21–30 of 213 posts
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Incidentally I follow him on Mastodon and saw this yesterday. Hacker News is really slow to pick up Cory Doctorow's stuff despite ostensibly being full of freedom-loving techies.
While I dislike the elecronification trend, cars are definitely better than they were 30-40 years ago, in a completely different league when it comes to reliability. Plenty of people also like the touchscreens or seemingly superflous features like Tesla's dog mode. Not gearheads but many normies genuinely do. To the extent that cars did get worse, it was mostly to meet stringent emissions regulations, not computers o…
>Plenty of people also like the touchscreens or seemingly superflous features There was a recent story about how people do not like the touchscreens and tech in their cars. https://www.theverge.com/23801545/car-infotainment-customer-... Personally I'm not a fan of most of the recent car tech, it's often trying too hard and not making things any easier for people.
I would love a car that does not have a single display and just connects to my phone or pad for setting things up and streaming audio. All controls should be haptic buttons, switches, whatever. Minimal software required to run the car. No internet connection, no subscriptions.
The only extras that I would keep are:
* Heated seats
* Automatic air conditioning
* Hill hold control
* Automatic transmission (not standard in Europe)
That’s it.
While I dislike the elecronification trend, cars are definitely better than they were 30-40 years ago, in a completely different league when it comes to reliability. Plenty of people also like the touchscreens or seemingly superflous features like Tesla's dog mode. Not gearheads but many normies genuinely do. To the extent that cars did get worse, it was mostly to meet stringent emissions regulations, not computers o…
> It held a mirror to the society and we don't like what we're seeing. That mirror is heavily influencing the way we behave.
And we really, really don't like some of the things that some people want.
I wish I could remember where I heard this quote:
"We find two things to always happen in human societies across time and geography:
1. People dancing to rhythmic music at night especially if it is a moonlit night.
2. Some form of feudalism."
I wonder how much of it is game theory (e.g. all companies want to become monopolies) and how much is human psychology (e.g. "I want to be the alpha monkey"). Probably some combination of both.
While I dislike the elecronification trend, cars are definitely better than they were 30-40 years ago, in a completely different league when it comes to reliability. Plenty of people also like the touchscreens or seemingly superflous features like Tesla's dog mode. Not gearheads but many normies genuinely do. To the extent that cars did get worse, it was mostly to meet stringent emissions regulations, not computers o…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_r5UJrxcck Malibu vs Bel Air crash test. You better believe that modern cars are better, its incredible how _BAD_ cars were before we cared about safety. And that's just safety. Today's cars have better MPG, go faster, have more power, easier to maintain, consistently hit 150,000 miles, etc. etc.
Monkey wrenches, kitchen aids, washing machines. Even static tools like frying pans, screw drivers. You name it.
But not cars.
> capitalism has died – but it wasn't replaced by socialism. Rather, capitalism has given way to feudalism: I wish I could remember where I heard this quote: "We find two things to always happen in human societies across time and geography: 1. People dancing to rhythmic music at night especially if it is a moonlit night. 2. Some form of feudalism." I wonder how much of it is game theory (e.g. all companies want to be…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Plenty of people also like the touchscreens or seemingly superflous features There was a recent story about how people do not like the touchscreens and tech in their cars. https://www.theverge.com/23801545/car-infotainment-customer-... Personally I'm not a fan of most of the recent car tech, it's often trying too hard and not making things any easier for people.
I have owned both a shitty beginner car without any extras and two more or less fully equipped ones. I would love a car that does not have a single display and just connects to my phone or pad for setting things up and streaming audio. All controls should be haptic buttons, switches, whatever. Minimal software required to run the car. No internet connection, no subscriptions. The only extras that I would keep are: *…
The creation of the "CANbus", two-wire protocol that wraps around the car to communicate, and the movement of all portions of the car to the CANbus, is what has lead to incredible reliability.
It turns out that these two wires can be made incredibly reliable, and that communications across it (steering wheel, accelerator, brakes, tire pressure, speeds, A/C, etc. etc.) just makes sense.
--------------
All those haptic buttons are "just" CANbus interfaces in practice. Now don't get me wrong, I prefer buttons too. But the next leg of "cheapness" naturally was to shift to an iPad-like capacitive screen, since one-tablet connected to the CANbus is far cheaper (and more reliable) than 20 individual buttons (each of which has a set life and dies on their own).
That being said: physical buttons are clearly more intuitive than an iPad-like floating-moving button that is inconsistent and stateful.
While I dislike the elecronification trend, cars are definitely better than they were 30-40 years ago, in a completely different league when it comes to reliability. Plenty of people also like the touchscreens or seemingly superflous features like Tesla's dog mode. Not gearheads but many normies genuinely do. To the extent that cars did get worse, it was mostly to meet stringent emissions regulations, not computers o…
> It held a mirror to the society and we don't like what we're seeing. That mirror is heavily influencing the way we behave.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_r5UJrxcck Malibu vs Bel Air crash test. You better believe that modern cars are better, its incredible how _BAD_ cars were before we cared about safety. And that's just safety. Today's cars have better MPG, go faster, have more power, easier to maintain, consistently hit 150,000 miles, etc. etc.
I have to admit cars have gotten better. I wonder why, since pretty much any other machinery have become worse. Monkey wrenches, kitchen aids, washing machines. Even static tools like frying pans, screw drivers. You name it. But not cars.