Ok, but that's only about Tesla, nothing else. I don't have a Tesla so I can't really speak to its long-term reliability. It doesn't surprise me that a rather new car company with a lot of new tech is having some issues. However there's probably also the effect where high-end cars usually have more complaints than low-end cars, which is why the luxury makes historically did somewhat poorly on JD Powers' surveys: people who pay $50-100k for a car are a lot pickier and quick to complain about small issues in their cars, whereas someone who buys a $12k Chevy doesn't usually complain about small squeaks and rattles. It's a matter of expectations. Even in your article above, some owner remarks that they're likely complaining about squeaks that they wouldn't even notice in a gas-powered car because the Tesla is so quiet. (And that I can believe, because while I don't own one, I have driven a Model S and it is eerily silent; definitely something you're not used to if you've never driven an EV. I could see how any squeak or rattle would be easily noticeable in that environment.)
Also, if your system isn't running the latest 55.753A version, you can download it there and apply it yourself instead of wasting time going to the dealer.
weird... I have a mazda too! I was going to say "my new mazda" in my comment, but decided to keep it general. I have a 2015 mazda 3 touring.
Great minds think alike! I have a 2015 Mazda 3sGT.
I'm a huge fan of the 'control shuttle' infotainment system.
I wouldn't say I'm a "huge fan", but I like it well enough. I saw stuff much like it on high-end Audis ~5 years ago. The main problem with it is that it's too slow and buggy, but it has a lot of potential. I'd say one big problem is the software architecture: it's running on Linux, but the UI stuff is all done with Javascript. It'd be interesting to see someone try to make a complete replacement for the UI, running on Qt/C++ instead. It'd probably be far faster and more responsive.
and as soon as I get around to it I'm going to hack in and make some improvements.
Go to mazda3revolution.com; there's already a bunch of people working on this. Search for a thread called "The Infotainment Project". There's already a bunch of hacks out there. It's easy to hack in; just get a USB-to-Ethernet adapter (the Plugable one works well), ssh in with your laptop, and the login is root/jci. Be careful making changes though because if you screw something up, it puts it into an endless reboot loop which is very hard to fix. Two changes I've made are 1) eliminating the touch speed restriction, so you can use the touchscreen at any speed the car is moving, and 2) shortening the delay time for the initial warning screen. #1 is really useful because it's easier to scroll with the touchscreen, and also it allows a passenger to work with the nav system while the car is driving, instead of requiring you to pull over.
Casual Linux users really aren't qualified to comment on how an OS operates. I don't comment on Ford engineer's choices of emission control design. Why do you feel you have a valid opinion about systemd?
Because he's a user, you fucking moron. (He also said he's done some light sysadmin work.)
Are you some kind of elitist prick who thinks that car buyers have no right to comment on their own cars' features and usability? The emissions thing is a strawman; a good analogy would be if a regular car driver can comment on Ford's interior design, aesthetics, usability, performance, driveability, suspension/handling feel, features (like the availability of storage features inside, this is part of interior design though), etc. Of course a regular car driver is qualified to comment on all these things; these are things that affect whether they buy the damn car, and if they enjoy using it.
Same goes for systemd. If it gives users a better experience, and they don't have any *actual* problems with it, then what's the fucking problem? If it's poorly implemented or a bad design, then this would be apparent because users would have problems with it. If the users aren't having any trouble, then there is no problem. It doesn't matter if *you* personally don't like the design philosophy, because that's completely irrelevant; the only thing that matters is whether it works well for users (both casual users and sysadmins) or not.
I agree entirely. My new Mazda is great. And I'm one of the Gen-X people who also hates these new hipster UIs. I will say the infotainment system in this thing could use some improvement, but that's the case for every car; it's been only recently that these systems have become widespread in the auto industry.
Furthermore there are an overwhelming number of counter-examples, of religionists doing immense amounts of good in the world.
You are suffering from confirmation bias. It isn't the religion part that makes people do good things. There's countless irreligious people in the Peace Corps.
As for Stalin, Mao, etc., those were basically like religions too, just without the supernatural part. They had the components of a wacky ideology, near-worship of a cultist leader, witch hunts for "unbelievers", etc.
Give people some "holy book" (whether it's the Bible or Mao's little red book) to justify themselves and they'll do all kinds of horrible things.
The problem is that the whole thing lends itself to "wackadoodles". You have an entire system of belief based on nothing but hearsay, with some ancient goat-herders writing down some oral traditions that have been embellished over generations, and then telling people that this stuff is literal truth. Then people believe this stuff with no evidence for it whatsoever, other than other people reading the same texts and also claiming it's literal truth from God. From there, it's a very small stretch to take some part of that "literal truth" and decide that it really means you need to go murder some people. The Bible after all says that if you have children who disobey you, you're supposed to stone them to death. All these books are full of nonsense like that.
And the "wackadoodles" have been doing this for literally millenia. Christians used to routinely burn people at the stake for being the "wrong" kind of Christian, and interpreting this "word of God" differently.
As long as people believe that some book is the "word of God" then you're never going to get past this stuff. People need to move to actual ethical systems where you can evaluate them based on reason, not superstition.
That's an "initial quality" survey. Why anyone even bothers with that thing, I have no idea. It's exactly what it sounds like: they survey people who *just got* their cars. It has zero bearing on long-term reliability.
Ok, but what happens if all the others except Trump drop out? Also, I think the same can be said for the Trump supporters: they don't seem like they'd support any of the other candidates. These non-establishment candidates (on both sides) have rabid fanbases who love them, but do NOT like any others. There might be some overlap between Trump's and Carson's supporters.
I don't think so. You're still going to want some uniform data like name, address, age, religious sect, country of origin, etc., and a relational database is the best choice for that kind of data since you can make queries on those relations easily. For the unstructured dossier stuff, you can just throw in a big TEXT field or something.
Given the atrocities that religionists have committed, both in the past and in modern times, I think the idea of tracking them all isn't such a bad idea, as long as it's done for all of them.
As for the First Amendment, maybe it should be revised, to provide for freedom from religion. We rational people are really sick of you loonies impeding our progress, not to mention all your terrorist attacks.
Oh please. The Trail of Tears, generations of slavery, Jim Crow, lynchings, etc. all are much worse than rounding some people up in camps for a relatively short time during a huge war. Not that it wasn't a stain on our history, but to imply it's worse than the things above is just ridiculous. Even Guantanamo seems worse, given how long those guys have been imprisoned there without due process (10+ years), whereas the Japanese were released when the war was over, which was no longer than 4 years.
I disagree: some are better than others. Maybe not as good as Tesla, but this isn't a binary thing. And since not everyone can afford a $100k Tesla, most of us are going to be stuck buying from one of the other companies. Personally I've been pretty happy with my Mazda and Volvo, and my Hondas before that were well-built cars. It's usually the American companies that seem to have something bad going on, though in recent years it seems like Toyota's been working on catching up with them.
1) it inherits from the JJTrek movies and is in the same universe, many of the same actors, etc. 2) Simon Pegg likes the JJTrek movies and has bashed people who didn't. 3) a F&F director doesn't seem like a good pick for Star Trek, which *should* be a lot more cerebral than that.
So it'll probably be more of the same. Maybe the new director will omit the lens flare though.
It's as if Musk is asking himself "How would GM handle this?", then doing the opposite.
There's nothing at all wrong with learning from other peoples' mistakes. And GM is definitely a great company to look at when you want an example of what NOT to do (for just about anything).
No, but it's a lot better than many other car companies, where they do the bare minimum required by law to keep their customers safe. It's one of those cases where a little bit of money creates a lot of goodwill. I'd much rather buy a car from a company that is proactive about potential safety problems rather than requiring people dying in accidents before the government forces them to admit a problem, which is exactly what happened with GM and their shitty ignition switches. At this point, I don't give a shit how good the Volt or Bolt are technically, I really don't want a GM no matter what because I simply don't trust them.
Instead of banning full-body suits because Somalis can't afford them, why can't they just give some full-body suits to the Somalis? Seriously, how much can a swimsuit cost?
I get that there should be limits so that super-rich people don't win everything by throwing gobs of money at it and getting ultra-expensive gear. However it seems to me that athletes should be able to use readily-available, off-the-shelf consumer gear that doesn't cost an arm and a leg. If your average (not rich) non-professional swimmer can have a better-performing swimsuit than a competitive athlete, it's going too far.
Huh? Which profit segments did Google and Apple wipe out? Apple's dominating phones and tablets, but Microsoft *never* dominated there (in fact, they're all-new segments), and was *never* very profitable even when they tried (WinMo before the iPhone was introduced).
You sound like those companies that claim they're "losing" money when someone doesn't buy their stuff. You can't lose what you never had in the first place.
Finally, it's not like MS hasn't been trying with UX. They just utterly suck at it. The only time they did any good with it was when they invented the UI in Windows 95. They've made some refinements to that, but basically it's been downhill ever since XP (or maybe Vista; the UI looked good, the rest of the OS was slow and problematic). They certainly tried hard with Metro but the results are crap because their taste in style is poor and their assumptions are wrong.
If customers want a better UI and, oh the horror, a more intuitive interface, then guess what. You're a developer. That's what you're going to develop.
No, it's not. Where on earth did you get the idea that companies need to make their customers happy? Microsoft has been pissing people off for years now with Windows 8+ and they're not going anywhere, because people will continue to buy their products no matter how much they hate them.
Don't forget, the asker said that his company's product was for a niche industry. If they don't have any competitors, what's the point of pleasing the customers?
It's completely different. Have you never heard of a limo? That's exactly what Uber is. Limos do not drive around the streets at random and pick people up when they raise their arms; you have to call for them and tell them where you are, and where you're going. Then they tell you how much that will cost (there's no taximeter charging you extra for stopping at lights). Uber does the exact same thing, except instead of calling, you just use an app.
They *already had* limos in NYC, and they were indeed regulated entirely differently than taxis. That's why Uber is legal in NYC; it's just another limo service.
Slashdot Mirror
Ok, but that's only about Tesla, nothing else. I don't have a Tesla so I can't really speak to its long-term reliability. It doesn't surprise me that a rather new car company with a lot of new tech is having some issues. However there's probably also the effect where high-end cars usually have more complaints than low-end cars, which is why the luxury makes historically did somewhat poorly on JD Powers' surveys: people who pay $50-100k for a car are a lot pickier and quick to complain about small issues in their cars, whereas someone who buys a $12k Chevy doesn't usually complain about small squeaks and rattles. It's a matter of expectations. Even in your article above, some owner remarks that they're likely complaining about squeaks that they wouldn't even notice in a gas-powered car because the Tesla is so quiet. (And that I can believe, because while I don't own one, I have driven a Model S and it is eerily silent; definitely something you're not used to if you've never driven an EV. I could see how any squeak or rattle would be easily noticeable in that environment.)
Also, if your system isn't running the latest 55.753A version, you can download it there and apply it yourself instead of wasting time going to the dealer.
weird... I have a mazda too! I was going to say "my new mazda" in my comment, but decided to keep it general. I have a 2015 mazda 3 touring.
Great minds think alike! I have a 2015 Mazda 3sGT.
I'm a huge fan of the 'control shuttle' infotainment system.
I wouldn't say I'm a "huge fan", but I like it well enough. I saw stuff much like it on high-end Audis ~5 years ago. The main problem with it is that it's too slow and buggy, but it has a lot of potential. I'd say one big problem is the software architecture: it's running on Linux, but the UI stuff is all done with Javascript. It'd be interesting to see someone try to make a complete replacement for the UI, running on Qt/C++ instead. It'd probably be far faster and more responsive.
and as soon as I get around to it I'm going to hack in and make some improvements.
Go to mazda3revolution.com; there's already a bunch of people working on this. Search for a thread called "The Infotainment Project". There's already a bunch of hacks out there. It's easy to hack in; just get a USB-to-Ethernet adapter (the Plugable one works well), ssh in with your laptop, and the login is root/jci. Be careful making changes though because if you screw something up, it puts it into an endless reboot loop which is very hard to fix. Two changes I've made are 1) eliminating the touch speed restriction, so you can use the touchscreen at any speed the car is moving, and 2) shortening the delay time for the initial warning screen. #1 is really useful because it's easier to scroll with the touchscreen, and also it allows a passenger to work with the nav system while the car is driving, instead of requiring you to pull over.
Casual Linux users really aren't qualified to comment on how an OS operates. I don't comment on Ford engineer's choices of emission control design. Why do you feel you have a valid opinion about systemd?
Because he's a user, you fucking moron. (He also said he's done some light sysadmin work.)
Are you some kind of elitist prick who thinks that car buyers have no right to comment on their own cars' features and usability? The emissions thing is a strawman; a good analogy would be if a regular car driver can comment on Ford's interior design, aesthetics, usability, performance, driveability, suspension/handling feel, features (like the availability of storage features inside, this is part of interior design though), etc. Of course a regular car driver is qualified to comment on all these things; these are things that affect whether they buy the damn car, and if they enjoy using it.
Same goes for systemd. If it gives users a better experience, and they don't have any *actual* problems with it, then what's the fucking problem? If it's poorly implemented or a bad design, then this would be apparent because users would have problems with it. If the users aren't having any trouble, then there is no problem. It doesn't matter if *you* personally don't like the design philosophy, because that's completely irrelevant; the only thing that matters is whether it works well for users (both casual users and sysadmins) or not.
I agree entirely. My new Mazda is great. And I'm one of the Gen-X people who also hates these new hipster UIs. I will say the infotainment system in this thing could use some improvement, but that's the case for every car; it's been only recently that these systems have become widespread in the auto industry.
That's what the "apropos" command is for.
Furthermore there are an overwhelming number of counter-examples, of religionists doing immense amounts of good in the world.
You are suffering from confirmation bias. It isn't the religion part that makes people do good things. There's countless irreligious people in the Peace Corps.
As for Stalin, Mao, etc., those were basically like religions too, just without the supernatural part. They had the components of a wacky ideology, near-worship of a cultist leader, witch hunts for "unbelievers", etc.
Give people some "holy book" (whether it's the Bible or Mao's little red book) to justify themselves and they'll do all kinds of horrible things.
The problem is that the whole thing lends itself to "wackadoodles". You have an entire system of belief based on nothing but hearsay, with some ancient goat-herders writing down some oral traditions that have been embellished over generations, and then telling people that this stuff is literal truth. Then people believe this stuff with no evidence for it whatsoever, other than other people reading the same texts and also claiming it's literal truth from God. From there, it's a very small stretch to take some part of that "literal truth" and decide that it really means you need to go murder some people. The Bible after all says that if you have children who disobey you, you're supposed to stone them to death. All these books are full of nonsense like that.
And the "wackadoodles" have been doing this for literally millenia. Christians used to routinely burn people at the stake for being the "wrong" kind of Christian, and interpreting this "word of God" differently.
As long as people believe that some book is the "word of God" then you're never going to get past this stuff. People need to move to actual ethical systems where you can evaluate them based on reason, not superstition.
That's an "initial quality" survey. Why anyone even bothers with that thing, I have no idea. It's exactly what it sounds like: they survey people who *just got* their cars. It has zero bearing on long-term reliability.
Ok, but what happens if all the others except Trump drop out? Also, I think the same can be said for the Trump supporters: they don't seem like they'd support any of the other candidates. These non-establishment candidates (on both sides) have rabid fanbases who love them, but do NOT like any others. There might be some overlap between Trump's and Carson's supporters.
I don't think so. You're still going to want some uniform data like name, address, age, religious sect, country of origin, etc., and a relational database is the best choice for that kind of data since you can make queries on those relations easily. For the unstructured dossier stuff, you can just throw in a big TEXT field or something.
Well, you religionists would have brought it on yourselves.
Given the atrocities that religionists have committed, both in the past and in modern times, I think the idea of tracking them all isn't such a bad idea, as long as it's done for all of them.
As for the First Amendment, maybe it should be revised, to provide for freedom from religion. We rational people are really sick of you loonies impeding our progress, not to mention all your terrorist attacks.
Oh please. The Trail of Tears, generations of slavery, Jim Crow, lynchings, etc. all are much worse than rounding some people up in camps for a relatively short time during a huge war. Not that it wasn't a stain on our history, but to imply it's worse than the things above is just ridiculous. Even Guantanamo seems worse, given how long those guys have been imprisoned there without due process (10+ years), whereas the Japanese were released when the war was over, which was no longer than 4 years.
Yeah, my 90s Acura was the same way.
I disagree: some are better than others. Maybe not as good as Tesla, but this isn't a binary thing. And since not everyone can afford a $100k Tesla, most of us are going to be stuck buying from one of the other companies. Personally I've been pretty happy with my Mazda and Volvo, and my Hondas before that were well-built cars. It's usually the American companies that seem to have something bad going on, though in recent years it seems like Toyota's been working on catching up with them.
It probably won't be any good.
1) it inherits from the JJTrek movies and is in the same universe, many of the same actors, etc.
2) Simon Pegg likes the JJTrek movies and has bashed people who didn't.
3) a F&F director doesn't seem like a good pick for Star Trek, which *should* be a lot more cerebral than that.
So it'll probably be more of the same. Maybe the new director will omit the lens flare though.
It's as if Musk is asking himself "How would GM handle this?", then doing the opposite.
There's nothing at all wrong with learning from other peoples' mistakes. And GM is definitely a great company to look at when you want an example of what NOT to do (for just about anything).
No, but it's a lot better than many other car companies, where they do the bare minimum required by law to keep their customers safe. It's one of those cases where a little bit of money creates a lot of goodwill. I'd much rather buy a car from a company that is proactive about potential safety problems rather than requiring people dying in accidents before the government forces them to admit a problem, which is exactly what happened with GM and their shitty ignition switches. At this point, I don't give a shit how good the Volt or Bolt are technically, I really don't want a GM no matter what because I simply don't trust them.
Instead of banning full-body suits because Somalis can't afford them, why can't they just give some full-body suits to the Somalis? Seriously, how much can a swimsuit cost?
I get that there should be limits so that super-rich people don't win everything by throwing gobs of money at it and getting ultra-expensive gear. However it seems to me that athletes should be able to use readily-available, off-the-shelf consumer gear that doesn't cost an arm and a leg. If your average (not rich) non-professional swimmer can have a better-performing swimsuit than a competitive athlete, it's going too far.
Huh? Which profit segments did Google and Apple wipe out? Apple's dominating phones and tablets, but Microsoft *never* dominated there (in fact, they're all-new segments), and was *never* very profitable even when they tried (WinMo before the iPhone was introduced).
You sound like those companies that claim they're "losing" money when someone doesn't buy their stuff. You can't lose what you never had in the first place.
Finally, it's not like MS hasn't been trying with UX. They just utterly suck at it. The only time they did any good with it was when they invented the UI in Windows 95. They've made some refinements to that, but basically it's been downhill ever since XP (or maybe Vista; the UI looked good, the rest of the OS was slow and problematic). They certainly tried hard with Metro but the results are crap because their taste in style is poor and their assumptions are wrong.
Or they watched Star Trek's "Red Matter" plot....
Yeah, the idea is just about as dumb.
It sure would be nice if someone would do an all-new Star Trek movie franchise, but not like JJ's crapfest.
If customers want a better UI and, oh the horror, a more intuitive interface, then guess what. You're a developer. That's what you're going to develop.
No, it's not. Where on earth did you get the idea that companies need to make their customers happy? Microsoft has been pissing people off for years now with Windows 8+ and they're not going anywhere, because people will continue to buy their products no matter how much they hate them.
Don't forget, the asker said that his company's product was for a niche industry. If they don't have any competitors, what's the point of pleasing the customers?
Except if you do it right - and UX can be done right. After all, it's how the largest company on earth got where it is.
WTF are you talking about? Walmart's website is nothing special, nor do they get all that much revenue from their web operations.
Or are you talking about the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China? I don't think UX is a big factor in their business either.
It's completely different. Have you never heard of a limo? That's exactly what Uber is. Limos do not drive around the streets at random and pick people up when they raise their arms; you have to call for them and tell them where you are, and where you're going. Then they tell you how much that will cost (there's no taximeter charging you extra for stopping at lights). Uber does the exact same thing, except instead of calling, you just use an app.
They *already had* limos in NYC, and they were indeed regulated entirely differently than taxis. That's why Uber is legal in NYC; it's just another limo service.