People cook with microwaves ?
The Nightmare Bicycle
31–40 of 75 posts
Re: The Nightmare Bicycle
#32One-based indexing is an example of this. It's always argued as being familiar, as if people learning to program couldn't deal with adding 1.
I imagine zero based indexing is because resources were scarce and number of bits low in the bad old days. Why waste that zero index. From there is was backwards compatibility. If machine code uses zero then assembly inherits that, them C and everything else. Even JS months!
Assembly doesn't really have indexes, as it doesn't have arrays. It's all addresses and offsets. Offsets are naturally 0-based.
Everywhere else, indexing is just a convention, even in natural language and math.
Re: The Nightmare Bicycle
#33I question the degree to which even numbered gears matter on bicycles. I have two bicycles, none of them have numbered gears. One has modern integrated brake-shifters with two separate parts that can be clicked inwards to shift up and down. There's no feedback on which gear it's on, but I know which part to click to make pedaling harder, and which part to click to make it lighter. At the stops, the shifter just won't…
The old style friction shifters should also be much easier to maintain and repair. Modern indexed shifters are more likely to have issues where due to cable and housing stretch the indexing gets unaligned and you have to adjust it periodically. This might not be an issue any more with electronic shifting components. On the other hand, those are expensive and require battery power, so you need to remember to recharge. Fiction shifters also allow you to trim by feel and sound to always get the perfect chain position. The pathlesspedaled youtube channel has many videos on the advantages of friction shifters for causal riders and touring cyclists.
Re: The Nightmare Bicycle
#34This reminds me of the Japanese principle of "fuben eki". Sometimes it makes sense to make a task more difficult in order to increase mastery or improve a person's understanding of how the process works.
On this note, I used to make android apps on the oldest slowest phone I could find. Was always complimented how snappy my apps felt since most users had a modern phone
Developers should be forced to work on old, doggy-slow machines. (Except for me, of course.)
Re: The Nightmare Bicycle
#35One-based indexing is an example of this. It's always argued as being familiar, as if people learning to program couldn't deal with adding 1.
I imagine zero based indexing is because resources were scarce and number of bits low in the bad old days. Why waste that zero index. From there is was backwards compatibility. If machine code uses zero then assembly inherits that, them C and everything else. Even JS months!
It's pointer arithmetic I presume, a memory address + zero is still the same memory address, and then you increment to move forward.
Re: The Nightmare Bicycle
#36I question the degree to which even numbered gears matter on bicycles. I have two bicycles, none of them have numbered gears. One has modern integrated brake-shifters with two separate parts that can be clicked inwards to shift up and down. There's no feedback on which gear it's on, but I know which part to click to make pedaling harder, and which part to click to make it lighter. At the stops, the shifter just won't…
However, there are situations where you would want numbered gears. My road bike has Di2 electronic shifters and I set it to synchro shifting mode. This means that it'll do a double shift - front chainring and rear cassette - when shifting down a gear at the selected cross-over point (can be changed according to preferences and gear setups). This means that I like to know when I'm in the lowest gear before a double-shift as I'd rather not be out of the saddle and putting down power during that shift. What I do is I use an MT800 gear display which shows the Di2 charge level and current gear (it also provides bluetooth connectivity).
Incidentally, I'm surprised that you like unindexed shifters - they're a lot more clumsy than correctly adjusted indexed shifters.
Re: The Nightmare Bicycle
#37The author is advocating for simpler single-purpose products I guess. The microwave example just doesn't make sense when what you have isn't a single "just push the power button" machine, but a combined microwave/oven for instance. You'll want clear mode management, temperature management when defrosting meat, pre-heating and convection when cooking a whole chicken etc. Anecdotally, a lot of people don't really under…
No, the author is advocating for the simple two dial (power and time) microwaves, which give you all the control at the cost of having to understand how it works.
The author is saying that in the effort to "simplify" stuff, microwaves now add a potato button and a chicken button, but then you want to cook an eggplant and don't know how.
Re: The Nightmare Bicycle
#38I question the degree to which even numbered gears matter on bicycles. I have two bicycles, none of them have numbered gears. One has modern integrated brake-shifters with two separate parts that can be clicked inwards to shift up and down. There's no feedback on which gear it's on, but I know which part to click to make pedaling harder, and which part to click to make it lighter. At the stops, the shifter just won't…
The old style friction shifters should also be much easier to maintain and repair. Modern indexed shifters are more likely to have issues where due to cable and housing stretch the indexing gets unaligned and you have to adjust it periodically. This might not be an issue any more with electronic shifting components. On the other hand, those are expensive and require battery power, so you need to remember to recharge.…
Electronic shifters don't have any issue with cable stretch and typically don't need any adjustment once they're setup on a bike. Also, electronic shifters automatically adjust the trim on the front derailleur so that the chain line is optimal.
Re: The Nightmare Bicycle
#39I get what the author is getting at, but I really think this is a poor comparison. Selecting a gear on a bike gives immediate feedback. Selecting a power level and cook time on a microwave...does not. Not needing to remember a formula for figuring out a cook time and power level based on the quantity of meat I'm defrosting is a really useful feature. Plus, I can always select whatever levels I want manually on the mi…
Plus, the programs on the microwave can make use of weight and humidity sensors to determine when to turn off, rather than requiring a predetermined duration.
Re: The Nightmare Bicycle
#40I get what the author is getting at, but I really think this is a poor comparison. Selecting a gear on a bike gives immediate feedback. Selecting a power level and cook time on a microwave...does not. Not needing to remember a formula for figuring out a cook time and power level based on the quantity of meat I'm defrosting is a really useful feature. Plus, I can always select whatever levels I want manually on the mi…
You must be one of the few people who use the "program" buttons on a microwave then. I personally don't know anyone and all the people I talk to really just want a two wheel microwave. Even if I tried the programs they almost never worked accurately anyway. Admittedly newer inverter microwaves are the exception, the defrost mode actually does work (and is the one program I use on these microwaves).
Not sure why you were downvoted, my experience is the same. What people (including myself) want is power and time (and usually there’s a defrost mode on the power dial).