As someone who is actively looking to do this, can someone please explain the last panel to me?
…because I don’t understand the iconography. What are the products?
#StupidOldFart #OutOfTouch
Tag: Technology
Sand In The Shoe
Over here, a couple of guys gripe about ten most irritating things about modern cars. To save you time, I’ve listed them here, with my thoughts:
- Beeping — It’s like being locked in your car with a nagging Catholic/Jewish mother: do this, don’t do that, why haven’t you etc. etc. Whether it’s seatbelts, lane changing (more of that later) or any one of the many things that someone else thinks that you should/shouldn’t do, I am often tempted just to cut the fucking wires to the speaker.
- Wireless phone chargers — I haven’t come across this nonsense myself because I last bought a car in 2015, but the guys in the video sum it up perfectly: it makes your phone hot, and doesn’t perform as advertised unless your phone is perfectly positioned. It’s all part of making everything bluetoothed instead of cabled.
- Artificial engine noise — First they soundproof the car, and then because some drivers would actually like to hear the sound the car makes, or want their car to sound all shouty without the necessary engine to make it so, the car pipes in fake engine noise. If that’s not a good analogy for the A.I./fake/digital/artificial times we live in, I can’t think of a better one.
- Voice-activated assist — I call this “creeping Alexa”, where one has to rely on some fucking software to recognize your voice (which it often can’t, with comical / disastrous consequences), all instead of you just turning a switch or pushing a button. And speaking of which:
- Screen buttons instead of actual switches — There’s no excuse for this, and this has nothing to do with “safety” (the usual excuse) because the plain fact of the matter is that screen switches are cheaper than mechanical switches, and that saves the manufacturer money (which savings are never passed on to the customer, needless to say). And speaking of safety: the screen buttons require that one be at the correct screen to enable the things to work; if not, one has to scroll backwards or forwards until the correct screen puts in an appearance — and all this requires taking one hand off the steering wheel for an extended period, and taking one’s eyes off the road. Anyone else see a potential problem here?
- Modern headlights are too bright — I’ve noticed this trend, and it’s fucking dangerous to other drivers, especially in rainy and/or night-time conditions. You’re not having to land an airliner on a narrow runway; you’re driving down a street, FFS, with oncoming traffic. (And if you’re out in the boonies and need brighter lights, add a spotlight bar.)
- High-gloss finishes (e.g. piano black) — I don’t even like shiny finishes on gun stocks (hello, Browning!), and I see no need for something similar in a car that is basically a dust/fingerprint collector.
- Subscription services / features — Once again, just another way for auto manufacturers to bleed money out of the customer once the car has been sold. The nice part of this is that not having some of these features (seat warmers, etc.) has the effect of taking us back to earlier times when we managed perfectly well without all these luxury geegaws. But I await with bated breath the time when things like windshield wipers, turn signals and high beams all become something you have to pay monthly fees for, instead of them just being part of the (horribly-inflated) sticker price of the car. And when I say “bated breath”, I mean when the breath becomes “unbated”, that will be a signal to load up the AK.
- Start/stop buttons — I have ranted about this piece of automotive excrescence more times than I can count. Yes, I know that you can disable the thing; but the latest wheeze from these godless fucks is to make it reset every time you switch off the car, which means you have to disable the function as part of the starting procedure every time you want to drive somewhere. The days of getting in, turning a key and moving on are so far in the distant past that one wonders how the Three Wise Men made it to Bethlehem without satnav — which, by the way, is fast becoming yet another subscription service.
- Lane assist / traffic distancing — It’s one thing when these functions beep at you as a warning; it’s another thing altogether when the functions takes over the driving for you. Apart from the foul nanny philosophy behind the thing, it can also be life-threatening.
Now go and watch the video — especially the last couple of minutes — because those guys are funny where I’m just fucking enraged.
The Comrades Lose Control
I’ve been ranting about this issue for about as long as the nonsense first appeared with software-dependent cars. Now it seems as though it’s for real:
Hundreds of Russian Porsche owners have found their cars immobilized across the country, amid fears of deliberate satellite interference.
Drivers have complained that their vehicles have suddenly locked up, lost power and refused to start, as owners and dealerships warn of a growing wave of failures that has left hundreds of vehicles stuck in place.
The nationwide meltdown hit Porsche models built since 2013, which are all fitted with the brand’s factory vehicle tracking system (VTS) satellite-security unit.
The vehicles have been ‘bricked’ with their engines immobilized, due to connections with the satellite system being lost.
Okay: leaving aside the paranoia concerns — it’s the Daily Mail, of course there was going to be some panic warning — let’s just go with the system failure (regardless of cause) that causes one’s normally-reliable car to quit working.
I know I’m not the only person in the world who regards this “development” as creepy and worrisome. The fact that some situation could occur that renders one’s possession useless makes me deeply apprehensive.
As I said earlier, whether the immobilization was a factor of technology fail or else of some malignant third party is unimportant.
Note that this VTS thing is touted as a “security” feature — i.e. one that lessens the effect of the car being tampered with or stolen, a dubious benefit at best — and this supposed security guards against another feature (keyless or remote start) that seems to be all the rage among today’s cars, for no real reason that I can ascertain. In other words, car manufacturers have made it easier to steal their cars, and then have to come up with yet another feature that can negate that situation.
While some drivers were told to try a simple workaround by disconnecting their car batteries for at least 10 hours, others were advised to disable or reboot the Vehicle Tracking System, known as the VTS, which is linked to the alarm module.
Some owners have been stranded for days waiting for on-site diagnostics, tow trucks or emergency technicians.
There are reports of Russians resorting to ‘home-brew’ fixes – ripping out connectors, disconnecting batteries overnight, even dismantling the alarm module.
A few cars were revived after 10 hours without power, but others remained immobilized.
And they call this “improvement”?
By the way, it’s not just Porsche, of course.
Last year, MPs in the United Kingdom were warned that Beijing could remotely stop electric cars manufactured in China, as relations between the two nations deteriorated.
The previous year, lawmakers cautioned that tracking devices from China had been found in UK government vehicles.
Yeah duh, because China is asshoe.
As for Porsche, this makes me realize why their older, non-VTS-equipped models are fetching premium prices in the second-hand market. I mean:
300 grand for an ’87 911? Are you kidding me? (Yeah, I know it’s been fully restored at a cost of about $50 grand — but even taking twice that amount off the asking price would still leave you with a $200 grand ask, which is ridiculous. No wonder the vintage sports car market is starting to tank.)
But at least this 911 isn’t going to stop working every time there’s a meteor shower, or whenever some controlling remote entity decides that you’ve been driving it too fast or too much.
It’s a fucking nightmare. And we’ve allowed it to happen.
Quote Of The Day
From someone on the Internet (SOTI), talking about the increasing complexity of the modern world:
“In the future, a large portion of consumers will want low tech, bullet proof appliances, vehicles, homes, etc. I want my grandma’s fridge, my parent’s home, the 1988 Honda prelude I drove when I was 16, and to retire from my high tech job. All my friends think the same way. It’s too much hassle for the benefit and nobody is happier.“
Me too. Give me simplicity over complexity every day of the week.
Followup Thought
…to the above QOTD: I wonder whether this irritation towards the modern world’s increasing (and likely over-) complexity is just a generational thing?
I have no idea as to the age of the commenter in this case, but I know that this disenchantment and hankering after a simpler life seems fairly common among people of my age, for the simple reason that it’s a common factor of life among my friends and, lest we forget, Readers of this here website.
But do the various “Gen” types feel the same way? I mean, we Olde Pharttes can remember (a bit) how much earlier times were less complicated and simpler. But in the case of Teh Youngins, are they even aware that life can be simpler, given that all they’ve ever experienced is Smartphones, the Internet, self-drive cars and refrigerators that can tell you when you’re running low on milk?
And considering that most Millennials, let alone the Gen X/Y/Z tribe don’t know how to change a flat tire, cook a meal from scratch and drive a stick shift, would they embrace a simpler world when so much of their daily life is smoothed by technology?
I suspect not, for the same reason that people of my generation would have no idea how to drive a horse-drawn carriage or be able to transmit a telegraph message in Morse code.
So our final few years of life on this planet seem doomed to be techno-centric instead of simple. What joy awaits us.
Good Question
From the comments to yesterday’s post about A.I., this from Reader askeptic:
“I seem to recall being taught oh-so-long-ago, that every advance in technology has brought an expansion of employment, contrary to the accepted knowledge as machine replaced man. Why would not the use of A-I be an exception to that?”
Simple answer would be that machines have always worked perfectly (after improvement) in doing repetitive tasks — assembly-line activity, mathematical calculations, full-automatic shooting and so on.
What humans do is think: about building robots to work on assembly lines, the calculations to be performed, and the need for massed fire, to supply answers for all three activities, in other words.
What seems to be getting people alarmed — and I’m one of them — is that A.I. seems to be aimed at either duplicating or indeed creating those thought processes, replacing humans in the one dimension that has created this world we live in. (My special reservation, shared by many I suspect, is that the engine of this replacement seems to be relying on the wisdom of crowds — i.e. garnering information from previously-created content, much as philosophers have relied upon Aristotle et al. to provide the foundations of their further philosophies.)
The problem with all this is that just as Aristotle’s thoughts have sometimes proved erroneous in dealing with specific scenarios, the “wisdom of crowds” — in this particular set of circumstances — can be reshaped and reformed by the applications of millions upon millions of bots (say) which can alter the terms of the discussion by making outlying or minority positions seem like the majority, in the same way that a dishonest poll (such as the 2020 U.S. election) can be corrupted into portraying a preponderance that never existed.
It’s easy to refute one of Plato’s scientific observations — e.g. that heavier objects fall faster than light ones — but it’s far less easy to refute the inadequacy of facial masks to prevent the spread of airborne disease when the preponderance of scientific “evidence” allows people to say that if you refuse to wear a mask you’re a potential mass murderer. We all knew intuitively that the tiny gaps in masks’ weaving were still huge compared to the microscopic size of plague viruses, but that intuition was crushed by the weight of public pressure.
And if A.I. only looked at the part of the data that said that masks work and never looked at the evidence that they didn’t, the output would always be: wear a mask, peasant. And yes, that is indeed happening.
I know the above is somewhat simplistic, but my point is that when you look at how A.I. is being used (to “cheat” creative activity, for example, in writing a college essay) and the potential that A.I. can learn from its mistakes (even if driven by erroneous input), that we are justified in being very apprehensive about it.
Which brings me finally to the answer to Reader askeptic’s question: the premise is sound, in that technology has in the past always led to an expansion of employment. But if we acknowledge that the prime function of a human being is to think, then what price humans if that function is replaced?