The other major issue is that manufacturers insist on tying safety and security updates to functionality changes.
For example, on my Tesla it was determined that if you connect your car to a rogue wifi AP and open the web browser an attacker can gain root access on the car. To solve that issue though I'd have to agree to Tesla nerfing autopilot and making the whole UI exponentially worse. I've chosen instead not to connect the car to random access points or use the web browser on unknown sites.
On an old fashioned car if there was a problem with the stereo, they'd never change the functionality of your cruise control and move all the interior switches around to solve it.
Simple solution. Leave the speakers off until there's something you want to hear.
My speakers are rarely on, unless I decide to specifically watch a video or something. Webpages can try to make all the noise they want, I won't even notice.
Google used to have a way of blacklisting websites from their search results, I found it incredibly handy and used it all the time. but of course like so many Google features before, it's always the most useful ones that they decide to discontinue.
As opposed to all the American companies that couldn't possibly be used by American government agencies for "all sorts of purposes"?
Let's be real here. Assume all software and hardware is likely spying on you. Now chose which country is least likely to have jurisdiction to make your life miserable if you say something they don't like. I don't live in Russia, and I'm unlikely to visit there, so I'd rather their government were spying on me than the American one, because the USA seems to think it has jurisdiction everywhere, and I am likely to end up visiting there.
For the average person, that's far better than trusting Made in USA hardware and software.
Both are likely spying on you, but at least the Russians and Chinese are unlikely to drag you out of bed in the middle of the night if you say something they don't like.
You shouldn't have to think about it, just look at any real mixer board, they already do exactly that, and you know why? Because that's what works best!
Because you can visually see the position the knob is in at a much smaller level than the slider. When you have a slider less than a cm tall, it's almost impossible to tell where in the travel the slider is, is that 30%? 40%? 60%? who knows. but a knob of the same size you can immediately tell how far it's turned just by glancing at it. The movement doesn't have to be limited to the size of the visual element either, you can move the mouse 5 cm for the full spectrum of motion on the control that's only 1 cm in size (and interestingly enough, that feels natural on a knob, but it doesn't on a slider, a slider you expect the travel on the mouse to be the same as the physical size of the slider)
quite a long visual distance from the road compared to the usual dashboard.
This is not even remotely unique to the Model 3, there are many vehicles these days that put the main instrument cluster in the middle of the vehicle instead of in front of the driver. It makes it cheaper to make international variants of the vehicle because you can use the same dash for both right and left hand drive vehicles.
That said, I still refuse to actually buy any vehicle that follows this horrible design principle, but let's not pretend it's just Tesla doing it.
Replacing physical controls with touch screens in cars is just downright evil
Yes, and no. I have a Tesla Model S, the vast majority of the controls are on the touch screen. When I first got the car I was really worried that they'd gone too far with it, and I was partially right, but I've also been pleasantly surprised. Basically the only control that I find I really wish they'd left as a physical button is the fog lights. everything else I've actually been quite happy with as it is. Now granted some of that is because of how much you can map to the steering wheel controls (which are of course physical buttons) but a lot of it is because most of those controls really aren't used all that much, and when they are, it tends to be when you're stopped anyway. (I don't need to adjust how stiff the steering is while moving for example, or even lock/unlock the doors).
Once a product gets enough features, it's just not practical to have everything be it's own physical control. If every one of the controls on my car was a physical switch instead of touchscreen, the cabin would look like the cockpit of an airliner and you still wouldn't be able to find each control quickly simply because there are so many of them.
Good product design has to be a compromise between the two. There are certain things that really do work best as physical controls, and those should stay physical, but many things work just fine in software, assuming you design it well (which is usually not the case, but that's really a different issue)
You do realize that dictators lie, agree to things they have no intention of honoring. Right?
Have you heard of "trust but verify"? You don't lift sanctions because they claim they'll do something, you lift sanctions when they allow independent inspections. What you don't do however is tell them that there's no way to get the sanctions lifted, because then they have no incentive to do what you want them to do.
It's a terrible fuel, just not as bad as hydrogen.
I wasn't trying to imply it was good, just that it was better than hydrogen, and being that all commercial hydrogen starts as natural gas anyway, you might as well just skip the middleman.
This will all become plausible when super capacitors hit a reasonable cost point, probably double LiIOn. It's possible, but there's some hang up that I haven't cared enough to identify.
Thing is, if and when super capacitors become a reasonable alternative to batteries, they'll benefit electric vehicles more than hydrogen fuel cell ones. Electric vehicles already have a huge advantage over fuel cells, and a technological improvement like that would only widen the gap. Fuel cells sounded reasonable when we used to think that battery technology could never allow for long range EVs, but battery technology already can, and they are getting better all the time as battery technology improves and battery costs decrease.
Anyone still clinging to Hydrogen is living many decades in the past, not the future.
Because there are 2 ways to get hydrogen, split water or reform natural gas. Splitting water takes a LOT of energy, and as such is never used commercially, that leaves natural gas. Now you see why the oil companies are pushing hard for a hydrogen economy? They extract the natural gas, and they have a distribution network already in place for selling fuels.
I'm also trying to figure out why I'd be jealous of someone with a fuel cell vehicle, the fuel is more expensive than gasoline, the vehicle has less performance, and you can only recharge it at a handful of stations in the entire world. additionally all the components take so much space in the vehicle that there's barely any room left for luggage, AND you're basically driving around strapped to a bomb that could explode if someone collides with you the wrong way. There is literally NO upside to a hydrogen vehicle over any other technology out there.
Which is why a previous administration tried to lift sanctions in exchange for Iran stopping it's nuclear program. Unfortunately this administration doesn't understand how diplomacy and foreign policy work, so they've re-instated the sanctions, which has the obvious effect of enticing Iran to continue it's nuclear program.
As soon as you talk hydrogen you lose all credibility. It's horrible for the environment, is unavailable anywhere, it's extremely dangerous to use, difficult to contain, and it's more expensive than other fuels.
Hydrogen is simply not a viable energy storage medium. It's only being pushed by oil companies who are afraid of people moving away from fossil fuels and refueling at home without them.
Natural gas is more efficient, easier to work with, better for the environment, cheaper, and more readily available than hydrogen. Being that pretty much all commercial hydrogen comes from natural gas anyway you're far better off to just use the natural gas directly.
I fully agree with you on 1 and 2, 3 I think is a temporary, and solvable problem related to how new the "currency" is. All currencies fluctuate in relation to each other, often by a couple percent a day or more, we already know how to deal with that, and do so all the time. Bitcoin currently jumps around a lot more, but I don't think that will always be the case.
As for waste of time, effort, and electricity, you're definitely right on that one. The only way to make a profit mining bitcoin at this point is to use other people's electricity.
As long as no shop provides a discount for not using credit cards, as far as the consumer is concerned they might as well be free.
If I have to pay the same amount whether I use credit, debit, cast, or bitcoin, I'd bee a fool not to use the credit card option. The cost to the merchant may be higher, but the cost to me is lower, and at the end of the day, I don't care what it costs the merchant, I only care what it costs me.
So you're paying more than you would if you just used your visa (in addition to the bitcoin transaction fees, there's lots of conversion happening, and I guarantee it isn't free!) AND you don't have the vaunted privacy protection of bitcoin.
So what exactly is the advantage of this method over just using a visa card to start with? You could probably get a card with no annual fee and cash back while you're at it.
And I actually said exactly that in my post. But I also said that I don't care, because at every single store I can shop at, the price I pay if I use cash, debit, or credit is 100% identical. So in that situation, I'd have to be a complete and utter moron not to use a credit card with rewards.
I know that I'm being charged more for the credit card, but the thing is, I'm being charged more even if I don't use the credit card, so I might as well get the benefits of doing so. Meanwhile if I use BTC, the merchant (assuming you'd ever find one who accepts it) will still charge me exactly the same amount as I pay on my credit card, AND I'd have to pay a transaction fee.
That point becomes irrelevant very quickly when you realize that most people make far more transactions in the $9 range than the $9M range.
The whole point is that when using a currency of any form, you don't want to have to think about how the back end stuff works, you just want to pay for your item and be done, and with the minimum transaction fees, and minimum hassle.
That's why things like tap to pay work so well, they're easy. You don't have to think about how that whole thing works, it just does. And my credit card is free to use (actually it pays me a percentage of each transaction) (I know, I know, the merchant pays for it and passes that along to me in the form of higher prices, but as long as I don't get a discount for using a different payment method, it works out to the same thing and I'd be stupid not to use the credit card)
Now that's just talking about convenience and price. There's also the privacy argument, but that's a completely different one, and I'm not certain that bitcoin is anywhere near as "untraceable" as some people think.
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Not unique, there are other LCD gauge clusters, and other clusters mounted in that same horrible location.
The other major issue is that manufacturers insist on tying safety and security updates to functionality changes.
For example, on my Tesla it was determined that if you connect your car to a rogue wifi AP and open the web browser an attacker can gain root access on the car. To solve that issue though I'd have to agree to Tesla nerfing autopilot and making the whole UI exponentially worse. I've chosen instead not to connect the car to random access points or use the web browser on unknown sites.
On an old fashioned car if there was a problem with the stereo, they'd never change the functionality of your cruise control and move all the interior switches around to solve it.
So in other words, ditch BTC and switch to LTC. Tell me, what advantage does LTC have over cash? or over my credit card?
Simple solution. Leave the speakers off until there's something you want to hear.
My speakers are rarely on, unless I decide to specifically watch a video or something. Webpages can try to make all the noise they want, I won't even notice.
Google used to have a way of blacklisting websites from their search results, I found it incredibly handy and used it all the time. but of course like so many Google features before, it's always the most useful ones that they decide to discontinue.
As opposed to all the American companies that couldn't possibly be used by American government agencies for "all sorts of purposes"?
Let's be real here. Assume all software and hardware is likely spying on you. Now chose which country is least likely to have jurisdiction to make your life miserable if you say something they don't like. I don't live in Russia, and I'm unlikely to visit there, so I'd rather their government were spying on me than the American one, because the USA seems to think it has jurisdiction everywhere, and I am likely to end up visiting there.
For the average person, that's far better than trusting Made in USA hardware and software.
Both are likely spying on you, but at least the Russians and Chinese are unlikely to drag you out of bed in the middle of the night if you say something they don't like.
But what software are you comfortable putting your name on the line certifying as safe? and is it really any more likely to be safe than Kaspersky?
You shouldn't have to think about it, just look at any real mixer board, they already do exactly that, and you know why? Because that's what works best!
Because you can visually see the position the knob is in at a much smaller level than the slider. When you have a slider less than a cm tall, it's almost impossible to tell where in the travel the slider is, is that 30%? 40%? 60%? who knows. but a knob of the same size you can immediately tell how far it's turned just by glancing at it.
The movement doesn't have to be limited to the size of the visual element either, you can move the mouse 5 cm for the full spectrum of motion on the control that's only 1 cm in size (and interestingly enough, that feels natural on a knob, but it doesn't on a slider, a slider you expect the travel on the mouse to be the same as the physical size of the slider)
quite a long visual distance from the road compared to the usual dashboard.
This is not even remotely unique to the Model 3, there are many vehicles these days that put the main instrument cluster in the middle of the vehicle instead of in front of the driver. It makes it cheaper to make international variants of the vehicle because you can use the same dash for both right and left hand drive vehicles.
That said, I still refuse to actually buy any vehicle that follows this horrible design principle, but let's not pretend it's just Tesla doing it.
Replacing physical controls with touch screens in cars is just downright evil
Yes, and no. I have a Tesla Model S, the vast majority of the controls are on the touch screen. When I first got the car I was really worried that they'd gone too far with it, and I was partially right, but I've also been pleasantly surprised. Basically the only control that I find I really wish they'd left as a physical button is the fog lights. everything else I've actually been quite happy with as it is. Now granted some of that is because of how much you can map to the steering wheel controls (which are of course physical buttons) but a lot of it is because most of those controls really aren't used all that much, and when they are, it tends to be when you're stopped anyway. (I don't need to adjust how stiff the steering is while moving for example, or even lock/unlock the doors).
Once a product gets enough features, it's just not practical to have everything be it's own physical control. If every one of the controls on my car was a physical switch instead of touchscreen, the cabin would look like the cockpit of an airliner and you still wouldn't be able to find each control quickly simply because there are so many of them.
Good product design has to be a compromise between the two. There are certain things that really do work best as physical controls, and those should stay physical, but many things work just fine in software, assuming you design it well (which is usually not the case, but that's really a different issue)
You do realize that dictators lie, agree to things they have no intention of honoring. Right?
Have you heard of "trust but verify"? You don't lift sanctions because they claim they'll do something, you lift sanctions when they allow independent inspections.
What you don't do however is tell them that there's no way to get the sanctions lifted, because then they have no incentive to do what you want them to do.
It's a terrible fuel, just not as bad as hydrogen.
I wasn't trying to imply it was good, just that it was better than hydrogen, and being that all commercial hydrogen starts as natural gas anyway, you might as well just skip the middleman.
This will all become plausible when super capacitors hit a reasonable cost point, probably double LiIOn. It's possible, but there's some hang up that I haven't cared enough to identify.
Thing is, if and when super capacitors become a reasonable alternative to batteries, they'll benefit electric vehicles more than hydrogen fuel cell ones. Electric vehicles already have a huge advantage over fuel cells, and a technological improvement like that would only widen the gap. Fuel cells sounded reasonable when we used to think that battery technology could never allow for long range EVs, but battery technology already can, and they are getting better all the time as battery technology improves and battery costs decrease.
Anyone still clinging to Hydrogen is living many decades in the past, not the future.
Because there are 2 ways to get hydrogen, split water or reform natural gas. Splitting water takes a LOT of energy, and as such is never used commercially, that leaves natural gas. Now you see why the oil companies are pushing hard for a hydrogen economy? They extract the natural gas, and they have a distribution network already in place for selling fuels.
I'm also trying to figure out why I'd be jealous of someone with a fuel cell vehicle, the fuel is more expensive than gasoline, the vehicle has less performance, and you can only recharge it at a handful of stations in the entire world. additionally all the components take so much space in the vehicle that there's barely any room left for luggage, AND you're basically driving around strapped to a bomb that could explode if someone collides with you the wrong way. There is literally NO upside to a hydrogen vehicle over any other technology out there.
Which is why a previous administration tried to lift sanctions in exchange for Iran stopping it's nuclear program. Unfortunately this administration doesn't understand how diplomacy and foreign policy work, so they've re-instated the sanctions, which has the obvious effect of enticing Iran to continue it's nuclear program.
As soon as you talk hydrogen you lose all credibility.
It's horrible for the environment, is unavailable anywhere, it's extremely dangerous to use, difficult to contain, and it's more expensive than other fuels.
Hydrogen is simply not a viable energy storage medium. It's only being pushed by oil companies who are afraid of people moving away from fossil fuels and refueling at home without them.
Natural gas is more efficient, easier to work with, better for the environment, cheaper, and more readily available than hydrogen. Being that pretty much all commercial hydrogen comes from natural gas anyway you're far better off to just use the natural gas directly.
Don't you know, only women, LGBTQ, and visible minorities are allowed rights. White men must be punished for the sins of past generations!
I sure hope you never operate any form of vessel....
I fully agree with you on 1 and 2,
3 I think is a temporary, and solvable problem related to how new the "currency" is. All currencies fluctuate in relation to each other, often by a couple percent a day or more, we already know how to deal with that, and do so all the time. Bitcoin currently jumps around a lot more, but I don't think that will always be the case.
As for waste of time, effort, and electricity, you're definitely right on that one. The only way to make a profit mining bitcoin at this point is to use other people's electricity.
As long as no shop provides a discount for not using credit cards, as far as the consumer is concerned they might as well be free.
If I have to pay the same amount whether I use credit, debit, cast, or bitcoin, I'd bee a fool not to use the credit card option. The cost to the merchant may be higher, but the cost to me is lower, and at the end of the day, I don't care what it costs the merchant, I only care what it costs me.
So you're paying more than you would if you just used your visa (in addition to the bitcoin transaction fees, there's lots of conversion happening, and I guarantee it isn't free!)
AND you don't have the vaunted privacy protection of bitcoin.
So what exactly is the advantage of this method over just using a visa card to start with? You could probably get a card with no annual fee and cash back while you're at it.
And I actually said exactly that in my post.
But I also said that I don't care, because at every single store I can shop at, the price I pay if I use cash, debit, or credit is 100% identical. So in that situation, I'd have to be a complete and utter moron not to use a credit card with rewards.
I know that I'm being charged more for the credit card, but the thing is, I'm being charged more even if I don't use the credit card, so I might as well get the benefits of doing so. Meanwhile if I use BTC, the merchant (assuming you'd ever find one who accepts it) will still charge me exactly the same amount as I pay on my credit card, AND I'd have to pay a transaction fee.
It basically does.
It says that the less manoeuvrable ship has right of way, which basically boils down to the same thing.
That point becomes irrelevant very quickly when you realize that most people make far more transactions in the $9 range than the $9M range.
The whole point is that when using a currency of any form, you don't want to have to think about how the back end stuff works, you just want to pay for your item and be done, and with the minimum transaction fees, and minimum hassle.
That's why things like tap to pay work so well, they're easy. You don't have to think about how that whole thing works, it just does. And my credit card is free to use (actually it pays me a percentage of each transaction) (I know, I know, the merchant pays for it and passes that along to me in the form of higher prices, but as long as I don't get a discount for using a different payment method, it works out to the same thing and I'd be stupid not to use the credit card)
Now that's just talking about convenience and price. There's also the privacy argument, but that's a completely different one, and I'm not certain that bitcoin is anywhere near as "untraceable" as some people think.