragmatic approach would be to sell the supporting XP business to a third party. But if all Microsoft is going to do is take their ball and go home then they can kiss my shiny metal ass.
Bear in mind that aside from security patches, Microsoft essentially provides ZERO support to most users of XP anyway. Not like I can call them up and get questions answered. Claims that continuing to support XP would be some enormous financial burden on the company are pretty absurd.
Moreover, the auto manufacturers still aren't required to disclose the keys to the kingdom to the degree that is suggested here.
Not really true. Almost everything worth protecting product-wise in the auto industry is patented so it is inaccurate to say they haven't disclosed the details. A company like GM could easily make a soup-to-nuts replica of a Toyota if they wanted to. There isn't much technology that is a big secret or that cannot be reverse engineered and the companies that supply it usually supply multiple firms. Software is VERY different than auto manufacturing though software is becoming a bigger piece of the industry as time goes on. (and yes I'm an engineer who has worked in the auto industry for years) The differences between auto companies are mostly in how they are structured and managed. The differences between the products themselves are fairly minor. Most auto companies (like GM and Ford) have supply chains that heavily overlap. An axle for Ford is very likely made in the same plant as an axle for GM and surprisingly often is engineered by many of the same people. My company assembles parts that go into a GM SUV and every component in that assembly we make can be purchased directly by you if you wanted to. (you'd just pay a LOT more than we do)
Finally, you're under the mistaken impression that Buddhism is a religion, and it is not.
It wasn't at first. Unfortunately whenever someone has a philosophy that they try to make accessible to people who don't entirely understand it, those people invariably built rituals around it that have little to do with the actual philosophy. Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, etc all started as philosophies but were gradually converted into religions, albeit not ones centered around a deity in the Judeo/Chrisian/Islamic tradition. Buddha is definitely revered as a sort of god.
It's possible to practice Buddhism without treating it as a religion but this appear to be relatively uncommon in actual practice.
Actually, having *no* noise, when one *expects* noise is one of the more distracting bits of audio that editors have to deal with all the time.
That is a question of how it is filmed and presented. There are many options available and not all of them involve a screaming internal combustion engine on a car that doesn't have one.
Why, in movies, can we hear starships flying around and shooting in space (Star Wars, Star Trek, etc.)? Because going with the (accurate) silence is distracting to the audience who is subconsciously *expecting* to hear something.
Are you really that daft? You are comparing a NEWS program with a FICTIONAL MOVIE. News should involve facts. They may as well have had a 4 year old shouting "Vroom vroom" and it would have been just as dumb.
Did you sit in an S-class, or a C-class? They aren't the same thing.
I owned an S-Class. I've also had several family members own various S-Classes over the years.
In any case, a "luxury car" has little to do with the interior anyway, modern Fords and Chevys are really close in the luxury interior dept.
Don't know what Fords and Chevy's you've been sitting in but while they have improved quite a bit, I have yet to sit in one that gives me any illusion I'm in a luxury car. A coworker has a Lincoln which sits not 30 feet from me as I type this that is nice enough but nothing special. Same with another coworker's Cadillac. The interiors of those aren't appreciably better than my current Honda.
Drive quality, ownership experience, dealer experience, fit and finish, and overall feature list are what I'd call out as being a luxury car.
All true so let's go down the list for Tesla shall we? Drive quality rated among the best they've ever tested by Consumer Reports. I've know several people who own Teslas and the ownership experience in my small sample has been as good as any they've dealt with. Dealer experience? Tesla treats you pretty well by all accounts - certainly comparable to Mercedes dealers. Fit and Finish? Having sat in a Tesla Model S, the fit and finish are as nice as I've seen in any car available for under six figures. Feature list? Tesla has features you simply cannot get anywhere else. Period.
The lights I'm controlling are actually on a circuit that lights two closets when you throw the switch so the wiring is more complicated that your typical broom closet. All the installation options realistically would involve punching a hole in a wall somewhere and/or running wires in places where I don't want to see wires. I would have wires going across the wall and ceiling if I go to either fixture without punching holes in walls which is something I don't want to do here for aesthetic reasons if nothing else. It simply would end up looking sloppy even if I did a very tidy job of it. Basically it's a lot more work to get a result that doesn't work any better in this case than the result I got by replacing the switch.
Your suggestion is a good one for the right circumstances but it just wouldn't work in this specific circumstance. I have a closet in our basement I'm strongly considering doing something very much like your suggestion.
I saw a guy text-walking in a parking lot, he nearly hit by a prius which was in low speed electric mode.
And that's the fault of the Prius? Sounds like a guy trying for a Darwin award to me.
People expect cars to make noise.
Then they should learn to adjust their expectations instead of demanding noise pollution. (yeah I know they won't) Cars should make less noise, not more.
Mine will probably play Yakkety Sax until I get a DMCA takedown notice,
Even though I don't really like the idea of artificial noise, I would fall down laughing the first time I saw that.
a single rich guy in the left lane with a sticker on his car helps exactly HOW, again, in terms of road congestion?
By moving him from an over-utilized lane to an underutilized one and helps fund the road maintenance in the process. Basically it's taking advantage of Mr. Rich Guy to help fund the problem. Unfortunately it also points out that carpool lanes are a pretty questionable solution based on the fact that there is enough capacity to allow Mr. Rich Guy to buy a pass.
we really don't care about carbon footprint.
Sad but probably true. I think it will take a catastrophe to make a sufficient number of people genuinely care.
I know of no one who truly carpools.
I have a carpool lot right at the nearest interstate near my house and it usually has about 20 or so cars there. I know people who do it but I don't think they do it in sufficient numbers to really make much of a difference.
The Tesla S isn't a luxury sedan, please don't compare it to a Mercedes S-class, which is about the same price when both are nicely equipped.
Having sat in both (I used to own a Mercedes) I can assure you that the Tesla S most definitely IS a luxury sedan. There is nothing in Mercedes lineup under $100K that I think is more fitting of the definition.
The supercharger network doesn't make up for the fact that you can refuel that S-class in 5 minutes and drive it 500 miles on that 5 minute "charge".
And yet I'd trade an S-Class for a Tesla in a heartbeat anyway.
Not really, no. The Tesla Roadster had one that they were working on but it was never produced to my knowledge due to insurmountable technical hurdles. It's possible to put a transmission on an electric motor but generally it isn't necessary.
I'm an audio engineer. I've done several short films, nominated for a few awards
Nice to meet you and congratulations.
Frankly, my dear, nobody gives a damn about what a particular car sounds like in a particular situation except for us nerds.
Probably true which brings up the question why bother going to the trouble of adding the wrong sound? To bring things back on topic, this isn't a fictional movie like star wars where the fact that there is no sound in space isn't important. This is a news piece or at least purports to be one. Accuracy matters in non-fiction. If you can't record what it does accurately then don't record the audio.
Unless the media piece is explicitly focused on how something sounds, having realistic audio is actually distracting to the audience,
Have you actually heard a Telsa in action? It barely makes any noise. Exactly how is no noise going to be distracting? If the noise doesn't matter and the vehicle doesn't make any worth recording then strip it out altogether and talk. As you pointed out, nobody cares exactly what sound it makes but that doesn't mean the audio engineer needs to insert sounds that are plainly wrong to anyone with operating brain cells. Sure, some people might not notice but that doesn't make it the right thing to do.
Yes, turning two "crazy" ideas into $billion companies in 10 years with most of the population doubting, if not openly thwarting you, is a great achievement.
Three actually. Paypal, Tesla and SpaceX. If there is any entrepreneur with a better success record than that, I've never heard of him.
A D-shaped connector - instead of a square one - would not have cost any more, and would have eliminated a LOT of frustration over the past 18 years.
The USB B plug is D shaped and it's just as annoying as the A plug. In fact instead of 2 possible orientations to choose from I have 4 with the B plug.
Apple got the lightning connector right, just give us a USB3.0 version of the fracking thing and put the craptastic mini/micro/and nano usb plugs to death already.
Nah, lightning connectors aren't perfect either. They require a special chip to determine orientation when that could have been done with wires making it palindromic. They can't carry large enough power loads (upper limit unknown but the wires are too thin to carry much more than USB). The strain relief on them could be improved. The housing could be more robust. They are more expensive to make and carry more licensing costs and are proprietary to Apple.
I do agree that the lightning connector does get some stuff right. The insertion is easy and reversible and can be done easily by touch. The contact is solid and relatively robust compared with the thin sheet metal approach of USB. Power is bi-directional as is hosting.
So when you plug in a cable, the logo on the top is always correct.
That my friend is what you call an afterthought to mitigate a design flaw. It also does no good if the socket is installed upside down or if there is no clear orientation relative to the device where it is being installed. In the real world the logo orientation gets ignored often enough to make it of little value.
Marks to indicate keying are modestly useful for connectors that are going to be installed infrequently. That does not describe USB which were designed for frequent insertion and removal. USB should have been designed to be symmetric, with wide(er) initial insertion angles. Additionally USB should have been designed with higher power transmission capabilities in mind from the get-go. It's become a de-facto DC power connector but it could be SO much more useful if it could power something as big as a laptop.
USB was a big improvement over the older Dsub and PS/2 style connectors it replaced but it could have been better.
For your pantry/storage closet, I'd probably use an old $1 refrigerator door switch, or maybe a magnetic alarm switch like so:
Wouldn't work for this particular situation. I'd have to punch holes in the wall and I really don't want to do that. I just found a drop in replacement switch for a few bucks at Lowes. Works fine and accomplishes what I intended. At the price I paid I my math says I'll breakeven in about 8 years if I keep the house that long.
I wish people would stop using data ports and data cables for charging things.
You LIKE using unnecessary extra cables? Personally I want a USB type cable that can charge any device up to and including a laptop and be able to send data as well with a connector that is robust and is symmetrical so orientation doesn't matter on insertion.
I look first when I'm not familiar with the device.
Really? You look at your phone when plugging it in while dark with your night vision? You always spend the time to examine both the connector and the cable before attempting to plug it in? If so you are the ONLY one who does.
For a cable that is going to see as much insertion and removal as a USB cable you shouldn't have to look. Ever. It should be entirely doable by feel on the first go. I don't love the Apple Lighting connector but this is one thing it did right. It's easy to insert by feel. Much easier than any currently available USB connector.
Most of the complaints seem to come from people who have been using USB products for years and are still having orientation issues with it, though. I find that hard to fathom.
If pretty much everyone who ever uses USB regularly tries to insert the connector backwards then that is a problem with bad design. Period. If you find that hard to fathom then you really need to get a good whack with a cluebat.
... the loaner model (2013) had a rearview camera. I couldn't see a damned thing on that little screen when I was backing up, especially at night.
What happens when mud or snow spatters over the camera lens?
You have a washer that cleans it or you clean it yourself. Should think that would be obvious. My sideview mirrors get snow on them too and I either have to turn on my mirror heaters or clean them off manually. Really no different with cameras.
Then do not go to those websites, no reason to use a website that was built by some kid that does not understand basics of webdesign.
Good luck with that. It isn't "kids" designing these websites and they know exactly what they are doing. It's commercial ventures who know that very few people turn off javascript and those that do are probably not likely to be customers anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
It's 12 years old for crying out loud, let it die.
Why? Works fine for me. Why should I spend money "upgrading" to something that will provide me zero tangible benefits that I don't already have? The fact that it is relatively old is irrelevant and Microsoft's bottom line is something I could not be less concerned about.
7 is a nice upgrade over XP, if you don't see or understand that, I'm not sure what I can say, 5 years on, that will help you understand.
If you say so. I'm typing this on a Windows 7 machine and running my older XP machine in a virtual machine. Frankly Windows 7 does not have a single feature I need that I did not have with XP. NOT ONE. I know I am not alone either. I'm sure it's better here and there under the hood but frankly not in any way that was causing me problems. Plus it requires a much faster machine to accomplish the same tasks I already could do.
Besides proper 64 bit support, the seamless way it installs and updates drivers and software for almost anything you plug into it is vastly improved over XP.
64 bit doesn't provide me any noticeable benefit as an end user that I can discern and Windows 7 does not handle drivers any more gracefully for me than XP does. I still have to download and install a googly percentage of my drivers and software manually and it doesn't update them any more effectively either. I'm sure you can find some cases where that is not true but whatever differences there are are so small as to be trivial for most of us.
Microsoft has been really clear on their end of life policy for probably a decade if not more.
I disagree that they have been clear "for probably a decade". Most people frankly don't even know about their EOL policies at all. Microsoft may as well have posted the notice in bottom of a file cabinet in a basement restroom with a sign on the door saying beware of jaguar. (with apologies to Douglas Adams) The only person in my company who was even dimly aware of their EOL policy regarding XP was me and now I have to either pay many thousands of dollars to get new computers and software or I have to take the risk of going without security updates that Microsoft is perfectly capable of continuing to provide.
(for the record I would have no problem with Microsoft charging a *reasonable* subscription fee for those interested in continuing to receive "support" for XP - such as it is, which isn't saying much)
However with your definition of $100 USD, cost to upgrade OS from XP to Windows 7, as being "an arm and a leg" not to sure about the rest you wrote.
Forgetting a few things are we? Like the cost of the new computer required to run Windows 7. The cost of migrating all your software (that works just fine on XP thank-you-very-much) to the new computer. The cost of training people to use Windows 7. The cost of upgrading software that does not work in Windows 7. The opportunity cost of the money you will spend on "upgrades" which could have been put to other productive uses besides padding Microsoft's bottom line.
Cars have ridiculous safety standards
The safety standards are anything but ridiculous unless you meant that in a positive way. See below.
I don't know of a car flaw that can tank an economy, cause a nuclear disaster or cause oil to spill out into the sea.
Cars do however kill more people every year than every nuclear disaster and oil spill in history combined. I assure you that the cost of these accidents combined is in the many many billions of dollars each year. This is despite cars today being significantly safer in an accident than they were even 20 years ago. So I ask you what's worse? A steady stream of small scale disasters that kill people regularly or one really big one that kills relatively few people by comparison but pollutes a lot in the process? I'm not sure there is an easy answer to that.
Supporting consumer grade software that is sold for ~$100 a time indefinitely, including providing full internal technical details to arbitrary additional parties, is a "pretty easy barrier"? I'm sorry, but that is absurd.
Microsoft does NOT have to support it indefinitely for free. However there is precisely zero obstacle to them supporting XP on an ongoing basis for a reasonable sum for those interested in paying for such support. Something like $50/year (times a few million users) should more than adequately cover the cost and provide Microsoft a reasonable profit. Microsoft could provide paid support AND make the upgrade path easier by doing so. However Microsoft has chosen to burn that bridge instead in an effort to force people to "upgrade" to software that they clearly are not interested in buying. Since they have elected to go down that route instead of providing paid support, it is reasonable that people are calling for alternatives including open sourcing it. I think a more pragmatic approach would be to sell the supporting XP business to a third party. But if all Microsoft is going to do is take their ball and go home then they can kiss my shiny metal ass.
Bear in mind that aside from security patches, Microsoft essentially provides ZERO support to most users of XP anyway. Not like I can call them up and get questions answered. Claims that continuing to support XP would be some enormous financial burden on the company are pretty absurd.
Moreover, the auto manufacturers still aren't required to disclose the keys to the kingdom to the degree that is suggested here.
Not really true. Almost everything worth protecting product-wise in the auto industry is patented so it is inaccurate to say they haven't disclosed the details. A company like GM could easily make a soup-to-nuts replica of a Toyota if they wanted to. There isn't much technology that is a big secret or that cannot be reverse engineered and the companies that supply it usually supply multiple firms. Software is VERY different than auto manufacturing though software is becoming a bigger piece of the industry as time goes on. (and yes I'm an engineer who has worked in the auto industry for years) The differences between auto companies are mostly in how they are structured and managed. The differences between the products themselves are fairly minor. Most auto companies (like GM and Ford) have supply chains that heavily overlap. An axle for Ford is very likely made in the same plant as an axle for GM and surprisingly often is engineered by many of the same people. My company assembles parts that go into a GM SUV and every component in that assembly we make can be purchased directly by you if you wanted to. (you'd just pay a LOT more than we do)
Finally, you're under the mistaken impression that Buddhism is a religion, and it is not.
It wasn't at first. Unfortunately whenever someone has a philosophy that they try to make accessible to people who don't entirely understand it, those people invariably built rituals around it that have little to do with the actual philosophy. Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, etc all started as philosophies but were gradually converted into religions, albeit not ones centered around a deity in the Judeo/Chrisian/Islamic tradition. Buddha is definitely revered as a sort of god.
It's possible to practice Buddhism without treating it as a religion but this appear to be relatively uncommon in actual practice.
Actually, having *no* noise, when one *expects* noise is one of the more distracting bits of audio that editors have to deal with all the time.
That is a question of how it is filmed and presented. There are many options available and not all of them involve a screaming internal combustion engine on a car that doesn't have one.
Why, in movies, can we hear starships flying around and shooting in space (Star Wars, Star Trek, etc.)? Because going with the (accurate) silence is distracting to the audience who is subconsciously *expecting* to hear something.
Are you really that daft? You are comparing a NEWS program with a FICTIONAL MOVIE. News should involve facts. They may as well have had a 4 year old shouting "Vroom vroom" and it would have been just as dumb.
Did you sit in an S-class, or a C-class? They aren't the same thing.
I owned an S-Class. I've also had several family members own various S-Classes over the years.
In any case, a "luxury car" has little to do with the interior anyway, modern Fords and Chevys are really close in the luxury interior dept.
Don't know what Fords and Chevy's you've been sitting in but while they have improved quite a bit, I have yet to sit in one that gives me any illusion I'm in a luxury car. A coworker has a Lincoln which sits not 30 feet from me as I type this that is nice enough but nothing special. Same with another coworker's Cadillac. The interiors of those aren't appreciably better than my current Honda.
Drive quality, ownership experience, dealer experience, fit and finish, and overall feature list are what I'd call out as being a luxury car.
All true so let's go down the list for Tesla shall we? Drive quality rated among the best they've ever tested by Consumer Reports. I've know several people who own Teslas and the ownership experience in my small sample has been as good as any they've dealt with. Dealer experience? Tesla treats you pretty well by all accounts - certainly comparable to Mercedes dealers. Fit and Finish? Having sat in a Tesla Model S, the fit and finish are as nice as I've seen in any car available for under six figures. Feature list? Tesla has features you simply cannot get anywhere else. Period.
Sounds like a luxury car to me.
Hacker Holds Key To Free Flights
Until you count the risk-weighted cost of getting arrested for fraud.
Not sure what you mean...
The lights I'm controlling are actually on a circuit that lights two closets when you throw the switch so the wiring is more complicated that your typical broom closet. All the installation options realistically would involve punching a hole in a wall somewhere and/or running wires in places where I don't want to see wires. I would have wires going across the wall and ceiling if I go to either fixture without punching holes in walls which is something I don't want to do here for aesthetic reasons if nothing else. It simply would end up looking sloppy even if I did a very tidy job of it. Basically it's a lot more work to get a result that doesn't work any better in this case than the result I got by replacing the switch.
Your suggestion is a good one for the right circumstances but it just wouldn't work in this specific circumstance. I have a closet in our basement I'm strongly considering doing something very much like your suggestion.
I saw a guy text-walking in a parking lot, he nearly hit by a prius which was in low speed electric mode.
And that's the fault of the Prius? Sounds like a guy trying for a Darwin award to me.
People expect cars to make noise.
Then they should learn to adjust their expectations instead of demanding noise pollution. (yeah I know they won't) Cars should make less noise, not more.
Mine will probably play Yakkety Sax until I get a DMCA takedown notice,
Even though I don't really like the idea of artificial noise, I would fall down laughing the first time I saw that.
a single rich guy in the left lane with a sticker on his car helps exactly HOW, again, in terms of road congestion?
By moving him from an over-utilized lane to an underutilized one and helps fund the road maintenance in the process. Basically it's taking advantage of Mr. Rich Guy to help fund the problem. Unfortunately it also points out that carpool lanes are a pretty questionable solution based on the fact that there is enough capacity to allow Mr. Rich Guy to buy a pass.
we really don't care about carbon footprint.
Sad but probably true. I think it will take a catastrophe to make a sufficient number of people genuinely care.
I know of no one who truly carpools.
I have a carpool lot right at the nearest interstate near my house and it usually has about 20 or so cars there. I know people who do it but I don't think they do it in sufficient numbers to really make much of a difference.
The Tesla S isn't a luxury sedan, please don't compare it to a Mercedes S-class, which is about the same price when both are nicely equipped.
Having sat in both (I used to own a Mercedes) I can assure you that the Tesla S most definitely IS a luxury sedan. There is nothing in Mercedes lineup under $100K that I think is more fitting of the definition.
The supercharger network doesn't make up for the fact that you can refuel that S-class in 5 minutes and drive it 500 miles on that 5 minute "charge".
And yet I'd trade an S-Class for a Tesla in a heartbeat anyway.
Is there a transmission in the Tesla S?
Not really, no. The Tesla Roadster had one that they were working on but it was never produced to my knowledge due to insurmountable technical hurdles. It's possible to put a transmission on an electric motor but generally it isn't necessary.
I'm an audio engineer. I've done several short films, nominated for a few awards
Nice to meet you and congratulations.
Frankly, my dear, nobody gives a damn about what a particular car sounds like in a particular situation except for us nerds.
Probably true which brings up the question why bother going to the trouble of adding the wrong sound? To bring things back on topic, this isn't a fictional movie like star wars where the fact that there is no sound in space isn't important. This is a news piece or at least purports to be one. Accuracy matters in non-fiction. If you can't record what it does accurately then don't record the audio.
Unless the media piece is explicitly focused on how something sounds, having realistic audio is actually distracting to the audience,
Have you actually heard a Telsa in action? It barely makes any noise. Exactly how is no noise going to be distracting? If the noise doesn't matter and the vehicle doesn't make any worth recording then strip it out altogether and talk. As you pointed out, nobody cares exactly what sound it makes but that doesn't mean the audio engineer needs to insert sounds that are plainly wrong to anyone with operating brain cells. Sure, some people might not notice but that doesn't make it the right thing to do.
Yes, turning two "crazy" ideas into $billion companies in 10 years with most of the population doubting, if not openly thwarting you, is a great achievement.
Three actually. Paypal, Tesla and SpaceX. If there is any entrepreneur with a better success record than that, I've never heard of him.
The object of the carpool lane is to reduce greenhouse gas emission per capita.
The object of a carpool lane is to reduce traffic congestion. Reducing tailpipe emissions is a second order benefit.
A D-shaped connector - instead of a square one - would not have cost any more, and would have eliminated a LOT of frustration over the past 18 years.
The USB B plug is D shaped and it's just as annoying as the A plug. In fact instead of 2 possible orientations to choose from I have 4 with the B plug.
Apple got the lightning connector right, just give us a USB3.0 version of the fracking thing and put the craptastic mini/micro/and nano usb plugs to death already.
Nah, lightning connectors aren't perfect either. They require a special chip to determine orientation when that could have been done with wires making it palindromic. They can't carry large enough power loads (upper limit unknown but the wires are too thin to carry much more than USB). The strain relief on them could be improved. The housing could be more robust. They are more expensive to make and carry more licensing costs and are proprietary to Apple.
I do agree that the lightning connector does get some stuff right. The insertion is easy and reversible and can be done easily by touch. The contact is solid and relatively robust compared with the thin sheet metal approach of USB. Power is bi-directional as is hosting.
So when you plug in a cable, the logo on the top is always correct.
That my friend is what you call an afterthought to mitigate a design flaw. It also does no good if the socket is installed upside down or if there is no clear orientation relative to the device where it is being installed. In the real world the logo orientation gets ignored often enough to make it of little value.
Marks to indicate keying are modestly useful for connectors that are going to be installed infrequently. That does not describe USB which were designed for frequent insertion and removal. USB should have been designed to be symmetric, with wide(er) initial insertion angles. Additionally USB should have been designed with higher power transmission capabilities in mind from the get-go. It's become a de-facto DC power connector but it could be SO much more useful if it could power something as big as a laptop.
USB was a big improvement over the older Dsub and PS/2 style connectors it replaced but it could have been better.
For your pantry/storage closet, I'd probably use an old $1 refrigerator door switch, or maybe a magnetic alarm switch like so:
Wouldn't work for this particular situation. I'd have to punch holes in the wall and I really don't want to do that. I just found a drop in replacement switch for a few bucks at Lowes. Works fine and accomplishes what I intended. At the price I paid I my math says I'll breakeven in about 8 years if I keep the house that long.
I wish people would stop using data ports and data cables for charging things.
You LIKE using unnecessary extra cables? Personally I want a USB type cable that can charge any device up to and including a laptop and be able to send data as well with a connector that is robust and is symmetrical so orientation doesn't matter on insertion.
I look first when I'm not familiar with the device.
Really? You look at your phone when plugging it in while dark with your night vision? You always spend the time to examine both the connector and the cable before attempting to plug it in? If so you are the ONLY one who does.
For a cable that is going to see as much insertion and removal as a USB cable you shouldn't have to look. Ever. It should be entirely doable by feel on the first go. I don't love the Apple Lighting connector but this is one thing it did right. It's easy to insert by feel. Much easier than any currently available USB connector.
Most of the complaints seem to come from people who have been using USB products for years and are still having orientation issues with it, though. I find that hard to fathom.
If pretty much everyone who ever uses USB regularly tries to insert the connector backwards then that is a problem with bad design. Period. If you find that hard to fathom then you really need to get a good whack with a cluebat.
... the loaner model (2013) had a rearview camera. I couldn't see a damned thing on that little screen when I was backing up, especially at night.
What happens when mud or snow spatters over the camera lens?
You have a washer that cleans it or you clean it yourself. Should think that would be obvious. My sideview mirrors get snow on them too and I either have to turn on my mirror heaters or clean them off manually. Really no different with cameras.
Then do not go to those websites, no reason to use a website that was built by some kid that does not understand basics of webdesign.
Good luck with that. It isn't "kids" designing these websites and they know exactly what they are doing. It's commercial ventures who know that very few people turn off javascript and those that do are probably not likely to be customers anyway.