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Software is eating the car

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Re: Software is eating the car

#201

Post by lazide »

bayindirh wrote: post #134
jonplackett wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Controls you can feel for seems to be a lost art. (Looking at you, Touch Bar.)

Isn't touch bar is at the edge of vision, so theoretically isn't that distracting? Neither of my Macs have one of these. This is why I'm asking.

Kinda not really - yes you can kinda see it - but you need to look at it most of the time to hit a button correctly. Which you didn’t always/usually have to do with physical buttons. It also switches any time there is a context switch, which depending on what is going on can be insanely distracting (especially when it is using it to display autocomplete, autocorrect suggestions as you type fast)

Re: Software is eating the car

#202

Post by bob1029 »

sharkweek wrote: post #186
SavantIdiot wrote: post #3

Short answer to the lede: no, the industry cannot cope. Or rather, it will limp along with bloatware, bugs, and malware exactly the same way we see desktop OSes bloat, or the way we see routers and set-top boxes hacked to become botnets. In my 40+ years in the industry I've yet to see code get SMALLER. With the exception of Linux kernel 1.0 in the 90's which was a step backwards into smaller, more compact code, code…

I would prefer a car that is almost entirely mechanical because mechanics make way more sense to me than software. The old crusty mechanic I take my 20+ year old 4Runner to for service complains about this a lot. Cars don’t make nearly as much sense to him as they used to. Just to be clear, I appreciate improved safety that technology brings to cars, and I know I can’t have it both ways.

The biggest thing for me is user input latency. It doesnt matter if its a computer, a microwave, or a car. I want to feel like the machine is not a lazy piece of shit and actually wants to help me.

I know it sounds like a pedantic annoyance, but that little bit of step-wise discrete behavior I get out of my electronic throttle body right at the threshold of activation is one of the most infuriating things about owning an otherwise "sporty" car. It's not defective either. This is the cost of doing business with a totally-unnecessary software control loop.

I find that mechanical linkages usually have zero fucking latency, infinite resolution, and are much preferable to my monkey brain. Fly-by-wire is a huge mistake.

Re: Software is eating the car

#203

Post by smolder »

Koshkin wrote: post #33
bobajeff wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I like the tech behind Tesla but am turned off by. 1) The large, distracting screen in the front of the car. 2) The subscription model of the car's firmware. If electric cars ever become widespread I hope I can find a used one engineered without that stuff. Otherwise I may have to stop buying cars.

> If electric cars ever become widespread I have a strong suspicion that soon enough after that we will be able to build electric cars from kits, cheap and with no frills. We are on a cusp of a new technological revolution.

There are relatively simple conversion kits that have good motors and controllers and allow for regenerative braking. I don't see building an EV getting much simpler than that.

Re: Software is eating the car

#204

Post by lazide »

crooked-v wrote: post #164
clairity wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Modern cars are absolutely terrible in the UX department, but they are a hell of a lot safer, so there’s that." tangentially, "safety" is highly cargo-culted. things that seem so obviously safer are taken without question as better, but in many cases, such features really only provide a false sense of security along with substantive unintended consequences. most safety features in cars (e.g., lane-keeping) allow p…

> rather than lowering crash/injury/death rates. Motor vehicle deaths per 100,000 have been on a consistent downward trend since the 70s (1.53 per 100,000 in 2000, 1.11 per 100,000 in 2019), so, no, death rates have in fact been lowered.

Those are two different stats - parent was referring to if those features lower death rates. You are looking at total death rates regardless of features.

It’s also possible better road maintenance, or airbags, or better crumple zones (but not lane help) are driving it down. It’s possible for lane help to be driving it up, just not as much as say better crumple zones, and it will still be trending down.

Re: Software is eating the car

#205

Post by Jill_the_Pill »

GuB-42 wrote: post #194
vannevar wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glad to hear I'm not the only one who wants a dumb car. Unfortunately, the idea of electric cars has become bound up with the notion of software-driven cars. I want an electric car with analog controls, no touch screens or over-the-air updates, and minimal software. A car that I feel like I own, rather than one I'm getting a click-through license to use.

So you want a mechanical door lock, manual windows, no car stereo, no power steering, no thermostat, no cruise control, etc... The problem with that dumb car is that it is missing that very convenient feature. So you want a dumb car but with feature X, because feature X is really great. But the other guy will not care about X and will think it is bloat, but Y is really important, while for someone else, it will be al…

Electric windows and power steering are unlikely to be tracking your location.

Re: Software is eating the car

#206

Post by jrsj »

SavantIdiot wrote: post #3

Short answer to the lede: no, the industry cannot cope. Or rather, it will limp along with bloatware, bugs, and malware exactly the same way we see desktop OSes bloat, or the way we see routers and set-top boxes hacked to become botnets. In my 40+ years in the industry I've yet to see code get SMALLER. With the exception of Linux kernel 1.0 in the 90's which was a step backwards into smaller, more compact code, code…

No you’re not crazy at all; my preference for a vehicle would be analog everything with as few electronic components as possible. Even if it were an EV.

Re: Software is eating the car

#207

Post by userbinator »

itsoktocry wrote: post #117
Koshkin wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If electric cars ever become widespread I have a strong suspicion that soon enough after that we will be able to build electric cars from kits, cheap and with no frills. We are on a cusp of a new technological revolution.

> soon enough after that we will be able to build electric cars from kits I'm skeptical. An internal combustion engine is a complicated, engineering marvel. But a complete engine, as a unit, isn't difficult to remove/insert. It's big, heavy and awkward, sure (so are electric motors and batteries), but an experienced person can do an engine swap in a couple of hours. And yet there aren't many people building ICE cars…

And yet there aren't many people building ICE cars from kits. Why not?

Quite frankly, speaking as someone who is a bit of an automotive enthusiast, you'll probably find even less EVs, because EVs are sterile and boring. They can definitely be fast, but I suspect the average auto enthusiast is not only interested in speed. The sounds and smells of an ICE are far more appealing to the type of people who tend to build custom cars.

Re: Software is eating the car

#208

Post by MereInterest »

brewdad wrote: post #180
duped wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I'm the dark pattern developer I'm not logging when the EULA is accepted or how many times they declined it.

I should think that owning a car for more than a few weeks without accepting the EULA could serve as reasonable "proof" that you had no intention of accepting it regardless of what is logged. Especially if the EULA is presented at every startup.

> It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought -- that is, a thought diverging from the principles of Ingsoc -- should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words. Its vocabulary was so constructed as to give exact and often very subtle expression to every meaning that a Party member could properly wish to express, while excluding all other meanings and also the possibility of arriving at them by indirect methods. This was done ... chiefly by eliminating undesirable words and by stripping such words as remained of unorthodox meanings, and so far as possible of all secondary meanings whatever.

I think consent dialogs are one of the closest things to Newspeak that exist. In any spoken language, new words can be coined to express a desired meaning. In consent dialogs, there is no longer "Accept" and "Decline", instead there is "Accept" and "Ask me later". When presented with an upsell, the choices are not "Yes" and "No", but "Yes, sign me up!" and "No, I don't want to save money."

Re: Software is eating the car

#209

Post by [deleted] »

GuB-42 wrote: post #194
vannevar wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glad to hear I'm not the only one who wants a dumb car. Unfortunately, the idea of electric cars has become bound up with the notion of software-driven cars. I want an electric car with analog controls, no touch screens or over-the-air updates, and minimal software. A car that I feel like I own, rather than one I'm getting a click-through license to use.

So you want a mechanical door lock, manual windows, no car stereo, no power steering, no thermostat, no cruise control, etc... The problem with that dumb car is that it is missing that very convenient feature. So you want a dumb car but with feature X, because feature X is really great. But the other guy will not care about X and will think it is bloat, but Y is really important, while for someone else, it will be al…

[deleted]

Re: Software is eating the car

#210

Post by Minor49er »

zippergz wrote: post #21
vannevar wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glad to hear I'm not the only one who wants a dumb car. Unfortunately, the idea of electric cars has become bound up with the notion of software-driven cars. I want an electric car with analog controls, no touch screens or over-the-air updates, and minimal software. A car that I feel like I own, rather than one I'm getting a click-through license to use.

1000% agree. I do not want a car that is a smartphone on wheels and I have no idea why so many people find this attractive.

The only smart aspect that I might want in a car is a GPS so I can leave my phone at home. But I'm not sure I would even want that since the car could be tracked at any time.
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