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Why is America stuck with bad headlights?

caranddriver.com

481–490 of 493 posts

Re: Why is America stuck with bad headlights?

#481
post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My uncle told me stories about living in rural Michigan, and how the first thing that people did when a road got paved in the area was set up a quarter mile marker.

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

Important also to note that a quarter mile is the unit at which one quantize one's life.

Re: Why is America stuck with bad headlights?

#482
post #370
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 worse thing that happened to driving was we were convinced it should be fun. Sharing public space with big, heavy, dangerous boxes of metal should never have been been spun as fun.

And yet, it continues to be fun.

Re: Why is America stuck with bad headlights?

#483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For instance: payments. Europe and Asia got chip cards and tap-to-pay decades before we did, even though Mastercard and Visa took part in their invention. America had credit card infrastructure first, so our payment networks were stuck with it, while other countries could start off with better stuff. Without the consumer demand that Google/Apple Pay (and later coronavirus) created, we still probably wouldn't have wid…

My country, Canada, has chip cards and tap-to-pay. Whenever we get interns/new hires that grew up in China they remind us that even this is behind the times. Apparently they pay with their phone. They scan a QR code and get the bill on their phone... or something. I've never experienced it myself.

...there are phone payment options in canada, using NFC. Can confirm having done it on a pixel 3a and a iphone 8+. Usually through your bank or visa provider app.

Re: Why is America stuck with bad headlights?

#484
post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The USA had an earlier electronic system well established by the time chip and pin was available. So did many other places. > I think the USA has been far more innovative with credit cards that give rewards. US credit card schemes charge merchants massively more, so yes, these fees can then be used to give "rewards". EU cards have lower rewards because the fees are limited by law. It's not something to be proud of.…

I guess USA citizens tend to have higher incomes than Western Europeans which could maybe explain why Americans pay higher prices. But I’m not sure we do. It’s weird though that 3x as many Western Europeans move to the USA than the other way around.

Americans pay higher prices than they would otherwise pay for the same goods because of the card reward schemes, not necessarily higher prices than Europeans pay. Taxes are very different, for a start.

I think you do have higher incomes, generally, and a lower tax burden. Fewer government services too of course. Not sure that's much to do with credit card reward schemes though :)

Re: Why is America stuck with bad headlights?

#485

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 preface my comment with, I have a math degree. First, I'm not sure what politics versus math reading has to do with the topic at hand - namely, car headlights. Second, you're complaining about downvotes. Third, you're complaints sound like "kids get off my lawn". So yeah... that's why you're getting downvoted. To more directly engage with your point, politics isn't just an exercise in group think. It has very real…

I appreciate your argument. What I was trying to point out was that the obsession with car modding is why films in the Fast franchise, even a decade after the first one debuted at the box office, still do extremely well. They're sheer entertainment, just fast driving with some plot points to justify the next action sequence.

What didn't land for you, maybe for more people, was that documentaries, classical and jazz, etc. are not as appreciated because they require some effort to understand and thereby appreciate. That was my point about wishing a textbook would top the bestsellers list and not yet another book shilling apocalyptic hypotheticals about Donald Trump that the author always has some magical cure for. It's like self-help politics, but The Secret is "impeach Donald Trump", every time. It's easy. It's low brow after the first dozen books, as it only intends to satisfy helpless aggression in readers. And while it's nothing new, I wish people were as enthralled with a book teaching math or chemistry or accounting. You know, stuff that's useful to people.

If someone wants to write a book about the process of governance, that's one thing. But if it's another pseudo-analysis-by-way-of-emotion book, it's disingenuous to suggest an anti-Trump political commentary is any more useful today than anything written by Ann Coulter.

Re: Why is America stuck with bad headlights?

#486
post #53
post #14

groups like Audi/Porsche/BMW have trouble bringing their fancy LED setups to America due to laws pertaining to high / low beams -- meanwhile every Jack and Jill on the road has glaringly illegal aftermarket Xenon bulb setups in refractor headlight housings rather than proper projectors, blinding the hell out of everyone on the road, and the police seem to do nothing about it. I mean, hey -- i'm usually happy about au…

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…

Wasn’t there a whole 1950’s musical about this?

Re: Why is America stuck with bad headlights?

#487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I'm really old. Before Fast and Furious, I lived through the slammed mini truck / monster car stereo (speakers, speakers, speakers) craze of the late 80s. And before that there were many, many trends, like muscle cars, etc. It's always been like this...

The Fast and Furious franchise is, not unlike the late 2pac, a reflection of the community. A percentage of America has always been modding their cars and an even larger percentage enjoys dreaming about modding cars - the films draw from that, not the other way around.

How did 2pac get in the conversation about aftermarket car modifications?

Re: Why is America stuck with bad headlights?

#488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My country, Canada, has chip cards and tap-to-pay. Whenever we get interns/new hires that grew up in China they remind us that even this is behind the times. Apparently they pay with their phone. They scan a QR code and get the bill on their phone... or something. I've never experienced it myself.

...there are phone payment options in canada, using NFC. Can confirm having done it on a pixel 3a and a iphone 8+. Usually through your bank or visa provider app.

I was counting NFC based things as tap-to-pay. I use Apple Pay for most of my purchases.

But they always say that doesn't count. And I see why. You still gotta wave down a waiter, ask them to go fetch a machine, wait for them to come back, potentially sending them back because they split it incorrectly. That's not the same as scanning a QR code on the table, having it load up your bill, splitting it if needed, and making the payment. If that works as well as I imagine it to, that could all be done in the time it takes to wave down the waiter.

Re: Why is America stuck with bad headlights?

#489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...there are phone payment options in canada, using NFC. Can confirm having done it on a pixel 3a and a iphone 8+. Usually through your bank or visa provider app.

I was counting NFC based things as tap-to-pay. I use Apple Pay for most of my purchases. But they always say that doesn't count. And I see why. You still gotta wave down a waiter, ask them to go fetch a machine, wait for them to come back, potentially sending them back because they split it incorrectly. That's not the same as scanning a QR code on the table, having it load up your bill, splitting it if needed, and ma…

There's no difference. A qr code is more hassle than NFC. Splitting the bill happens on the POS system, and no qr code is required.

Re: Why is America stuck with bad headlights?

#490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

Snails are rated in furlongs per fortnight.
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