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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?

#391

Post by [deleted] »

gambiting wrote: post #302
encom wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>every subsystem is DRM'd and only licensed professionals were allowed to touch it Kind of like how smartphones are right now.

BMW is doing it right now - some of their US cars will come with features locked behind a subscription model. Want heated seats? They are $99 a year, you get a free 14 day trial to see if you like the feature. Same with adaptive cruise, with more advanced media features etc etc. Their argument is that vast majority of new BMWs in US are leased, so it's "better" for customers to lease a basic model for less, and then…

[deleted]

Re: Why is America stuck with bad headlights?

#392

Post by saalweachter »

speeder wrote: post #387
tardyp wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For non mid west born ppl, A dragstrip is a facility for conducting automobile and motorcycle acceleration events such as drag racing. Although a quarter mile (1320 feet, 402 m) is the best known measure for a drag track, many tracks are eighth mile (201 m) tracks, and the premiere classes will run 1,000 foot (304.8m) races

US people and their weird measurements :P But honestly, why these lengths specifically?

1/8th mile = 1 furlong.

Many short races, for feet or horses, that started way back when are some number of furlongs.

Re: Why is America stuck with bad headlights?

#393

Post by speeder »

saalweachter wrote: post #392
speeder wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US people and their weird measurements :P But honestly, why these lengths specifically?

1/8th mile = 1 furlong. Many short races, for feet or horses, that started way back when are some number of furlongs.

Now THAT is an interesting information, never heard of "furlongs" before!

Re: Why is America stuck with bad headlights?

#394

Post by ooobit2 »

lnanek2 wrote: post #366
ooobit2 wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 jo…

I guess you are new here, but HN is heavily, heavily edited and moderated. Posts get killed all the time, if they don't have their titles changed or URLs swapped, for not being exactly what certain people want, and other posts resurrected because the founder didn't get sufficient traffic. Comments get rethreaded and killed at the drop of a hat as well. The buried comment was a non-mainstream opinion, so not welcome h…

I've been here off and on for almost 9 years. For the most part, I expect (and certainly receive) a near continuous stream of amazing, informative, creative, insightful, and above all useful content... for free... from people like you, among others. But this is a buried comment several levels deep, for which the entire stream of cascading parent comments have no votes. It may be a broad generalization to assume wrongthink trolls are the cause, but it follows an observed pattern across social media.

SV circlejerk or not, I'm more uncomfortable with the passivity to "definitely not a place for free thought and people voting up discussable viewpoints they don't happen to agree with." I don't care what whomever upvotes; however, downvotes with the intent of burying comments behind a content filter is a deliberate abuse of the system. I'm sure I could find a violation in the TOS too.

In the above case, I expect better from engineers, entrepreneurs, and experts in STEM and STEM-proximal fields, because everyone here knows the faulty thinking I just pointed out. If you didn't, if the next person didn't, none of you would have made it through learning basic programming, design, or business logic. No one here would have any basis for expertise in much of anything.

We shouldn't defend shrugging at behavior that undermines the authority and influence of this community. Is 13 years of massive success worth shrugging away? We're all smarter than to allow this crap.

Re: Why is America stuck with bad headlights?

#395

Post by a2tech »

Leherenn wrote: post #236
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All it takes is aftermarket lighting with the cutoff in a different position and nobody willing to bother reaiming the lights. I see this a lot. The low beams are notionally not too bright but they are pointing forward without any effective cutoff.

Isn't it checked? In my country it is part of the standard check during the mandatory technical certification of the vehicle every few years.

Checked? Here in Michigan we have 0 car inspections. No smog, no safety check. Its great. We have 3 things that almost everyone in the state can firmly get behind:

1) No tolls roads

2) No mandatory vehicle checks

3) No traffic cameras

My state gets a lot of things wrong, but they get those 3 things right.

Re: Why is America stuck with bad headlights?

#397

Post by madengr »

mkhpalm wrote: post #239
lvspiff wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The really cheap and blatantly illegal headlight craze took off with Amazon and Ebay. Brick and mortars like Autozone have to abide by some standards.

30 years ago, I put fog lights on my car where they were not supposed to be. Also had a homemade radar jammer.

90 years ago my grandfather would route a gas line and spark plug into the exhaust to make flames. Illegal mods have anyways been popular.

Re: Why is America stuck with bad headlights?

#398

Post by bluGill »

speeder wrote: post #387
tardyp wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For non mid west born ppl, A dragstrip is a facility for conducting automobile and motorcycle acceleration events such as drag racing. Although a quarter mile (1320 feet, 402 m) is the best known measure for a drag track, many tracks are eighth mile (201 m) tracks, and the premiere classes will run 1,000 foot (304.8m) races

US people and their weird measurements :P But honestly, why these lengths specifically?

They are even (in our wierd measument system), and reasonable distances for different engines to run out of power/traction/other factor and thus not accelerate as much.

Re: Why is America stuck with bad headlights?

#399

Post by bluGill »

mschuster91 wrote: post #296
lvspiff wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> but frankly I'm glad my dad showed me how to install/aim headlights and along with explaining the benefits of a working unmodified exhaust system and how it should sound In Germany, headlight aim is checked at the 2-yea mandatory inspection, dito for exhaust stuff. Is that not a part of US checks?

I've never had my car checked when I did registration. Other states have done it. For a while the next city over did some emissions testing, but it was well known that it was hard to fail and they eventually got rid of it. Rumor is the company making the equipment made out well...

Re: Why is America stuck with bad headlights?

#400

Post by fastball »

gautamcgoel wrote: post #238

So, basically the same reason we have bad everything . Our institutions and regulations are outdated relative to the rest of the world, so we get stuck with shitty stuff.

The problem is actually that America was innovating / standardizing first, and there is still inertia with those old systems. Meanwhile, newer institutions like the EU have the benefit of hindsight by looking at what America did without having the downside of momentum with old tech.
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