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Why is America stuck with bad headlights?

caranddriver.com

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Re: Why is America stuck with bad headlights?

#331

Post by phinnaeus »

csomar wrote: post #310
bsimpson wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For instance: payments. Europe and Asia got chip cards and tap-to-pay decades before we did, even though Mastercard and Visa took part in their invention. America had credit card infrastructure first, so our payment networks were stuck with it, while other countries could start off with better stuff. Without the consumer demand that Google/Apple Pay (and later coronavirus) created, we still probably wouldn't have wid…

This gets thrown a lot but I think the reason the U.S. didn't move from the swipe system to the PIN is the speed of processing your card. With the swipe, the cashier just swipe your card and you're done. With the chip, I have to wait and then enter my PIN and then wait. It's just a hustle.

Why would we move to chip when it's already obviated by tap?

Re: Why is America stuck with bad headlights?

#332

Post by wonderlg »

hef19898 wrote: post #274
browningstreet wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I'm really old. Before Fast and Furious, I lived through the slammed mini truck / monster car stereo (speakers, speakers, speakers) craze of the late 80s. And before that there were many, many trends, like muscle cars, etc. It's always been like this...

What struck me back then, was how Fast and Furious and Need for Speed influenced each other.

I remember some Underground or Underground 2 cutscene or run that was identical to a run in FnF; I always assumed that they did a collab.

Re: Why is America stuck with bad headlights?

#333

Post by growlist »

lvspiff wrote: post #53
serf wrote: post #14

groups like Audi/Porsche/BMW have trouble bringing their fancy LED setups to America due to laws pertaining to high / low beams -- meanwhile every Jack and Jill on the road has glaringly illegal aftermarket Xenon bulb setups in refractor headlight housings rather than proper projectors, blinding the hell out of everyone on the road, and the police seem to do nothing about it. I mean, hey -- i'm usually happy about au…

The worst thing to happen to America was Autozone and Fast and Furious. Cheap aftermarket modifications to your car being sold to people with no knowledge of what they were doing but wanted it too look cool cause they saw it in the movie. Its led to years of teenagers with no training putting things on their cars that turn them into obnoxious spectacles on the road. I know I sound like an old coot but frankly I'm gla…

Here in the UK Top Gear has a lot to answer for in promoting an utterly moronic car culture (and I like cars).

Re: Why is America stuck with bad headlights?

#334

Post by jacobush »

paganel wrote: post #306
namdnay wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unfortunately those fancy LED setups are a headache for the rest of us drivers sharing the roads with those models, because they're also bright as hell from the factory. Really? I'd say about 10% of cars here are LEDs and an additional 25% are Xenons, and honestly it isn't particularly bothering. They don't blind you because the beam is pointed downwards. > Fortunately the tacky way Audi had implemented its rear-li…

> Not sure about that, they're rolling it our across VW models now, My bad then. At least I think they made the newer implementations a little bit less obnoxious, I can only notice them on Audis that are a few years old (like 2013-2015, even newer), on the newer Seats or Skodas they are not such in "your face". > They don't blind you because the beam is pointed downwards. Maybe the drivers around these parts of the c…

The light is also blue tinted, so when they drive past gates or anything that makes the light flicker on and off, I always believe it’s the Police.

Re: Why is America stuck with bad headlights?

#335

Post by ooobit2 »

ooobit2 wrote: post #177
beenBoutIT wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Fast and Furious franchise is, not unlike the late 2pac, a reflection of the community. A percentage of America has always been modding their cars and an even larger percentage enjoys dreaming about modding cars - the films draw from that, not the other way around.

That's the reason the Fast franchise is some 8+ films in and still doing $500M+ box offices. It's also a good reason documentaries, classical and jazz music, and non-fiction books in all but self-help and cookbooks sell poor. I'd love to see a huge textbook covering pre-Calc through intros to harder topics like Real Analysis and Stochastics top the bestsellers for 22 weeks. But instead, people are buying the 5,431st…

It'd be nice if someone would do something about Wrongthink Trolls. It's not cool to see several downvotes on a random post, three or four levels deep in a comment chain, simply because it criticizes people spending money on useless political spin. It's crazy, maybe even hate speech to suggest a math textbook should be more important than a political memoir? ...on Hacker? Is there some sudden influx of people who join forums like these so they can tell themselves they're intelligent without walking that self-talk?

Quickly finding ourselves in a world that serves to do nothing more than recite problems instead of give actionable steps and vetted research toward solving them. A world where saying something nice to someone if you're not the right color or gender can be violent; where violence toward someone because of their color or gender is something nice.

It's a broken record, but how Orwellian for me, at 34, to sit here and not be able to suggest I don't condone bullying, and for the self-proclaimed egalitarian activist to stand up and say, "You don't deserve to be heard here! You don't even deserve to be here!"

I'm now less afraid of lonely white kids with guns than I am of anyone else. Thanks.

Re: Why is America stuck with bad headlights?

#336

Post by easytiger »

paganel wrote: post #269
serf wrote: post #14

groups like Audi/Porsche/BMW have trouble bringing their fancy LED setups to America due to laws pertaining to high / low beams -- meanwhile every Jack and Jill on the road has glaringly illegal aftermarket Xenon bulb setups in refractor headlight housings rather than proper projectors, blinding the hell out of everyone on the road, and the police seem to do nothing about it. I mean, hey -- i'm usually happy about au…

>groups like Audi/Porsche/BMW have trouble bringing their fancy LED setups Unfortunately those fancy LED setups are a headache for the rest of us drivers sharing the roads with those models, because they're also bright as hell from the factory. Fortunately the tacky way Audi had implemented its rear-lights signalling wasn't adopted by the wider industry, and I think the VW group itself is having second thoughts about…

People in Europe drive on much tighter darker roads and drive more modern versions of said vehicles and I've noticed no such issue. Aftermarket and self maintenance 15 years ago yielded significantly worse conditions.

I agree however that the sweeping led indicator implementation isn't really of value

Re: Why is America stuck with bad headlights?

#339

Post by jacobush »

Havoc wrote: post #307
mdoing wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Banks in the US are very risk aversive when it comes to new technology about 6-7 years ago I was working with a team in the US and the next project that they were doing was implementing chip and pin for a single type of card for a bank. One person was trying to move to another team to avoid it. We had chip and pin in my country for years at this stage. I used just think that they were worried about the new technology…

>Banks in the US are very risk aversive when it comes to new technology But are somehow fine with crappy magstripe easily cloned cards. Bit odd how they judge risk

They make the customers pay for that via VISA fees

Re: Why is America stuck with bad headlights?

#340

Post by mdoing »

Havoc wrote: post #307
mdoing wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Banks in the US are very risk aversive when it comes to new technology about 6-7 years ago I was working with a team in the US and the next project that they were doing was implementing chip and pin for a single type of card for a bank. One person was trying to move to another team to avoid it. We had chip and pin in my country for years at this stage. I used just think that they were worried about the new technology…

>Banks in the US are very risk aversive when it comes to new technology But are somehow fine with crappy magstripe easily cloned cards. Bit odd how they judge risk

I think fear of the unknown is classified as a risk in some places, they completely changed management style and structures after I left so maybe the company changed as well.
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