171–180 of 207 posts
The next biggest issue is regulation. Depending on jurisdiction, it's likely that things from backup cameras to autobraking and more are required or will be shortly. Even drowsy driver and drunk driver protections are already in laws/regs for future adoption.
I hope someday there will be a backlash. - dumb TVs, or open-source TVs. - dumb phones, or completely open-source smart phones. - dumb EVs, or completely open-source EVs. I think the profit for open source stuff is not guaranteed, so funding a company is hard. People who fund companies want lock-in, patents, product monopoly. They don't want something that can be copied and productized by another company that had no…
>dumb phones, or completely open-source smart phones. What use are dumb phones (i.e., feature phones)? They're only good for actually talking to people, and the only people I know who regularly use their phones for talking are my elderly relatives (in their 80s). Everyone younger than that uses their phones for: texting, games, web, various apps such as banking, etc. Actual talking is fairly rare, and usually only wi…
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Also, server hardware. It isn't as it is only kept around for those stubborn gamer enthusiast. The enthusiast market more or less is an extra revenue stream for a lot of hardware that is developed for the server market first. It is a bit more complex than that of course and generally speaking you are right.
Server hardware has abandoned a good bit of interchangeability too. While you can still usually count on socketed CPUs, socketed memory, and interchangeable storage, there's a lot of proprietary components used on servers beyond that. Motherboard and power supply form factors are often proprietary, and it is not uncommon for expansion cards to be proprietary or non-standard implementations. Things like ATX power supp…
there are options out there for itx and matx server chassis, even ATX and EATX.
Silverstone in particular has some interesting options for rack mount workstations based around 360mm AIO water-cooling, ATX boards and PSUs, consumer GPUs, etc. though those are meant more for the half and quarter rack enclosures designed to be installed in a home or office environment.
Because there are some early adopters left with more money than sense. And the subsidies are fading but aren't gone for good. And because everyone's copying Tesla's unusable interface for some unknown reason. I doubt Musk would recognize a rotating physical a/c control if it fell off a Falcon and hit him on the head.
As crappy and annoying Tesla's UI can be, just keep in mind Tesla's software capability is 10x better than any other auto company (or more correctly their OEMs) were capable of.
Or when you simply can't ... figure ... out ... the "smart" turn stalk?
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That doesn’t fit my experience. Anything that involves typing out paragraphs of text almost immediately revert to a quick phone call where you can get the idea across in seconds instead of lots of minutes. These are people in their mid and early 30s.
In my experience, when this happens, we just use the voice or video-calling function of whatever chat app we're using texting through. We don't use phone numbers. I've never actually even called my girlfriend, for instance; I only have her phone number in my contacts list for emergencies, but when I've talked with her, it's been through our chat app (LINE), since we can use video there.
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Here in the UK, almost 17% (about nine million people) live outside towns and villages. A trip to the local shop can be several miles on roads that don't have pavements and public transport is of the "one bus a day" type if you are lucky. There are a few people who cycle but they're dedicated and for most it is not an option. Cars are an essential.
As I understand it, that’s not _strictly_ true. 17% live in “rural” areas, but this includes towns and villages in rural areas. It’s 8% for “rural village and fringe” [0], or much less for actually outside of towns and villages. Unless you have other stats to share? [0] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/661d3b95ac3da...
The problem is that even in reasonable sized towns not having a car is very limiting. The solution is much better public transport - more frequent is the big thing. That is the difference
On the other hand I did not have a car in London (which has very frequent public transport until quite late in the night), nor in Manchester (not as good, but OK) until I had a child. It was no problem. paying for the occasional taxi and hiring cars for trips when needed was a lot cheaper than running a car and more convenient too.
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Server hardware has abandoned a good bit of interchangeability too. While you can still usually count on socketed CPUs, socketed memory, and interchangeable storage, there's a lot of proprietary components used on servers beyond that. Motherboard and power supply form factors are often proprietary, and it is not uncommon for expansion cards to be proprietary or non-standard implementations. Things like ATX power supp…
even supermicro, which used to be the goto for DIY servers, has been trending toward more proprietary (and more expensive) components. there are options out there for itx and matx server chassis, even ATX and EATX. Silverstone in particular has some interesting options for rack mount workstations based around 360mm AIO water-cooling, ATX boards and PSUs, consumer GPUs, etc. though those are meant more for the half an…
But most of the market is Dell/Lenovo/HP/Supermicro (and in China, a couple other players).
Silverstone is an absolutely tiny business by comparison. Their US office is 1/6th of a shared warehouse space in an LA suburb, next to a laminate flooring retailer.
(I assume you're asking about the US, because there are low-tech options in many other countries.)
If you want a low-tech car, your best bet is to buy an early 2000s model of something that is well-regarded and can continue to be maintained long term (eg. Toyota). There are a lot of Internet resources that cherry-pick these desirable models and years for you.
The big reason screens matter for electric cars is planning long range trips with stops at a battery charge location. Without the map/screen in-car you can’t integrate battery level with routing. Maybe you’re fine doing this manually, but range anxiety is the big reason consumers who can afford electric don’t buy electric, so it seems self defeating to remove features that help with that. The screens and stuff aren’t…
That's what your phone or tablet is for. No need for all that custom UI tech in the car, just provide a documented API and open-source app you can run on your phone or even dedicate a tablet for it. Proprietary screens and their supporting computers will be obsolete quickly, will break easily and be exorbitantly expensive to fix/replace, and of course there's a good chance they will also surveil everything you do, mo…
So the question is, why do they keep re-designing the head unit as a monolithic brick, and make it non-replaceable? I can't say for sure why, but my guess is that they've since added their own team for "Smart this" and "subscription that", and removing those sources of revenue is far more expensive than rebuilding the head unit each year.
Because data collection is a very profitable market for car manufacturers to enter. Most cars these days can make it to 200,000 miles and people buy them less often. I wish there was a website that had a guide for how to disable the 4g chip for every car model.