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Everything with a battery should have an off switch

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Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#421

Post by chipsa »

throw10920 wrote: post #322
alistairSH wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the example you gave, as a user, what would you do with "Error: 0xFHJAD1234"? The best you could do is report it to Apple (or whoever). But, the error alone doesn't achieve anything. You would have been better off with "Something broke, click here to send log to Apple." (which is roughly what the book recommends - replace the error with something actionable).

No, the best that you can do is paste it into Google . Giving a user an error ID gives them a partially-if-not-completely unique identifier that they can then use to find other people struggling with the same error and possible solutions. This is infinitely better than having no error message and having to try to type different permutations of your symptoms into Google in order to try to win search engine bingo. Sure…

Or worse, the fix suggestion being wrong: "Please try again later", when the root cause is a misconfiguration, so it'll never work until the configuration is corrected.

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#422

Post by staindk »

Ensorceled wrote: post #405
lizardactivist wrote: post #391

I'm thinking a lot about security aspects of this. If I turn off my iPhone, MacBook, or Google Pixel phone, are they really off? What are the security implications of "modern standby" on laptops where the CPU and WiFi are always on even after I fold the lid down?

And Bluetooth ... Pretty annoying that my closed laptop, that's in another room, can drift in and out of being "found" by my bluetooth headset and stop music playing.

Sorry, the following rant is only tangentially related.

New Windows sleep (""sleep"") states are bewildering.

My S/O's new laptop only supports "S0" or "Modern Standby"[0]. It can sit there closed up in its deepest supported level of "sleep" and have its fans spinning and keyboard backlight lit while downloading updates or whatever else it deems important.

Sure, introduce something like S0 and spend time improving it. Try to "perfect" it like how Apple has seemingly perfected its low energy use modes on its devices. It will probably take MSoft 10 more years. But don't also artificially restrict the use of other sleep states. On the new laptop it is supposedly a hardware restriction, but I'm guessing it's more just some firmware toggle (IIRC some laptops have had S1-3 re-enabled via firmware updates, but I'm not entirely sure now).

Edit: it seems that MS has patched a bunch of regedit tweaks that used to allow re-enabling more sleep states[1], though it depends on exactly what laptop model you are on as well I suppose.

[0] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/power/system-... [1] https://superuser.com/questions/1179987

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#423

Post by sandworm101 »

Cars.

Cars are ubiquitous. They are everywhere. We all relate to them without thinking. Cars run on batteries. Even IC runs various systems using battery power when parked. But do cars have an off switch? To turn them truly off, such as when storing for a long period, the procedure is take a wrench and physically disconnect the 12v battery. So I disagree with the author. At least some battery-powered products are doing perfectly well without off switches.

Other IC vehicles, notably aircraft, do have true off switches that fully shut electrical power at the source. So it isn't anything inherent to IC technology. Consumers have spoken: some things do not need off switches.

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#424

Post by gumby »

zippergz wrote: post #366
gumby wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which I never saw the point of, even (especially?) during my periods of living in Paris.

Do you also not see the point of art?

Not at all. And I understand the now obsolete technical show-off value of the tower at its time. But now I think it's just a humdrum industrial eyesore.

I think most people disagree with me so I don't think it's going anywhere. But that's my view of it.

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#425

Post by arthurcolle »

Tempest1981 wrote: post #343
arthurcolle wrote: post #291

Pretty funny this is top post, this morning I was woken up by a demented smoke detector that needed to be reset

Is the battery removable? Best tip (if not) is to put it inside an ice chest, and put that in your car or refrigerator, then try to go back to sleep once the adrenaline rush subsides.

Unfortunately I was unable to reach it so I just stayed awake and eventually maintenance came for a visit and they replaced the battery and reset it.

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#426

Post by hatware »

cardiffspaceman wrote: post #376
Kalium wrote: post #243

> Oh, great, this debate again! I shall use this post as ammunition next time I am arguing with our stupid design team about why we need an off switch on the stupid product we are designing, because it is a giant pain to live with devices you cannot turn off. I increasingly subscribe to the thesis that many designers and design teams design primarily in an effort to impress other designers . They don't have to use th…

Chris Bangle, who was the chief designer at BMW for the E65 generation of 7 series and E46 generation of 3 series, said that he was designing to the other designers. Which is why he ignored the feedback that the E65 was ugly. The term "Bangle Butt" was applied to the E65. His successor took the radical position that this thing called "beauty" was important. I don't have sources at hand but it was discussed in print a…

>The term "Bangle Butt" was applied to the E65

It was applied to a lot more than that. Even the F11 6er still had it.

What is interesting, though, is how much flame surfacing started to flood car designs after Bangle's BMWs had been out for a few years. I'm not arguing that the E65 looked good, but he certainly made an impact on all of car design, seemingly overnight.

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#427

Post by robonerd »

Stratoscope wrote: post #375
anonymousab wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This used to be how I assumed that awful UX keeps coming about, repeating the same mistakes and then making new ones by removing existing conveniences for no clear reason. But surely, I thought, I must be assuming the worst of an assuredly more rational situation. I then heard more about the designers at Microsoft for Vista through Windows 11 which deeply confirmed most of my prior negative assumptions. It sometimes…

Does anyone remember Office 2013 with the UPPER CASE MENUS? They were bad enough, but then Visual Studio 2013 HAD THEM TOO. That was triply bad: ugly, took more screen width than Mixed Case, and perhaps worst of all, to a programmer they looked like errors. Most of the languages we work with are case sensitive, so FILE and File look like two different things. It was a constant irritant. The chief designer for VS2013…

> "We decided to keep the uppercase menus because we want more energy in this part of the interface."

It always seems to be new-age mumbo jumbo with these sort of design people. Design needs to be given back over to the engineers again. I know that suggesting is going to draw ridicule; it's easy and popular to point to the worst engineer-designed interfaces to ridicule the design abilities of all engineers. But form needs to be balanced with function and these artsy new-age designers who justify everything they do with faux-poetic metaphors have been a disaster. There needs to be balance.

Engineers can be taught the pragmatic virtue of interfaces designed for common people. Using standardized widgets and guidelines, engineers are perfectly capable of creating interfaces that are intuitive to users, even if they don't satisfy the dedicated designer's sense of aesthetics. Just look at the GUI libraries from the 90s and compare it with the dumpster fire of modern interfaces. In the 90s an engineer designing an interface would use a button widget and the button would look like a button. Today designers make everything look sleek and special to leave their artistic mark and I am left with no fucking clue what I can even click.

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#428

Post by davchana »

mdp2021 wrote: post #415
davchana wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. My car came with ATT sim installed. It uses that to remote start via App, and to tell me the location, miles, other data in app. Also, to show me directions on its display screen. There is no way for a user to switch off that data connection (not that I want it, its free of cost, and it helped me few times).

I hope it can be disabled by the manufacturer upon request, like the E-Call system (microphone+GPS+radio device that should trigger an emergency call in case of actioned airbags).

No where in the manual I found how to disable it. Although there is a toggle option to NOT to call 911 in event of collision.

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#430

Post by memco »

An off switch is always handy. I have a monitor without a power button and so I can’t shut it off without disconnecting it. It also makes it harder to troubleshoot when there’s no signal: is it the power or data that’s at fault? I’m not sure because there’s no buttons at all so I just have to keep connecting and disconnecting cables until it works which is more difficult to discern because I’m looking at the back where the cables go rather than where the output is displayed.
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